The titular Mys-Tech are the Big Bad in almost almost all of those other titles, a sinister corporation run by a group of ancient immortal wizards.
Their immortality comes from a bargain with the demon Mephisto, and it means they’re perpetually trying to repay their debt to him. But they’ve been working on a plan to change that - a plan that will wreck the world and kill an awful lot of people.
Naturally, Marvel’s superheroes - many of whom are now aware of Mys-Tech’s existence - aren’t going to let that happen without a fight.
The core story was told in the four-issue miniseries, but with tie-in issues in other Marvel UK books.
Comics involved in Mys-Tech Wars
- Motormouth & Killpower #9
- Mys-Tech Wars #1-4
- Dark Angel #10-11
- Death's Head II #5
- Warheads #11
- Knights of Pendragon #12
Tropes included in the Mys-Tech Wars series and its tie-ins:
- All Your Powers Combined: In issue #4, Dark Angel unites her powers with Xavier's psychic ones, Albion's Earth magic, Dr. Strange's mystic powers and Death's Head's cybernetic influence, in order to manipulate the Unearth mechanism in their favour.
- Alternate Self: As reality starts to crumble, Dark Angel realises that at least some of the superheroes attacking Mys-Tech are now alternate universe versions. Or are beginning to merge with those alternate versions.
- And Show It to You: Spider-Man, the first hero to fall, has his heart ripped out and held aloft by demons. It’s not clear if he lives long enough to see it, but…
- Apocalypse How: Once Mys-Tech’s plan is out of control, it seems that things are heading for planetary annihilation (at the very least) with some of the damage rippling into alternate realities.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. One side of Psylocke’s face is seriously harmed by an energy blast. Bryan Hitch’s art makes it look pretty gruesome.
- Big Bad: The titular Mys-Tech, an Evil, Inc. run by a cabal of wizards who orchestrate a demonic invasion of Earth to pay off the terms of their Faustian pact.
- Crisis Crossover: Mys-Tech Wars builds on plot threads in the previous year’s Marvel UK titles. The titular Mys-Tech were the Big Bad for many of those books, a group of ancient sorcerers who’d made a bargain with Mephisto, and were finally ready to put their grand plan into action. As well as the UK heroes, the series used the Avengers and X-Men (among others), with many well-known Marvel heroes becoming cannon fodder before the ending hit the Reset Button. The effects on the Marvel UK line itself were longer lasting.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Wolverine vs Crowe and Death’s Head vs. Porlock. Given that they’re such powerful immortals and cast such a shadow over the Marvel UK comics, they both go down remarkably easily.
- Death Trap: After Crowe captures Nick Fury, he’s distracted by work and leaves him to die, unguarded, in a hi-tech death trap. Surprisingly, it works and Fury dies.
- Driven to Suicide: After Cyclops is killed, Jean Grey eventually loses the will to fight and kills herself.
- Dwindling Party: The small army of superheroes Dark Angel leads into Mys-Tech’s base. After some initial success, the casualties just keep rising.
- Elite Mooks: Psycho warriors. The series doesn’t stop to dwell on their origins, which were established in other Marvel UK books, but they’re demonic entities bound into artificial bodies and armed with guns using alien technology. And they’re responsible for almost all of the dead heroes.
- Fights Like a Normal: There are a lot of guns used in this series.
- Crowe is an immortal magician and entirely capable of throwing mystic energy blasts about. But when Nick Fury sneaks into Mys-Tech’s base, Crowe just pulls a hi-tech handgun and shoots him.
- As the army of psycho warriors starts to overwhelm the Avengers and X-Men, several of them (including Hulk, Colossus and the Black Knight) pick up guns from fallen warriors to shoot back, rather than purely relying on powers.
- Friend or Foe?: Wolverine and Captain America attack Motormouth and Killpower when they first appear, believing them responsible for Nick Fury’s death. Wolverine is sufficiently enraged that he doesn’t stop when Motormouth points out the misunderstanding.
- Hell on Earth: The first phase of Mys-Tech’s plan, with demon hordes ravaging the world and some especially nasty horrors sent to deal with the Avengers and X-Men.
- Hope Spot: X-Factor arrive as The Cavalry in the third issue. Their leader Havok makes a morale-boosting speech, then a psycho warrior immediately shoots him dead.
- Living Crash Pad: Killpower joins the heroes by falling from great height into the melee, with the psycho warriors cushioning his fall.
- Load-Bearing Boss: Both sides of the conflict have versions of this.
- The Mys-Tech wizards have bound their lifeforce to the earth in ways that mean they can’t be killed without ravaging the planet itself.
- A heroic example: the Pendragon’s Green Knight is very much the Fisher King, and if it dies as a result of Mys-Tech’s scheme, it’s taking the planet with it.
- Mexican Standoff: Between the Kether Troop Warheads, who are confined to quarters, and the heavily armed psycho warriors assigned to keep them there. Resolved when Mys-Tech offer them triple their usual pay to troubleshoot the problem on UnEarth.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nobody told Death’s Head and Wolverine about the consequences of killing the Mys-Tech sorcerers.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Mys-Tech pay the Kether Troop Warheads to go into UnEarth and deal with the disruption. The disruption is Death’s Head, who they’ve met before - they end up allied with him and on the side of the heroes.
- No Kill like Overkill:
- After Cyclops is fatally shot in the back by one of Mys-Tech’s psycho warriors, the next volley of shots hits his corpse and takes part of his jaw off.
- When Thor is killed his arm is severed and goes spinning through the air, his hand still clasping Mjolnir.
- No-Sell: Notably averted. The immortal Mys-Tech board, serving as the Big Bad for the whole Marvel UK line, normally embody this due to their demonic bargain, with a range of defensive powers that make them untouchable or invulnerable, as shown in previous comics. But not here.
- Crowe transforms into almost indestructible metal whenever threatened. Wolverine stabs him to death, proving that it’s not quite as tough as real adamantium.
- Porlock shapeshifts into a powerful demonic form when threatened. Death’s Head easily kills it anyway.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Played with. After Dark Angel lists the great powers the first five heroes bring to Mys-Tech’s machine, allowing them to collectively rewind time and undo the apocalypse, Motormouth asks why she was chosen as the sixth person. Apparently they just needed someone to make up the numbers, as the machine was designed for six.
- Painting the Medium: Psylocke’s speech bubbles drop into lower case after she’s badly injured.
- Plot Armor: Notably averted by the deaths of well-known Marvel heroes, which is a clear hint that there’s a Reset Button coming.
- Spider-Man is killed in the second issue, as are Nick Fury and the Ghost Rider.
- Cyclops, Iceman, Beast and Archangel all die in the first few pages of issue three. Thor, Bishop, Black Widow, Jubilee, She-Hulk and Havok follow.
- Grace, the Black Knight, Strong Guy and Colossus are all killed in the final issue, as well as Jean Grey committing suicide.
- Reality-Changing Miniature: The UnEarth, a voodoo doll for the entire planet. Although it’s also Bigger on the Inside.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Only the heroes who replace Mys-Tech in the machine (Dark Angel, Professor X, Albion, Doctor Strange, Death’s Head and Motormouth) remember what happened.
- Sequel Hook: The last issue cuts away to show the Time Guardian watching from afar, admiring the way the heroes have set things right and noting that he may have work for them.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong:
- When time rolls back, the heroes ensure that this time the UnEarth is sealed off and unusable.
- On a smaller scale, Captain America and Wolverine are able to intercept Nick Fury before he walks into Crowe’s ambush.
- Storming the Castle: The heroes spend much of the miniseries storming Mys-Tech’s base, fighting through a seemingly endless army of psycho warriors.
- Stripped to the Bone: Nick Fury is captured by the villains and strapped to a device that is supposed to flay "skin from bone and soul from body." It does. The end result is not pretty. The ending hits the Reset Button and undoes this, though.
- Teleportation Misfire: The activation of the UnEarth pulls Death’s Head off course and he materialises within UnEarth itself.
- The Cavalry: Several waves.
- X-Factor arrive and might turn the tide - but it’s a Hope Spot and their leader Havok is promptly shot dead.
- Played straight with the subsequent arrival of the Knights of Pendragon
- Death’s Head and the Warheads initially play it straight, but their late arrival means there are some important things they don’t know.
- The Determinator: Psylocke, who gets up and keeps going after a near-fatal injury. Crowe directly comments on it.
- Two-Faced: Psylocke, after an energy weapon disfigures one side of her face.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It’s all resolved by the reset button, but there are a couple of examples.
- After Crowe and Porlock are killed, the rest of Mys-Tech’s board get one panel showing the feedback hurting them, then completely drop out of the story.
- We don’t see the fate of many of the heroes - although it’s implied that some died offscreen.
- Worf Had the Flu: Towards the end, Dark Angel realises that as reality blurs and collapses,some of the superheroes around her are merging with alternates and no longer their true selves. This is implied as an explanation for how easily they fall and falter.
- You Are Too Late: In the first issue, Crowe leaves a captured Nick Fury unguarded in a futuristic death trap. In the second issue, Wolverine and Captain America burst in to save him - and find his mutilated corpse.
