ONSLAUGHT: MARVEL UNIVERSE #1: With Great Power...

The Marvel heroes throw everything they've got at Onslaught

Originally Published October 1996

We begin with the end...

Uatu, whose big weird head has been hanging around for a while keeping an eye on how this Onslaught thing is turning out, gets the proceedings off to a start by addressing you, the reader, about how once upon a time, there was comic book superheroes, and now this is how that story ends.

When we last left off, Xavier and Onslaught, who is the manifestation of his simmering frustration, sprinkled with Magneto's ruthless fanatacism and taste in helmets, were having a tête-à-tête about whether Onslaught should use his phenomenal psychic powers to destroy all of humankind or, I dunno, go into IT or something. I think we've all had that conversation with our dads at some point.

Charles tells Onslaught that he's going to lose, because he's a bad guy, and that's what bad guys do.

Unless you're talking about, like, a U.S. Presidential election, where villains have a pretty good track record

Before their tête-à-tête can become a mano-a-mano, the X-Men strike, to ensure this super-sized special collector's issue is mostly blasty action.

Cyclops, did you... specifically tear your uniform for this?

Onslaught exerts his power in the form of ground-hands and things of that nature, and the mutants struggle to keep up.

With the mutants on the ropes, the only hope left is... well, the book is called "Onslaught Marvel Universe" for a reason.

Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town" intensifies

While the heroes launch their big offensive, Xavier belly-crawls over to the incapacitated Joseph, to save him out of allegiance to their onetime friendship and partnership.

Inside Onslaught, captives Franklin Richards and Nate Grey assess the situation: X-Man is all but ready to give up hope, but Franklin has enough hope for both of them.

On the outside, things are looking bleak for the heroes as they futilely blast away at Onslaught's forcefield. There is one ray of sunshine, though... but actually that's not a good thing, as Onslaught has used his/Franklin's powers to summon a second sun that will wipe out the Earth of all life imminently.

Black Widow points out that it will cook the Earth, buy Giant Man um-actuallys her by pointing out that its gravity will kill them first. Thanks, Pal.

Reed is flummoxed: such a thing should be impossible. Sue points out that Onslaught is being supported by powers he pilfered from their son... specifically the power of... imagination!

Nothing's impossible when you're stupid!

Speaking of Franklin, back in Onslaught Land, he convinces Nate that the key to escaping, for two super-powerful mutants who can do anything is... to think really hard about it. It would be the worst plan I've ever heard, if it weren't for the fact that I'm reading a comic where that's a viable solution.

Meanwhile on the outside, a real plan develops as Xavier, Joseph and Cable hatch a scheme to combine their powers. Now, you might be thinking "Didn't Onslaught steal all of Xavier's powers for himself?" and the answer is 'no' -- Cable's going to jumpstart them in a highly risky plan that's Just Crazy Enough To Work.

While this is all going on, Doctor Doom of all people is directing traffic, telling Rogue and Vision to do a combined attack on Onslaught. Only they two have the exact right amount of power to do any damage. Not Hulk or Thor or Iron Man or Giant Man or... you get it.

Meanwhile, we get a montage of New Yorkers reacting to their impending armageddon.

Is it me, or does it feel like Jonah and Robbie's dialogue should be switched? 

Rogue and Vision manage to get through the barrier and pound on Onslaught, but he shrugs it off. The attack did almost nothing, but it did succeed in giving Reed some data to work with as he calculates a better plan than Doom's. Also, it killed Vision.

Man, this guy just can't help dying on her

Next up: Hulk. Banner!Hulk asks Jean to shut down his friendly side and go back to being the savage psycho we all know and love. Jean's like, "are you sure about this"? And Hulk's like, "Meh!"

The heroes all rush into the fray but honestly I'm not all that sure what they're all supposed to be doing since only Hulk is fighting it out with 'Slaught.

Reed and Sue have a soap opera moment, reflecting on how they were the first Marvel Superheroes (even though they weren't) and now they'll be around at the end with all those that came after.

Do you think Mark Waid wants to write Fantastic Four someday?

We get some brief spotlights on everyone who's here and the drama they have to let go of to battle evil...

And also, for good measure, Willie Lumpkin.

Bro, there is a second sun in the sky. There's nothing in the credo about that.

Hulk hits Onslaught so hard... I mean so hard...

That the bad guy evaporates into psychic nothingness, and also Hulk and Banner are split into two physically separate beings.

The thrill of victory is short-lived, however, as Onslaught now pronounces that he's no longer a being of physical matter but pure thought, nya-ha-ha. Now he can never be defeated, because how do you punch an idea?

Thor, not fully grasping the implications here, flies headlong and heedlessly into the glowing blue energy that is Onslaught, so as to become Onslaught's physical vessel that they can go back to punching.

Well it turns out Thor's terrible idea is the correct one, so the heroes all dive into the polar bear pit. 

For whatever reason, we get a lengthy conversation between Giant Man and the Wasp where they reconcile after that famous story where Hank abused her all those years ago. It's a nice try, but nobody's ever going to forgive or forget that.

