Comic Book / Secret Wars (2015)

Spoilers for all comics that take place before this event (Time Runs Out and Before Time Runs Out comics included) will be left unmarked. Events relating to titles in the Last Days may or may not be marked as spoilers.

Can the combined might of the Multiverse's most powerful superheroes defeat the ultimate menace?!

The multiverse was destroyed!

The heroes of Earth-616 and Earth-1610 were powerless to save it!

Now, all that remains... is Battleworld!

A massive, patchwork planet composed of the fragments of worlds that no longer exist, maintained by the iron will of its god and master, Victor Von Doom!

Each region is a domain unto itself!

Secret Wars is a 2015 Crisis Crossover in Marvel Comics, by Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribić. It is named after the first Secret Wars crossover from 1984, as it shares some plot points with it. It is not a sequel, though, just a Recycled Title.

The Multiverse is collapsing because of the actions of the Beyonders. The Incursions are a phenomenon between two universes that destroyed both of them, unless one universe' Earth destroyed the other, which saved it... until the next incursion. In recent months, The Illuminati and The Cabal have been trying to save Earth: either by trying third options or by outright destruction of alternate worlds. By the beginning of the story, only two universes remain in all the multiverse: Earth-616, home of the Marvel Universe, and Earth-1610, home of the Ultimate Marvel universe.

The final incursion destroys both universes, but the destruction of the Multiverse is not complete. Two ships survive and arrive on Battleworld. A world formed out of the broken remains of the lost universe. A world ruled... by the God-Emperor Doom.

This event was massive. In addition to the Avengers comics that led to it, there were many ones that provide further introductions as closer preludes. The vast majority of Marvel comics were cancelled for the duration of the crossover, replaced by limited series set in a Battleworld domain. Many other limited series recreated old stories or settings, also set in a Battleworld domain. See here for a list of all involved titles.

Although the story features the destruction and recreation of the Marvel Universe, it is not a Continuity Reboot, as all the events from before Secret Wars were still canon. The comics published afterwards were part of a relaunch, All-New, All-Different Marvel.

Compare Crisis on Infinite Earths, another massive multiverse-spanning crossover with drastic after-effects to a superhero universe.

In 2022, it was announced that the Marvel Cinematic Universe would have a Secret Wars film, slated for May 1, 2026, as part of its "Multiverse Saga", with no direct confirmation whether it would draw from this story or the 1984 book, though the concept of Incursions was introduced in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Secret Wars contains examples of:

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A-E

• 0% Approval Rating: Once the arc reaches its halfway point, Doom's marvelous empire begins to turn against him. On their own, most individual provinces slowly creep toward rebellion. A-Force, New Attilan, Dystopia, Yinsen City, and others begin to realize that Doom was, ultimately, the cause of each of their problems.
• Aborted Arc: While it makes sense given the abruptness of the event in-universe, Secret Wars cuts short a number of potential plot lines:
  • In The Punisher, Frank and his coyote were left bleeding in the gutter after being knifed by a disgraced police officer who had become a vigilante ("Memento") and blamed him for the riots that rocked Los Angeles. Frank is next shown, after a Time Skip of several months, attacking the supervillain bar, before being whisked off to the Middle East for one final mission against a terrorist cell called the Black Dawn, with the only reference to Memento and LA being in a recap.
  • In New Avengers, it was revealed that the Black Swan is carrying the genetic code of her entire race inside her, in the hope that she could one day resurrect them. But even though she survives the final incursion, this plot thread is not continued at all in Secret Wars, and she apparently dies when Groot destroys Doom's castle. And at the end of the series, the Richardses create the multiverse again, presumably with her people included, so the whole gene thing didn't amount to anything.
  • In both Wolverines and Old Man Logan, Wolverine was destined to be the one to put down Doom but if Old Man Logan participated in the final battle, we didn't get to see it, and ultimately it's Reed and Doom's own hubris that end his reign.
• Abusive Precursors: The Beyonders are an ancient race of nigh-omnipotent aliens that, according to the Molecule Man, created whole universes and tinkered with life in every way imaginable, just because they could. Then, they also created Molecule Men in each universe to blow them all up... just because they could.
• Action Mom:
  • Roberta Mendez, Captain America of 2099, is married with kids.
  • Mary Jane in the final issue of Renew Your Vows, donning a set of exoskeletal armor and joining her family in beating the hell out of Regent. When she does and her daughter asks what her codename is, she replies, "I already have one: Mom!"
• Action Survivor:
  • The only characters explicitly shown surviving the final Incursion are Spider-Man, Cyclops, Black Panther, Star-Lord, Thor, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Mister Fantastic, Thanos, The Maker, Maximus, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, Namor, and Doctor Doom, while the others don't come back until after Battleworld is forged. Silver Surfer and Dawn Greenwood also survive, but they weren't in the vicinity of the Incursion itself. And Loki meta'd themselves out of it by making themselves the narrator and pocketing the Ragnarök. Noticing the trouble looming ahead and Loki being Loki, they then decided to just skip Battleworld completely, instead drawing a door in the empty void with the word "NEXT" written above it, meaning that they, all of Asgard, and Verity Willis will just basically skip along to the All-New, All-Different Marvel Universe ahead of everyone else.
  • Miles Morales survived the end by hiding away in the Cabal's raft. Molecule Man was present when Doom confronted the Beyonders and is currently hidden away under the statue of himself.
  • The Bakian family in Infinity Gauntlet are some of the last survivors in a bombed out city that has been taken over by insect-like aliens.
  • Issue 8 of the main title revealed one final survivor of 616, hidden away as a sliver inside Star-Lord's pocket: Groot.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Peter's 'spider-cents' gag in Renew Your Vows makes Regent throw back his head and laugh. Peter was going to use this opportunity to cut his throat, but punches him out instead.
• Adaptational Badass: The M.O.D.O.K. from Killville killed all the heroes from his territory. Even the Sentinels of the nearby Sentinel Territories are scared of him.
• Adaptational Sexuality: In Siege, alternate versions of Leah of Hel and Illyana Rasputina, both straight girls on Earth-616 (well, Leah is. Illyana has had a long history of being Ambiguously Gay), become girlfriends.
• Adaptational Villainy: In issue #4 of Armor Wars, it's revealed that Tony Stark is the true Big Bad of the series, as well as the person who murdered Spyder-Man and his uncle.
• Adapted Out: The Marvel Cinematic Universe and any other film universe with Marvel characters will remain unaffected by this event, along with many Marvel stories that aren't told in the comics themselves. X-Men '92 (inspired by X-Men: The Animated Series) is an exception.
• Advertised Extra: Before issue #1, much was made of the apparent crossover between the Marvel universe and the Ultimate universe. Most of the Ultimate Universe characters (The X-Men, the New Ultimates) don't do anything before they and their world are killed.
• Aerith and Bob: The Battleworld territories possess a variety of fantastic names, such as Utopolis, New Xandar, Arcadia, and The Deadlands. You also have names that sound rather normal, but with an irregular meaning, such as King James' England, Egyptia, and Greenland. But then, you also have places with completely mundane names, like Westchester and Manhattan.
• Affectionate Nickname: America, heavily implied to be the same America from Young Avengers having just wound up in Battleworld without any memory-wiping, calls Lady Kate Bishop "Princess" just as she did regular Kate.
• Affirmative-Action Legacy:
  • The crossover debuted a new Nova named Anwen Bakian, who is a young African-American girl.
  • Captain America 2099 is a Latina woman named Roberta, while Black Widow 2099 is an African-American woman named Tania. Additionally, Iron Man 2099 is a man named Sonny who suffers from dwarfism.
• After the End:
  • The Silver Surfer tie-in essentially takes place after the universe is obliterated. Writer Dan Slott describes it as being a "fourth" umbrella title, but shoved under "Last Days" to make it fit.
  • In the "Last Days" arc of Loki: Agent of Asgard the incursion happens in the second to last issue (#16), so the last logically takes place after the end.
• A God Am I: Doctor Doom is worshiped as one under the God Guise of Rabum Alal, and he's worshiped as an actual one on Battleworld, as its creator deity and ruler. It goes so far as to show that, at least in Spider-Verse #1, instead of something like "God Bless America", it's "Doom Bless America". This is lampshaded in #4; while the surviving 616 heroes are astonished that Doom has managed to create Battleworld and hold it together through the force of his will, not one of them is surprised that he took the opportunity to set himself up as God-Emperor of all he surveyed in the process. In the end, Doom's tendency to this is deconstructed; it turns out he could simply have restored the multiverse (or a replica thereof) and sent everyone home, but instead held everyone there to act as slaves to his ego, just helping to prove how petty and insecure he truly is.
• Alien Sky:
  • A very downplayed version, but apparently very noticeable for those that remember the old world. Not only are there no stars in the sky, but the sun is an artificial construct created after-the-fact by Doom and, on close inspection, revolves around Battleworld instead of the other way around.
  • Knowhere can be seen in the sky in some issues. Guardians of Knowhere reveals that the decapitated head serves as Battleworld's moon.
• All-Loving Hero: Captain Britain (Faiza Hussein). When placed into a sentient torture machine, her means of freeing herself is to dismantle it, "fix what's wrong with it" and reassemble it feeling better than ever. When she confronts Big Boss Hill and the two of them briefly fight, her immediate reaction is to ask, "You all right? Nothing broken?" This act of mercy prompts Hill to call off all hostilities and enter an alliance with Yinsen City.
• All Your Powers Combined: The Regent has all the powers of the X-Men, including Cyclops', Colossus', and Nightcrawler's. He promises to take the Avengers' too when he kills them.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: This appears to be Marvel's answer to Crisis on Infinite Earths cranked up. In terms of 2015, though, DC has a similar event in mind called Convergence that begins and ends around the time this event starts. It should be noted, though, that Convergence was pretty much a plan made up on the fly while Secret Wars was in the planning stages since 2009, with many writers making preparations for the event at least two years before it started.
• Alternate Self: Many characters have Alternate Universe versions of themselves fighting in various regions of Battleworld. Of special note would be the X-Men, who have the most tie-ins, and Spider-Man, who has hundreds of them.
• Alternate Universe: Many of the worlds used are not only established AUs like Ultimate Marvel, Days of Future Past, and Age of Apocalypse, but a few new ones are introduced with this story.
  • Of the introduced worlds, we have:
    • K'un-Lun, which is a world where everyone is in a martial arts school and if you're not, you're an outcast.
    • Greenland, where all of the inhabitants can Hulk out.
    • Killville, where villains run the show and M.O.D.O.K. is at the top of the food chain.
    • Technopolis, where everyone has to wear a suit of armor, and Tony and Arno Stark feud for control.
• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: A Zig-Zagging Trope involving the Trope Namer. Ultimate Reed Richards (The Maker) has an active role in the storyline with his own approach to solving the major problem; unfortunately, his solution is to destroy everything. Conversely, 616 Reed Richards defies Reed Richards Is Useless by making a contingency plan for the human race with the other members of the Fantastic Four and the Future Foundation; unfortunately, many of them are seemingly killed due to the Maker implementing his plan to make the final Incursion succeed.
• Always Someone Better: In the end, Doom finally acknowledges that Reed is this to him.
• Amazon Brigade: A-Force follows a new, all-female team of Avengers formed out of the events of the series.
• Amazonian Beauty: When the Phantom Eagle ends up in an entire island full of the Jungle Princess variety, he thinks he's hit the jackpot. So does his female companion...she's more right than he is.
• Ambiguously Gay: The version of Spider-Gwen from A-Force is implied to be in a relationship with her MJ, based on her flirty dialogue and the look they share.
• Amusing Injuries: Spider-Ham can weaponize this, surviving getting punched by a Thor through a wall. This is pretty much a major case of Heart Is an Awesome Power.
• And I Must Scream: Johnny Storm is the Battleworld's Sun. At Sue's suggestion (Doom just wanted to kill him).
• And Show It to You: Doom's response to Thanos' "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Anyone Can Die: Everyone in the multiverse^note Well, almost everyone; Reed Richards managed to make a life raft while the Maker's Children of Tomorrow and the Cabal made their own dies in the lead-up to this event - but many come back when Battleworld is forged. The question of if they'll stay alive, of course, is completely open.
• Apocalypse How: Multiversal destruction in the scope of the remaining Marvel Universes. Definite Class X-5. Class Z1 (Omniversal FUBAR), at least, is what things were going to, courtesy of the Beyonders destroying the Multiverse (assuming they might have gone suicidal if succeeded). But, thankfully, Doctor Doom blew them up.
• Apocalypse Wow:
  • The Incursions destroying Earths. Along with the Illuminati doing so, too.
  • In Issue 6, Molecule Man warns Peter Parker and Miles Morales that Battleworld is close to this, because the world's pieces just don't fit.
• Arc Number: Eight. The main series was originally supposed to be eight issues long, although it ended up being nine. Time Runs Out, the first issue of the main series, and Last Days all take place eight months after the other comics that wrapped up or were wrapping up at that point. Battleworld exists for eight years before the plot is kicked off. Finally, All-New, All-Different Marvel starts off eight months after the conclusion of Secret Wars, and it's revealed that the newly formed, post=Secret Wars All New Marvel Multiverse is the eighth incarnation of the multiverse.
• Arc Words: "Everything dies." Reed Richards began his lecture on the Incursions with these words, not referring to something active killing anything, but how the eventual fate of everything is death and decay, from individual lives to the very fabric of the universe itself in its eventual and inevitable heat death. Only now something is accelerating this process, destroying entire realities. The phrase showed up several times over the course of Time Runs Out. And at the end of Secret Wars Reed turns it around. "Everything lives."
• Armor-Piercing Question: In issue #9, after Doom asks Susan to trust him, her response, "Like Stephen trusted you?" Doom has no reply, save to bow his head in shame.
• Ascended Meme: "Hail HYDRA!" became a popular enough phrase to warrant it as the name of an entire series.
• As You Know: A pretty hefty case in issue #2, when Valeria Von Doom and Stephen Strange tell each other stuff they both know, but the audience doesn't.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Thanks to one particularly arrogant and stupid Hank Pym, the Shield regularly has to deal with giant zombie ant-monsters, and giant Ultrons.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The 1872 version of Doc Ock has six mechanical arms each holding a gun, allowing him to shoot eight guns at the same time. Sheriff Rogers easily shoots him in the head once, killing him.
• Back for the Finale: Some of the characters that had died in the comics shortly before the event come back in the form of alternate selves, and some characters actually are straight-up returning to life: Ultimate Thor, who was presumed dead in the wake of Catacylsm, is back as a member of the Thor Corps. The same goes to Ultimate Captain America, who perished in the same storyline, though it is unknown if it it's still Steve Rogers or if it's a case of Legacy Character.
  • A Retcon in the All-New, All-Different Marvel Universe guide resolved the several discrepancies seen in the domain of Manhattan by establishing the two universes that composed it as being similar, but not the same as, Earth-616 and Earth-1610.
• Bad Future: Several of Battleworld's domains were taken from alternate futures with less-than ideal conditions.
• Badass Crew: According to solicits for the continuation of Spider-Verse, Mainstream Spider-Girl, Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Man India, Spider-Ham, Spider-UK, and Spider-Gwen will be teaming up.
• Badass Boast: Thanos stares down God Doom and declares that it doesn't matter if he has no Infinity Gauntlet. He's THANOS! And that's all he needs to prove his superiority to Doom. Unfortunately, mere boasts do not save you from spinal removal.
• Badass Family: The Parkers in the final issue of "Renew Your Vows".
• Badass Normal: Lady Kate's status as one gets deconstructed at the end of Siege when she catches a blast of the Enlightenment Cannon, and realizes she's just a girl with pointy sticks up against killer robots and zombies.
• Batman Gambit:
  • The Flash Thompson Venom pulls this off in Spider-Island #1, banking that intel from Werewolf by Night was actually a trap. He uses it to turn the tables.
  • Peter pulls off one in Renew Your Vows, getting Regent to laugh. He was about to stab him with a piece of shrapnel in the jugular, but he ultimately decided to knock him out. Mary Jane does call him out a bit on this point, making them realize that things would have turned out differently.
• Battle Couple: The Leah and Illyana Rasputin who serve on the Shield. When Illyana goes missing, Leah rushes off into the wasteland to find her.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Miles giving Owen the cheeseburger - he repays him for his kindness by allowing him to join the Marvel Universe proper and resurrecting his mom.
• Big Applesauce: There are over a dozen different versions of Manhattan in various domains. New York City is where the remnants of the universes like the Classic Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Marvel Universe merge, resulting in the "Kingdom of Manhattann" domain.
• Big Bad Ensemble: You have several baddies competing against one another.
  • As far as the main story goes, the Beyonders (also known as the "Ivory Kings"), Rabum Alal (better known as Doctor Doom), the Black Swans (who worship Rabum Alal), and the Maker (Reed Richards from the Ultimate Universe) are responsible for most of the Incursions. Interestingly, Doom was actually trying to save lives through his way of causing Incursions. Most Incursions destroy both universes entirely if both Earths are destroyed, whereas if only one Earth is destroyed in the event, both universes are spared otherwise - and given that the Beyonders were destroying universes left and right, Doom took it upon himself to be the lesser of two evils. And then Doom takes up the role once again after having disposed of the Beyonders.
  • Maestro is the tyrant behind Dystopia.
  • Apocalypse reigns over his eponymous domain.
  • The Spider-Queen is responsible for one version of New York transforming into Spider-Island.
  • The Regent rules the Regency after killing all the heroes (except for Spider-Man).
  • Korvac controls the City.
