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Secret Wars

Secret Wars II

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Last time Earth's heroes encountered the Beyonder, they fought for their lives. This time, they fight for all existence! A year after kidnapping the most powerful beings on Earth and pitting them against one another in a "Secret War" on a distant world, the omnipotent Beyonder comes to Earth to continue his study of humanity. However, a being so powerful and so naïve is a dangerous combination. As the Beyonder's understanding slowly grows, so too do his own desires - and even the lord of lies, Mephisto, fears what the Beyonder might finally decide he desires. Because if the Beyonder decides he wants to end all that is, even the combined might of the universe's cosmic powers might not be enough to stop him! Collecting SECRET WARS II #1-9.

264 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1986

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600 people want to read

About the author

Jim Shooter

1,028 books85 followers
James Charles Shooter was an American writer, editor and publisher in the comics industry. Beginning his career writing for DC Comics at the age of 14, he had a successful but controversial run as editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, and launched comics publishers Valiant, Defiant, and Broadway.

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5 stars
168 (22%)
4 stars
140 (18%)
3 stars
223 (29%)
2 stars
123 (16%)
1 star
97 (12%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
Profile Image for Little Timmy.
7,407 reviews61 followers
August 12, 2019
While not as new and different as the original mini series this one was interesting. Good art and story., Recommended
Profile Image for Baba.
4,086 reviews1,540 followers
April 14, 2020
The greatest ever Marvel crossover... definitely at the time! With a sizeable X-men/New Mutants influence (unlike in Secret Wars I), but also the last ever episode of The Defenders, plus The Avengers, Alpha Flight, FF, Spidey, Dr Strange, Power Man & Iron Fist and even the Silver Surfer and many more including Magneto's reformation and the Molecule Man saga. A remarkable feat for a comic book crossover with Jim Shooter's valiant attempt at taking a look at existentialism, desire and true omnipotence using the Marvel universe to tell that story! 8 out of 12.
Profile Image for Matt.
2,608 reviews27 followers
July 17, 2023
Collects Secret Wars II issues #1-9

In this sequel to the groundbreaking event (that had only come a year before this particular book's release), the Beyonder finally shows his face. His presence was felt in the original "Secret Wars," but we never actually saw the character. Here, Beyonder takes a physical manifestation and explores Earth and humanity.

Having just read "Secret Wars," I was expecting this to be more all-out battling. The only thing I would qualify as being worthy of the title "Secret Wars" happens in the last issue. Most of the material before that is much more philosophical than you would expect from a Marvel comic. The Beyonder is questioning what it means to be a human. What is desire? What is love? What if there was no death? What would that mean for humanity?

Before reading it, I mostly heard bad things about this 1980s event. I can see why some people were disappointed with it, but I was pleasantly surprised by some of the philosophical questions that were being tackled. I also enjoyed having more light shed on what led to the events of the original "Secret Wars." This story also helped readers see even more why The Molecule Man is such an important figure in the Marvel Universe. This book got very cosmic, and all of the top space entities were present (not to mention virtually every important superhero from this time period).

The way that the main title and tie-ins were released seems to be unique in that the tie-ins are very important to the overall flow of the Beyonder's journey.

Since I am in the middle of reading the 2015 event (also called), "Secret Wars," reading this has been helpful in that I am getting more background information on some of the players in this current event. I find myself enjoying aspects of this older story more because I know which characters are important to the 2015 "Secret Wars," and I am reading this book through the lens of what is eventually going to be meaningful in the Marvel Universe.

Final Rating = 3.5 stars

SPOILERS:

This story opens up the idea that the main Marvel Multiverse that we are familiar might actually be just one Multiverse in an Omniverse. Beyonder is from someplace outside of the main Multiverse.
Profile Image for Jason.
251 reviews4 followers
November 27, 2015
I couldn't possibly hate something so delightfully awful that it entertained me as much as this did. Absolutely hilarious. And terrible.
Profile Image for Aaron.
274 reviews80 followers
May 11, 2015
The all-powerful Beyonder from Secret Wars gets curious about the meaning of life. He creates a humanoid body and comes to Earth, scaring the hell out of everyone he comes across. He goes from not understanding food or knowing how to go to the bathroom (thanks go to Spider-Man for teaching him how to do that) to developing a criminal empire, trying to buy the love of Dazzler with magic tricks, mind-controlling every being on the planet for a short time, and then giving birth to himself (not once but three times). All in the search for his role in life.

