Marvel Universe - update me?

[Bullgrit]

I stopped regularly buying comics in the mid '90s. About that time, or shortly after, I vaguely remember something big happened to Marvel -- Some rebooting of the titles and characters? Some titles continued, some restarted, some split, or something? Ultimate something?

From what I've seen glancing at covers on some newstands, it seems that at least some of the titles are/have been retelling some of the original stories again.

What's up with the Marvel Universe?

I have heard about the coming World War Hulk story, and it caught my interest. When at a store yesterday, I picked up the first part of the story, in Incredible Hulk #103. I didn't actually notice the issue number till after I had read the comic. 103? That's less than 9 years counting monthly.

What's up with this? If I wanted to get back into some Marvel titles, what do I need to know and look for?

Thanks for any insights and/or updates.

Bullgrit

 

[Darth Shoju]

In the mid 90's they did something called the Onslaught Impact; basically an X-men villain with the power of Prof Xavier and Franklin Richards was wreaking havok throughout the Marvel U. Eventually, most of the main Marvel Heroes (except Spider Man) got together to confront him. The Hulk defeated Onslaught's physical form but in the process created an explosion that separated him from Bruce Banner. However, Onslaught morphed into a form of pure psychic energy. In order to defeat him, the Avengers, FF, Dr. Doom (against his will) and a few others (although not Spider Man) went into the energy field (believing they were sacrificing themselves) so the X-men could blast Onslaught. The villain was defeated, but in the process the public (I think this took place in New York) thought the X-men had turned on the other heroes. The world hated mutants even more and mourned the loss of the heroes.

In the aftermath, it was revealed that the Hulk was still around, minus the Banner part of his personality. The heroes who were supposedly killed were in fact reborn in an alternate Marvel Universe, thus restarting those titles and giving Marvel a chance to re-imagine their central heroes and bring in some of the old Image artists and such to do so (Liefeld being one of the main ones). After a while of storylines in this universe (titled the Heroes Reborn I think), they made the characters aware they were in the wrong universe and returned them to the core universe, titling that Heroes Return. From what I recall, the Avengers and FF were rebooted again (again starting at issue 1). Dr. Doom remained in the alternate universe for a while and eventually conquered it before ultimately returning to the main universe.

I'm probably getting some facts wrong but that is the gist of it. The whole thing seemed rather gimicky and I always wondered why Onslaught was such a threat when seemingly more powerful villains like Surtur never seemed to rate such a response from the heroes. Later the Ultimate Marvel line started up as another alternate take on the main heroes and features characters like Ultimate Spider Man, Ultimate X-men, The Ultimates (aka The Avengers) and so on. Really, I would have rather they had just done this from the beginning as it is a little less corny IMO and allows them to re-tell the classic stories of their greatest characters in a more modern setting.

 

[The Human Target]

You basically only need to know a few things.....

Any Marvel book with Ultimate in the title (Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Spider-Man, The Ultimates) takes place in a separate shared universe. This universe serves as a reboot of the normal Marvel superhero comics. It is/was intended to gain new readers with modernized and streamlined stories.

The numbering on all the other Marvel books is meaningless. Most have been reset numerically a number of times, but weren't rebooted. So something that happened to the Hulk 40 years ago still happened, even if the numbering on the book is only to issue #103.

The main Marvel Universe is currently being hit with wave after wave of "big events." World War Hulk is just the next one.

In the Main Marvel universe......

- Most of the world's mutants lost their powers, save for most X-Men and some other random characters.

- The last big event was called CIVIL WAR. All the American superheroes were given a choice by the government- register their powers and become government agents or be imprisoned. Iron Man lead the Pro-Registration heroes for the government, Captain America lead the outlawed rebel heroes. In the end, the registered heroes "won" the conflict.

- Captain America is was killed in government custody during the fall out of CIVIL WAR.

- Iron Man is now the leader of SHIELD and his own registered superhero team THE MIGHTY AVENGERS.

- Luke Cage leads some of the rebel heroes as THE NEW AVENGERS.

- All states in the US will in theory have their own trained government sponsored superhero team.

- Spider-Man revealed his identity to the public while working with the Pro-Registration heroes. He later switched sides and joined the rebels.

Marvel Comics also has an imprint called ICON for creator owned comic book projects.

Marvel also releases many collected trade paperback editions of current and old series, so its very easy to catch up on a lot of the current books and to enjoy older out of print titles.

I'd recommend checking out http://www.marvel.com/ and/or http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/ for more information and to get any questions you have answered. Also, search for information with Wikipedia.

 

[Silver Moon]

Add to that - Alpha Flight and Thor are now dead (and Hawkeye was dead for a while too but has gotten better) while Captain Mar-vell, Bucky and Peter Parker's Uncle Ben are alive again.

 

[Darth Shoju]

Add to that - Alpha Flight and Thor are now dead (and Hawkeye was dead for a while too but has gotten better) while Captain Mar-vell, Bucky and Peter Parker's Uncle Ben are alive again.

Ugh I've managed to miss all that. Uncle Ben? Geeeeze. Who's next, Gwen Stacey?

:\

 

[Jhamin]

If that was a joke it wasn't funny.

If it wasn't a joke, I have some bad news for you......

AFAIK Gwen is still dead, but her illigitamate children with the Green Goblin from back before she died are around.
Yes, I know it makes no sense that she got pregnant with Norman Osborne. Yes, I know there was no time for that to have happened given the continuity of the era.

It happened anyway. Try not to think about it.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

... and Peter Parker's Uncle Ben are alive again.

It's not the real Uncle Ben. It's some alternate universe version.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

It's not the real Uncle Ben. It's some alternate universe version.

Yeah, Uncle Ben was from a different universe where Aunt May died.

Not only that, but Mar-vell was brought back but was done so in a way that he'd going to die again just as he did before.

Bucky IS back as the Winter Soldier, and was on the villain side for a while but is currently working with Nick Fury(who disappeared before the Civil War events). He's also on the list of characters out to give Iron Man a beating.

 

[Darth Shoju]

Yeah, Uncle Ben was from a different universe where Aunt May died.

Not only that, but Mar-vell was brought back but was done so in a way that he'd going to die again just as he did before.

Bucky IS back as the Winter Soldier, and was on the villain side for a while but is currently working with Nick Fury(who disappeared before the Civil War events). He's also on the list of characters out to give Iron Man a beating.

Well I guess that is all a little better but still. Why can't they just leave some characters dead? Does bringing them back really have much of an impact with the readers anymore?

 

[Darth Shoju]

AFAIK Gwen is still dead, but her illigitamate children with the Green Goblin from back before she died are around.
Yes, I know it makes no sense that she got pregnant with Norman Osborne. Yes, I know there was no time for that to have happened given the continuity of the era.

It happened anyway. Try not to think about it.

Buh?

Ok, I'll just try not to think about it.