I've heard so many rumors about the Marvel universe ending that i am now having trouble believing it when Marvel literally tells me it's the case, but it sure sounds like it's happening. At the moment this feels like good news to me. For a while now i've felt like the Marvel universe was already broken, but since it was still staggering along i've felt obligated to keep up with it. One of my biggest fears (in, you know, the context of comic books) was that the Marvel universe would sort of unofficially end but i'd still not be sure if it really had. But with the changes that seem to be coming with the new Secret Wars, it seems like a clean jumping off point.

The event does seem to be designed in a "have your cake and eat it too" way, since there's a story reason why the Marvel universe is rebooting, unlike the most recent DC reboot (on the other hand, from the little i see this does sound a lot like DC's Crisis). But for me, at least, this signals a clean break and i won't be continuing further even if you can make an argument that it's kinda sorta the same universe. I may still pick up trades in the same way i read trades of, say, Saga or Walking Dead, but only based on the strength of the creators and buzz as opposed to it being a part of the Marvel universe i've been following since i started reading comics.

Part of me now wants to read Secret Wars just to see how it ends in realtime, but from the article i linked to it seems like there's already going to be an unwieldy deluge of tie-in books, so i think i'll just let the dust settle and pick up the pieces afterwards. And hey, now i have an official end goal for my timeline project!

DC is giving me a jump off point by taking a 2 month break from it's regular schedule (unless they revert back to pre-52). Marvel is giving me a jump-off point (unless this is a big pack of lies). Looks like I may also be done with comics in 2015 (other than trades).

tank goff. it means we don't have to care when they muck with past continuity, and i can stop raging at Tom Brevoort.

I wholeheartedly support this decision, and have been pushing it for a while. I'm not sure why, but I also get a lot of joy out of this.

There's still some monthlies I'd get even if I stopped getting Marvel/DCU stuff (astro city, hellboy/bprd). I also still like to support favored writers and (rarely) artists and still feel getting the monthlies is the best way of showing that with my dollars. Not sure if that's legit or not.

As a bit of a correction: DC's recent reboot wasn't completely out of nowhere. the Flashpoint mini is used as the in universe excuse.

Not that bothered. I've got the impression that Marvel has been run by fans who have turned the company into one that writes fan fiction rather than professional books. This is another excuse to just write whatever 'fanboy' stuff they want without the continuity issues to get in the way. But I reckon some writer will come in and 'fix' the previous writers mess and then another writer will 'fix' that and so on ad infinitum until they have to do another reboot. Marvel lost their way a long time ago and won't be finding it again.

I'm not so sure they're going to do a "hard" reboot. If they are, then why have we seen so many retcons recently- Dum Dum's a LMD, Wanda and Pietro aren't Magneto's kids, Sam Wilson wasn't Snap,etc. Why not just wait for the reboot? (Well, the higher-ups probably wanted the Wanda/Pietro thing before the movies but there's no reason they couldn't have rebooted Wanda and Pietro before the movies using Secret Wars.)

This could all just be an insanely convoluted way of getting Miles Morales into the Marvel universe. But it seems like this is going to be a way to drop any continuity they don't like, or just not have to worry about it, going forward. "That changed during Secret Wars." I think it's a "soft" reboot in the "have your cake and eat it too"; they'll want to be able to say that it's a direct continuation of the Marvel universe, but with lots of changes.

We'll have to wait and see, of course. But if this isn't a reboot, i think they seriously lost control of the messaging after that press event.

I am not as down on modern Marvel as a lot of the people posting here. I have been picking up recent-back issues in quarter bins and enjoying a lot of it. I am also kind of into this upcoming story, because Secret Wars and Crisis were BOTH the comics that turned me from a casual second-generation reader to a true *comics fan*. So I love the mash-up here.

But I also agree that something "conclusive" is welcome. There is only so much that can be crammed into the narrative box of the Modern Marvel Universe (est. 1961).

I was actually at the event where this was announced (won a contest through Marvel Unlimited) and was surprised to see the reaction when I got back to the internet. Sitting there, I just thought, "What a big deal? Won't it all be nice and shiny by the end of the story?" They also made it clear that they don't plan to reboot.

Of course, I am the one who is super into current Marvel, Hickman's run, etc., so consider me excited to see what happens. ("I am the one who posts!")