A terribly boring, silly, weak story with an absurd protagonist and zero consequences . I'm really not sure how this was allowed to be called "Secret Wars II" considering there is nothing resembling a secret war anywhere to be found here. I'm not sure how it even got produced. Maybe Jim Shooter was a god and could do no wrong after Secret Wars, I don't know. Anyone who rants about merely average comics has no idea what true crap is and needs to read this stat. I almost never come across something that boggles my mind and is this unintentionally hilarious, but this is right up there near the top of that list. It could all be condensed down into one issue, and in a way it was; all of the vaguely interesting portions happen in the last of the nine issues. I tossed it a second star merely for raising some really interesting questions about how an omnipotent being would ever be satisfied if no challenges exist.
439 reviews6 followers
May 22, 2015
An amusing storyline following up on the very successful Secret Wars of the previous year. This one didn't have the same feeling of weight and importance to me even though the fate of the world was at stake again. Still it was fun to see the beyonder up close and personal as he took human form and his philosophical struggle to find meaning and purpose in human life was interesting.
Profile Image for Ed.
747 reviews13 followers
March 21, 2015
While I like Secret Wars, Secret Wars II is legitimately terrible. The art is bad, the writing is worse, and it's incredibly sexist. The only redeeming factor is Molecule Man, who continues to be an interesting character.
Profile Image for Caleb.
289 reviews5 followers
March 15, 2025
Okay, Secret Wars II. Boy, do I have some thoughts on this one. This was the second large Marvel event, and the first one to leak into the ongoing titles alongside it's miniseries run, and let's just say right off the bat that it's a bit of a mess.

So, the actual idea of The Beyonder coming to Earth and trying to learn about being alive in all it's myriad ways is honestly a very ambitious idea, and it does take us to some very thought-provoking places as he explores concepts like desire, fulfillment, and mortality. I almost wish they had just done this as it's own miniseries outside of the proper order of things because it might have been a better read.

Unfortunately, that doesn't sell comics so we have to have the superhero element, and that honestly kinda ruins the story in the end. The spillover into other titles makes the read a huge mess as well. I mean, I suppose you "could" read these as their own story, as this book is laid out to do (just the 9 issues of the main series), but so much happens to The Beyonder in the various other titles he drifts into that is relevant to this story that it feels very lacking if you don't have them to read alongside this book. Some of the stories are massively important as well, like his drifting into Dazzler, X-Men and New Mutants.

That poses another problem that I mentioned more in the books for those titles, and that is that this event came along and threw those titles off kilter to fit into the event. It effectively derails Dazzler to the point that I'm not surprised the book ended right after this event. Following New Mutants through it is a frightful nightmare as well, as it takes a few issues after it to get the team back on track. I don't follow a lot of the other titles, but I have to imagine the same happens for The Avengers and The Hulk and whatnot too.

So yeah, this was a cool idea, but in the flow of the Marvel Universe at the time, it's a big mess. And as a book only collecting the main miniseries, you are probably going to be missing a lot of context. I would highly suggest checking out the issues it tells you to read at the end of every issue, either as individual issues or in collections if you can find them, or on Marvel Unlimited since most of them are there. They will help paint a better picture of this event and bring the experience up a bit. That's why I rated this at 3 stars. I'd rate it higher with the tie-in issues, but collected like this, I just can't.
Profile Image for Jeremiah Murphy.
310 reviews2 followers
March 13, 2021
Was this made to sell toys!??

There’s some interesting thoughts here with a pseudo-God (the Beyonder) visiting Earth, getting a perm and obsessed with chopping carrots in the blender.

But the dialogue is rough, the issues are repetitive and characterizations are stale. The writer seems to enjoy writing women as bimbos. Which is gross and the dialogue for men is mostly boring exposition. The exception being Boom Boom. She was the highlight for me.

I knew what I was getting into. As a kid I’d stumble on issues in the quarter bin. I had really liked the first Secret Wars. I thought a sequel would be more of the same. But this ten year old couldn’t understand why it was just page after page of a man with a perm talking.
Profile Image for Bryan Ford.
70 reviews
January 7, 2026
Good grief. Not only is this hardly even a crossover, it’s not even the complete story. Why would the grand finale not be the final issue of Secret Wars II, but a random Avengers issue? And why is this basically the same plot as Being There (1979)?
Profile Image for Jay DeMoir.
Author 25 books76 followers
August 5, 2021
The art was so bad and the writing was even worse... the original secret wars was pretty awesome but this was a sequel no one ever needed.
Profile Image for Philips_comics.
30 reviews5 followers
September 27, 2021
Giving it 1 star out of 5 even seems wrong. This was dumb and boring. The amount of time and energy reading it for no reward urks me.
Profile Image for Shane Stanis.
497 reviews5 followers
July 7, 2023
Battleworld this is not! In the first Secret Wars, the Beyonder uses a battle royale to try to understand the human concept of “desire.” This time, The Beyonder decides the best way to understand humanity is to live among them as a white man (mostly). Issue by issue the Beyonder tackles a different aspect of his attempt at understanding humans.

