At a live press conference on Tuesday, some alarming news on the fate of the current Marvel Universe was discussed by Marvel PR man Chris D'Lando, Marvel Comics' Executive Editor Tom Brevoort and Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso.

The team announced that by the end of May, the Marvel Universe will be coming to an end, and in it's place a mash-up of various Marvel realities called "Battleworld."

"This huge development has been in the works for some time in Jonathan Hickman's years-long Avengers saga. The heroes have been trying to stop a series of universe-ending "incursions" where two universes collide with one another. The inciting incident to May's eight-part Secret Wars event will be when the heroes fail to stop the regular and Ultimate universes from crashing together. The resulting Battleworld will the Marvel Universe going forward," IGN writes.

It has been confirmed that this isn't to be confused with any kind of alternate reality such as Marvel's Elseworld, or What If. It will be the setting for more stories to come.

Alonso states, "This is putting an endcap to decades of stories and starting a new era. When you see the scope of the event, [you will] see what we're willing to do. This is a place where we're going to be bringing new pieces onto the board and taking old pieces off. You guys will be yelling and screaming, loving and hating in equal measure."

Many new comics have been promised to spawn from the new universe, referenced by a bunch of teaser pictures released late last year. These have been promised to be announced in the coming two weeks.

For readers interested in the "Secret Wars" comics, editions #1 and #2 will be released by the end of May.