Cover: Scott Kolins

Beyond! #1

Sep 2006 · Marvel · 2.99 USD; 4.25 CAD

📊 ~35,724 copies sold its debut month

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“The Great Beyond”

About this Issue

Beyond! #1 launched Dwayne McDuffie's return to Marvel comics after years in animated television, reviving the Secret Wars premise with a sharp, character-driven twist: the faux-Beyonder commanding nine mismatched heroes and villains to kill each other turns out to be the Stranger running a cold scientific experiment, recontextualizing the whole cosmic-battle genre as a cosmic deception. The issue serves as a pivotal bridge for two then-underutilized characters — it is Parker Robbins/the Hood's first major Marvel Universe test after his 2002 MAX debut, essentially auditing whether the character could carry weight in the broader 616, and it positioned the young hero Gravity as a tragic protagonist whose eventual sacrifice in issue #6 caught the attention of subsequent writers. The series also demonstrated that a deliberately B- and C-list ensemble — Firebird, Alexei Kravinoff, Michael Collins/Deathlok, Bonita Juárez — could sustain a tight six-issue thriller without a single marquee Avenger at the helm.

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writer Dwayne McDuffie · artist, inker Scott Kolins · colorist Paul Mounts · letterer Dave Lanphear of ArtMonkey · cover Scott Kolins

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History

McDuffie had spent years writing and producing Justice League Unlimited and other animated series before editor Tom Brevoort brought him back to Marvel for this project; Beyond! represented his re-entry into monthly comics, teaming him with artist Scott Kolins who handled both pencils and inks throughout the run. The series ran six issues with a September 2006 cover date on issue #1 (released July 5, 2006), edited by Brevoort under editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, and was collected in a Marvel Premier Hardcover in February 2007. The story is a deliberate spiritual successor to the 1984 Secret Wars — reusing Battleworld and the 'slay your enemies' inciting command — but McDuffie inverted the premise so that the grand cosmic power is ultimately revealed as an impostor, the Stranger, conducting a dispassionate behavioral study.

Trivia · 8 facts

Written by Dwayne McDuffie with art (pencils, inks, and cover) by Scott Kolins; colored by Paul Mounts; lettered by Dave Lanphear; edited by Tom Brevoort — all six issues carry the same creative team.
Issue #1 story title is 'The Great Beyond'; it was released July 5, 2006 with a September 2006 cover date.
The nine abductees assembled in issue #1 are: Spider-Man, Gravity, Venom (Mac Gargan), Henry Pym, Wasp, Medusa, Kraven the Hunter (Alexei Kravinoff), Firebird, and the Hood — with Michael Collins/Deathlok present on Battleworld as a survivor of an earlier, unrevealed experiment by the same entity.
Beyond! #1 is the Hood's (Parker Robbins) first significant appearance in the main Marvel 616 continuity following his 2002 MAX-imprint debut in The Hood #1–6 (Brian K. Vaughan, Kyle Hotz, Eric Powell); the miniseries pushed the character toward the anti-heroic complexity that Brian Michael Bendis would then amplify in New Avengers.
The apparent 'Beyonder' orchestrating events is ultimately revealed across the miniseries to be the Stranger impersonating the Beyonder, having rebuilt Battleworld after the original Secret Wars as his own behavioral experiment — making this the second in-universe Battleworld, distinct from the 1984 original.
Spider-Man's apparent death at Venom's hands at the close of issue #1 is a deliberate shock ending: the 'Spider-Man' aboard the ship is actually the Space Phantom in disguise, a reveal that unfolds over subsequent issues.
Gravity (Greg Willis), created by Sean McKeever and Mike Norton in 2005, serves as the series' audience-surrogate protagonist and sacrifices himself in issue #6 to hold the disintegrating Battleworld together long enough for the group to escape; the Watcher's presence at his funeral signals his death is cosmically significant, and he was later resurrected and given the title Protector of the Universe.
The complete six-issue run was collected in a Marvel Premier Hardcover (February 21, 2007) and has been reprinted in at least two collected formats, including a 2008 Marvel reprint series and a 2018 Panini France edition; the story also has a narrative continuation in Fantastic Four #544–546, where Deathlok enlists the FF to recover Gravity's stolen body.