What Is The Reading Order For Secret Wars 2015?

Man, the 2015 event 'Secret Wars' still gives me chills every time I flip through it. The whole limited series was written by Jonathan Hickman — he was the architect behind the big Marvel reshuffle that led into that story. The interiors were primarily illustrated by Esad Ribić; his painted, cinematic style is what gives the series that epic, almost mythic tone. Alex Ross provided the iconic painted covers that a lot of people immediately think of when they picture 'Secret Wars'. Beyond those big-name credits, the event included a flood of tie-ins and variant work by a wide range of artists across dozens of one-shots and mini-series, so if you dug into the tie-ins you’d see a lot of different visual flavors. For a clean, credited run look for the main 9-issue miniseries: Hickman and Ribić (with Ross on many covers) are the core creative team that defined the book’s voice.

I still get chills thinking about how 'Secret Wars' 2015 frames who the real villains are. On the surface it looks like Doctor Doom — and for good reason: Doom becomes God Emperor Doom, seizing reality-warping power and sewing together Battleworld out of the wreckage. He’s the face of oppression in a brutal patchwork world, ruling with a mix of paranoia, iron control, and oddly relatable motives that make him more than a one-note bad guy. Beneath Doom, though, the bigger cosmic threat is the Beyonders — mysterious, near-omnipotent beings whose incursions wiped out entire universes and set the whole event into motion. They’re the architects of the apocalypse rather than on-the-ground tyrants, but their role makes them the ultimate villainous force. Then there’s Molecule Man, who’s both victim and instrument: Owen Reece’s power is the lynchpin that Doom steals to do his worldbuilding. In the tie-ins you also meet smaller domain-level baddies and corrupted versions of classic foes, but if you’re naming the main antagonists, I’d put Doom, the Beyonders, and Molecule Man at the top of the list. Their interplay — cosmic catastrophe, personal theft of power, and authoritarian rule — is what makes 'Secret Wars' feel so epic and morally complicated.

I've got a messy stack of back-issues and my phone full of MCU clips, so here's how I see it: the 2015 comic event 'Secret Wars' didn't directly rewrite the MCU timeline the way it rebooted comic continuity on the page. In comics, 'Secret Wars' literally collapsed universes, patched characters together, and left the Marvel Universe in a new form — that was a canonical, editorial reset. The MCU, by contrast, runs its own continuity and hasn’t been subject to a page-flip reboot from Marvel Comics. That said, influence isn't binary. The vibe of high-stakes multiversal collapse and world-melding from 'Secret Wars' trickled into Hollywood thinking about bigger crossovers. You can spot family resemblances: MCU shows and films like 'Loki', 'Spider-Man: No Way Home', and 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' leaned harder into the multiverse idea after comics events made that concept mainstream. Also, rumors and studio teases about an eventual big-screen 'Secret Wars' have floated around, meaning the comic's themes might inspire future MCU storytelling even if they haven't altered the timeline straight away. For now, the MCU timeline is its own creature — inspired by comics, but not overwritten by the 2015 'Secret Wars'.

I've been hunting down editions of 'Secret Wars' for years, and if someone asked me for one pick I'd steer them toward the omnibus-style collected edition if they want the full, immersive experience. The omnibus (or a similarly comprehensive hardcover complete collection) gathers the main Jonathan Hickman/Esad Ribic series plus a huge chunk of the Battleworld tie-ins, extras, and variant gallery. The reason I love this format is simple: the art by Esad Ribic really breathes on larger pages, the story hits harder when you can flip through the tie-ins and feel the world-building expand, and the extras (sketches, cover art, behind-the-scenes notes) make it a joy to sit with. It’s pricey and heavy, but as a coffee-table book and a definitive library piece it’s unbeatable. If you only want the core story, the single-volume hardcover that collects the main series is the best value — more affordable and still gorgeous — but for total immersion, go omnibus.