We jump in with the bonkers humor of SW1 dialed up to 11. Over 9 issues, we go from fun and light, to existential, to nihilistic.
Profile Image for Dimitris Papastergiou.
2,527 reviews87 followers
September 1, 2021
Wish I could give a billion negative stars on this one, granted it was made because the first one was good! No? No. It also sucked. Then it was definitely made because they wanted to sell toys?! Yes? Maybe. But it was a huge pile of garbage. I'm pretty sure this is the worst thing I've read so far in 2021.
Profile Image for Trevor.
601 reviews14 followers
May 8, 2022
After the success of Marvel's first big crossover event, Secret Wars, Jim Shooter planned an even bigger sequel for the following year. Unlike the first one, which affects several comics but is otherwise fairly self-contained, Secret Wars II contains tie-in issues in nearly every Marvel comic at the time, encouraging the reader to collect them all. I blatantly ignored this, only reading the main series, collected in this volume, and the tie-ins in Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants, Alpha Flight, Dazzler, and New Defenders.

Not only is Secret Wars II huge and sprawling, it's also terrible.

The premise is that the omnipotent cosmic being the Beyonder came to Earth and took human form. The first couple issues consist of him wandering around and pointing at things while saying things like "Why is food?" while Spider-Man teaches him how to poop. Then, after briefly becoming a gangster and then mind controlling the whole universe until he gets bored, the Beyonder decides he needs to fall in love and stalks Dazzler until she tells him to leave her alone, after which he becomes a New Age self-help guru in Hawaii.

In the later issues, the Beyonder decides, for reasons not entirely clear, to destroy the entire universe, bringing him into conflict with all of Earth's superheroes as well as Mephisto.

I think Jim Shooter was trying to be philosophical, asking questions about identity, desire, meaning, etc. But it all comes off very juvenile and shallow.

The only enjoyable issue was #5, in which the Beyonder goes on a road trip with a suicidal teenaged mutant runaway named Boom-Boom. If that was the whole series, perhaps it could have been good, but it's just a brief break in an otherwise joyless slog.

This is the nadir of comic events and it makes the entire medium feel less enjoyable.
Profile Image for Lee.
60 reviews3 followers
June 29, 2017
Boring and uninteresting. I suppose if you found the Beyonder's search for meaning to be compelling it might be but he wasn't even an interesting character.

I gave it 2 stars solely on the strength of some of the outside stories using him. You can see the strength and creativity in some of the writers in using such a character (Claremont in particular had the most luck). Removing those stories and the main series is even more lacking.

And while I understand having to recap for new readers periodically, the fact that some recaps took up multiple pages in some issues speaks to padding out a slight story.

The concept would have been stronger if the series narrowed its focus away from everything except Molecule Man and the Beyonder. By juxtaposing them, it would have had made a better story about the nature of humanity and coping with one's own power in the universe.

Why did the Beyonder not ever ask why MM didn't use his power more as he himself did? That question might've been interesting but the series never bothered.

SWII wanted to tell two different stories and neither worked.
Profile Image for Derek Moreland.
Author 6 books9 followers
June 11, 2022
Having now consumed the whole blasted thing, I can see why Secret Wars II has the terible reputation it does...the mini-series by itself genuinely doesnt make sense if read on it's own. And while some of the tie-in issues are superfluous (the New Defenders issue doesnt fit with where the Beyonder's character is at that point in the narrative; theres a Fantastic Four issue where the whole tie-in is a one-panel appearance with no dialogue), the story feels more complete with the other issues laid in. Not necessarily "good", but at least a more complete, more cohesive narrative than just reading the mini itself in a vacuum will offer.

Minor nitpick: I sought out and purchased the ROM and Micronaut tie-in issues, not included here because they were licenced and Marvel doesnt have the rights. I'm curious, though, as to why the ROM issue, at least, is left out? The character never appears in the issue (he's not even on the cover!) And if nothing else, "Spaceknight" or some similar trademark Marvel does own could be plugged in for ROM if the name is an issue. It's a weird ask, but I feel like if Marvel had wanted to include that ish at least, steps probably could have been taken.
Profile Image for Shaun Phelps.
Author 21 books16 followers
May 23, 2024
This is a frustrating and nearly pointless seeming crossover. The edition I read only collected secret wars II and none of the side comics (Spider-Man, avengers, etc...) so this highlights the story of a godlike being who is bored and infantile in his understanding of the world, hopping from place to place asking childish questions and acting childlike. Occasionally there are some interesting or actionable parts. Secret Wars II appears to be a catalyst for some changes in the main marvel storyline, though from what I can tell it's largely forgettable and more a story arc the comic writers were compelled to acknowledge and not much else occurs (while all of existence is unmade, made, remade, adjusted, swirled about, etc...ad nauseum). Who knew something so cataclysmic could be so empty. Maybe the omnibus with ALL of the crossover comics would have made this more fulfilling.
Profile Image for Optimism.
148 reviews3 followers
December 16, 2024
i'm reading enough comics i'm gonna count the major series i knock off as books.