  • M.O.D.O.K. murders thousands, including many of alternate versions of himself, in Killville.
  • Aside from the hundreds actually thousands of super-zombies running about, Red Skull and a Magneto make themselves at home in the Deadlands, planning to overthrow Doom despite their differences. Not to mention ANOTHER Magneto who is the king of the zombies.
  • Ultron made Perfection by killing billions of people.
  • Annihilus and his Annihilation Wave have turned New Xandar into a ruin, while Thanos assembles the Infinity Gauntlet.
  • A Red Hulk calling himself the Red King is the current leader of the Greenlands.
  • Finally, the Cabal from the old multiverse attempts to overthrow Doom.
• Big Damn Heroes: Just when Magneto thinks he is going to be killed by the Marvel Zombies, Red Skull, of all people, shows up to save him and restore his powers so they can escape the Deadlands.
• Big Good: The individual behind the forging of Battleworld is Doctor Doom. Subverted by issue #4, however as Doom becomes an enemy to the sole heroes that can set the world right again.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • A-Force ends with Singularity seemingly sacrificing her life to stop the zombie invasion, though it shows that she survived. However, the Thors leave Arcadia deciding that the loss of life caused by Loki's treachery is punishment enough for She-Hulk.
  • Spider Island ends with the Spider Queen dead and all of the infected out of her control, and Peter becoming the Baron of the newly-renamed Thompsonville. However, no one can ever turn back to being human ever again, and there are only few humans remaining. In addition, Flash and the Venom symbiote sacrifice themselves to defeat the Spider Queen.
  • The end of Secret Wars, though on a lesser level: Reed, Sue and the Future Foundation children fake their deaths to help Molecule Man in repairing the multiverse.
• Blatant Lies: Doom covers up Dr. Strange's death and gives him a proper burial, something that gives the Jane Foster Thor, snuck inside the Thor Corps, pause and confusion.
• Bloodier and Gorier:
  • Inverted with the Marvel Zombies titles, which are less gory than their original counterparts.
• Body Horror:
  • The Resistance in Hail Hydra! Captain Marvel appears to be a Noodle Person, Wasp is trapped in a half insect form, and Hank Pym appears to be a misshaped hunchedback with an oversized head, arm and leg.
  • What happened to the Hank McCoy on the Shield, after the Annihilation Wave got him. He's turned into a gigantic furry insect... thing, and his former comrades were forced to kill him.
• Bolivian Army Ending:
  • Years Of Future Past: the last surviving mutants barricade themselves and then sirens go off and they choose to fight no matter the odds.
  • Siege ends with Abigail Brand and Scott Summer holding hands and facing off against a gigantic army of killer robots, zombies, and other monsters, Kang time traveling away to try to fix everything, and Ms. America Chavez pulling a Screw This, I'm Outta Here with Hawkeye (Kate Bishop)
• Bollywood Nerd: Spider Man India, who discovered the Great Web and those connected to it via science, not in some mystical Indian way as Anya assumes.
• Bookends:
  • The Marvel Universe began in 1961 with the Fantastic Four attempting to escape to space only for their shields to fail. The Marvel Universe ends in 2015 with the Fantastic Four attempting to escape to space only for their shields to fail.
    • In addition, the first issue (and the start of the Marvel Universe) begins with Reed summoning the other Fantastic Four. The Marvel Universe ends with Reed being separated from them.
  • A strange one towards Brian Michael Bendis: He started his run in the old 616 by killing Hawkeye, among others. How does he cap it off? Killing Hawkeye again.
  • The whole story arc leading to Secret Wars began in New Avengers #1, where the first incursion to hit the 616 Earth resulted in the deaths of three innocent Wakandan teens. In the final issue of this series, T'Challa uses the Reality Gem to create Wakanda as it was before the incursions, and we get to see the same scene as in New Avengers #1, except that this time the incursion never happens, so the teenagers live.
• Break the Haughty: Doom, despite having the power of the Gods, is seeing his kingdom crumble, then Molecule Man takes his powers away, then is forced to admit Reed is his better, which is more than he can tolerate.
• Broken Record: The Fury only says "I am The Fury. I kill heroes."
• Brought Down to Normal: Kinda-sorta. When Doom and Reed finally face off, Owen evens the playing field, allowing Reed to fight against his rival once more.
• Brown Note: At the end of Siege, as the entity that formed the Shield rises for the first time, witnesses describe him yelling something that sounded like "a chain of thunderclaps" that "wasn't made on a scale our ears understood", and which requires a translator convert it into something that wouldn't just make the ear drums of anyone who heard it pop. The translation? It's clobberin' time.
• Bullying a Dragon: Doom's imprisonment and neglect of the Molecule Man is instrumental in his own downfall. Ironic, considering that the first time he came to Battleworld, he made sure to be nice to the guy because he knew Owen was dangerous.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Hercules, seriously. In the first issue of Secret Wars 2099, the guy tries to force himself on a woman, in the second issue, he gets his ass kicked by the Hulk, and in the third issue, he tries to hit on a very uninterested valkyrie and winds up unfit for battle after challenging her boyfriend to a drinking contest. Most members of the team can't seem to stand him, which is very understandable considering his behavior. But even in Korvac Saga, which features a different counterpart, characters mention how much they hate Hercules.
  • Phantom Eagle as well, although being a sleazy jerkass and coward, he kind of deserves it.
  • Cyclops might be Secret Wars' universal example, as multiple iterations of him all fail, or die, or both. (Not to mention the story treatment he got in Secret Wars, Too.)
• C-List Fodder: This trope gets heavily zig-zagged during the crossover. The heroes who survive the Final Incursion in Mr. Fantastic's life raft are all A-list and B-list characters, with no minor heroes making the cut, but the survivors in the other life raft include some minor villains introduced in the previous story arc. Also, since only a handful of characters are saved by the rafts, the majority of A-list characters are actually killed, while some (Thor, Iron Man, Captain America) had already died in the events leading to Secret Wars. However, almost all of the dead A-list characters appear during the crossover as their alternate universe versions. And at the end of it, the entire multiverse is created again and every deceased character is brought back to life. So no one in Secret Wars dies permanently, not even Doctor Doom.
• Call-Back:
  • Miles and Earth-616 Peter are relieved to see one another and greet each other warmly, acting as a nod to their prior team-ups during Spider-Verse and Spider-Men.
  • There are several subtle call backs to Secret Wars (1984), including more than just the shared title and the Battle World concept. There is the importance of the Molecule Man, Owen Reece, who first discovered some of his true potential when Doom removed the mental block that prevented him from restructuring organic matter. Then there's Doom gaining Godlike power. And it's worth noting that in the original Secret Wars, the first thing Doom did upon securing his power was to repair his damaged face, while now, that seems to be the one thing he cannot do.
• Cannon Fodder: The Nova Corp, much like its mainstream counterpart, does not have a very good survival rate in Battleworld, with versions of the Corp being eliminated in New Zander and Knowhere.
• Casanova Wannabe: In Secret Wars 2099, Hercules is portrayed this way. While his usual portrayal is that of a Chick Magnet and Handsome Lech, this book has himself refusing to take no for an answer from a woman he's hitting on, to the point of trying to force himself upon her. That said, he has a reason in the form of depression-induced heavy drinking.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: During the Final Incursion, as Earth-616 and Earth-1610 are at war, Ultimate Iron Man starts hitting on Carol Danvers. She's teleported away while telling him to shut up.
• Central Theme: There is no excuse for complacency. Doom's Fatal Flaw, and the main conflict of the story, is that he can't accept that anyone (let alone Reed Richards) would ever be better than himself at ruling Battlworld. Even knowing that his rule is imperfect, and that Battleworld can never survive indefinitely, Doom won't give anyone else the satisfaction of outdoing him, and he feels they should be grateful for what he's even done.
• Cerebus Retcon: The Spider-Girl miniseries, partially with May's bittersweet ending from Spider-Verse, ^note Where she realizes that killing her father's murderer would be wrong, accepts his death, and takes up his old costume, becoming Spider-Woman. by showing that she's still hung up over her father's death and angsts over whether or not she wishes she had killed Daemos when she had the chance.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The Lighter and Softer Ms. Marvel (2014) features an arc dealing with the events of the crossover, where she watches her beloved city fall to pieces around her ears.
• Chair Reveal: Done in Secret Wars 2099 when Captain America 2099 is talking to her boss, the head of Alchemax. His chair swivels around to reveal Miguel O'Hara.
• Cheap Costume: Annie's superhero costume.
• Chekhov's Gun: Miles giving Owen a cheeseburger. Owen tells him that he owes him one and does so by bringing him, his friends and his family to the main Marvel Universe and revives his mother.
• Civilians Are Irrelevant: The series ends with this trope pretty much in full display. With the multiverse destroyed, Reed Richards and his family (wife Sue Storm, son Franklin and daughter Valeria) take it upon themselves to remake the multiverse, creating entire universes from scratch, completely alone. The story pretty much acknowledges this is playing God, but argues that Reed and his family are the best people for the job.
• Clones Are People, Too: The Endless Summers, an entire army of Cyclops clones created by Sinister then discarded and sent to the Shield. They treat themselves as disposable grunts, but Abigail actually develops a crush on the lead Summers.
• Coming of Age Story: Years of Future Past is described as being one for that universe's daughter of Kitty Pryde.
• Composite Character: Many appear, due to the Elseworlds nature of Battleworld.
  • Captain America 2099 wears a suit with built-in Hard Light energy wings, giving her a skill set similar to that of The Falcon in addition to strength similar to that of Steve Rogers.
  • The Thunderbolt Ross in Arcade's arena became a cyborg to hunt down Betty's killer. He's now called War Machine.
  • Peter Urich is the Spider-Man of Technopolis, combining Peter Parker and Phil Urich.
  • Cassandra Nova of X-Men '92 is actually a persona created by Shadow King when he possessed a braindead female Xavier cloned by Apocalypse.
  • After getting a dose of the Goblin Formula, the Tony Stark of Spider-Island invokes this by splicing his Mark 42 armor with Green Goblin armor that Norman Osborn had been working on while running the Dark Avengers, dubbing himself the Iron Goblin. When called out on it, he quips that it's payback for the time Osborn stole his stuff and became Iron Patriot.
  • During Siege, Abigail Brand sees what became of her predecessor on the Shield, Nick Fury - he's become a version of The Fury, the hero-killing unstoppable robot from Captain Britain.
• Comes Great Responsibility: Practically the subversion heard 'round the world. The Peter Parker in Renew Your Vows gives up being Spider-Man to protect his wife and child from his enemies. And the world isn't suddenly free of crises, either. In fact, by the end of the first issue of Renew Your Vows, Spider-Man is now the last superhero alive and shown to be intentionally ignoring cries for help to focus on his family.
• Conflict Ball:
  • Mondo City invades Yinsen City because the former is running out of resources and the latter is resource rich. However, when Captain Britain simply asks Big Boss Hill why they didn't just ask for help instead of starting a war, she says that she knows that the world isn't that sugary. The Yinsen City side then proceeds to prove her totally wrong by offering them an alliance. The new baroness, whose father was killed during the violence, is not happy, but she gets over it for the sake of avoiding more bloodshed.
• Conflict Killer: Thanos walks into the wastelands, settles the differences between the Annihilation Wave, the Ultron Horde and the undead, then sics them on the Wall... mainly so he can talk to Ben Grimm and convince him to turn on Doom.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: There is an entire corps of Thors, made up of worthy candidates from across Battleworld. However, they are all individually weaker than the mainstream Thor, with the Cabal throwing them around like toys. Though Valeria Von Doom makes the implication that the denizens of Battleworld are weaker than their original counterparts in general, as she notes that the 616 Thanos is far more powerful than any Thanos in Battleworld.
• Containment Field: "The Shield" blocks off Perfection and the Deadlands off from most of the rest of the world, fortunately for everyone... Except for those who happen to be residing in New Xandar, who have the misfortune to be on the side with the warring zombies and drones - although they are protected to some extent by being surrounded by an ocean, along with Thanos's powers granted by the Infinity Gauntlet.
• Continuity Reboot:
  • Actually averted - while a new Marvel Universe is being made, all standing histories are still in effect. Played straight in regards to the history of the new universe, though. However, Editor-In-Chief Axel Alonso has essentially said that while Marvel is not calling it a reboot, it is up to the reader to decide if this is essentially what the series will be.
  • The company has since said that the post-Secret Wars universe will still retain the continuity of the classic Marvel Universe, but will feature a number of new characters and status quo shake-ups.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In Spider-Verse, when Gwen meets Peter Porker she remarks he looks identical to an imaginary friend she had when she was younger.
  • Several of the miniseries titles are actually from rather obscure comics published by Marvel in the Bronze Age, like Weirdworld, Masters of Kung-Fu, and Where Monsters Dwell
    • Alex Ross' cover for the final issue (#9)has nods to several moments from Marvel's stories along the years: the explosion of the Gamma bomb; Thanos, wearing the Infinity Gauntlet while talking to Lady Death; Tony Stark's worst days as an alcoholic in the "Demon in a Bottle" story arc; The birth of Franklin Richards; Doctor Erskine transforming Steve Rogers into Captain America; The Vision crying at the end of his introductory tale; Elektra being stabbed by Bullseye;The rocket of the Fantastic Four being hit by cosmic rays; Spider-Man’s crossover with a certain hero of another company (check Lawyer-Friendly Cameo below); Phoenix emerging from the Jamaica Bay.
• Continuity Porn: Weirdworld bring back a ton of really obscure Marvel fantasy/science fiction characters and races, like Warbow of the Crystalium, and the Magma Men. In fact some of them are so obscure, they don't have wiki entries.
• Corporate-Sponsored Superhero: The Avengers of 2099, making their debut here, are actually backed by the sinister Alchemax. In fact, all non-Alchemax superheroes are illegal.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Tyler Stone, head of Alchemax in Nueva York, as charming as ever. His son Miguel is only slightly better, even before he pitches the old man out the window to take his job.
• Covers Always Lie:
  • Several covers for the main series feature the Beyonder, who doesn't appear in any way, shape or form.
  • Due to a miscommunication, MC2 Spider-Girl appears on Nick Bradshaw's cover◊ of the continuation of Spider-Verse, but it's Mainstream Spider-Girl who will be appearing in the event. Amazing Spider-Man #15 reveals the reason why - Mayday gives up her identity of Spider-Girl and takes up her father's old costume, becoming the MC2 Spider-Woman.
  • Ron Frenz's cover for the MC 2 project for the event also depicts Mayday in her classic outfit; according to Frenz, this was less a Take That! at what had been done to Mayday in Spider-Verse and a direct request from editorial who felt having Mayday in her old duds would attract the attention of readers who may not have read Spider-Verse.
  • One of the earliest promotional images shows the Supreme Power version of Hyperion, despite the fact that he was killed in an issue of New Avengers before that.
    • Averted. It turned out that Hyperion and his teammates were somehow revived... just so they could be killed off again.
• Crapsack World: Battleworld is a piecemeal world that hosts various other worlds and the remains of their populations. Even worse, some of these worlds were not happy places at all - the worlds ruled by Apocalypse, Maestro, the Sentinels, HYDRA, Ultron, the world overran with zombies... half of it has already gone to Hell, and the other half seems ready at any moment to slide into it. Then, you add in the fact that this world is ruled by the iron fist of Doctor Doom, his rules enforced by Dr. Strange and the army of Thors.