Meanwhile, Inslaught, Xavier lets his fingers do the walking and makes psychic contact with Nate and Franklin. Nate, who is currently the prisoner of a madman bent on global destruction still hates and distrusts Xavier so he is extremely reluctant to grab on. Charles gives X-Man an inspiring speech to "don't be a p*ssy." (I'm paraphrasing here.)

More heroes are getting ready to jump in, but Reed stops Quicksilver and Wolverine from sacrificing themselves because, um, they're mutants, and that would, um, be bad... you know?

You're not being rebooted, so you need to stay here

Quicksilver is like "Well, I lost my sister, but at least I'm not losing my wife." To which Crystal says, "You dumdum, don't you know that Inhumans are legally distinct from mutants?"

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Dr. Doom figures that since the bad guy is almost beaten and all the heroes are gone, now is as good a time as any to betray everyone. But before he can, Iron Man scoops him up to carry him over the threshold into Onslaught land.

I now pronounce you... rebooted.

Ceremonially, Reed and Sue, the self-proclaimed "first heroes" are the last ones to jump in... except for Banner, who leaves his Hulk body behind and follows everyone else, despite having been unconscious when it was explained what, exactly, they're all doing.

Bruce, jumping into things you shouldn't be jumping into is kind of what got you here in the first place

On the outside, the X-Men fire everything they've got at the Onslaught static.

And that, combined with X-Man and Franklin escaping their captivity, makes Onslaught go away!

Reborn, you say?

In the debris, Charles has to explain to Franklin that his parents sacrificed themselves, but promises he'll see them again, one day, when Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld's contracts are up.

Nate brings Charles to a nearby rooftop so he can get a bird's eye view of the carnage that the X-Men are going to be blamed for. Nate expresses admiration for the fallen heroes: maybe if he had a Thor and a Captain America and an Iron Man in his world, things wouldn't have been so shitty.

Nearby, it turns out Uatu is not talking to us, but has been relating the day's events to his good pal Apocalypse, who smiles because without all those annoying heroes, maybe he can finally cross some things off his to-do list. 

I don't know why he thinks that, it's not like Giant Man was the reason he never conquered the world.

And with that, Uatu signs off -- see you next reboot!

Further Thoughts:

Comics are great. They're little fables that use colorful images and standardized storytelling techniques to tell us a little bit about the world, what it is and what we hope it will be. Sometimes there's some real insight to be found in these pages... even here.

If you happen to need your funnybooks to have some sophistication in its message and delivery, this was perhaps not the comic for you. It's literally about a bad guy getting so impossibly big and powerful all you can do is punch it and punch it and punch it and then throw your entire body heedlessly into it to the point of physical sacrifice to end it. Though the Onslaught premise of "What is Xavier went bad?" is rich in possibilities, almost none of the thorny implications are examined by the end, in favor of turning it into a super bash-em-up.

On the surface, it's a big, dumb means to an end. Literally the entire point of Onslaught -- not from the beginning, but certainly from the point where it expanded to include all the other heroes -- was to gather up these icons, these four-color action figures, and do away with them. To cordon them off because, as publishing characters, they were being outsourced to the studios of Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld, and thus no longer "belonged" in the proper "Marvel Universe." Due to the rules of comic publishing, there needed to be an in-story reason for that, and it should be a huge mega-crossover that sells a ton of copies. Though I don't doubt it started with good intentions and the germ of a creative idea, it ended up as one of the most mercenary moments in the most commercially-focussed period in the history of Marvel Comics.

Mission accomplished. It sold those tons of copies and it got the heroes where they needed to be, for good or ill.

But against the odds -- and believe me, I am surprised to find myself saying this -- they did create something worthwhile out of it. On the one hand, all the superhero action and gaga and nonsense surrounding it feels superficial, contrived with every cliche ingredient to make this feel as big as it can, but man oh man does it feel big. Lobdell's plot, Waid's script, and Kubert's art -- which sees all the heroes permanently in motion, frantically set against the ticking clock to defeat their foe before his final strike makes this feel like a battle for the ages, the likes of which these heroes have never seen.

It's not a smart comic. It has literally the most basic premise I could imagine short of "Superman is punched to death by a really big monster." All the really resonant and thematic stuff that you could be doing, things you could say about the characters, the source of the threat, the means of his destruction, are out the window. He came to destroy the world. They hit him as hard as they could and sacrificed themselves, so they won.

It's not the most enriching comic, but it doesn't have to be. It gets the job done. The realness of the sacrifice, heightened by the stakes -- we know that this version of the Marvel Universe will be short several dozen heroes going forward -- makes it feel special, not just like this Wednesday's product. And importantly, no matter where the bad guy came from, what he does, or what it took to stop him, they did it. It's basic, basic stuff, but it hits. Waid, Lobdell and Kubert took this mercenary assignment and infused it with as much effort and heart -- bordering on schmaltz -- as they could.

The heroes worked hard and won. We could use some of that energy in the next few years. Please stop short of sacrificing your life, but if we all work together, maybe this world won't get destroyed. That's all comics are ever really trying to tell us.