This is "From a Different Point of View," a feature where I discuss a comic book series with other people. This time around, due to everyone having to self-isolate, I figured I'd do a special edition where I discuss the original Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars series with whatever readers that wanted to chat about it!

This edition is mostly me just talking to myself, but eventually a reader joins in!

We continue with Secret Wars #2, "Prisoners of War," by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck, John Beatty, Christie Scheele and Joe Rosen.

Brian Cronin: The issue cleverly opens up with a splash page mirroring the end of the first issue.

Brian Cronin: That issue ended with the villains attacking the heroes en masse.

Brian Cronin: And now here, we see the heroes' reaction.

Brian Cronin: Which basically boils down to, "Holy shit!"

Brian Cronin: Wolverine continues to be a little weirdo.

Brian Cronin: Shouting, "Good!" as they're attacked by a small army of powerful supervillains.

Brian Cronin: You have to love how generally useless the Wrecking Crew are.

Brian Cronin: That when they attack the superheroes, they don't even use their own powers, but are in some sort of attack machine.

Brian Cronin: It is kind of weird that they are using unfamiliar alien vehicles, but NOT the vehicles that were invented for the toy line.

Brian Cronin: Just like how Superman sadly never found a way to use the Justice Jogger in a comic book adventure.

Brian Cronin:

Brian Cronin: I like that Shooter at least pays lip service to the notion that the villains, being selfish dicks, don't know how to coordinate an attack.

Brian Cronin: However, they also have their futuristic Beyonder-supplied weapons, which lead to a good deal of the heroes being kayoed from the start.

Brian Cronin: That, of course, brings up the question of what, exactly, Beyonder is measuring here, if the villains are succeeding in huge part based on the power of some weapons that he, himself, provided them.

Brian Cronin: I continue to enjoy Shooter's take on Doom.

Brian Cronin: When last we saw Doom, he was shaken by how much the Beyonder made him feel insignificant, and here, we see Doom continuing that feeling when Galactus ALSO shuns him.

Brian Cronin: Luckily, Doom's ego doesn't allow him to exactly process rejection too well.

Brian Cronin: So it all just serves to drive him to try to take the Beyonder down, which is so hilariously off balance that it is awesome.

Brian Cronin: The heroes, meanwhile, who spent the time picking out a leader in the previous issue, seem to have a hard time grasping what it means to follow a leader.

Brian Cronin: As the Hulk has determined that he will ONLY take orders from Captain America.

Brian Cronin: Even if another hero says something like, "Hit 'em, Hulk!"

Brian Cronin: Zeck and Beatty are in their element here in the action sequences.

Brian Cronin: I like the conceit of half of the heroes being knocked out in the initial assault, as it allows Zeck and Beatty to only have to draw a handful of superheroes during the battle.

Brian Cronin: She-Hulk has a nice fight against the Enchantress, who we rarely see mix it up in a physical altercation, and we see why here, as She-Hulk knocks her out.

Brian Cronin: I like the interesting notation that Storm makes about how it appears as though the Beyonder has made Battleworld somewhere where her powers work perfectly. But doesn't the idea that the Beyonder makes Battleworld ideal for her powers fly in the face of the fact that the villains all had to pick up rayguns?

Brian Cronin: Again, what is Beyonder even measuring here?

Brian Cronin: This was a weird period in the Hulk's comic book career where he had Banner's mind in control of Hulk's body

Brian Cronin: But it was clear that things weren't totally stable there, which included the Hulk getting a bit of an ego.

Brian Cronin: These are the sorts of story tropes that Shooter has always handled well, and sure enough, he does a fine job with the Hulk being slightly at odds with the others regarding his ego.

Brian Cronin: By the way, who in the world looks at a new base and says, "This is as big as 54 and a half Pentagons!"

Brian Cronin: We get it, Hulk, you're good at math, but why did "Pentagons" pop into your head?

Brian Cronin: It speaks to a lot of what we know about Mister Fantastic that as soon as they get to their new home.

Brian Cronin: He's already putting the prisoners into "psychostasis," which apparently modulates their brainwaves to control their behavior.

Brian Cronin: That's some old school Silver Age style ethics right there!

Brian Cronin: "Hypnotize them into thinking their cows!"

Brian Cronin: "Have the aliens transform themselves into trees!"

Brian Cronin: I like the coloring error during Reed's talk with Cap that makes it look like Reed just re-designed his costume with a super plunging neckline.

Brian Cronin: It's around this point where I wonder if Shooter isn't having everyone fit TOO well together.

Brian Cronin: There is personal conflict, of course, but it almost reminds me of some of the sketchiest Gruenwald issues.

Brian Cronin: The ones where Cap would, like, give an ethics seminar.

Brian Cronin: Outside of some pissy remarks from Wolverine, it's basically just Cap lecturing to people.

Brian Cronin: Iron Man being Rhodey is interesting, in the sense that I wonder if the other heroes are noticing him acting differently.

