Appearing in "Life Rules"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Dave Shooter (First appearance)
- Power Pack
- In-Betweener
- Eternity
- Order
- Chaos
- Living Tribunal
- Gardener
- One Above All
- Molecule Man (Owen Reece) (Main story and flashback)
- Volcana (Marsha Rosenberg)
- The Watcher (Uatu)
- ⏴ Captain America (Steve Rogers) ⏵
- Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) (Main story and flashback)
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- Mr. McCorkle (First appearance)
- Beta Ray Bill (Appears on screen)
- Kurse (Appears on screen)
- Dr. Strange (Stephen Strange) (Only in flashback)
- Eon (Appears on screen)
- Dr. Doom (Victor Von Doom) (Only in flashback)
- Council of Watchers (First appearance) (Only in flashback)
- Fantastic Four (Only in flashback)
- Invisible Girl (Sue Storm) (Only in flashback)
- Human Torch (Johnny Storm) (Only in flashback)
- Thing (Ben Grimm) (Only in flashback)
- She-Hulk (Jen Walters) (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Watchers (Only in flashback)
- Thor (Odinson) (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Cloak (Ty Johnson) (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Dagger (Tandy Bowen) (Illusion or holographic simulation)
Races and Species:
- Beyonders
- Humans
- Kymellians
- Cosmic Beings
- Aliens
- Celestials
- Watchers (Main story and flashback)
- Demons
- Korbinites (Appears on screen)
- Cyborgs (Appears on screen)
- Gods
- Dark Elves (Appears on screen)
- Asgardians (Illusion or holographic simulation)
Locations:
- Earth
- North America
- United States of America
- Illinois
- Sparta (First appearance)
- The Beyonders Headquarters (Destroyed)
- Sparta (First appearance)
- New York State
- New York City
- Manhattan
- Park Avenue (Only in flashback)
- Manhattan
- New York City
- Colorado
- Pennsylvania
- Pittsburgh
- Medical Research Facility
- Pittsburgh
- Missouri
- Illinois
- United States of America
- Oceania
- Australian Continent
- Australia
- Western Australia
- Perth (First appearance)
- Western Australia
- Australia
- Australian Continent
- Africa
- North America
- Mephisto's Realm
Items:
- Doctor Doom's Armor (Only in flashback)
- Stormbreaker (Appears on screen)
- Captain America's Uniform and Shield
- Fantastic Four Uniforms
- Mjolnir (Illusion or holographic simulation)
Vehicles:
- None
Synopsis for "Life Rules"
Secret Wars II continues from Fantastic Four #285...
The Beyonder has chosen to be a "Champion of Life". He builds a massive headquarters in Sparta, Illinois. The headquarters is several times larger than the entire city of Sparta, Illinois. He then heads out and helps Power Pack stop a bunch of thugs who had found Jakal's lost laser gun. Meanwhile, a reporter from Sparta, Illinois named Dave goes to the Beyonder's new headquarters to interview the Beyonder. Dave is so mesmerized by the Beyonder that he becomes the Beyonder's best friend encouraging the Beyonder in his role as a "Champion of Life".
Molecule Man returns home to his wife but they are interupted by a visit from Uatu. Uatu pleads with Molecule Man to intervene with the Beyonder because Uatu and the Watchers sense that the Beyonder's plans are about to go too far.
After saving millions of lives throughout the universe, the Beyonder is growing dissatisfied with his role. He gets a visit from Captain America and Mr. Fantastic but Dave's enthusiastic belief in the Beyonder prevents Captain America and Mr. Fantastic from fully discussing their concerns. In fact, not long after this meeting, Dave's enthusiasm encourages the Beyonder to believe that he must destroy Death itself. The Beyonder believes that his dissatisfaction with his role is because it isn't big enough and only by putting an end to death can he fulfill a role big enough for him.
Mephisto learns of this and attacks and then all the great entities of the universe gather to try to stop the Beyonder. But Dave keeps encouraging the Beyonder and so the Beyonder destroys Death. The Molecule Man appears and yells at the Beyonder. Dave has a change of heart and agrees to become the new Death in order to reset things back to the way they were. The Beyonder destroys his headquarters in Sparta, Illinois and decides that he will try being a champion "with one arm tied behind my back, sort of ..."
Secret Wars II continues in Cloak and Dagger (Vol. 2) #4, Power Pack #18, Micronauts (Vol. 2) #16, Thor #363 and Power Man and Iron Fist #121...
Notes
- Franklin Richards was already a full fledged member of Power Pack with his own Power Pack costume by this point,[citation needed] so it is a small mistake that they have Franklin wearing his Fantastic Four shirt instead.
Trivia
- The scene where the cosmic entities confront the Beyonder is recolored in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (Vol. 2) #16, fixing many of the coloring mistakes in this issue.