Krakin’ Krakoa #59: X-Men Milestones – Secret Wars 2, The Beyonder vs. Mutants

What happens when mutantkind runs into their erratic god? Welcome to Krakin’ Krakoa #59 where today I’ll be exploring a Milestone in Marvel mutant history, the infamous Secret Wars II and the X-Men’s relationship to the event and to the all-powerful Beyonder.

Today I’ll answer:

• What happened when the X-Men met the Beyonder in Secret Wars II?
• What do these encounters have to do with the Hickman era of X-Men and the ongoing Dawn of X?

Potential spoilers for discussed comics may follow!

Related Reading Orders:

Hickman X-Men

Modern X-Men

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Secret Wars 2

In 1984, Marvel launched a 12 issue standalone event series called Secret Wars, by Jim Shooter and primarily Mike Zeck, bringing a huge collection of Marvel heroes and villains together to fight on the mysterious, alien Battleworld.

While there the Marvel characters are told they’ve been brought to Battleworld by a being of immense power, the mysterious Beyonder, able to stand up to the likes of Galactus with easy, at least until Doctor Doom suckers him into losing his immense power (for a time).

It’s not my focus today, but there are some notable themes for the X-Men including:

1. Continued allied relationships with Magneto, stemming from the conclusion of Uncanny X-Men #150
2. X-Men vs. Avengers hostilities and feelings that the “human” heroes aren’t really doing all they can to support mutantkind
3. Colossus being the biggest dweeb, and Wolverine and Nightcrawler taking issue with him falling head over heels for Zsaji, the mysterious healer, at the expense of “wait, isn’t she still way too young for him?” Kitty Pryde.

Enter Secret Wars II, the sequel event launching later in 1985 and running through early 1986, written again by Jim Shooter this time with art by Al Milgrom. As a whole, I dislike Secret Wars II almost exactly as much as I love the original Secret Wars, which is to say Secret Wars II currently sits among my 10 least favorite comics of all time (but no, it could not unseat Marville for the worst ever).

Secret Wars II is all about The Beyonder journeying to Earth to discover his purpose, and it’s a bloated monstrosity with tie-ins to nearly every Marvel book at the time to boot! The only things I really like about the main event are the time Spider-Man taught the Beyonder how to poop, the time the Beyonder built a machine so he could be his own Mom/Dad and birthed himself, and the sheer number of “Dave” panels I get to use for any occasion because the Beyonder made a friend named Dave.

Amazingly, Head of X Chris Claremont takes this premise, and the mandate for tie-ins across his X-Men...