Brian Cronin: For instance, when Human Torch questions Captain America's decision to have Iron Man, Torch and Thor travel in a perimeter around their new base to see if things are secure.

Brian Cronin: Iron Man responds, "Does Doctor J play roundball?"

Brian Cronin: That doesn't exactly sound like something Tony Stark would say, right?

Brian Cronin: And yet no one seems particularly curious about it.

Brian Cronin: I take that to mean that no one really pays attention to what Iron Man says whenever they have team-ups with him.

Brian Cronin: I wonder if that came up in future team-ups.

Brian Cronin: "You seriously didn't realize I was an entirely different guy?"

Brian Cronin: Magneto has taken over a fortress that seems like it's most impressive feature is that it doesn't look like it should stand upright.

Brian Cronin: It's fascinating to note that this series is actually the first time that Jim Shooter had ever written Magneto in a comic book.

Brian Cronin: Chris Claremont had famously set Magneto on the road to becoming more of an anti-hero than a villain a few years earlier in Uncanny X-Men #150, where Claremont revealed that Magneto was a Holocaust survivor.

Brian Cronin: That was coupled with the God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel where Magneto teams up with the X-Men to help rescue Professor X, Cyclops and Storm from the evil Reverend Stryker.

Brian Cronin: So Shooter here was really the first time that we had a writer other than Claremont try to tackle the new complexities to Magneto's characterization that Claremont had added to him.

Brian Cronin: And the results were...mixed.

Brian Cronin: It seems like Shooter is still writing Magneto as MOSTLY a villain, just one who had a bit more of a philosophical approach to things.

Brian Cronin: He notes to himself that up until recently he didn't even think that non-mutants could share the same feelings as mutants.

Brian Cronin: Which is obviously bonkers, considering Magneto was MARRIED to a non-mutant.

Brian Cronin: He had kids with her, even.

Brian Cronin: And yet now he's noting that he's shocked to find that humans have feelings.

Brian Cronin: So Shooter is trying his best to match Claremont's development of Magneto (which was obviously quite acclaimed at the time), but it's done in a bit of a sloppy fashion.

Brian Cronin: There is a great bit when the villains return to their base to find Doom has taken over.

Brian Cronin: They want to kick his ass, but when they find that he has re-programmed Ultron to serve him, their reaction is basically, "Eh, whatever, who cares."

Brian Cronin: They are not exactly motivated fellows.

Brian Cronin: It's also kind of adorable to see Molecule Man hanging out with Absorbing Man, Wrecker and Doctor Octopus. Shooter had previously established that Molecule Man is basically a giant dork and so it's weird to see him hanging out with basically two skells in Wrecker and Absorbing Man (in personality, if not in power).

Brian Cronin: We see that, though, the others at least get that Molecule Man's powers are greater than probably all of theirs.

Brian Cronin: So I guess that's why they don't give him a hard time.

Brian Cronin: The Molecule Man, by the way, had gone through some weird transitions leading up to this, including become a sadistic killer at one point (and perhaps his own son?).

Flavio Sette: Well, Wrecker and Absorbing Man certainly treat him like a he's a skinny dude in a Charles Atlas ad.

Brian Cronin: But one that they know could disintegrate them.

Brian Cronin: It's a weird balance.,

Brian Cronin: They're basically so used to treating dork-looking guys like Molecule Man like, well, dorks, that they keep on treating him that way.

Brian Cronin: Even though they also acknowledge his vast powers.

Flavio Sette: While Doom's the only one that seems to realize just how powerful he is. It's weird watching Dr Doom be… nice to someone, even if he is just manipulating them.

Flavio Sette: I mean he even goes all "oh, hey, hope I'm bothering you, Mr. Reece".

Brian Cronin: I like how Doctor Octopus sees Doom acting nice and assumes he is planning something.

Brian Cronin: He's right

Brian Cronin: But it's still funny how he thinks about Doom.

Flavio Sette: Shooter's character work with the Wasp is better than I remembered.

Flavio Sette: Or I dunno, maybe someone complaining about disrupted routines and having a hard time keeping from breaking down resonates a lot with me given the whole quarantine thing.

Brian Cronin: Ha!

Brian Cronin: That's a very good point.

Flavio Sette: But still, you'd imagine getting suddenly teleported to a mostly alien place and having an all-powerful being expecting you to fight a bunch of other people would be very disorienting and upsetting. So I'm glad Shooter and Zeck had this little scene where Wasp confides in She-Hulk.

Brian Cronin: No, that's a very good point.

Brian Cronin: However, while I agree with you.

Brian Cronin: I wonder how much of it was seemingly...not RANDOM, but kind of random.

Brian Cronin: You know, Wasp and She-Hulk have the moment because they're the two names pulled out of a hat.

Brian Cronin: He made it fit, of course.

Brian Cronin: With She-Hulk noting her "bluster"

Brian Cronin: But I just also wonder if it really derived from him thinking, "What would Wasp be thinking here?"

Brian Cronin: Or if it was, "I should have a hero think this, let's have it be the Wasp."

