Voicing My Opinion - Marvel's Secret Empire (So Far)

At the time of writing, we have had three offerings for Marvel's Secret Empire event, in which the events of the past year of Nick Spencer's run on Captain America: Steve Rogers are now culminating into something that has turned the current Marvel Universe on it's head.

The fatal moment from Captain America:
Steve Rogers #1 (May 2016)

These events came to be during the Avengers Standoff event of early 2016, in which the sentient Cosmic Cube, Kobik, re-wrote Steve Rogers' history (at the behest of his archenemy, The Red Skull.) At first, the only major event that took place for Steve was that his youth was restored again, after his Super Soldier serum had been removed by The Iron Nail back during Rick Remender's run. Or so we thought. 

In May 2016, Marvel launched the new Steve Rogers-led title, written by Nick Spencer, who is fast becoming one of my favourite writers. In the very first issue, Cap was seemingly aiding Jack Flag in the capture of Baron Zemo and Dr. Selvig, but then pushed Flag out of the aircraft, and stood next to Selvig, and uttered the now classic 'Hail Hydra'. From then on we knew that Steve Rogers had been turned bad, Spencer told us Steve's new backstory, how he had been a Hydra agent since he was a young child. 

Then came the Civil War II event, which is for another time. The important thing that needs to be noted, is that Steve Rogers was operating in the shadows all throughout the conflict, manipulating events for his own, as yet unknown, schemes. 

After the conclusion to Civil War II, the Road to Secret Empire began. We were now not only treated to Steve's plans in his own title, but also within the Thunderbolts title and the newly launched U.S.Avengers title. 

Captain Marvel and her team versus the Chitauri
Secret Empire #0 (April 2017)

Now, Steve Rogers has finally publically revealed himself to be an Agent of Hydra, and nobody in the Marvel Universe can quite believe it. Captain Marvel and the Guardians of the Galaxy are trapped outside of the Planetary Defence Shield, battling the Chitauri forces, being vastly outnumbered. The Defenders are trapped within a Darkforce bubble in Manhattan, and many of the remaining heroes have been called by Iron Man to Washington, D.C.

Now that the background is out of the way, here is my opinion. I think that this event has the potential to be one of the best that I have read in the last few years, if the remaining eight issues of the main event are of the same quality that I believe #0 and #1 are. In an ideal world, I would love for Marvel to have found a way to conclude all of their other titles, and then just to focus on Secret Empire for the next few months, and then restart everything with the new status quo, but obviously that would never happen.

All in all, I am enjoying Secret Empire for the time being, and hope that Marvel's future is of the same calibre, with this Generations event and Marvel Legacy coming later in the year.

Thank you for reading.