History of the Marvel Universe #6 Review
Author: Mark Waid
Artist: Javier Rodriguez
Publisher: Marvel Entertainment
After six issues of re-tellings and massive amounts of exposition, History of the Marvel Universe is coming to an end. The series promised to retell the history of... well, the Marvel Universe, and that it has. The first couple issues told the history of the early universe, from the big bang through the 20th century. The middle two issues told the story of the Marvel Universe in the early years, aka the 60s-90s of publishing. The final two issues have been telling more recent Marvel history, and even looks to the future of it.
The issue opens up towards the end of the framing story. If you forgot (since it has been a while since #5), Galactus is retelling the story of the universe to Franklin Richards just before the heat death of the universe, and before Galactus sacrifices himself to birth the next one. Galactus is falling apart, and it's suprisingly pretty emotional! The series has done a stellar job of turning the duo into real friends; they realistically spent trillions of years together with nothing but each other, so it's understandable that they each got over their differences and became friends, and really sweet; it really humanized Galactus for me; I've never read a story where he was this human before.
With only minutes left before he has to sacrifice himself, Galactus recounts the final years of Marvel that we know of; he talks about Hickman's famous Avengers run that culminated in Secret Wars, the birth of the new generation of heroes, Kamala Khan, Sam Alexander, and Miles Morales. He briefly goes over the following events, like Secret Empire, Inhumans vs. X-Men, and War of the Realms. He even talks about things that have only just happened, like Jane Foster becoming Valkyrie, and Hickman's complete X-Men overhaul that happened in House of X and Powers of X!
The final events that Galactus goes over are different from everything else that's come before, though. He goes over things that haven't even happened yet. I don't mean things that haven't happened chronologically, because Galactus is at the end of time itself, everything has happened (he even goes over alternate futures, like Age of Apocalypse and 2099). I mean things that haven't been published by Marvel yet. We learn about the wedding of Emma Frost and Tony Stark, the supposed death of Danielle Cage, the fate of Mephisto, and more. It's a really cool page that promises a lot.. I don't know if we'll ever see this stuff, but it's really cool nonetheless.
At the end of the issue, Galactus' sacrifice happens. His last story he tells is that throughout all of history, throughout all of time itself and every possible future, Earth never yielded, never stopped fighting. I haven't read every Marvel comic ever, I'm only just now getting into comics, but.... man. That hit me pretty hard. Galactus then removed his helmet and gave it to Franklin (the new Galactus for the next universe??!); he turned into pure energy, and became the next big bang. But before that, he dropped another line that hit me even harder than the last. Among his last words, we see a page of every Marvel hero ever, standing like they're in a giant group picture. And we see the words... "With great power, must come great responsibility."
After that, the next big bang happens, and the issue fades to white. And that's the history of the Marvel Universe. I'm not gonna lie, I criticized the past couple issues for being too exposition-heavy, but this issue wasn't like that at all. Or at least it was, but the ending hit me so hard emotionally that it didn't matter. Galactus's line about Earth never yielding is the point of Marvel Comics, and of all superhero comic books, really. The art and writing felt like a tribute to the style of art from the 60s and 70s of Marvel Comics, and it made the line about responsibility even more powerful; it was like it stepped back to the very beginning, when Stan Lee created Spider-Man, to give us the best line from one of the best creators ever. This series was amazing; it's a tribute to all of Marvel Comics, and to Stan Lee himself for what he created.
Artist: Javier Rodriguez
Publisher: Marvel Entertainment
After six issues of re-tellings and massive amounts of exposition, History of the Marvel Universe is coming to an end. The series promised to retell the history of... well, the Marvel Universe, and that it has. The first couple issues told the history of the early universe, from the big bang through the 20th century. The middle two issues told the story of the Marvel Universe in the early years, aka the 60s-90s of publishing. The final two issues have been telling more recent Marvel history, and even looks to the future of it.
The issue opens up towards the end of the framing story. If you forgot (since it has been a while since #5), Galactus is retelling the story of the universe to Franklin Richards just before the heat death of the universe, and before Galactus sacrifices himself to birth the next one. Galactus is falling apart, and it's suprisingly pretty emotional! The series has done a stellar job of turning the duo into real friends; they realistically spent trillions of years together with nothing but each other, so it's understandable that they each got over their differences and became friends, and really sweet; it really humanized Galactus for me; I've never read a story where he was this human before.
With only minutes left before he has to sacrifice himself, Galactus recounts the final years of Marvel that we know of; he talks about Hickman's famous Avengers run that culminated in Secret Wars, the birth of the new generation of heroes, Kamala Khan, Sam Alexander, and Miles Morales. He briefly goes over the following events, like Secret Empire, Inhumans vs. X-Men, and War of the Realms. He even talks about things that have only just happened, like Jane Foster becoming Valkyrie, and Hickman's complete X-Men overhaul that happened in House of X and Powers of X!
The final events that Galactus goes over are different from everything else that's come before, though. He goes over things that haven't even happened yet. I don't mean things that haven't happened chronologically, because Galactus is at the end of time itself, everything has happened (he even goes over alternate futures, like Age of Apocalypse and 2099). I mean things that haven't been published by Marvel yet. We learn about the wedding of Emma Frost and Tony Stark, the supposed death of Danielle Cage, the fate of Mephisto, and more. It's a really cool page that promises a lot.. I don't know if we'll ever see this stuff, but it's really cool nonetheless.
At the end of the issue, Galactus' sacrifice happens. His last story he tells is that throughout all of history, throughout all of time itself and every possible future, Earth never yielded, never stopped fighting. I haven't read every Marvel comic ever, I'm only just now getting into comics, but.... man. That hit me pretty hard. Galactus then removed his helmet and gave it to Franklin (the new Galactus for the next universe??!); he turned into pure energy, and became the next big bang. But before that, he dropped another line that hit me even harder than the last. Among his last words, we see a page of every Marvel hero ever, standing like they're in a giant group picture. And we see the words... "With great power, must come great responsibility."
After that, the next big bang happens, and the issue fades to white. And that's the history of the Marvel Universe. I'm not gonna lie, I criticized the past couple issues for being too exposition-heavy, but this issue wasn't like that at all. Or at least it was, but the ending hit me so hard emotionally that it didn't matter. Galactus's line about Earth never yielding is the point of Marvel Comics, and of all superhero comic books, really. The art and writing felt like a tribute to the style of art from the 60s and 70s of Marvel Comics, and it made the line about responsibility even more powerful; it was like it stepped back to the very beginning, when Stan Lee created Spider-Man, to give us the best line from one of the best creators ever. This series was amazing; it's a tribute to all of Marvel Comics, and to Stan Lee himself for what he created.
A Look Inside
