On the heels of the full announcement last week of its next big event, Marvel Comics has provided CBR with an exclusive first look at Mark Brooks' cover for "Secret Empire" #0, which arrives in April.

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Featuring art by Steve McNiven, Andrea Sorrentino, Leinil Yu and Daniel Acuna, the nine-issue miniseries is characterized as the culmination of writer Nick Spencer's work on such titles as “Captain America: Sam Wilson” and “Captain America: Steve Rogers.” The event picks up the threads from "Civil War II," with Steve Rogers, now a covert Hydra operative due to the Red Skull using a Cosmic Cube to manipulate his origin, assuming leadership of S.H.I.E.L.D.

secret empire #0 by mark brooks

Tom Brevoort, Marvel's senior vice president, has described "Secret Empire" #0 as detailing "the worst day of the Marvel Universe."

"Where not one, not two, but three separate events break out all at once," he told ABC News. "Cap, as head of S.H.I.E.L.D., is able to mobilize forces to all three of those situations. And those three situations represent Hydra's first move. It comes off the blocks explosively right from the get-go."

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That's followed quickly by the unmasking of Steve Rogers as a Hydra agent in May's "Secret Empire" #1, a revelation that affects all of the players in the Marvel Universe. "We'll definitely see an impact on our new, younger generation of heroes," Brevoort said, "a huge turn for them, a Watergate moment for them."

"They will have to grapple with what this means and reset their heroism," he explained. "You don't want it to be bleak and miserable, you always want to have hope and be uplifting, and that's the aspect of this story where the other characters in the Marvel Universe have to kind of come together for."

"Secret Empire" debuts in April with Issue 0, and will conclude in August.