New Secret Wars Announcement from Marvel

Marvel held a livestream from the Midtown Comics downtown location in New York City today to deal some new information about their Secret Wars launch in May of this year.

Touted by Marvel to be the announcement to end all announcements, Senior Vice President Tom Breevport and Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso divulged new details and added some clarity to the shrouded new Secret Wars. It was only at New York Comic Con in 2014 that Secret Wars was announced.

“It’s the most coordinated event we’ve ever done,” Alonso stated in the livestream.

Breevport added the crux of the plotline is somewhere in the multiverse the many parallel universes that make up Marvel cosmology there is an event that triggers intersections between all of the universes. Two parallel universes will collide and there are a multitude of outcomes possible, where two Earths go in, one comes out or neither. It is where the Marvel Universe and Ultimate Marvel Universe collide.

“The Marvel Universe as you know it is done. The Ultimate Universe as you know it is done.” Breevport said.

The Black Panther reassembles the Illuminati to investigate the triggering event and get back into a corner. Battleworld comes in as the leftover and becomes the incubator of a completely new Marvel universe.

Marvel is also launching an interactive map to give background on each of the separate books that will be a part of the Battleworld storyline. The map can be found here.

There will be a taste of Secret Wars for Free Comic Book Day, Secret Wars #0 will be available to pick up and act as prologue to the storyline. Free Comic Book Day is on May 3rd.

Also showcased at the livestream is the cover for Secret Wars #2. Breevport called it a phonebook size of an issue and the cover is filled with a lot of Thor.

The cover for Secret Wars #2. Cover by Alex Ross.

“Secret Wars is putting an end-cap to decades of stories, a place where we will bring new pieces to the board and taking old ones off,” Alonso described it as. He continued to say that fans will love and hate it in equal measure and that is a great jumping in point for new fans.

Secret Wars will begin in May and run for eight issues and is written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Esad Ribic.