• Crossover: The back-up feature to the FCBD issue #0 features the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy teaming up to protect New York from attacking titans.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The opening fight between the Marvel U and the Ultimate U heroes. The regular Marvel heroes outnumber and outpower the few remaining Ultimate heroes who weren't already dead, and eventually the Maker tells Fury they were never going to win the fight. Then the Maker unleashes the Children of the City, who start inflicting this on the regular heroes, until Cyclops shows up with the Phoenix and starts toasting them.
  • The Fury versus the Endless Summers. Afterward, the "endless" part becomes highly euphemistic.
• Dare to Be Badass: In Siege, Thanos gets himself captured and confronts the Shield, Ben Grimm. Ben had been convinced by Doom that he was needed as the Shield, but Thanos turns it around and tells him that Doom did this to humiliate him for all of his losses in the past. He, then, convinces him to finally stand up and take action, telling him "What time is it, Ben Grimm? What time is it?"
• Dark Messiah: Doctor Doom was this as Rabum Alal. And especially once he becomes the God Emperor of Battleworld.
• Dead Guy Junior: Peter's daughter in Renew Your Vows has a double dose of this. She's named Annie May Parker, after her great aunts Anna (MJ's aunt) and May (Peter's Aunt May).
• Decadent Court: At the capital of Battleworld, where its Barons plot against each other and can settle arguments with fights to the death.
• Debate and Switch: The lead-up to the event has several characters take issue with the Illuminati keeping knowledge of the incursions to themselves and then deciding to murder billions of (equally worthy of life) people to save their own world. Captain America raises two points in particular: after finding out that destroying one Earth will save the surviving one, the Illuminati don't even try to think of another solution; they just casually decide that Murder Is the Best Solution. Further, he argues that even if it's true that an incursion will destroy both Earths, the heroes should not abandon their morals when they're inconvenient and should instead Face Death with Dignity. So, between committing genocide to save whatever you can, and sticking with your morals until the very end, which argument is correct? Well, since both methods ultimately fail and a new world is created afterwards, the answer is still pretty much hypothetical. Although it should be noted that the Illuminati decide not to destroy the alternate universes because they feel like Cap was right after all. Too bad Namor and Maximus disagree.
• Decoy Protagonist: An odd case here. The Avengers story arc leading to this crossover obviously had the Avengers as the main protagonists, with particular emphasis put on the ideological conflict between Captain America and Iron Man. But the two don't appear in this story at all (though some of their alternate universe versions do), because they died when the final incursion began in Avengers #44. Some Avengers still play major parts in Secret Wars, but after the creation of Battleworld it undoubtedly becomes a Fantastic Four story, with the Richards family members and Doctor Doom taking center stage.
  • In 1872, it seems like Sheriff Rogers is the hero of the story. It's actually Red Wolf, who takes over as the protagonist after Rogers is killed.
• Defeating the Undefeatable:
  • In the prelude to the event, the Punisher is somehow able to kill the Scorpion, the Lizard, and the Sandman with bullets, something all three have previously been immune to.
  • In order to make Battleworld, Doom killed the Beyonders, who were able to kill every cosmic entity in every universe.
• Demoted to Dragon: Galactus is a guard for the capital of Battleworld, Doom's castle.
• De-power: Subverted with Thor She-Hulk in Yinsen City. When God-Emperor Doom takes away her hammer and Thor powers, it doesn't affect her at all because she never used the thing anyway.
• Despair Event Horizon: Reed Richards watching as his entire family is apparently vaporized in the Incursion shatters him horribly.
• Designer Babies: In Mutopia, parents can have their offspring be able to activate their perfect mutant potential. However, as the Beast points out, this is a double-edged sword - sure, you could have a super genius child who can do astrophysics before his first tooth comes out, but it's the secondary mutation that's the real problem.
• Determinator: The opening exposition for several issues makes it clear that Doctor Doom is holding all of Battleworld together by the sheer force of his will.
• Did Not Think This Through: Deadpool's ghost is kinda kicking himself for dying, realizing by doing so, he missed the actual event.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Doctors Doom, Strange and Molecule Man killed the Beyonders, who were strong enough to destroy the Living Tribunal.
• Disappointed by the Motive: When Captain Britain learns that Big Boss Hill started a destructive war against Yinsen City because they wanted the latter's resources, her reaction is basically, "Oh is that all? You should have just asked for help!"
• Disney Death: Pretty much the entire Marvel Multiverse that hasn't died up until this point is given a fake-out death until Battleworld is forged.
• Divide and Conquer: Apparently, Doom is doing this with most of the more "troublesome" baronies, such as The Warzone, playing many powers against each other to weaken and eliminate rivals to his power. But this goes up to Xanatos Gambit levels in Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders, where he pits Yinsen City against its warlike neighbor knowing that if they went to war, both would come out weakened and if they instead found a peaceful resolution (which they did), both sides would have their hands full maintaining such a difficult alliance.
• Does Not Like Guns: Tony Stark from Marvel 1872 refuses to wield firearms, despite the American - West setting of the book. His role in supplying the Union with rifles that led to a total massacre of Confederate soldiers who had no idea what they were walking into is what brought about this attitude, as well as his alcoholism.
• The Dog Bites Back: Seriously, Doom, you should have fed Owen more than you did. Maybe then he would have been kind enough not to strip you of your powers.
• Dolled-Up Installment: Secret Wars 2099 has no actual mention of Battleworld or the events therein outside the recap pages.
• Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Everything starts spiralling out of control on Battleworld when a bunch of Moloids working for Alex Power find the Cabal's liferaft and one particular Moloid, despite being told not to, decides he can't help himself and goes ahead and touches it.
• Downer Beginning: The ending to "Time Runs Out": Thanos and the Cabal con Ultimate Nick Fury and The Maker into invading Earth-616 to save their world, the Black Panther mocks President Barack Obama with the fact that everyone will die and, as Earth-616 and Earth-1610 go to war with each other, Old Man Steve and Superior Tony fight and are seemingly killed when a 616-Helicarrier crashes and explodes on them. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is before everything goes From Bad to Worse when the last Incursion takes place.
• Downer Ending: Considering the Failure Is the Only Option below, this shows up in several tie-ins:
  • Red Skull mini-series: The Red Skull intended on using Magneto and the Annihilation Wave as Cannon Fodder while he escaped, only to hit a snag when he gets tangled up with the zombies and metal-less Sentinels stop the advance. Magneto tries to kill the Skull only to be eaten by the zombies while the Skull is sniped and beheaded by Crossbones, who wanted to keep his specialness that way.
  • Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos: Shiklah challenges Dracula and though all of the supporting cast is killed, she ends up prevailing. Then she ignores Ghost Deadpool and decides to challenge Doom's rule, resulting in Thor Corps showing up and Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies wiping all of the resistance out.
  • Korvac Saga: Michael Korvac reveals the truth of the Battleworld to the Avengers and the Guardians. In response to this heresy, Thors show up and both domains with all the inhabitants get wiped out. Korvac only manages to restore the Guardians as the last act before his death.
  • Inhumans: Attilan Rising: The Inhumans attempt to bring down their world at the cost of everyone's lives. Black Bolt gains his infamous power and attempts to use it on Doom, only for a bored Doom to hit the Reset Button and change places so that Black Bolt is ruler and Medusa is the leader of the resistance.
  • Years of Future Past: The attempt to show mutants in a good light goes incredibly pear-shaped, forcing mutantkind, all one hundred left, into a Last Stand.
  • E is for Extinction: Cassandra Nova is revealed to have taken over Jean Grey's body hidden inside the Phoenix Egg. Professor X, having also survived and using Quinton Quire's body as a home, hops into Wolverine's so that they can pull both a "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight and a Taking You with Me with Jean killing everyone who wasn't killed by Nova's attack save for Xorn, who is revealed to have the Phoenix Force and is the "only Grey".
• The Dreaded: Reed Richards becomes this for God Emperor Doom in issue #4 of the main series. Other examples are Doom himself, his Thor Corps, Thanos, Apocalypse, MODOK, the Annihilation Wave, the Marvel Zombies and the Ultron army.
• Driven to Suicide: Xavier does this in the flashback to E is for Extinction #1, performing a Taking You with Me to prevent Cassandra Nova from using his powerful mind by firing two pistols into his head.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • Issue #4 reveals that Doctors Doom and Strange killed the Beyonders before Battleworld was created. Fairly surprising, considering that they were being set up as the villains for the series.
  • After being a prominent character through Hickman's New Avengers, and the series, Namor is killed at the beginning of issue #9 by a glancing blow from Doom.
• Dwindling Party: This is the basic structure of Siege. It deals with members of The SHIELD, who are the only things protecting Battleworld at large from the Always Chaotic Evil Hordes of Ultrons, the Annihilation Wave, and Zombies. Its leader, Abigail Brand, has to cope with what is essentially a Hopeless War, where everyone she knows is dying one by one and it's only a matter of time until the Shield falls altogether.
• Dying as Yourself: In Spider-Island, Tony Stark chooses to sacrifice himself because he can feel the Goblin Serum clawing away at his sanity, and he doesn't want to turn into a lunatic like Norman Osborn.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Punisher spends his last hours mowing down a bunch of terrorists, passing away just before the wave hits.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • The All-New, All-Different Avengers FCBD special unveils the new Avengers roster and provide a sneak peek at what Marvel's Universe will look like after Secret Wars.
  • Ms. Marvel (2014) joining the Avengers was revealed in a flashforward in Loki: Agent of Asgard prior to the release of the promotional image showing the new team.
  • The Incursion between Earth-616 and Earth-1610 actually begins in Deadpool #250, where it becomes the cause of the book's Downer Ending. It also appears in several other comics released just before the event.
  • The baron of the Regency, The Regent, is the Arc Villain for The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows and he's going to make an mainstream debut in post-Battleworld Amazing Spider-Man.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Against all odds, this happens to Dr. Doom. The end of the series shows him happy and content, having finally purged himself of his superiority complex and jealousy towards Reed Richards, which were the driving forces behind much of his villainy. Basically because Reed bothered to fix his face.
• Earth Is Young: Battleworld is revealed to only be eight years old. To the residents, however, it's pretty much ageless and no one remembers anything from before. Or rather they do, but as the false memories are constantly reasserted on top of the actual memories formed the longer the stay there it gets harder to remember what came before.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: This event gets kicked off after several Earth-destroying Incursions that ultimately lead to the collision of the Classic Marvel Universe Earth and the Ultimate Marvel Universe Earth.
• Elite Mook: The Thor Corps serve this role for Doom.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Namor and T'Challa forge one to defeat Doctor Doom. Even more impressive, knowing their relationship during their relationship in New Avengers run.
  • A number of villains unite with the heroes out of the pragmatic goal of saving what's left of the Multiverse. This includes Doctor Doom and Thanos.
  • Taken to absurd points when Red Skull (a Nazi) and Magneto (A Jew) team up to fight Marvel Zombies.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Karl Kaufman, the Phantom Eagle and a WWI superhero might be a cowardly, womanizing, Jerkass thief, but even he thinks the sperm factory the Amazonians have created using captured men is horrible.
  • In Guardians of Knowhere, Giogo, a crime boss on Knowhere, is led to a hidden cache of weapons owned by the deceased Collector by Yotat, a low-level stooge of a rival crimelord who had learned of the cache's location. Yotat hopes that Giogo will reward him by making him a part of his organisation. Giogo instead shoots Yotat and blows up the cache with him inside, disgusted by his teachery.
    Giogo: Loyalty is the only thing I admire, Yotat. You have none.
• Even More Omnipotent:
  • The Beyonders curbstomp through Marvel's extensive pantheon of cosmic beings, including the Living Tribunal.
  • Doom, after seizing control of the Beyonders' power, can produce this effect. No matter how strong or "omnipotent" another character is such as Phoenix!Cyclops, Doom has thus far shown capable of resisting their abilities and ending any battle within seconds.
  • Ultimately, the true omnipotent one proves to be Owen Reece, who goes as far as stripping Doom of his power and giving it to Reed
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: The end of the first issue is of the final Incursion between Earth-616 and Earth-1610, the last two Earths in the Multiverse, marking the death of everything and everyone in existence. Except for those on the two life rafts, but for all intents and purposes, everything has died.
• Everybody Lives: Not only does Reed closes out the story with this line, a majorly stark contrast to how Hickman's run on New Avengers started, but this is essentially true as the damage done by the Incursions is being undone.
• Everything Trying to Kill You:
  • Greenland, which is infested with mindless Hulks and gamma-irradiated wildlife, including bulls, grubs and plants. Steve Rogers even thinks that the rivers are more ferocious due to the radiation.
  • Beyond The Shield, exiles must face superpowered zombies, Ultron drones and the Annihilation Wave.
• Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which is not strictly just for mutants so maybe Brotherhood of Evil, full stop, but isn't only restricted to brothers either so Fellowship of Evil... wait that still doesn't sound right. From Marville. As opposed to all the different heroic groups of mini-Marvels fighting each other constantly.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • At the end of the day, Doom is still driven by his burning need to one-up Reed Richards.
  • The Maker betrays... pretty much everyone he ever works with, but he betrays Reed at the climax simply because he was annoyed by Reed being upset over meeting Sue.
  • Baron Mordo's entire scheme in M.O.D.O.K. Assassin took place solely because Doom appointed Stephen Strange as his sheriff.
• Evil Only Has to Win Once: The people on the Shield fight every day, knowing they only have to die once for it to all be over. Except not really, because Doom could just stop the Wave, the Ultrons and the zombies himself. He just doesn't because the Shield is his way of torturing Ben Grimm.
• Evil Versus Evil:
  • Many examples, Doom vs The Beyonders, Doom vs The Illuminati, Doom vs Red Skull, Doom vs a Celestial, Ultron vs Marvel Zombies, Goblin Queen vs Darkchild and The Sentinels vs MODOK to name a few.
  • New Xandar, aside from dealing with Magneto's zombies to the west and Ultrons to the east, is made up of 2 primary settlements, the Annihilation wave ruled by Annihilus, and Magus City, a surviving city ruled and protected by Adam Magus.
• Expository Theme Tune: The Recap narration of Giant-Size Little Marvel aims for this effect (with rhyming, floaty music notes and "DOOM DOOM DOOOOOM" etc. background effects).
• Expy:
  • Spider-Man Noir is one for Batman (both are Noir, Properly Paranoid Anti-heroes who wear all black and don't get along with their teammates). The difference between him and the other incarnations of the webhead are readily apparent, leaving him to stand out significantly.
  • As usual, Mandarin is an expy of Fu Manchu.
  • The Bosses of Mondo City are practically palette-swapped Judges. They even come with their own psi-division. Hammered home when a caption refers to one of them as "The Law".
• The Extremist Was Right: Doctor Doom's actions as Rabum Alal saved what was left of the Multiverse.