Brian Cronin: The Wasp's face, by the way, looks kind of weird, no?

Flavio Sette: Yeah, probably. Although the fact that she has a very stable life compared to her fellow heroes probably helped. Somehow I don't think Wolverine or Captain America take time out of their busy schedules to have an afternoon tea every day.

Brian Cronin: The dialogue with Cyclops and Reed allowed Shooter to hang a lantern on some of the weird stuff.

Brian Cronin: Like, for instance, how Cyclops is here at all considering he wasn't with the X-Men when they entered the transporter!

Brian Cronin: That's just a plot hole, plain and simple.

Brian Cronin: You can't have a big thing be the various superheroes enter a transporter and end up somewhere.

Brian Cronin: And then say, "Oh, and also Cyclops was taken from the middle of his honeymoon for...reasons."

Flavio Sette: Gotta wonder if Madelyn thought he had gotten post-wedding cold feet.

Brian Cronin: She had early practice for him just disappearing on her.

Brian Cronin: He should have used that excuse in X-Factor #1 instead of, "My dead ex is back, I have to fly across the country right away!"

Brian Cronin: "Oops, sorry, Maddie, got sucked to Battleworld again! That crazy Beyonder also packed a suitcase for me. Who would've thunk it, huh?"

Flavio Sette: "By the way that guy who looks jus like me and is hanging out with my dead ex-girlfriend is not me. I dunno who he is, must be a clone created by Mister Sinister or something!"

Brian Cronin: "Beyonder even bought a plane ticket for me, just for extra craziness! So worry about that when you get our next credit card statement."

Brian Cronin: The Thing just broke up with Alicia, so it's a bit weird to see him being all sad about not seeing her anymore.

Brian Cronin: As I say that, I realize that people don't always make sense in situations like that.

Brian Cronin: I will admit that I don't even remember what Magneto's plan is here.

Brian Cronin: Kidnapping the Wasp was his Plan B, but I don't recall what his Plan A was.

Brian Cronin: Oh well, I guess I'll keep reading.

Brian Cronin: Captain Marvel continues to be oddly anti-mutant, right?

Flavio Sette: Well, every super-villain's gotta fall in love with and/or kidnap the Wasp at some point in their career.

Brian Cronin: She says all cattily, "Notice that none of the X-Men were here to help."

Brian Cronin: Dang, Captain Marvel, you are being harsh.

Flavio Sette: Beyonder made her an anti-mutant bigot.

Flavio Sette: Only possible explanation!

Brian Cronin: Luckily for her, there's little time to break down why she hates mutants so much, as they're interrupted by the vague cliffhanger of Galactus doing something.

Brian Cronin: What a weird cliffhanger.

Brian Cronin: "We're about to have our hands full right here very soon."

Brian Cronin: That's so nondescript that it's basically meaningless.

Brian Cronin: It reminds me of the old days when Stan Lee literally didn't know the plot of the next issue of a book.

Brian Cronin: So he would have to say, "Big things next issue!" or whatever.

Brian Cronin: "Trust me, something will, in fact, occur in the following issue! Promise!"

Flavio Sette: That makes me wonder if maybe Marvel had to run the plot by the company putting out the action figures, and they just didn't know what was going to happen next issue because it hadn't been approved yet. Or maybe some of the other higher-ups at Marvel were giving Shooter and Zeck the business over some element of the following issue's plot and they decided to end on a more non-descript note.

Flavio Sette: Well, it makes me wonder if Mattel interfered a lot in the whole process period.

Brian Cronin: I think they were really hands off, honestly.

Brian Cronin: I think it's just hard to stretch "Heroes fight villains" for twelve issues.

Brian Cronin: So a few of the cliffhangers fell a bit flat and this is just one of them.

Brian Cronin: Think of it this way.

Brian Cronin: The iconic bit about the villains dropping a mountain on the heroes?

Brian Cronin: NOT a cliffhanger!

Flavio Sette: Fair. Hard to come up with eleven cliffhangers that all have a nice build-up to it and bring readers back for the continuation of the story.

Brian Cronin: I could have sworn that it was the cliffhanger to #3, but nope, it occurred early in #4. So I think Shooter just had some trouble nailing all of the cliffhangers.

Flavio Sette: Yeah, I definitely recalled it being a cliffhanger. Or cliffburiedaliver, I suppose.

Brian Cronin: It's funny how memories blur.

Brian Cronin: I guess it was just that it was so logical as a cliffhanger, that we remembered it being one.

Flavio Sette: Particularly with long series like that.

Flavio Sette: Crisis kinda feels like one big story to me, so I tend to remember it as a whole and have a hard time remembering what happened in each issue.

Brian Cronin: Agreed (well, for the first six issues or so, at least).

Flavio Sette: Secret Wars is a little like that for me, although the prominent cliffhangers stick out a bit more.

Brian Cronin: Okay, that about wraps up #2! Thanks for breaking up basically my issue commentary! A chat broke out in the middle of a looong monologue.