The Secret Wars were the first Crossover in the history of comicbooks and Secret Wars II were probably the first Crossover with Ties In.
Today we would like to recommend having a look at this issues storyline as in it we found a perfect metaphor of the current financial situation around the world.
Secret Wars II #2
August 1985
Writer: Jim Shooter
Penciler: Al Milgrom
Finished Art: Steve Leialoha / Joe Rubinstein
Marvel Comics Group.
WOSM #6:
Sept 1985
Script: Danny Fingeroth
Layouts: Mike Harris
Finishes: Zeck, Layton, Simons and Mooney.
Marvel Comics Group.
ASM #268:
Sept 1985
Writer: Tom DeFalco
Penciler: Ron Frenz
Finished Art: Josef Rubinstein.
Marvel Comics Group.
(...)
Plot Summary (thanks to
comicvine)
The
Beyonder appears in Manhattan. He gets a card for the
Heroes for Hire, so he teleports to their office.
Iron Fist is interested in talking about philosophy with the Beyonder, but
Luke Cage says all that is worthless, and all that matters is money, which stands for gold. The Beyonder decides to reward them, and
turns their entire building to gold as Spider-Man shows up.
The story is continued in Web Of Spider-Man 6, Amazing Spider-Man 268, a cross-title two-parter about
the aftermath of the Beyonder transforming Power Man and Iron Fist's office building into gold.cross-title two-parter about
the aftermath of the Beyonder transforming Power Man and Iron Fist's office building into gold.People are
trapped inside the collapsing building, and the worldwide
value of gold will go down, so the US government moves in to forcibly take the building and its contents from their rightful owners and orders that it
all be cut-up and thrown away in the sea.
In the meantime,
Wilson Fisk is
blackmailing the US government as he knows what´s going on with the building. They agree to pay his
"services" giving him all the (gold) typewriters from the building.
As predictable Fisk turns out to be an enemy ally as he finally tries to
get the gold for him.
Spiderman saves the day when everything is lost for the global economy, realizing he has been mentaly tortured by the
remorse of picking up a little (gold) agenda from a (gold) paperbasket inside the (gold) building while the US gov has been literally
throwing gold to the sea and Fisk getting a huge revenue for an
immoral behaviour.
As usual, the worries, the small incomes and all the work to be done
is suffered by humble citizens (even if they have been bitten by a radioactive spider in their youth years)
(...)
It is quite scary to think that this prophecy was made almost 27 years ago...
PS: The double cover of Spidey is cool, though.
