Heroes from across the Multiverse are thrown together on a patchwork world to engage in their own Secret Wars for the survival of their timelines! Who or what has created this Battleworld, and for what nefarious purpose? Enter Maestro. Is he friend, or foe? Battleworld #1 is an odd debut with a story that feels like it should be tied into something but doesn’t seem to be?

Written by Christos Gage, Battleworld #1 revisits the concept last seen in Secret Wars when Doctor Doom brought together various different timelines, eras, concepts, to fight it out. Here, a new villain has stepped in for reasons that just seem rather odd. It’s a high stakes threat but feels rather low stakes in it all.

The heroes are presented with the challenge to battle it out and whomever wins can decide on the direction of the timeline, making sure certain things happen or prevent a horrible timeline from occurring.

And, that’s where the story starts to fumble. Unless you’re familiar with every character and the timeline they come from, their involvement doesn’t really bring much to the story. There’s a wide range of characters here, some rather obscure. Even I, who knows more than most, was lost as to what timeline some of these individuals were from and why I should care.

Where the comic shows some interesting aspects is the ending, which teases we might get more than just heroes battling it out. It’s an intriguing sign and tease we might get more than just fight after fight.

The art by Marcus To is good. With color by Rachelle Rosenberg and lettering by Travis Lanham, the comic brings together a lot of different eras and characters and makes it all feel like it fits together with nothing out of place. The battles that take place are interesting to look at with some dynamic moments. Overall, it looks good, much like a tie-in series to some main event.

Battleworld #1 is interesting. It has some pretty high stakes, the potential destruction of entire timelines, but doesn’t have too many characters taking part. There’s also key stories and timelines not represented. It feels like a grand event story scaled down to a small cast, making it a bit of an odd one. And, when we’ve seen this type of story in the past, it’s been a pretty big deal as either part of a major storyline or the storyline itself. It feels like it was meant for something else but that fell through. Add in Marvel’s current focus on two storylines changing the status quo along with a revisit to alternate X-Men timelines. It all comes together to make this an odd one that is engaging in some ways but utterly odd in its release with so much else going on.

Story: Christos Gage Art: Marcus To
Color: Rachelle Rosenberg Letterer: Travis Lanham
Story: 7.0 Art: 7.0 Overall: 7.0 Recommendation: Read

Marvel provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

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Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle