Monsters Unleashed Will Be Marvel's Silliest, Deadliest Event

After the harrowing events of Marvel’s Civil War II, Monsters Unleashed sounds absolutely bonkers. All your favorite superheroes will be battling it out with giant kaijus rather than each other, which sounds like a silly reprieve. But judging by the Monsters Unleashed one-shots, things might be just as dangerous as they are ludicrous.

Monsters Unleashed is Marvel’s big event series beginning in January 2017. The main storyline involves actual giant monsters, new and old, arriving from space and terrorizing all parts of the globe. Because of the sheer level of the threat, the heroes who recently fought each other in Civil War II have to unite together to take down the colossal monsters.

Writer Cullen Bunn went on record to say that his storyline is going to be epic, and that the monsters — despite some of their classic designs — will be no laughing matter. A quick look at some of the tie-in issues back Bunn’s claim.

The cover for the All-New X-Men Monsters Unleashed one-shot shows a visibly overwhelmed X-Men team falling apart by the monster horde. And even with Wolverine’s help, the preview suggests that the X-Men might not make it out of the battle.

However, at the same time, some of the one-shots appear to relish the classic, silver-age silliness of the epic event. With author Chip Zdarsky penning the Doctor Strange Monsters Unleashed tie-in, it’s hard to believe Strange’s own adventure in fighting a large, kind of adorable-looking monster won’t be in some part kind of humorous.

Between the two covers, it’s difficult exactly to gauge the seriousness of the one-shots, and presumably each story will have a unique tone. But the general consensus between Bunn’s comments about the threat level of these monsters — as well as the Monsters Unleashed previews — is that the story will be as every bit as catastrophic as Civil War II, only at the hands of some retro looking monsters.