Secret Wars! (Patreon)

I've been chipping away at this all year and I've just this minute finished it! The UK reprint of the Secret Wars saga was pivotal in my love of comics. Combining the US mini series with reprints from other Marvel comics, it's where I was introduced to the Marvel universe beyond the Spider-Man and Hulk cartoons that I loved. I remember getting my first copy of it and devouring it on a train ride to see my grandparents way back when. I had a few of the action figures too-- Iron Man, Spidey and the angry-Paul McCartney-looking Doc Ock whose flimsy arms snapped off too easily. Secret Wars was awesome!

For this homage I've mashed up the visuals from the comic and the toy line. Doom-Rollers, Hobgoblin, Constrictor and Baron Zemo (you can just about see those two in the Roller emerging from the fortress) did not appear in the comics but were part of the toy range. An excellent companion mini series that was published recently told the tale of Spidey and Jonny Storm on a side-quest in which all these characters appear, and it was reading that which inspired me to make this picture.

I went nuts with the detail, but now I've coloured it I can't help but think I should have tired to shoehorn in a few more characters! Oh well, maybe I'll just have to make a follow up. I love Secret Wars for all it's flaws-- the odd presentations of certain of the characters, the flat and uninteresting colouring, Cosmic Doom's weirdly curvaceous costume with the metal garter belt. And Titania! I'm sure that seeing her origin and subsequent battles with She-Hulk probably warped my mind just as much as anything else.

Let me know what you think in the comments!