F-M

• Face Death with Dignity:
  • Abigail Brand and General Summers, facing the horde approaching with no weapons left capable of killing them, don't bother running. They just make a stand.
  • The final issue of Captain America and the Mighty Avengers does this with a doctor and an unseen patient (implied to be the reader), spending their final moments watching the Final Incursion and admitting that, as long as they acted, then what they did wasn't in vain and that, in the end, they were Avengers.
  • Many people who get sent over the Shield to be killed by Zombies/Ultrons/The Annihilation Wave do this before they are killed, including Captain Britain of New Avalon and The Punisher of Marvel 1602. Subverted with Hank Pym of Timely Valley, who is prepared to die but is instead rescued by Vision.
  • Agent Venom does this as he and the symbiote take out the Spider-Queen
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Tony Stark in Armor Wars, who is revealed to be Spyder-Man's murderer.
  • Clementine Cox in Where Eagles Dare who aligns with the Amazonians and makes Karl her slave.
  • Loki in A-Force, turning against the rest of the team in a bid to take over Arcadia and make it much more peaceful without She-Hulk's Loophole Abuse.
  • The twins in Giant-Size Little Marvel end up joining the supervillains. Of course as everything else in that series this is played for laughs and meta digs on Marvel comics in general.
• Facial Horror: Doom is shown unmasked, and his face looks like it's riddled with leprosy.
• Failure Is the Only Option:
  • The first issue of Secret Wars revolves around the greatest minds of the 616 and 1610 Universes trying to solve the problem of the Incursions in eight hours before the Earths collide. They don't. Luckily for them, a new Battleworld is forged, and they have a chance of figuring out how to salvage their worlds from there.
  • Many of the "Battleworlds" stories tend to end in this sort of thing, especially if the goal is to either go and kill Doom or escape the Shield.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Doom isn't the real god-like power on Battleworld. Molecule Man is.
• Faking the Dead: At the end, Reed, Sue and the Future Foundation children do this to help fix the multiverse.
• Fantastic Racism: Mutants are still treated this way and not just in the world of Days of Future Past, either, but to the point where Doctor Doom considers them a blight upon his world. This also leads to a "You Know I'm Black, Right?" situation between Storm and some other member of the Thors. For what it's worth, Apocalypse treats humans like cattle in his domain, and it is Magneto of all people who is preaching for equality between Mutants and Humans.
• Fastball Special: A She-Hulk exiled beyond the Shield gives Old Man Logan a truly epic one so that he can escape the Deadlands.
• Fatal Flaw: Doom's ego is ultimately his undoing.
• Fate Worse than Death: In Siege, getting captured by the Annihilation Wave means being turned into a horrible monster and being sent to kill your friends. This is the fate of Hank Pym, Beast, and Nick Fury.
• Fights Like a Normal: The She-Hulk of Yinsen City, who is a Thor in addition to having her Hulk abilities. When asked why her version of Mjolnir takes the form of a gavel instead of a warhammer, she puts up her fists and says those are the only hammers she needs. And boy does she back up her words the next issue.
• First-Episode Twist: The Multiverse is completely fucked... But Battleworld grants everyone the opportunity to forge a new Universe from the Multiverse's ashes.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: The Cabal, Miles Morales and the survivors on the Raft are all disoriented, all of them experiencing an hour inside their rafts while eight years have passed.
• Fling a Light into the Future: Dr. Strange scattering the heroes and the Cabal across Battleworld is this. So far, seven have been found - Peter Quill in Manhattan's Quiet Room, Miles Morales in the 616/1610 fusion Manhattan, the female Thor hidden within the Thor Corps, Namor in Egyptia, Captain Marvel in Bar Sinister, Black Swan in Doomstat and Thanos beyond the Shield.
• For Want Of A Nail: Many of the domains are based off of What Ifs towards various classic stories:
  • E is for Extinction's nail is Xavier going through with his suicide plan to stop Cassandra Nova
  • Spider-Island has the Spider-Virus mutating faster before it can be cured.
  • Hail Hydra is Days of Future Past with the Avengers instead of the X-Men, and Hydra instead of the Sentinels.
  Tony Stark: I've done the math. Whatever happens, one of us will die here.
  • Exactly when the timeline of 2099 diverged is unclear, but Miguel O'Hara is running Alchemax, and no longer Spider-Man, while Tyler Stone is stuck in a wheelchair.
• Forbidden Zone:
  • The Deadlands and Perfection are "jails" for those on Battleworld, with the writers stating that if you end up there, you've done something very wrong. Age of Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies revealed that those like Jim Hammond, Wonder Man, the Vision and Tigra are already there.
  • The Greenlands are considered this to the people of Dystopia, in fact the Maestro sometimes threatens to exile people there as punishment.
  • New Xandar is also isolated by the Shield, as what's left of the city is ruled over by Annihilus and his Annihilation Wave, along with a scheming Thanos. It's only "safe haven" is Magus City, which is guarded by Adam Warlock or rather his Superpowered Evil Side The Magus who secretly uses the Soul Gem to feed on the residents of his settlement.
• Foregone Conclusion: The heroes fail to stop the Incursions, but they are successful in creating a new Universe.
  • Doomed by Canon: A few of the Last Days tie-ins feature characters such as Monica Rambeau and Magneto desperately trying to avert the crisis by destroying the Ultimate Earth before it can collide with Earth-616. Obviously, the readers know beforehand that they'll fail since Secret Wars #1 ends with both worlds being destroyed.
  • Siege makes it clear at the end of issue 1 that the characters are screwed, no matter what they do.
• Foreshadowing: In Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars, Doom exclaims "Die, Avengers!" while battling Captain America and Deadpool, which Deadpool claims just about makes him an official Avenger. Once the Secret Wars crossover ends, Deadpool joins the Uncanny Avengers as a main character.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: The Warzone series, Where Monsters Dwell has nothing to do with the Secret Wars unlike periphery series such as Weird World and etc. that have some link to the events. This series is just about WWI flying ace, The Phantom Eagle who's escorting a fugitive English woman out of East Asia and ending up in an island full of prehistoric beasts (the cause of this has been going on for centuries, so even the anomaly isn't from Battleworld).
• Four-Star Badass: General America (The Steve Rogers of Warzone.)
• Freak Out: "616"-Peter does not like the fact that not only does the "Ultimate" citizens of New York know who he is, but he does not like the fact that there's a female clone of himself running around.
• From Bad to Worse: Carrying over from The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman), most of the Multiverse has been destroyed at the beginning of this event. It only gets crazier from there.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Yotat. He started out as a scrawny Opportunistic Bastard, but after getting blown up inside the Collector's weapons cache, he was somehow transformed into a musclebound brute who could even shrug off lightning from a Mjolnir.
• Fully Absorbed Finale: While the Fantastic Four comics were ended just as this event started, the team is still important to the event. Doctor Doom is a major antagonist, and the cover for the third issue strongly teases a confrontation between 616 Mister Fantastic and his Fallen Hero counterpart from the Ultimate Universe, the Maker.
• Genius Loci: Ben Grimm is the Shield.
• Genki Girl: Mill-E the Model Citizen, a peppy Robot Girl whose job is to convince the people of Battleworld's outer domains to submit to Doom.
• Giant Foot of Stomping: Terrax the Truly Enlightened sees the Galactus standing guard at Doom's castle and tries pledging his allegiance to it. Franklin just has Galactus stomp Terrax flat.
• God-Emperor: The creator of Battleworld, Doctor Doom, is described as being one. He's a rather justified example, as he did create it from the fragments of remaining creation.
• God Is Evil: Some of them, anyway. One of the stories in Secret Wars Journal follows a Mutant uprising in Egypt trying to overthrow their cruel god, an Alternate Universe version of Moon Knight's own Khonshu.
• God Is Flawed: God-Emperor Doom is professed by his subjects to be all-knowing and all-powerful. Doom himself, surprisingly, is the first person to admit his flaws... in private. If you are not Doom himself, Sheriff Strange or Susan Storm, repeating such things is the high crime of blasphemy. (And the latter two still need to tread very, very carefully.)
• Gone Horribly Right: As Alchemax learns too late, creating your own version of Captain America means that you have a nigh-unstoppable bruiser with Heroic Willpower determined to do the right thing no matter what.
• Good Versus Good:
  • The story begins with heroes from the Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Universe trying to destroy one another in an attempt to save their respective universes. It doesn't quite work out.
• Go Out with a Smile: Deadpool's final issue ends with Deadpool and his entire cast being vaporized by the Incursion of 616 and 1610, with Deadpool holding his daughter one last time.
• Götterdämmerung: Loki's Last Days arc revolves around King Loki deciding to play Ragnarök one last time. So who wanted to see Odin wielding a freaking minigun alongside his wife with two AK-47s fight against the hordes of Hel, Hela, and King Loki riding the Midgard Serpent?
  Freyja: For Asgard, we die like gods!
• Grand Finale:
  • For both the Classic Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Marvel Universe, along with the dozens of other Marvel Universes that get caught up in the chaos.
  • Marvel will be doing this for many of their series, with those ending in April or May 2015 being declared "616 Finales"
  • The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows is being declared "THE LAST SPIDER-MAN STORY!". It isn't.
    • The Fantastic Four as a whole also ended after this. Dr Doom also finally stops being a villain.
• Greater-Scope Villain: God-Doom serves as this for most of the villains in Battleworld. Nearly every villain desires to take him out and steal his powers. Regent, Red Skull, Apocalypse, Magneto, The Red King, Thanos and Norman Osborn are some examples.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Doom to Reed. Again.
• Groin Attack: In main title issue #2, Baron Sinister punches Brian Braddock in the crotch and almost kills him until God Emperor Doom orders them to stop the fight.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: New Attilan is revealed to be trapped in one. Every time the rebellion becomes powerful enough to overcome his Thors and attack him directly, Doom just snaps his fingers and resets everything (although with minor changes).
• Guns Akimbo: In 1872 Sheriff Rogers and Bullseye each carry two revolvers, however the Timely Valley Doctor Octopus takes the cake, simultaneously shooting eight revolvers.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: The bifurcation of Zombie Venom in the second issue.
• A Hell of a Time: Invoked by Illyana/Darkchylde after one of her demon minions turns Brooklyn into strawberry cream. Being a demon has its perks.
• Heel Realization: Dr Doom finally has one and lets go of his hatred of Reed
• Hell on Earth:
  • Another is one where the Spider-Queen was able to fully transform Manhattan into a city of Spiders. Spider-Island follows that universe's Agent Venom as he deals with this.
• Hijacked by Ganon: First the Beyonders were introduced as THE threat behind the Incursions... but after the creation of Battleword, it's revealed that Doom killed them all off-screen and took their power for himself.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • In this case, Reed Richards. Reed was part of the Illuminati. Reed and cohorts chose to hide from the rest of the world what was happening. And then, as the Incursion begins, Reed is helpless to do anything as the Raft shatters and his family is seemingly consumed by the destruction of the worlds. And then, he emerges from stasis to find that his arch nemesis, Doctor Doom, is now God of this world he finds himself in, and to be told this by a man he considered a friend, Stephen Strange. It's hard not to feel that Reed brought so much of this on himself.
  • This was how Doom defeated the Beyonders. To destroy the Multiverse, they created a Molecule Man in each one that would eventually detonate and destroy his home universe. Doom killed them by gathering all of the Molecule Men he could find into one place and detonating them right in the Beyonders' faces.
  • Norman Osborn is defeated this way in Spider-Verse when Peter Parker decides to jab a Thor's hand into the device that tapped into the Web of Life, giving Osborn brain damage via electric shock.
  • The Thanos in Infinity Gauntlet is defeated this way when Anwen tricks Thanos with a fake Infinity Stone, Death, which turns him into a skeleton.
  • How Doom is defeated in Secret Wars: he ultimately admits that Reed could have done better in saving the multiverse. Owen's quite happy to hear that and allows Battleworld to fall apart. Reed proceeds to prove Doom right.
• Hope Spot: The end of Siege issue 3. At great cost and sacrifice, the defends of the Shield have taken down the Fury, their former commander turned unstoppable killing machine. Then Thanos, Earth-616's Thanos, shows up (and makes clear in the next issue, is the one behind the Fury's attack, and he could easily reactivate it).
• Humongous Mecha:
  • Lila Rhodes and and Kiri Oshiro don these to battle Arno and Baron Tony at the end of Armor Wars. At the end, Lila's armor becomes a Thor.
  • The Novas in Infinity Gauntlet create one to battle Thanos via the Reality Stone.
  • T'Challa and Doom use their powers to create these in issue #9.
• I Choose to Stay: In Where Monsters Dwell, Clementine remains on the island and becomes a part of the Amazon tribe, while the Phantom Eagle escapes.
  Clementine: I'm the one in the tropical paradise with two hundred six-foot blondes.
• I Did What I Had to Do: To be expected with stakes and worlds this bleak.
  • Every person who does terrible things to try and stop the incursions repeats this line over and over again.
  • Doom and Strange say this more than once, in regards to why they rule Battleworld the way they do. Susan Storm nee Von Doom says the same thing regarding why she sold out her brother to become Battleworld's sun.
  • Said word-for-word by Spider-Man after he kills Eddie Brock/Venom in Renew Your Vows. It still haunts him.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Annie in Renew Your Vows has this problem - she has her papa's powers, but because of Regent's threat, Peter and MJ force her to hide it, which gives her horrible self-esteem issues. Later issues seem to hint she gets over herself and answers the Call to Adventure.
• If I Can't Have You…: When the female Loki is outed and captured, she decides that if she can't have Arcadia, then the zombies can, destroying the Shield and letting them spill out.
• Ignored Epiphany: After all these years, Doom finally admits that he is, in fact, flawed. Granted virtual omnipotence, with no Reed Richards to blame for his failures, Doom comes face-to-face with his own imperfections, which he fully acknowledges... Until it comes time to actually fix these problems. Doing that is beneath Doom, and anyone else who tries to do so will be dealt with harshly. In fact, the awful realization that Reed Richards would have done something better is what motivates Doom's actions throughout the entire storyarc. This entire mess was just an attempt for Doom to save face.
• Immune to Fate: It seems that the refugees of 616 and 1610 are able to slip past Doom's notice as anyone else who attempts to reveal the truth of Battleworld or go against Doom gets crushed horribly.
  • G-Man (an alternate version of Ghost Rider with a 1920's gangster theme) drives an antique car in Inhumans issue 1. Too bad it is destroyed by the Thors when they capture him in Greenland.
• In Love with Your Carnage: MODOK toward the Thor who crashes in Killville in MODOK Assassin. Her attempts to kill him in issue #2 only make him more smitten with her.
• In Name Only: Certain titles that share their names with previous comic events use their namesakes as sources for inspiration, but they go in completely different directions. Examples include The Infinity Gauntlet (which involves a team of Nova members going up against Thanos instead of an ensemble of characters), Avengers VS X-Men (which takes place in a universe full of baby versions of superheroes instead of the adult versions of said heroes), and Planet Hulk (which involves Steve Rogers and Devil Dinosaur taking on an entire planet of Hulks).
