Spider-Man and the Secret Wars History: Part One
With Marvel’s new Secret Wars series, now is a good time to look at Spider-Man’s involvement in the previous ones.
Just prior to the first Secret Wars, hysterious terminals appeared throughout New York City. Spider-Man felt his Spider-Sense calling him into one of the structures. Upon entering, Spider-Man found himself, along with the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four, in a satellite orbiting a planet that none of them had ever seen. A godlike being calling itself The Beyonder gathered the heroes and a group of villians to a patchwork planet it created known as Battleworld to fight for his amusement.
Spider-Man fought the villains with most of the heroes and over the course of the battles his costume got damaged. After taking Doctor Doom’s base and witnessing Thor and Hulk leaving a room with a new outfit, he decided to get his repaired.
However, he used the wrong machine, which, instead of creating a new costume, freed an alien symbiote imprisoned in the machine. It bonded itself to Peter under the guise of a black costume inspired by the new Spider-Woman and
During the Beyonder’s trip to earth in Secret Wars II, the omnipresent being decided to learn the ways of humanity after seeing that humans could not be merely split into “good” and “evil”. Believing Spider-Man to be the most human of he heroes he encountered, he follows Spider-Man home and tries to learn humanity from him. Amusingly enough, while in Peter Parker’s apartment the Beyonder has his first bowel movement. Spider-Man, faced with a god-like being’s digestive dilemma has to teach the Beyonder how to use the bathroom. After consummating the experience, the Beyonder teleports away.
Later on the Beyonder returns to Spider-Man, along with the Heroes for Hire, after learning about money and turns an office building, along with every non-human thing inside into solid gold. Spider-Man heads inside looking for the building’s residents. Having financial difficulties and fed up with the lack of recognition for his deds, he pockets a golden notebook. Knowing that the sudden appearance of the gold would upset the world’s economy the president calls in a favor from Wilson Fisk to remove the building from the city. Fisk sees it as an opportunity to make Billions and has a police officer under his bribery move it to a location Fisk can access it overseas. After a struggle on the boat transporting the gold, the policeman has a change of heart, and Spidey, witnessing it, throws away the notebook, deciding that taking it would be stealing.
Thomas Fireheart, Spidey’s sometimes foe, The Puma was hired to kill the Beyonder, believing that Spider-Man would be a powerful ally in his task. He shows up in Peter Parker’s apartment trying to get him to kill the leader of a cult worshiping the Beyonder, believing him to be the Beyonder himself. After being talked down, Fireheart is transported to Japan,
The Beyonder at one point decided to destroy the multiverse and struck a bargin with the demon Mephisto, if Spider-Man could defeat Zarathos (the demon part of Ghost Rider) Mephisto’s realm would be spared. Though Zarathos tried to corrupt Spider-Man by becoming various people he had lost in life, Spidey fought on through and unknowingly saved Mephisto’s realm.
For more on the main Secret Wars II storyline and longer discussions on Beyonder’s bathroom antics see Rachel and Miles X-plain the X-Men episode 43: It’s Not a Secret If in the Title. Next time, we’ll dive into Beyond!, Nick Fury’s Secret War, and more.