The first thing that still hits me every time I flip through 'Secret Wars' is Doctor Doom standing atop Battleworld like he actually stitched reality together with his bare hands. The coronation scenes and the way Doom carries the burden (and the smugness) of being God-Emperor are so visually and thematically striking that they almost swallow everything else. Esad Ribic’s paintings there make Doom feel mythic, and those quiet panels where he reflects on power and loneliness stuck with me long after the last page. But the finale is a close second: the Reed Richards versus Doom arc that leads to the restoration of the multiverse. I’ll never get tired of the moral tangle—genius versus god, sacrifice versus hubris—and how it reshapes the Marvel landscape. Toss in the delightful surprises from tie-ins like 'A-Force' and 'Old Man Logan', and you’ve got a mix of cosmic stakes and intimate payoffs that still makes me want a re-read every few years.

Man, the end of 'Secret Wars' hits like a gut-punch and a clever chess move at the same time. I was pacing on my couch when I read it — Reed isn’t the one who smashes Doom to bits with brute force. Instead, his win is mostly cerebral. Reed leads the resistance, cracks the problem Doom created, and helps engineer the way the broken pieces of reality are put back together. It’s a quiet, bitter victory: Doom’s rule collapses, but it’s not a simple, heroic one-shot finale. What stuck with me is how Reed comes away changed. He doesn’t become a god; he becomes the main architect of the repaired universe, using intellect, plans, and alliances to stitch a new continuity out of the shards of Battleworld. There are consequences—lost lives, moral compromises, and the weirdness of a merged universe. It’s the kind of ending that rewards readers who like big ideas more than big punches, and it leaves Reed with responsibility rather than triumphalism.

I still get a thrill flipping through the painted covers of 'Secret Wars' and thinking about how wild Battleworld was. If you want the core experience, start with the main 'Secret Wars' miniseries (issues #1–#9) — that’s the spine. Beyond that, the tie-ins that actually matter for story and later Marvel continuity are pretty few: 'Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows' (family Spidey moments that stick), 'Old Man Logan' (Wastelands beats that became a go-to post-event setting), and 'A-Force' (because the Amazon/Arcadia stuff directly fed into a lot of character arcs). After those, the rest is more about flavor. 'Thors' is a blast if you like noir cops with Mjolnirs, and 'Age of Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies' is the guilty-pleasure horror crossover. I also loved 'Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars' for laughs, but it’s optional. My playbook: read the main series first, then pick 2–3 tie-ins based on which characters you care about — that way you get the emotional beats without getting buried in dozens of minis. Honestly, those focused tie-ins gave the event texture, and I still recommend them when introducing friends to the event.

I've been chewing on this one ever since that iconic 2015 summer crossover hit the shelves, and my take is this: in Marvel Comics continuity, 'Secret Wars' (2015) is definitely canonical — it was written and presented as an in-universe cataclysm that literally reshaped the comics' timeline. Jonathan Hickman's build-up in 'Avengers' and 'New Avengers' set the stage, the multiverse collapsed into Battleworld where Doctor Doom played god, and by the finale Reed Richards and his allies stitched a new single universe together. That new status quo is what launched the post-'Secret Wars' era — you can literally trace things like Miles Morales showing up in the main continuity to the fallout of that event. That said, canon in mainstream superhero comics is a weird, flexible thing. 'Secret Wars' left core changes (some characters migrated, some histories shifted), but later writers and events have reinterpreted or rolled back bits. Doom's whole God-Emperor arc, for example, was mostly resolved by the end of the event, and subsequent stories treated the consequences in different ways. So while the 2015 events happened and are part of Marvel Comics history, many of its elements have been mixed and matched since then. If you want to read it straight from the source, start with the Hickman prelude issues and then the main miniseries 'Secret Wars' plus a few key tie-ins. And remember: comics continuity is an evolving tapestry, not a stone tablet — I'm still glad I revisited those issues with my old collection and a fresh pull list.