• It's All About Me:
  • In issue #4, Thanos immediately hijacks the conversation between Reed and Doom about how Doom's made Battleworld to tell everyone his opinion whether they want it or not.
  • Followed closely by Phoenix!Cyclops doing the exact same thing. Unsuccessfully.
• It Only Works Once:
  • Project Bellcurve in the Warzone, a power-stripping device only has enough to use one charge and they blow it on the Sandman for testing. Justified in that Steve wanted to test it on a willing subject in order to make sure it was not lethal, and then sends Spider-Man to the Iron to steal the resources needed to recharge it.
  • The Unite manage to hijack the Fury and get it to shoot itself in the head. When the Fury just gets back up again, Unite tries to make it repeat this. No luck.
• Jerkass: Doctor Doom, Baron Sinister, The Maker, and Ultimate Nick Fury among many, many others.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Doom may have Took a Level in Kindness in regards to Susan Richards, but he is still a megalomaniacal egoist and his burning hatred for Reed Richards still motivates him. When faced with the possibility that Reed and the surviving heroes from Earth-616 universe might be able to make a better world than the one Doom rules, Doom chooses to kill them all.
  • Baron Sinister is not nicer here than outside Battleworld.
• Jokers Love Junk Food: Miles reveals that he has pockets in his costume in which he stores snacks, justifying it by pointing out he's a growing teen boy, when he offers a burger to a starving Molecule Man. Peter asks when and how Miles got the burger. Miles says it was from before his Earth was destroyed. Peter says that makes it an eight year and eight week old burger. Miles says the eight years in stasis probably don't count. Peter counters by pointing out that it's still an eight week old burger and Molecule Man probably would be better off not eating it. But it's too late. Molecule Man scarfs it down. This leads to a moment that is both Heartwarming and Funny, as when Molecule Man helps restore the universe, Miles's mother is alive again, implying that his habit of stowing junk food on his person and Owen Reese's gratitude saved his Mom's life.
• Just Before the End: The events Time Runs Out and Before Time Runs Out, as well as the first issue of the book deal with the collapse of both the Marvel Universe and Ultimate Marvel Universe, and the desperate scramble to survive.
• Kill and Replace: In Secret Wars Journal #3, the Mandarin, Whiplash, and Pepper Potts from the Age of Apocalypse sneak into Old Town and do this to their counterparts living there.
• Kill the God:
  • The Beyonders have slaughtered entire pantheons of godlike beings, including the Celestials, Eternity, Infinity, Lord Chaos, Master Order, the In-Betweener, and the Living Tribunal. Eternity ends up being revived in the final issues of Silver Surfer, initially being controlled by Doom then freed once Doom's hold on Battleworld is shattered.
  • Doom himself killed at least one Celestial, and its head is the moon of Battleworld.
  • According to Dr. Strange, Doom himself then killed them, as in the Beyonders..
  • Numerous Barons have plans to try to kill Doom and take over Battleworld. For instance, Regent's Power Copying streak is because of this and he values Spider-Man's agility and Spider-Sense as the ultimate prize.
  • Spider-Verse: Norman Osborn is seeking to absorb the power of the Web of Life to empower himself and supplant Doom.
• Klingon Promotion: After Illyana Rasputin drives Baron Summers and the X-Men out of power, Doctor Strange and a pair of Thors show up. Instead of arresting her, Strange offers to make her the Baron as Summers was clearly too weak and ineffectual at maintaining the peace of the domain. She happily accepts and rules New York...for the span of a few hours before she's killed by her brother and his benefactor, Madeleine Pryor, takes over.
• Kneel Before Zod: God-Doom tells the survivors of the liferafts to kneel before him, and they'll live. Everyone tells him to take a hike. Later in issue #9, he tells T'Challa and Namor they can live, and he'll rebuild their kingdoms for them. T'Challa tells Doom his offer is pointless, and they're not bowing before him.
• Knight Templar: As agents of Doom himself, the Thors tend to have shades of this, but Big Boss Hill takes the cake, being both Thor and Baron of Mondo City, which she runs with a dictatorial iron fist. By contrast, her neighboring counterpart, the She-Hulk of Yinsen City, completely averts this and is stripped of her "worthiness" for it.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: In the first issue of the Battleworlds mini, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk and Ghost Rider have to team up to stop a Punisher who has been possessed by a Doctor Strange, giving him Frank's strength and skills plus Strange's sorcery. Only Wolverine survives the fight, and Doctor Strange ends up possessing him instead.
• La Résistance: It is a major crime to commit heresy by breaking Doom's laws. But groups exist in several realms which seek to overthrow either Doom or his barons, such as as Blackagar Boltagon's Inhuman organisation, General America's anti-registration forces on Warzone, the slaves of Egyptia, Frank Castle and Stephen Strange in Battleworld, Magneto's X-Men and the survivors beyond The Shield led by Red Skull.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia:
  • Issue #3 confirms that Doctor Doom has essentially locked away everyone's memories of the old worlds.
  • Averted in Spider-Verse. Issue #1 shows us that the Spider-People all seem to have retained memories of their prior worlds, with Spider-Gwen remembering being a musician in a band, Anya Corazon remembering her name, despite having a different one in this world, Spider-Ham remembering his unusual origin, and issue #2 shows us that Spider-Man Noir has retained a good chunk of memories from his own world.
  • Ultimately, the trope is zig-zagged to hell and back. A vast majority have their memories locked away, though it's not perfect. Doom worries about those who don't, though it depends - he allowed Faiza Hussain to keep her memories (most likely because he didn't see her as a threat), yet the heroes from the old world and the Cabal sends him into a panic.
  • Used at the end of Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars: the Wasp, either out of guilt over her reaction seeing Deadpool's disfigured body or disgust at his body, wished so hard to forget about Deadpool that everyone forgot Deadpool was involved.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In Where Monsters Dwell, the Phantom Eagle flies out on a tribal princess he got pregnant when she tries to get him to marry her (her father will punish any unwed mothers by exiling them to the Island of Dung). At the end of the mini-series - Kaufman manages to escape a world full of prehistoric monsters and blonde amazons, only to have his plane crash into the horrible Island of Dung and the exiled princess finding him and pressganging him into becoming a nuclear family.
• Last of His Kind:
  • Brian Braddock and Spider-UK are the last of the Captain Britain Corps.
  • Come the end of Issue #1, Scott Summers is now the last mutant from Earth-616.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Every tie-in spoils the fact that Battleworld is made up of pieces from the previous universes by Doctor Doom himself.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo:
  • Marvel's limited but still-canon run of Godzilla comics is referenced by Shiklah and the Howling Commandos finding Godzilla's skeleton in a monster-filled part of Battleworld.
  • Depending on whether or not Marvel retained the rights to Bug when they lost the Micronauts, the insect alien with Bug's verbal tick appearing in Guardians of Knowwhere may be a case of this.
  • The final cover shows a glimpse of famous Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man one-shot from the 1970's. Spider-Man is in the exact same pose as he was on that cover, and Superman's red boot can be seen as well.
• Leaking Can of Evil: The waves of madness plaguing The City is actually Michael Korvac's power overflowing and escaping his body as Doom ordered Michael to seal his own powers.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Loki in their tie-in so hard they could be mistaken for wallpaper. From King Loki lampshading how out of the blue the incursion is to God of Stories Loki discussing the merits of endings but how it's never the end of of all stories with Verity.
• Least Rhymable Word: The 4th issue theme tune of Giant-Size Little Marvel can't come up with anything to rhyme with galaxy so it tries to shuffle it away by printing it in extra small letters (and apologizing in a footnote).
• Legacy Character:
  • Another Nova is introduced in The Infinity Gauntlet series.
  • The All-New, All-Different Avengers is mostly comprised of characters who have taken up the mantle of other heroes, including Kamala Khan, Miles Morales, and Sam Wilson.
    • Also from the All-New All-Different Marvel to follow, X-23 becomes the new Wolverine.
• Let's Get Dangerous!:
  • In Renew Your Vows, when Annie refuses to head for safety and ends up kicking the Sinister Six's ass, Mary Jane decides now is the time to team up and save a captive Peter.
  • At the end of Guardians of Knowhere, the 616 Peter Quill reunites with the Guardians and warns them that Doom is not the person they think he is. They believe him with Rocket declaring that the Guardians are coming to get him.
• Let's You and Him Fight:
  • A big conflict in the Time Runs Out storyline is Steve Rogers is leading the charge against the Illuminati and trying to get them to surrender for their actions instead of working with them.
  • The mini-series Battleworld is set to showcase this, as well, with the first issue showcasing a bunch of superhero M.O.D.O.K.s attacking each other and a Dr. Strange brainwashing The Punisher and sending him after The All-New Fantastic Four (Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, and Ghost Rider).
  • The big problem over in Marville as the Little X-Men and Little Avengers keep squabbling and fighting over the twins. It gets to the point where they drag the Little Guardians of the Galaxy and Little Inhumans into their squabble.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • Where Monsters Dwell, the Phantom Eagle-led storyline, is slated to be a lot less dark than War Is Hell: The First Flight Of The Phantom Eagle.
  • Despite being part of Secret Wars, Giant Size Little Marvel: a vs. x is actually kid-friendly.
  • Secret Love is a one-shot comic filled with relationships about superheroes like Kamala Khan / Robbie Reyes and Danny Rand / Misty Knight, with little if any focus on the Secret Wars at all.
  • X-Men '92, especially compared to all the other X-Men domains, being from the cartoon, and Cassandra Nova wants to keep it that way.
• Literally Shattered Lives: The big showdown between T'Challa, Namor and Doom starts with T'Challa turning Doom to ice, and Namor smashing him with his trident. However, Namor acknowledges it's not going to be as easy as that, as proven when Doom immediately pulls himself back together.
  Doom: That. Hurt.
• Little Miss Badass: In Renew Your Vows #4, little Annie May Parker stops running and hiding, and starts wailing on most of Regent's Sinister Six.
• Living Lie Detector: The Shield has a horde of Shadowcats - who are actual, talking cats - who can smell lies on people.
• Loose Canon: This event like DC's Convergence allowed Marvel to publish books with the same character in a variety of stories. Some journalists are referring to this combined effort between the two publishers as the possible start of a "Prismatic Age of Comics", where the same character can exist in multiple contexts. The difference in approach, thus far, is that DC seems to have multiple versions of the same person running around (such as two versions of Superman running around) while Marvel is allowing multiple different characters to use the same name, such as two different Spider-Men, Spider-Women and Hawkeyes.
• Love Is a Weakness: The Maker was always planning to betray Reed Richards, but the clincher for him is when they run into Sue. Ultimate Reed can't stand the idea of a version of him caring about someone.
• Magic Knight: Strange-Punisher, a version of Frank Castle who has fused with the ghost of Doctor Strange, has all of Frank's combat skills and all of Stephen's magic powers. At one point he kills a Ghost Rider with a magical bazooka.
• Malevolent Architecture: It's revealed that New Attilan was designed by Doom to be an enormous broadcast tower that brainwashes the inhabitants of Manhattan. It's also revealed that it's not the only such place Doom created, with many baronies and areas that serve other purposes to maintain Doom's empire.
• Mama Bear: When Annie's school is attacked in Renew Your Vows #2, both Peter and MJ race to save her, fearing she's been targeted. While it's the Power Pack that was the real target, MJ does save Annie and Peter buys the Power children time to escape.
• The Man Behind the Man: In most books, it's revealed that Doom was, ultimately, the major villain behind some of their most persistent problems. He's the reason that most of the oppressive states exist (such as The Sentinel States, New Attilan, Egyptia, the HYDRA Empire, etc.). He's the reason that even Utopic regions ultimately fall (Arcade, Yinsen City, The Warzone, etc.). And he's the reason that the Arena and areas outside the SHIELD exist. In most cases, Doom rarely actually did anything directly, but instead allowed various agents and outside forces to sow discord and handle dissidents.
  Attilan Medusa: This is ludicrous. Lord Doom is all-powerful. Why would he need to employ such methods?
  Blackagar Boltagon: The same reason he lets others clean his toilets. Direct control of his minions is beneath him. New Attlan, and others like it across the world, keep his machine running smoothly. One less thing for Almightly Lord Doom to concern himself with.
• Manipulative Bastard: Thanos manages to talk Ben Grimm into doubting Doom, and his supposed purpose, suggesting that Doom made Ben the Shield as punishment for all those times the Thing opposed Doom. He's right, and Ben goes off to fight Doom, but Thanos isn't doing it for altruistic purposes. It also happens to take away the only thing standing between those zombies, bugs and Ultrons and the rest of the world.
• The Masquerade: In Manhattan, it's revealed that Doom has brainwashed all of the inhabitants to be obedient.
• Meaningful Echo: When he betrays Reed, the Maker zaps him with a device and tells him "did you know one can holistically visit the past?" A few seconds later, Molecule Man tells him "did you know one can holistically enjoy pizza?" and turns the Maker into slices.
• Meaningful Rename: Before revealing its connection to S.H.I.E.L.D., the barrier surrounding the Deadlands, Perfection and New Xandar was referred to as "The Wall" Once its connection was revealed, all stories mentioning it rename it as "The Shield", which goes hand-in-hand with the fact that Abigail Brand and S.W.O.R.D. fight to keep those in those areas away from the rest of Battleworld.
• Merged Reality: A cross between this and Reality Bleed, as various alternate dimensions are fused together into a new Battleworld.
• Mirror Match:
  • "Ultimate" Hulk vs "616" Hulk, "616" Hulk Wins.
  • "Ultimate" Punisher vs "616" Punisher, "Ultimate" Punisher kills "616" Punisher.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Molecule Man eventually gets fed up with how Doom never visits or feeds him and gives his power to the Future Foundation instead.
• Monster Town:
  • Spider Island is set in a reality where the Queen turned everyone - even the majority of superheroes - into Man-Spiders. At the end, some people choose to remain Man-Spiders, while others become pseudo-vampires, Lizards, and werewolves.
  • The Monster Metropolis, up until it and presumably all of its inhabitants were destroyed by the Thor Corps.
• Mundane Utility: The Matt Murdock of Bar Sinister uses his enhanced senses to be the greatest chef on Battleworld.
• Myth Arc: This story is the culmination of stories Jonathan Hickman has written since Secret Warriors and utilizes recent storylines and series such as Age of Ultron, All-New X-Men, Infinity and more. On a smaller scale, this is the culmination of stories Hickman wrote for Avengers and New Avengers.
• Mythology Gag: Boss Frost, psi-boss of Mondo City, hits an enemy with "the focused totality of [her] psychic powers!", a phrase Chris Claremont was fond of using for Psylocke of X-Men fame.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Monica Rambeau has one of these in the final issue of Captain America and the Mighty Avengers, when she attempts to slam into Earth-1610 at lightspeed and only stops when she realizes she would have torn through a group of kids playing, oblivious to what was going on.
  • In Silver Surfer's Last Days issues, he's tasked in recreating the universe for the heroes to go back to should they be victorious. As he does, he recreates Galactus and immediately regrets it and destroys him when the first thing he does is want to start eating the new universe.

N-Z

• Near-Villain Victory: The Beyonders are successful in completely destroying the Multiverse... Until Battleworld shows up. Even then it could still be considered an actual villain victory considering Doom is worshiped as a God-King... and is still a dick.
• Neck Lift: Doom gives one to Phoenix-possessed Cyclops and breaks his neck with ease.
• Needle in a Stack of Needles: When Dr. Strange scatters the surviving heroes across Battleworld, Thor ends up hiding in the Thor Corps... right under Doom's nose.
• Never Trust a Title: To Trolling Creator levels for Renew Your Vows. Despite even the title suggesting that the vows are Peter and MJ's wedding vows, the vow being renewed is Peter's "with great power comes great responsibility" mantra.
• Nice Guy: Sheriff Rogers (the Captain America of Marvel: 1872), pretty much every She-Hulk, and most Spider-Men, Women, Girls, etc. count.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars #3, it's revealed that Deadpool's the cause of the Venom symbiote going insane and that Doom killing all the heroes was because he got jealous of Deadpool's better looks.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Reed applauds how Doom saved millions of lives from the Final Incursion, because that's a nice thing. He also notes how Doom is effectively keeping everyone on Battleworld a prisoner instead of recreating their homes, which is not so nice.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Spider-Ham is a cartoon pig, which means that (aside from being able to eat pork without it being cannibalism) he can get hit really hard without getting hurt.
• No-Sell:
  • Several Thors attempt to tear down a forcefield The Maker is hiding behind, but are unable to even dent it. In fact, this is what convinces Doom to intervene in the fight.
  • Phoenix-Cyclops gets several good hits in Doom, even melting his mask with his eye beams; however Doom is unconcerned and promptly snaps Scott's neck, killing him in one hit.
  • Cloak tries to trap "Ultimate" Punisher in his cloak, but Frank manages to escape easily. Cloak himself states that this has never been done by a human before.
  • In the fight between Maestro and Silver Surfer 2099, Norrin doesn't even notice most of Maestro's attempts to kill him and remains completely unaffected by his sonic claps.
• Not Quite Back to Normal: At the end of the event, the Multiverse is restored... with a few exceptions, like Earth-833 and Earth-1610.
• Not Quite Dead: The Marvel Zombies issues reveal that Zombie Venom is still around, despite supposedly having been abandoned by the dying symbiote and finished off by Zombie Spider-Man. Of course, it's highly unlikely that it's that specific Venom, since the Deadlands are full of tons of infected alternate versions of characters, a phenomena Elsa Bloodstone (who at one point fights two zombified Saurons at once) and the other Shield personnel refer to as the "dupe effect".
• Official Couple: Quite a few that don't exist in mainstream canon.
  • Illyana Rasputin and Leah (Siege).
  • The big one is Doctor Doom and Sue Storm.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Doom isn't acting quite the same as he used to. In issue #2, he is about to sentence the entire royal family of Avalon to death, when Susan Storm gently admonishes him.
  Susan Storm: Victor. Mercy.
  • He turns to look at her and agrees. He even reaches over and touches her hand gently. This is unlike the Doom of old, who would have balked at the idea of anyone, least of all Susan, suggesting he moderate his approach. It is taken even further in issue #3, when Doom concedes to Susan that for all his power, he of all people now has doubts. Not in what he has done to save the world, but in how he has done it. He openly wonders if HE is the one flaw in this new world. Compare to classic Doom, who would have found the idea that he could make a mistake repellant.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • Doom killed the Beyonders by blowing them up with a bomb of multiversal proportions created out of Molecule Men. We see glimpses in a flashback, but that's it.
  • After getting Ben Grimm to give up being the Shield, Thanos goes and conquers the Annihilation Wave, entirely offscreen.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Pretty much every prelude comic ends with one, when major characters discover the forthcoming incursion. Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man, for instance, ends with Bombshell taking notice of Earth-616 looming overhead, which essentially turns the story prior with Miles taking out Ultimate Hydra and Ultimate Dr. Doom by himself, rescuing his father, Ganke and Ultimate Jessica Drew by himself into a "Shaggy Dog" Story.
  • In issue #3, Dr. Strange discovers Miles Morales and is waylaid when he finds out he remembers the old universe. As well, the reaction of all the Raft survivors when they learn that Doom is the "God" of the world they're in.
  • God Emperor Doom has a minor but increasingly erratic one in #4, as he discovers Reed Richards is still alive.
  • The end of Siege #2, which features a massive army of monsters lead by the giant corpse-monster of Nick Fury.
• Omnicidal Maniac:
  • The Beyonders basically want to destroy the entire Marvel Multiverse and see what happens. Also Ultron who wants to destroy anything that is "flawed" (aka anything that is not Ultron.)
  • The Maker, who knows full well by that point the Ultimate Universe and the Marvel Universe are the only two left standing, decides to blow them both up for no reason.
• One Curse Limit: In Spider-Island, Agent Venom uses this to free several enslaved heroes from the Queen's influence: it's impossible to cure the spider-plague outright, but further mutation (such as by using Curt Connors' Lizard serum, the serum that turned Michael Morbius into the Living Vampire or the jewel that turned John Jameson into Man-Wolf) can restore victims to their right mind, albeit with some side effects from, y'know, being turned into a wolf monster or pseudo-vampire. Flash got the idea from Werewolf by Night, who is just another of the Queen's spider-minions by day, and his normal (but furry and fanged) self by night.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. Many different versions of the same character often appear in one realm of Battleworld or another, but rarely interact due to the strict rules separating each sector of Battleworld. For example, the original 616 Namor is both a surviving member of The Cabal and a member of "The Submariners" that appears in A-Force. Exaggerated with the "Thors", Battleworld's overall police force. Each one has their own individual name, but they are also intermittently just called "Thor". This is in addition to the Thor Jane Foster in this case, who survived the destruction of the Multiverse outright. Thors, the series, also has a serial killer who murders the same woman (Jane Foster) over and over again because, or maybe thanks to, this. Also, there are literally several Steves, thanks to the many Captain Americas running around Battleworld.
• Oral Fixation: Peter Quill keeps chewing on a toothpick. Turns out it's Groot.
• Other Me Annoys Me: The Maker and Reed Richards are not thrilled to be working together. Ultimate Reed is annoyed by his counterpart being so old, and caring about his apparently dead family. Regular Reed, meanwhile, is disgusted by his teenage counterpart's It's All About Me attitude.
• Our Werewolves Are Different:
  • They infect Egyptia, explaining why Khonsu insists on a curfew. Mutant slaves try to escape but are infected, including Colossus and Wolverine.
  • One page in Siege shows a giant, multi-limbed werewolf Colossus. Magik and Leah ride him like a horse.
• Painting the Medium: Characters from the Ultimate universe speak in sentence capitalisation, unlike the all-caps of 616.
• Patchwork World: The Battleworld, just like in Secret Wars (1984).
• Physical God: Doctor Doom managed to get some of the powers of the Beyonders, allowing him to forge Latverion/Battleworld. He supposedly holds the planet together with his will, he can end fights with a flick of his finger, and all revere him as God. His only limit is that he still can't fix his face.
• Post-Script Season: The Old Man Logan storyline takes place after the original story. The same can be said for Spider-Verse. Inverted with Years of Future Past, as its story takes place before the actual events.
• Politically Incorrect Hero:
  • Spider-Man Noir who, while not actually racist, is still rather politically incorrect. (But then again he is from the 1940s so it is somewhat justified.)
  • Karl Kaufman refers to the black natives as "savages", skips out on a pregnant woman, suggests Clementine simply get an abortion if she gets pregnant, and doesn't think women should have the right to vote, though like Spider-Man Noir, he's from 1926, where they were somewhat more mainstream views (and even then the story doesn't try to use that as an excuse, and makes it clear that he's a jackass - or "flying ace and all-around jerk" as the recap pages put it - regardless of his era of origin).
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Doom against mutants, Apocalypse against humans and Red Skull against everyone who is not Aryan.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: Many of the series are clearly testing the waters for what fans may be interested in. While some, like A-Force, were pegged as future ongoings from the start, a few sleeper hits such as X-Men '92 appeared as well.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The sun. It's powered by Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch.
• The Protagonist: Doom was the protagonist of Secret Wars (1984) and while he's a major character in the second, the real protagonist is Reed Richards (who actually played a smaller role in the original event, with Captain America being the main leader of the heroes and Doom's direct foil).
• President Evil: Senator Kelly has became Commander-In-Chief of the Sentinel Territories in Days of Future Past.
• Pretender Diss:
  • Possibly. In issue #4, Doom notices Richards. The Maker quietly asks if he was talking about him, and Maximus notes that he certainly was not.
  • How Spider Hero got his name. Back in his reality, Hobie had tried to take up Peter's mantle as Spider-Man after the Inheritors killed him, but the Daily Bugle's first response? "New Spider Hero in Town. Definitely Not Spider-Man." Seems that title just stuck.
• Psycho for Hire: Bullseye and his Quirky Miniboss Squad in Marvel 1872.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Several; Apocalypse has his Four Horsemen in X-Men Apocalypse, Kingpin had Bullseye and his gunslingers in 1872, and Dracula has his Howling Commandos to name a few.
• Rage Against the Heavens: This is essentially the surviving heroes and villains big goal here - to take out Dr. Doom and restore their worlds. Thanos is able to persuade the Thing to rise up and fight back and the Jane Foster Thor is able to rally the other Thors as well.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: Brand tries taking a reading of the Fury. Apparently, the sensors blew a fuse.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Blue Marvel and Photon take Reed and T'Challa to task for leaving out virtually the entire planet in trying to solve the Incursion crisis. Monica, in particular, blows up at Reed when he tries to say that they just don't understand what he's gone through.
  • In #1 of the main series, Reed Richards from the Ultimate Universe gives Ultimate Fury a masterful one that completely kills any illusions anyone had about surviving the end of everything: "Let me assure you. This was always how it was going to end. You bought us no little bit of time. And that was remarkable for one whose time had long passed."
  • Strange gives one to Doom with the reasoning that he's gone so complacent in how they have things, that scattering the surviving heroes was needed so he could now be afraid.
  • In issue #8, Thanos attempts to give one to Doctor Doom about why he is little more than a false god, who should bow down to Thanos himself. It doesn't go well for Thanos.
  • In the final issue, Reed gives one to Doom, calling him out since he had the opportunity to restore the Multiverse, but instead only settled for Battleworld to satisfy his own ego as well as steal Reed's family and achievements. This is what spurs Doom to admit that Reed would have done a better job, convincing Molecule Man to transfer Doom's godhood to Reed.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: If you screw up bad enough, such as traveling between Battleworld realms without permission, you would most likely be sent to the SHIELD, where you you will be forced to fight a Hopeless War against endless waves of enemies that seek to breach the wall. Subverted with Abigail Brand, who actually wanted to get sent there.
• Recovered Addict: Hercules has apparently given up alcohol, implied to be due to poor moral behavior on his part.
• Recurring Extra: An interesting one with Ultimate Thor in the main series. He shows up a lot, but is never in focus or gets any speaking lines (though he does in Thors). He's still fighting in the midst of the final battle, when pretty much every other main character is dead or missing.
• Red Herring: Time Runs Out claims that Spider-UK had perished, but in actuality, he was nowhere near his team or his world, still on Loomworld when his world is destroyed.
• Refusal of the Call: The power of the Beyonders could have been taken either by either Strange or Doom. Strange refuses it because of the enormity of the responsibility and his relative humility.
• Rescue Romance: Due to false memories, this is why Susan Storm became Dr. Doom's wife. The space voyage that created the Fantastic Four, instead of having Reed Richards as commander it had Susan and Johnny's father. After the accident and crash-landing, the Storm family and Ben Grimm were attacked by monsters with the father getting killed. The others were about to be killed, when God Doom appeared and saved everyone. Further in the false memory, Doom and Susan got married and had two kids.
• Retcon:
  • Before it establishes some kind of new continuity, Secret Wars isn't above establishing new facts about the old one; for example, Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars establishes that Deadpool had a major role behind the scenes of the original 1984 Secret Wars series. A major change happens in issue #3, where it is revealed that Deadpool was the first host to the Venom Symbiote for a few minutes until he realized it was alive and interfacing with his brain, whereupon he returned it to its capsule out of concern that exposure to his twisted mind would drive it insane, just before Spider-Man walked in.
  • In New Avengers Illuminati Vol. 2 #3, the original Beyonder who caused the first Secret War was revealed to be an Inhuman who was also a mutant, though there were implications that this was all a mind-game the Beyonder was playing (which is the interpretation that Hickman is utilizing). New Avengers Vol 3. #30 confirms that the Beyonder was not an Inhuman mutant, with Hank Pym referring to the original Beyonder as a "child unit" of the Beyonders who are destroying the Multiverse, one who was content to play around with crunching planets together whereas the adults are dead serious on turning the Multiverse into a singularity. To drive that point home, when Deadpool sees the Beyonder's true form in Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars, he does indeed look like a child version of the Beyonders (albeit one with a serious case of '80s Hair).
• Retired Badass: Spider-Man of "Renew Your Vows" retires after the Regent kills all the other heroes, and kills Venom to protect his family.
• The Reveal:
  • Battleworld exists because it was created by Doctor Doom. The planet's real name is Latverion.
  • Sheriff Strange is the same Doctor Strange from the original Earth-616.
  • A minor, but still impressive reveal is also in this. Doctor Doom's scarred face is finally shown.
• Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: Loki: Agent of Asgard gives the readers a Gut Punch in the aftermath of AXIS in advance, with his Last Days arc being, if anything, a return to the Denser and Wackier awesome magic that the series is known for.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Yotat tried to sell out his boss to Giogo, but Giogo killed him for his disloyalty.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory:
  • Anyone who survived the ultimate destruction of the Multiverse retains their memory of how things were before.
  • For some reason, some characters (such as those living in the Spider-Verse) retain bits and pieces of their home realities and realize that something is currently "off". Noticeably, Old Man Logan also retains his memories and is very confused when he encounters a Thor (The only Thor in his universe is dead), which only raises more questions in itself.
• Say My Name: "RICHARDS!" Of course, while there's two of them there, we know which one Doom's talking about.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • In the FCBD special, Valeria gets the rest of the Future Foundation kids to finish the life raft so they can get out of Earth-616 and try to survive, though she realizes they got a fight on their hands trying to get out as 616 and 1610 prepare to fight.
  • After living through the end of the multiverse (and messing around in the nothing after it for a while) Loki decides to skip the main crossover entirely and go for the new world, with the reasoning that the Silver Surfer probably wouldn't appreciate their company and Battleworld has enough Lokis already.
  • In Siege 4, America Chavez, when Ben Grimm decides to go deal with Doom, sees the oncoming forces of the Annihilation Wave, the zombies and Ultron all united and coming together, and kicks a hole in reality. She offers Princess Kate a chance to come with, but it's not shown whether she accepted.
• Sequel Hook:
  • A few of the Last Days tie-ins deliberately set the stage for possible continuations after Secret Wars ends, such as Captain America and the Mighty Avengers containing a very clear lead-in for a new Defenders series.
  • Renew Your Vows has a continuation hook in it.
  • The Korvac Saga ends with the original Guardians of the Galaxy as the sole survivors of the territory as well as the only beings armed with the truth of both Battleworld's existence and knowledge of the universes which existed before.
• Sequel Series: Despite launching from The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman), the crossover is largely an extended epilogue to Hickman's Fantastic Four run, as the multiverse-shattering threat was introduced there, as was Reed's mantra of always trying and never giving up. Fantastic Four even featured Doom becoming a god and losing his godhood due to an uprising (further explaining why he's an oppressive dictator here). Hickman's Avengers run was itself already a sequel to his Fantastic Four run even.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • Bound to happen when using so many concepts and characters from across so long running a franchise. These are likely to be Hand Waved away by the fact that so many worlds are colliding.
  • Certain characters in Secret Wars #1 appear in different costumes than the ones they wore just before the event.
  • The Punisher's Last Days has an extremely noticeable one, as the tie-in starts right after he's already killed the super villains in issue #1, during the final incursion (which happens in under an hour and results in the death of everything), and follows him hours later on a mission. At which point everything should be dead/nothing left. It is suspected this was the case as a Take That! to Jonathan Hickman for trying to wrap up Punisher's story outside of his own book.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: What our heroes (and some villains) seek to do with with Battleworld. To the best of their ability, though.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Deadpool, a notoriously goofy character, is killed when the Earths finally collide. He is still the narrator of the Mrs. Deadpool series, as apparently, not even Death herself can make Deadpool shut up. Similarly, Squirrel Girl only appears in a Secret Wars Secret Love story where she wins a charity date with Thor^note Or at least "the one who flexes." Averted with MODOK, who has his own domain on Battleworld and is still relatively goofy.
• Shout-Out:
  • The second issue of the main series is called Doom Messiah. The eponymous character's aesthetic for it and the inter-region politics bring to mind God-Emperor of Dune.
  • The whole idea of the Shield, a huge wall separating the rest of the Battleworld from the Deadlands, certainly brings to mind a similar wall that isolates a desolate region inhabited by humanoid monsters from the rest of the realm it is located in. Other elements are also evocative of the series, such as the brotherhood of Thor Corps appearing like the Night's Watch or Kingsguard, the medieval court politics involving the Barons, and a political system of many kingdoms ruled by one overlord.
  • The Thor Corps are similar to the Green Lantern Corps, as beings from many worlds are selected by sentient objects with extraterrestial origins to act as "cosmic cops", if they are worthy.
  • Siege #2 features an appearance by a version of Kitty Pryde taking the form of a cat that knows when you're lying.
  • Captain Britain and the Mighty Avengers introduces the tough, helmet-wearing peace-keeper Boss Cage by stating that "he is the law".
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism:
  • The lead-up to the event explicitly uses this trope by having the cynical heroes show willingness to do horrible things to survive the incursions while the idealistic heroes refuse to stoop to that level, come what may. As mentioned in Debate and Switch above, neither side is shown to be correct.
• Smug Snake:
  • The ENTIRE Cabal. Needless to say, they all perish in relatively anticlimactic ways, including the Maker/Ultimate Reed, arguably the worst out of the bunch.
  • Mr Sinister thought he would be a new power in New York with his army of succubus/Boom Boom hybrid clones. Madeleine Pryor mind-controls one of them into reducing him into a stump on two legs.
• Spinoff Babies: Marville is home to the toddler versions of the X-Men and Avengers seen at the end of AvX Vs.
• Spiritual Successor: The story's structure in and of itself pays much more homage to DC Comics's Crisis on Infinite Earths than Secret Wars (1984). Incidentally, the aforementioned 1984 event series was made in response to the existence of the 1985 DC storyline, bringing the concept full circle.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Medusa and Black Bolt in Attilan Rising. The two are on opposite sides of a rebellion and over time grow to have intense feelings for each other—but their love also means that one of them makes a face turn and turns against Doom, one of them will die, and then Doom just resets everything with the two on opposite sides and the whole thing starts over.
