Marvel’s ‘Secret Empire’ Unites Its Heroes Against Ultimate Bad Guy Captain America

Since Marvel revealed that Captain America, Steve Rogers was a Nazi --- I'm sorry, "agent of HYDRA" --- last year, we all knew it would blow up eventually, and earlier this year the publisher announced plans for a summer event titled Secret Empire. Today, Marvel spilled some of the beans on what exactly Secret Empire is and how it will impact the heroes of the Marvel Universe.

Marvel provided the first details about Secret Empire in a feature on ABC News' website, which clarifies that the event will be nine issues long including the #0 issue, on sale in April. As expected, Nick Spencer will write the event with a team of artists including Steve McNiven, Daniel Acuna, Andrea Sorrentino and Leinil Yu, and Mark Brooks providing covers.

In the feature, Marvel's editor-in-chief Axel Alonso notes that, while fans may be tired of hero versus hero events like Civil War II and Inhumans vs X-Men, Secret Empire will have a clear delineation between goodies and baddies.

This is very much more an old school story. You will know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. This is not heroes fighting heroes, this is heroes fighting a bad guy

However, the use of "bad guy" seems a little misleading when the general public still regard Steve Rogers as one of the biggest heroes in comics.

The piece at ABC (which, like Marvel, is a subsidiary of Disney) does not mention the controversy surrounding the decision to turn Captain America into a fascist, or touch on the sensitive timing of such a storyline at a time when the global political climate is trending towards right wing populism and ethno-nationalism.

The piece does note that Marvel plan these events over a year in advance, and Alonso says that the team at Marvel already knows exactly what the fallout from Secret Empire will be, and how it will shape the Marvel Universe into 2018 and beyond.

Secret Empire #0 will be released by Marvel in April.