Comic Book Classics Revisited is declaring war on Galactus!  The heroes are all together again, the villains have been kicked out of their base, Spider-Man got a sleek, new, black costume, and Galactus is now ready to begin his meal – the very planet everyone is standing on, Battleworld.  Look out!  Here comes Secret Wars #9!

Until Captain America and the other heroes return to the village Galactus is standing over with his world-devouring machine, it is up the X-Men to begin the fight against the godlike being, and they are quickly discovering it’s a pretty mighty task.  Cap’s team scramble for a jet from their new base to meet with the X-Men.  The Hulk is lamenting that he was given Banner’s intellect, which caused him to lose some of his savagery, but now he’s losing that intelligence as well making him neither smart or savage enough to feel truly useful to the heroes.  Just as Ben Grimm is complaining about his usefulness without being able to turn into his Thing form, he suddenly changes again.  Spider-Man is discovering that his new suit produces webs for him so he doesn’t need to make his own webbing, and it’s stronger than his old webs too.  Before arriving on the scene, Reed Richards thinks over the situation and the true reason for the Beyonder to bring them here to fight this war.  He can’t help but to think that Galactus must be the key to it all as he does not fit with the other heroes and villains brought here.

Just then, the heroes’ jet is hit, and just as they are about to crash, Colossus is able to soften their crash.  The heroes emerge uninjured and ready to face Galactus.  Iron Man is able to slip past the world-devouring machine’s defenses and put some damage on the machine giving the heroes hope they can stop Galactus.   Just as Cap orders to press their advantage, Richards exclaims that they must NOT stop Galactus.  He’s finally figured out that if Galactus wins, the Beyonder will grant his wish of no longer needing to feed on planets.  If the Beyonder refuses to grant the wish, the Galactus will be full of energy from devouring Battleworld to take on the Beyonder and they’ll destroy each other.  Either way, the Universe will win and be at peace.  After explaining his hypothesis, Richards and Galactus inexplicably disappear.  Galactus has removed himself and his devouring machine from the planet and taken Richards with him.  He plans to give Richards some word to consider.

On Battleworld, Doctor Doom frees himself from his cell inside his former base.  He ignores the pleas of the other villains to be released, but does take Klaw because he wants to dissect him to find a way to get aboard Galactus’ ship and take control of it.  At the site of the battle against Galactus, the X-Men dig themselves out of the rubble they used to protect against an exploding defense drone when they made their attempt to destroy the world-devouring machine.  They return to the village to meet up with Cap’s heroes.  Colossus is happy to see that Zsaji (the village’s healer) is conscious again.  However, she’s only wanting to see Johnny Storm, but he dusts her off due to his concern for Richards.

When Richards suddenly reappears as quickly as he disappeared, he explains that he and Galactus talked about their roles.  Galactus said that Richards was a force of nature just as he was.  One was a champion of all life while the other a force for death.  This leaves Richards confused what he should do – let Galactus win and give their lives so that trillions of others will live, or fight for even the smallest of lives.  When Galactus reappears as well, Captain America takes whoever wishes to fight with him and leads the assault on Galactus.  Doom sees the battle begin and realizes that the Beyonder has opened up space to take a peek giving Doom his best chance to take the advantage, but he must complete his dissection of Klaw quickly so he can act on his plan.

At the village, the heroes attack and Galactus decides to fight back himself instead of using his defense drones.  The heroes fight well enough to force Galactus back to his ship.  However, Richards considers that a failure because Doom only uses the machine on the surface to make the energy transfer more smooth.  He can still eat the planet with out it, and to get the proper energy, he devours his own home ship.  At that exact moment, Doom, using lenses he crafted from Klaw’s body, siphons the massive amounts of energy into his own body!

This issue might have been the most “exciting” of the entire series up to this point.  For the first time, all the heroes are doing something.  Previously, the heroes had been split up or some were hurt and really not capable of fighting.  For the first time, they are all featured doing something in the battle against Galactus.

However, it’s the cliffhanger that sets a final three issues that finally bears fruit for Doom’s plans all along.  Before I get too ahead of myself, I just want to take a moment to reflect on a panel that, even as a kid, I thought was hilarious.  So, Doom frees Klaw and tells him that he needs to dissect him.  It’s kind of funny that Klaw seems pretty excited about this, but a few pages later, we get a true delight.  Once we see Klaw on the slab, we see that Doom isn’t just dissecting him, but he’s sliced him like pickled beets!  Still, Klaw is just smiling and excited to be helping.  I would think being sliced up that would hurt just a bit, but apparently not.

Just goes to show you kids…  Even dissection can’t damper the pure joy of being useful for a cause.

(Even if it’s not a great cause.)

Come on back next time and find out just what Doom does with his newly acquired power!