• Start X to Stop X: In Spider-Island, the survivors decide the best way to save fight back against the Spiders is to inject them with serums of other monsters to rewrite their personalities and DNA, turning Captain America into Man-Wolf, Captain Marvel into a living vampire and turning the Hulk into a Lizard creature. It works but Tony taking the Goblin serum erodes his sanity, so he elects to perform a Heroic Sacrifice before he completely loses himself.
• State Sec: In the series proper, the Thors act more like this, patrolling the domains and taking away anyone who breaks Doom's biggest laws.
• Stone Wall: Ben Grimm has taken this to ridiculous extremes, due to the control of Doom. He is the Shield protecting the rest of Latverion from Annihilus, Ultron, and the zombies.
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: Everyone gets a happy ending in the end. Including Doom himself.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Phoenix-Cyclops and Sheriff Strange in Issue 4.
• Supernatural Martial Arts: The "Masters of Kung-Fu" series is set in a K'un-Lun where analogues of familiar Marvel characters exist but, instead of their myriad genetic mutations being the cause of their powers, they're all humans whose abilities are acquired from specific martial arts techniques. Improperly mastering them leads to malformed, uncontrolled abilities
• Supreme Chef: In the Bar Sinister, Matt Murdock works for Baron Sinister as one of these in Sinister's "Hell's Kitchen". His cooking is so good that even the God-King Doom himself finds it exquisite, and Sinister calls Matt the "fare-devil", as his culinary skills are "the key to any man's heart".
• Sword and Gun: Punisher 1602 uses a longsword and blunderbuss to battle the Marvel Zombies after being exiled to The Deadlands.
• Sycophantic Servant: Doctor Strange obeys Doom's laws to the letter and condescends anyone who defies him. The only exception seems to be when speaking with Doom himself in private. Even when meeting his fellow Illuminatus (Reed and T'Challa), he continues referring to Doom only as "God" until Reed is irked enough to ask for a name. When Reed calls him on this, Strange's only response is that Doom is 'very good at playing God'.
• Take That!:
  • God-Emperor Doom's entire existence is this. Especially the fact that he married Susan Storm and took Reed's place. It's quite telling that, for all the myriad characters and alternate versions of them in the Battleworld, there's not a single Reed Richards.
  • Doctor Octopus gets a lot of this. His zombie-self is virtually limbless and easily dispatched while the Spider-Man in the Regency blows off Ock's assertion that he is his ultimate foe. 1872 Doc Ock gets killed rather easily by Sheriff America, and Civil War Doc Ock gets killed offscreen by Kingpin. In Renew Your Vows Doc Ock is rather brutally mutilated by Peter Parker, since there are no police for Peter to leave Doc Ock for. For some reason, Doc Ock seems to be the resident Butt-Monkey for Battleworld.
  • In a slight meta-example, Secret Wars #1 shows Punisher killing a bunch of villains at a bar including some that were implausible to be at the bar, seemingly as a final great act before the end. Nathan Edmondson and Mitch Gerards basically start Last Days with Punisher walking out of said bar and spend the rest of Last Days killing ISIS instead.
• Take Up My Sword: Shiklah seems to be rechristened as "Ms. Deadpool", due to the fact that her husband, Wade Wilson himself, ends up dying at the end of his run prior to Secret Wars starting.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Avengers of Holy Wood and the Guardians of Forest Hills despise one another, but have to make nice for the cameras.
• The Gunslinger: In Marvel 1872, Captain America and Bullseye are heroic and villainous examples respectively. Also, Spider-Man Noir from Spider-Verse and every version of The Punisher.
• The Stars Are Going Out:
  • There are no stars left in existence; the Battleworld's sun is actually Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. Some inhabitants of the Battleworld however, retain some memory of how the world was before and the total absence of stars is one of the things that tip them off.
  • This is actually one of the triggers which brings about the Madness Plague in The Korvak Saga.
• The World Is Always Doomed: Averted. Both the main series and the tie-in materials treat this particular apocalyptic event with extremely heavy gravitas. In a world where Alien Invasions, Planet Eaters, Eldritch Abominations, Multiversal Conquerors, Reality Warpers, and more threaten on what seems like a weekly basis, this event has dire and macabre events like Apocalypse Cults, mass suicides, and other things you'd expect to find in a Disaster Movie about The End of the World as We Know It. This doesn't stop some characters in-universe expressing the notion including a member of the Council of Worlds and a Mighty Avengers volunteer (who changes her mind later when her job devolves into being suicide prevention hotline).
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: In Renew Your Vows, little Annie fears Venom is still around, freaking out when Mary Jane pulls out Peter's old black and white costume.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Averted and played straight in Renew Your Vows. Averted when Peter does not hesitate to kill Venom/Eddie Brock to defend his family; although he regrets it having to do it, he does not regret the deed itself. Played straight when Peter seems like he is going to kill Regent, he instead knocks him out and gives him to the newly rebuilt Shield, lead by Hawkeye.
  • Actually averted in most of the Secret Wars 2015 stories, possibly due to the brutal nature of Battleworld; nearly every major hero kills someone at some point of the series.
• Those Two Guys: Maximus and the evil Reed Richards from the Ultimate Universe become this in issue #4 of the main series, heckling and jeckling from behind a forcefield that the Thors can't break into.
• Time Skip: Several are tied to the event, all tied to the number 8:
  • The events of Secret Wars #1 (and Time Runs Out storyline leading to it) occur eight months after most of the other Marvel comics published at the same time, which allows other storylines to occur and have a proper ending before the end of the world.
  • The events of Secret Wars #2 pick up eight years after the total collapse of the Multiverse and the creation of the Battleworld, allowing things to settle into the new status quo. The survivors of the last incursion spend this time in stasis and are initially unaware of the time that had passed.
  • After the event ends, another time-skip of eight months will take place, allowing for series under "All-New, All-Different" banner to start with a clear jumping point for new readers.
• To Be Lawful or Good: In Secret Wars 2099, when Captain America and Hercules are given the choice of allowing the Defenders to be arrested, or keeping Cap's word that they can leave Alchemax if they want to, they choose the latter even though it means taking on Alchemax and the rest of the Avengers.
• Too Dumb to Live: What good did Johnny Storm think it was giving to do, challenging God Mode Doom? Only his sister's love spared him from death, and right now he probably wishes it hadn't.
  • Sure, Thanos, approach the man who defeated the Beyonders, wields their power, and has the largest ego this side of the multiverse, and call him a false god and demand he get on bended knee before you. That'll end well. You know, so long as you weren't using your spine.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Poor Sheriff Rogers...
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Readers would be forgiven for not knowing that Battleworld's Stephen Strange is the same one from Earth-616, considering how condescending he acts and how much he sucks up to Doctor Doom. Even Reed Richards can't believe it.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Only one level, but it was taken nonetheless. Doctor Doom isn't quite the megalomanic we know. See Tragic Villain below. (He still hates mutants however, and treats his subordinates very poorly.)
• Touché: Doom admits to Susan Storm that the only thing he can't do with his nigh-omnipotent power is (for some unexplained reason) fix his destroyed face. In the finale, Doom admits that deep down, he knows that Reed would figure out how to save the Multiverse, and wield virtual omnipotence, better than he did. And what is the last scene that ends the miniseries? Doom removing his mask and realizing that his face is now fixed. Even Doom laughs at this.
• Tragic Villain: Doctor Doom has apparently evolved into this in the time since Battleworld's creation. He has uncharacteristically begun to doubt himself, and truly relies on others, particularly Susan. He even outright admits that he is the only flaw that exists in the world he created.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • The "Battleworld" announcement video revealed the locations where a few of the titles take place before they were officially announced on the site.
  • The cover to Secret Wars #3 (and variants thereof) spoiled that Namor's Cabal survive the events of Avengers #40 months before the event even started.
  • As far as post-Secret Wars content goes, Marvel has made it clear that a new team of Avengers (detailed above) will make it through the event, along with the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), and the X-Men - although which Universes these characters originally herald from are unclear, and it is uncertain if the Fantastic Four and the X-Men will even have the same team members.
  • The first issue of the new Iron Man book also reveals, well before Secret Wars is over, that Victor Von Doom will not only survive, but that his face will be restored, save for a scar near his left eye.
• Trilogy Creep: The main story was originally going to run for eight issues, but the storyline itself was stretched out to nine issues with delays put into place.
• Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Reed and Doctor Doom in issue #9.
• Unexplained Recovery: Future Imperfect ends with The Maestro stuck inside a Lotus-Eater Machine, with no chance or desire to escape it. Come issue 8 of the main series, and he shows up none the worse for wear.
• Un-person:
  • At least to Spider-Gwen in Spider-Verse #1 as she is in Arachnia, a world where Gwen died.
  • Reed Richards. He has no alternate within Battleworld and his arrival causes Doom to fall apart.
  • Star Lord as well. Peter Quill gets around this by pretending to be Steve Rogers.
• Unsound Effect: From Siege, "Enlightenment", and soon after, "Enlightenment Max!" Later on, there's "SOUNDOFTIMEANDSPACERIPPINGAPART".
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • In the first issue, we have both The Ultimates to the Cabal (convinced not only to destroy Earth-616, but to go out and actively hunt down the heroes) and everybody but the Cabal to the Maker, who plays them all like fiddles while he accelerates the Incursion to a destruction point.
  • In Inhumans: Attlian Rising, it's revealed that every Baron is basically this for Doom. Each regency has a role to play in Doom's ultimate "machine", some of whom are either unaware of this or flat out brainwashed into compliance.
• Utopia:
  • This is what Arcadia is set up to be, apparently mostly thanks to baroness She-Hulk rules lawyering Doom's law like there is no tomorrow.
  • As is Yinsen City, conveniently bordering Mondo City, a 1984 type Dystopia. When they rebel Doom just lifts the "no crossing the borders" law, the reaction is predictable.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Subverted, though, in that Battleworld isn't actually a "utopia" by any means and Doom knows it. It's just the best he can do, given the alternative.
• Villains Do The Dirty Work: Zig-Zagged Trope. We learn that Doctor Doom has been destroying Earths across the multiverse in order to buy time against the Beyonders, who would destroy everything if they had their way. Similarly, The Maker starts doing this in the Ultimate Universe and Namor, Thanos and the Cabal join in at some point as well. When the same information reaches The Illuminati, though, they reach the exact same conclusion as the villains and begin destroying Earths even as they fight those worlds' heroes. The lone opposing voice in all this was Steve Rogers, who was the only one to suggest an alternate solution and then gets mind-wiped and booted from The Illuminati for his trouble. When the rest of the heroes of the world learn what's been going on, the vast majority of them are pissed, but it's far too late for another solution to be found now.
• Villain World: Dr. Doom rules Battleworld and many of the Domains are run by villains as well.
• Villainous Breakdown: Issue 4 is easily showing Doom is heading in this direction, due to the fact that his hated rival Reed Richards is on Battleworld.
  • He finally snaps in the final issue when the Molecule Man revokes his power and Reed is poised to take everything away and do what he did, but BETTER.
• Was Once a Man: An all-too common fate to anyone who goes into the wastelands beyond the Shield, like one version of Hank McCoy, or General Fury, turned into The Fury, an unstoppable, unkillable cyborg monster.
• We Can Rule Together: The female Loki tries to rope Nico into trying to rule Arcadia as mother and daughter. However, Nico had already realized it was Loki who got America Chavez banished to the Shield and turns her down.
• We Could Have Avoided All This: In the Time Runs Out and Last Days arcs, many heroes call out the Illuminati for keeping the incursions secret until it was far too late for anyone to help.
• We Have Become Complacent: When the surviving characters from the old multiverse come face-to-face with Doom, they accuse him and Strange of this. Strange explains the faults of Doom's creation and the heroes (especially Phoenix in Cyclops' body) chide Doom for choosing to rule such a sad world instead of wiping it and starting over again.
• We Have Reserves: Abigail Brand tries throwing the Endless Summers at The Fury. This rapidly results in their name becoming something of a misnomer.
• Weird Moon: Battleworld's moon, Knowhere, is a Celestial's head, apparently the result of Doom decapitating the being when it threatened Battleworld.
• Weird Sun: Maximus notes that Battleworld's sun orbits it, rather than the other way around. Weirder still, as punishment for defying God-Emperor Doom, Johnny Storm is now fuelling the sun.
• Weird West:
  • 1872 is a more straight version of this trope, combining gunslingers and Native Americans with cyborgs and ninjas.
• Wham Episode:
  • Issue #1. The worlds go to war and when it seems that the 616 will be victorious, the Maker double-crosses everyone, forcing those on 616 to try to escape. As the Incursion hits, Mister Fantastic watches in horror as a portion of the raft is struck, seemingly killing the rest of the Fantastic Four. This leaves him, Cyclops (now the last mutant in the 616), Spider-Man, Thor, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Star-Lord, Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange, and Molecule Man as the sole survivors.
  • Issue #2. Battleworld is forged. It was created by the God Emperor Doctor Doom. The Cabal arrive.
  • Issue #3. Doom and Strange discuss the origins of Battleworld. Oh, and the heroes on the Raft arrive... then, who are those in The Ultimate End?
  • Plot holes that were resolved by retconning those ''Ultimate End" universes as universes similar to, but not identical, to Earths-616 and -1610.
  • Issue #4: The survivors on the Raft and Strange confront the Cabal. Doom intervenes, kills Scott, and then kills Strange after he scatters everyone across the world to spare them from Doom's wrath.
  • Issue #6: Black Panther discovers an Infinity Gauntlet in Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum while Thanos convinces Ben Grimm to rise up and attack once more.
  • Issue #7: Black Panther takes charge of all of the dead forces from beyond The Shield with Namor watching and being snarky, cementing that T'Challa truly is the "King of the Dead." Namor even asks the zombies if they have the balls to argue with their king. It's both awesome and hysterical.
  • Issue #8: Thanos is brutally killed by Doom, the Thing allows himself to be obliterated by Galactus when he sees Franklin Richards is piloting it, and Star-Lord throws his toothpick down onto Yggdrasil when his fight against Black Swan goes bad, not realizing that that toothpick is actually a piece of Groot which then fuses with Yggdrasil and continues the fight against Galactus. Finally, Black Panther and Namor arrive with their army of zombies... and Black Panther is wearing the Infinity Gauntlet.
• Wham Line: "You're in a damn tricky mood today, aren't you?" This line from issue 3 is the first line we get from Strange that isn't toeing the company line or being Doom's sycophant. This is when we learn that he isn't quite the devotee he seemed to be.
• Wham Shot:
  • In Issue #2 of Secret Wars, the shot of the Thors bowing before Doctor Doom, the All-Father.
  • Issue #6 has Ben Grimm rising from the Shield.
• What You Are in the Dark: Last Days arcs are usually this. It's the end of the world and you can do nothing to stop it, whatever you do no one will ever know (except the readers of course). What do you do? Still try to save people and be a hero no matter how futile it is? Spend time with your loved ones? Panic? Party While Rome Burns? Hatch plans to save your own ass?
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • The Mighty Avengers' Last Day arc includes one of these directed at the Avengers - and more specifically Reed Richard's Illuminati - for the whole storyline that led up to this.
  • Secret Wars 2099 has Captain America 2099 slug Hercules, not too fond of the latter's womanizing.
  • Issue 3 has the surviving heroes finally emerge from the raft that saved their lives. It's revealed that not only is the Doctor Strange of Battleworld the same one we know from Earth-616, but he'd actually found the raft three years prior and did nothing. Reed Richards is pissed, and even moreso when he learns that Doom is the "god" that rules this world.
  • At the end of Giant-Size Little Marvel, the twins get fed up and chew out Iron Man, Cyclops and Medusa for their fighting over them.
• While Rome Burns:
  • During the Final Incursion, Kingpin emails several other supervillains, inviting them all to come drink with him and watch all of their enemies die. Then the Punisher crashes the party.
  • In Wolverines, it turns out that Mystique did this. Her lover, Destiny, learned about the Incursions and set about a convoluted plot to revive Logan after his death as he would be the means to help save the day. However, Mystique thought it was to revive Destiny and when she learned the truth, she stopped right then and there, deciding that Earth can burn rather than let Logan return.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Part of Where Monsters Dwell is a hilariously twisted and subverted/inverted parody of another franchise's mythos (2017 has especially made it Hilarious in Hindsight).
  • One can make a very good case that the entire story arc is just Crisis on Infinite Earths using Marvel characters.
• Wolverine Publicity:
  • The early covers mostly highlight characters people know from the movies (The Avengers, Star-Lord, Thanos, and Spider-Man) or characters who had movies in the works, if not already released at the time (Reed Richards, Doctor Doom, Black Panther, Black Bolt, Captain Marvel, and Jean Grey). The exceptions are characters like Miles Morales and Jane Foster, who already garnered mainstream publicity when they were announced.
  • Marvel Zombies is certainly shaping up to be this, as they currently have two titles under their umbrella.
  • The X-Men get more comics in the event than all of the Avengers-related characters.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Downplayed when the Illuminati and Captain America try to use the Infinity Gems to stop an Incursion. It works... but the sheer amount of power need to stop an Incursion is too much for even the Gems and, with the exception of the Time Gem, they shatter.
  • The Beyonders in the build-up to the end of everything dispose of the Living Tribunal, the Celestials, and the Abstracts, all omnipotent in their own rights.
  • Cyclops-Phoenix, having god-like power, gets killed by Doctor Doom to establish his own god-like power. Unlike some examples, Cyclops-Phoenix gets a few good hits in, instead of being No Selled, and considering how powerful the Beyonders - whose power Doom stole - were, it's fairly respectable.
• Worthy Opponent: Thanos thinks very highly of the Fantastic Four, especially the Thing.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Deconstructed. Reed thinks that Doom COULD be better than what he is, but at the end of the day, he and Victor both know that Reed will always be superior.
• You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: Reed lambasts Doom for mashing all the dimensional remnants into Battleworld instead of using his newfound power to actually repair the multiverse.
• You Kill It, You Bought It:
  • How baronies work. Every baron is expected to be self-reliant and capable of policing their own realm, no matter what. If conflict breaks out and a realm is conquered by another party, God-Emperor Doom simply appoints them the new baron. This serves the purpose of forcing barons to keep their eyes focused below rather than above. It's harder for barons to plot against Doom if they're worried about being supplanted themselves. In fact, Doom will intentionally sow discord in realms where barons seem a bit too powerful or too ambitious.
  • On top of this, Baron Zemo from one of the Hydra territories ends up inheriting the Gorilla Curse which transfers to the killer of its previous victim (Gorilla Man).
  • Also how being Fairy Queen works in the 1602 tie-in so Angela inherits the title and power from Amora at the end of that series.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Illyana Rasputin (Darkchild) is frustrated when her efforts to torture and control Nightcrawler fail to break him despite his half-demon heritage. He boasts that nothing she does will work since his faith is strong and his soul pure. This gives her the idea to yank his soul out and see what happens to the body. With his soul gone, Nightcrawler warps into a demonic dragon-like killing machine under her control.
  • Adam Warlock, or rather the Magus, secretly uses the Soul Gem to feed off the souls of the inhabitants of Magus City, the only apparent safe haven in Nu-Xander.
• Zombie Apocalypse: The Deadlands is a region where this has long since happened. Although said region is blocked off from most of Battleworld, the Perfection and New Xandar regions are exposed to it. In Age of Ultron vs Marvel Zombies #2 it is revealed that Ultron and his army have formed a temporary alliance with Magneto, the king of the zombies, so they can get past the Shield and invade the rest of Battleworld.

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The Marvel Universe (1961-2015) | The Ultimate Universe (2000-2015)