Are The Events Of Secret Wars 2015 Canon To Marvel Now?

I still get excited when people bring this up at my local shop. Quick and practical: yes, 'Secret Wars' from 2015 is considered part of Marvel Comics continuity — it was explicitly used to rebuild the universe and merge certain characters (like Miles Morales) into the primary 616 line. The event was a canonical end-and-reborn moment, not just a temporary side-story.

However, keep in mind comic-book canon is porous. Writers later pick and choose which pieces to keep, reinterpret, or ignore, so some outcomes of 'Secret Wars' have stuck while others have been softened or retconned. Also, if you're asking about the movies and TV shows, the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn't bound to the comics' continuity, so the 2015 event doesn't automatically apply there. If you're looking to see the original material, read the main 'Secret Wars' miniseries and Hickman's Avengers/New Avengers run for context — that's where it all lands for me.

I've been chewing on this one ever since that iconic 2015 summer crossover hit the shelves, and my take is this: in Marvel Comics continuity, 'Secret Wars' (2015) is definitely canonical — it was written and presented as an in-universe cataclysm that literally reshaped the comics' timeline. Jonathan Hickman's build-up in 'Avengers' and 'New Avengers' set the stage, the multiverse collapsed into Battleworld where Doctor Doom played god, and by the finale Reed Richards and his allies stitched a new single universe together. That new status quo is what launched the post-'Secret Wars' era — you can literally trace things like Miles Morales showing up in the main continuity to the fallout of that event.

That said, canon in mainstream superhero comics is a weird, flexible thing. 'Secret Wars' left core changes (some characters migrated, some histories shifted), but later writers and events have reinterpreted or rolled back bits. Doom's whole God-Emperor arc, for example, was mostly resolved by the end of the event, and subsequent stories treated the consequences in different ways. So while the 2015 events happened and are part of Marvel Comics history, many of its elements have been mixed and matched since then.

If you want to read it straight from the source, start with the Hickman prelude issues and then the main miniseries 'Secret Wars' plus a few key tie-ins. And remember: comics continuity is an evolving tapestry, not a stone tablet — I'm still glad I revisited those issues with my old collection and a fresh pull list.

When I try to explain it to friends who only follow the movies, I usually start by saying: in the comics, 'Secret Wars' (2015) counts as a canonical turning point. The event was designed to collapse the multiverse and then have Reed and Doom recreate a single, patched-together reality; that recreated universe carried the new post-event continuity into the next wave of titles. Concrete, lasting effects included characters shifting between universes and some histories being rewritten — Miles Morales is the headline example, since he continued in the primary continuity afterward.

But I also warn them that comics continuity is more of a living document than a single fixed truth. Over the years, various creative teams have introduced further multiversal shenanigans, reversals, and new explanations that blur what from 2015 remains "set in stone." So while 'Secret Wars' is canonical in the sense that it happened on-page and directly shaped subsequent storylines, later events and retcons have altered how central or visible those changes feel. If you love tracing continuity puzzles, that's part of the fun — otherwise, treat it as the official big reshuffle that many modern Marvel runs were built on.