this was... sadly not a great one. secret wars was fine as the first big standalone crossover event but this one was shoehorned in across multiple books, and is a great explanation of why when i started DEEP diving into comics i started as early as possible in them ("don't forget to read these other three issues to understand this reference!" will never not piss me off). if i'd just read the secret wars issues (9 of the 42 issues in this event: https://comicbookreadingorders.com/..... ) themselves here i'd have no idea what was going on.

i still kinda didn't.

also there was one panel i'm not going to link here, but has definitely given me good mileage out of "where was kitty pryde on january 6???"
Profile Image for Marloges.
180 reviews
September 30, 2025
Liked this one better than the first Secret Wars (even though the title doesn't fit as well here tbf) and I'm surprised people are shitting so much on here.

An omnipotent being travels to earth to tries to understand humanity and ultimately find a meaning to his existence ... And it's not ending up being something trivial as love! Of course there are some plot contrivances in this and I didn't bother to read all tie-ins (only read the Spidey ones) but this mainline story was entertaining as hell and I liked how it was tied up in the end. Just very cheesy, 80s fun with a fairly unique protagonst/villain.
Profile Image for Don.
1,497 reviews11 followers
June 8, 2018
I liked this story a lot. It explores what truly makes us human and how our incompleteness causes us to have unmet desires, but also gives us purpose. I guess the Beyonder’s dilemma is similar to some of us in middle age: what happens when you get everything you want? If any gadget or possession is available, you need to find meaning that transcends the material. This isn’t a childish story, it’s extremely mature and asks very important questions to consider. Highly recommend reading this series.
Profile Image for David.
100 reviews2 followers
December 30, 2023
Jim Shooter's story is very muddled and convoluted. The whole story feels a bit like Stranger in a Strange Land-lite. This paperback only has the barebones story of the nine main Secret Wars II issues and misses a lot of the better moments of the event that are in crossover issues with other heroes/teams. It just seems half-baked in general.

As for the art, well Al Milgrom's art is subpar I'm sorry to say. It's not terrible or anything, but it is quite ugly at times.

Not really recommended.
229 reviews2 followers
April 23, 2024
Comic books from the 80's are definitely a heavier read than modern books. A lot more words and cultural references from the times, and often more serious issues. This book isn't really a sequel to Secret Wars, it actually feels more like a prequel or origin story for The Beyonder. Yes there are fights, but it's more a story of him trying to understand life. Yes there are lots of cameos but also the story continues in their separate books which makes it feel like a lot is missing here. It's an interesting read but not as fun as the original Secret Wars.
Profile Image for Timothy Pitkin.
1,999 reviews8 followers
July 24, 2024
A weird story and while there are some interesting moments and a decent foundation but the execution was just odd. I do like the design of the Beyonder and again his goal to understand life is interesting and makes sense since he is basically a god trying to get down to the level of an ant. But the comedic focus seems out of place. The Beyonder feels like he was written to be funny as he really does not really do much which feels weird when the story does get serious in the later parts of the story.
Profile Image for Michael Dunn.
455 reviews4 followers
July 25, 2024
The first Secret Wars introduced readers to The Beyonder, a being of immense power who desired to find out which would triumph between Good and Evil by making teams of both sides.

So naturally a follow up has The Beyonder….posing as a human who discovers what it’s like to enjoy food, the concept of money and go to the bathroom.

I’ll give it this: It certainly doesn’t try to copy the original, but I feel like this book doesn’t know if it wants to be a more comedic story or if it wants to delve into more philosophical ideas.
306 reviews3 followers
October 11, 2025
This collection probably deserves some forgiveness with it being a product of its time. It was a real slog of nonsense to get through. Lots of cringy parts, especially the unrelenting pet names that Marsha and Owen (Owie?!) kept calling each other, gag! I’ve never spent so much time reading something but been completely unable to explain what was actually happening.

The highlight near the end is when Beyonder, overwhelmed by the dogpile of heroes declares, “…. You’re all such butt-heads!”. Classy stuff.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews

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