Marvel Comics is known for many things that separate it from its distinguished competition, and one of the most biggest is the fact that Marvel has never done a full scale reboot of their universe. While the publisher does reboot various franchises in a number of ways, they’ve never started everything over from the beginning. It’s one of those things that has its pluses and its minuses. On the one hand, it means that new fans don’t have to worry about old books they read not mattering anymore (I mean, this still happens, but it’s not because of wholesale reboots) and don’t have to remember the differences between iterations of the Marvel Universe. However, it’s also meant there’s not an easy jumping point for new readers. Marvel has been very steady on this, but once upon a time, that looked like it was going to change.
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The 2000s were an amazing time for Marvel and its fans, both in the comics and the movies, bringing the event book to prominence again at Marvel. Readers kept getting bigger and bigger stakes event books, leading into Jonathan Hickman’s fantastic run on the Avengers. Hickman introduced the idea of the Incursions, events where two universes collide and destroy each other, with the multiverse itself at risk. This led to Secret Wars, a story that would go down as one of the most beloved event comics ever. The nine-issue story looked it was going in one direction, towards a reboot, and then swerved. 10 years ago, Marvel didn’t reboot their universe but they probably should have, and it’s looking like the MCU might finally make good on that promise.
Secret Wars Was a Major Turning Point and Marvel Needed the Reboot
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There’s an idea among Marvel fans that the fact that because they haven’t rebooted their universe, they’re somehow better than DC. Basically, they say that the House of Ideas never needed to restart from scratch, but this isn’t exactly true. Retcons and reboots have become a major part of superhero comics, especially since superhero movies became so much bigger than they used to be. Characters and teams get rebooted all the time, all in order to get new fans to try out a book. This idea that Marvel has never messed up enough to need a reboot is one of those things that doesn’t really make any sense, because they’re constantly rebooting various characters.
Going back to the 2010s, things definitely seemed to be pointing in that direction. Marvel’s event cycle had become huge, giving readers some amazing big stakes superhero stories. Each of these stories revolved around huge spectacle and the problem with depending on spectacle is that you have to constantly up the ante. Fans wanted more and more from those stories and Marvel kept giving it to them. Hickman introducing the idea of the Incursions in the Avengers books took the stakes to the ultimate extreme, with nothing less than the existence of the Marvel Multiverse at stake. Secret Wars was shaping up to the biggest conflict in Marvel history and the only way to pay off those stakes seemed to be to reboot the entire multiverse.
A lot of readers honestly expected Marvel to end the series with a reboot, mostly because of the legacy of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Fans were used to big multiversal stories like this ending with a reboot, so it felt inevitable. However, there was precedence for thinking there was going to be reboot. Age of Ultron ended with “time breaking”, jeopardizing the fabric of the Marvel Universe. It felt like the House of Ideas was getting readers for something huge in the years to come. When the story ended without a reboot, fans were honestly kind of shocked.
The book did have its consequences, changing numerous parts of recent Marvel history in what was essentially something a refresh of the established order of the Marvel Universe. It wasn’t actually a reboot, but looking at everything we’ve gotten in the last ten years, and the way that Marvel has been treating their titles, it’s plain to see that Marvel should have just went for the reboot at the time. One of the interesting things about Crisis on Infinite Earths is that while it did reboot its universe, it still used ideas and events from the old universe, showing what was canon and how it all worked in The History of the DC Universe. It was a reboot, but if you were a long time DC readers, you were just better informed than new readers. A reboot doesn’t mean that Marvel was giving up everything, it just meant that there was a new beginning.
Three of the biggest successes of the 21st century comics are the two Ultimate Universes and the Absolute Universe, all of which were wholesale reboots of the Marvel and DC Universes. Multiverses have gotten more popular than ever. Rebooting the Marvel Universe is an idea that definitely has legs and in 2016 would have been a revolution. To begin with, the announcement would have broke pop culture. Marvel was at the height of its powers back then and this would have been major news. People loved the House of Ideas back then and a reboot would have gotten people to go to the comic store, especially if they borrowed heavily from the MCU.
If you look at the best stories of the last decade, most of them aren’t impossible in a new Marvel Universe. Immortal Hulk? Yep. The Krakoa Era? Yep. The Ultimate books? Obviously. Al Ewing’s Defenders? Of course. Even something like Ryan North’s Fantastic Four or Immortal/Mortal Thor could work. One of the things that the House of Ideas has made a concerted effort on is to make continuity into a bonus and not a crutch. It allows newer readers to jump into runs easier. Marvel has long been preparing its readers for an actual reboot and they should have pulled the trigger after Secret Wars.
The MCU Has Learned The Lesson of the Comics
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Since 2016, Marvel has been circling the drain creatively in a lot of ways. That’s not to say everything has been bad; there have been best of all-time runs and stories during the last ten years. However, things have definitely been regressing for a lot of characters and teams. Marvel has lost the top of the sales charts and fans have been complaining about their books for a long time now. A reboot would have honestly been preferable to Civil War II, Secret Empire,and Infinity Wars.
In 2016, Marvel was the biggest name in entertainment. A reboot in 2016 would have been huge pop culture news. There’s a good chance that if Marvel would have rebooted back then, millions of fans might have showed up. The irony is that the aftermath of Secret Wars was something of a mini-reboot; you could have done most of it even in a rebooted universe.
Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars are obviously taking their marching orders from the comic of the same name, bringing in Doctor Doom and the Incursions. However, all signs point to the MCU rebooting after the end of the latest Avengers saga. It will help explain why we’ve never heard of mutants before and give Marvel a chance to bring back their greatest heroes – Iron Man, Captain America, Thor. Movies introducing new versions of them would prove that Marvel could succeed again and that it wasn’t just a fluke of the actors. Marvel Studios would be stupid to not reboot, but they’ve learned the lesson that Marvel Comics hadn’t a decade ago.
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