Crossover this, crossover that.
I’m a big fan of comic books. I have been since I was about eight years old. I was ensnared by the realms of endless adventure, larger-than-life perils, shining heroes and dastardly villains. Every comic book was a new adventure, and the variety of stories being told was enough to kick my imagination into high gear. Every superhero was on a different world, or a different quest, or facing a different danger, and every so often there would be a crisis so great that every single superhero would have to join forces to fight it.
Every so often.
Marvel and DC have been doing that a lot lately. Major crisis after major crisis so large that everyone in the universe needs to get involved to stop it. I like those epic crossover tales as much as the next guy, but I wish they would slow down a bit! It’s getting to be like the boy who cried wolf for some of us! The first time we’re all worried. The second time we’re a little less freaked out. By the sixth or seventh time, the shock and surprise are lost.
But it’s not the number of crossovers that’s bothering me. It’s their effect on the variety of stories being told. Marvel and DC have vast universes. DC has fifty-two of them, to be exact! There’s so much potential for so many adventures to be had, so many dangers to overcome and so many perils to be faced! With a major crossover, we the readers get ONE story to read. ONE danger to overcome. ONE peril to face. You don’t like that story? Too bad. Everyone in that universe is involved in it.
I sincerely hope there’s a backlash coming from all these perpetual crossovers and tie-ins. I hope there’s a return to that variety of storytelling that I grew up with. I hope that “big events” become rare and special again, so when they do come and affect every superhero in the universe it’s a treat for us to get swept up in that epic battle!
Nowadays, when we’re on Epic Superhero World-Shattering Struggle Number Eight in a Row, the effect is lost on me.
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September 5th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
And really. Was I the only person who thought that the core Civil War story was well… a bit crap?
September 6th, 2007 at 7:28 am
Matt: What’s not believable about the Marvel Universes’ greatest minds (Reed and Stark) thinking it’d be super awesome to CLONE Thor, with the intellect of an infant, and let it loose in the world? Or, wait, Stark then deciding it’ll be just fine to hire VILLAINS to hunt down his former friends?
Ugh, I stopped reading Civil War half way through because of these things, how did it end?
September 6th, 2007 at 8:57 am
The problem is, Mook, that the big events sell, and they sell REALLY well. There’s a whole lot of people that bought every single tie-in to Civil War. Heck, if there was a Rainbow Brite’s Story Time Adventure comic, and it slapped the Cival War logo on it, people would’ve bought it.
And, comics is as much a business as it is an art and storytelling medium, so as long as people keep buying the big events, Marvel and DC will keep on makin’ ‘em.
September 7th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
A fight is a spectacle to be beheld by our primal, caveman instinct. But when you give it the clean cut monotony of office work, it becomes a little too hot under the collar. We take spice and new flavor jazz to liven this mundane existence.
Bartoneus, you claimed that comics are a business. The people do not have a dull palette. As far as this media destruction has gone, the only proper course to sail back to golden waters of green would be totally isolation. Back to formula and create a hero’s situation only for himself.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Amen. They do it because it sells. I wish they didn’t and focused more on wonderful stories.
September 29th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Yeah, if Countdown/52 tie-ins and follow-ups dont slow down and stop milking my pocket for all its worth, Im going to have to drop comics. I generally like some parts of whats going on (Just dont get me started on the Green Arrow/Black Canary “Wedding” Special, I have choice words for a Mr. Winick over that one.) I like Pied Piper and Trickster, the new Injustice League, and the reality hopping crew, everything else is on the back burner. (The Sinestro Corps is giving me grief too, but its minimal compared to the 200 countdown related things.)
On the Marvel side Ive said F-off to WWH. I dont care about the big green dude or what happens to him. Im reading what tie-ins hit my usual titles (Initiative and Ghost Rider are the only offenders) and thats it. Exiles is fun and has some interesting things in the future. The A:Conquest isnt so bad, Im not reading Nova, but the other three titles are good.
Im just waiting for a Sinestro Corp ring to bust through the industry barrier to find Trauma and start the DC/Marvel Crossover some time in summer ‘08 9_9
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:56 pm
I have pretty much stayed away from major crossover bonanzas as of late. The only one i am excited about so far is Marvel’s Zombies. I have been waiting a while for the Zombies to begin eating eachother. Yet, the only problem i have is the sudden mass spouting of the Zombies marketing campaign. Not that i have a problem with comics getting out there and the companies making money, no. I have a problem with the pig-headed jerks who called me a freak for talking about how Captian America ate Ice Man’s face are now high fiveing eachother for getting that “rad superhero zombie hoodie.”
Beh
October 11th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Well I agree w/all the crossover bullshit, but the civil war and wwh from marvel are leading up to a skrull invasion I think they replaced Iron man and a few others. That’s were all these bad decisions by heros come from recently.
But what it means for us is another damn crossover series and more money spent by us if we want to spend it.
I just wait for the graphic novels, If I like em I by em then.
Just my 2 cents.
AL
October 11th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Marvel has two great series I’m reading right now: the new Thor (written by J. Michael Stracszynki) and the Immortal Iron Fist (written by Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker). I just bought the Immortal Iron Fist hardcover of the first six comics or so for $20, and if you can get your hands on it you would be a FOOL not to love this series. Tie-ins are almost nonexistent, mainly limited to guest appearances (mainly by the old Heroes For Hire crowd) thus far. Brubaker and Fraction are like two insane geniuses, and are elevating Iron Fist far above any previous incarnation, not only in power and status, but in quality of writing and storylines.
As for Thor, there have only been a few issues, and in one of them he confronts Iron Man to a small extent regarding certain actions taken during Thor’s absence, but again this is just a guest appearance and the comics have been pretty focused on Thor’s story and not any of the other mega-crossovers. Screw World War Hulk or any stupid Skrull BS, Thor literally doesn’t have time to care about that crap as he’s rebuilding and repopulating Asgard - hovering just over a barren stretch of Oklahoma! Oh, and according to my comic shop, they’re reprinting issues 1-3 in November or something like that.
So not only are these titles by and large free of crossover influence, they are superbly written and have art that is beyond top-notch.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
re Bartoneus:
and this is even after they realized that they had do exile from the planet one uncontrollable, unbelievably strong superhero who didn’t think, namely The Hulk!
October 11th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Bravo.
Another complaint I have about the never-ending stream of crises, is that we never really get to settle in the a new ‘normal’ mode to explore the consequences. The dust never settles. This is Bad Storytelling.
Who cares about the Civil War if the Hulk shows up a month later and flattens Manhattan and then the Skrulls invade (hey, aren’t the Skrulls getting hosed by the Phalanx?) and we find out half the characters really aren’t those characters, and then maybe next someone will track the Scarlett Witch down and make her say mutants are ok after all, or maybe “This is getting silly.” Which might lead to a whole What The–!? universe adventure.
The impact of Identity Crisis is lost when it’s followed immediately by 4 mostly coincidental crises, followed by Retconning All Time and Space (for what, the third time? fourth?) and then we have 52 weeks of teasers for a relatively simple revelation (look, ma, parallel worlds! yay!) that DC has done almost NOTHING to explore because Darkseid is already getting ready to destroy the new status quo, or something. I mean, honestly, 52 had a crossover (WWIII) happen while it was still going on!
And don’t even get me started on those books (or whole companies) outside the gruesome twosome who have just thrown their hands in the air and freaking started over from scratch.
There’s no reason to believe that anything that happens in comics will have lasting consequences when editors routinely let new writers ignore or reverse all that’s come before, go crazy for a few months, and then do it again for the next guy. It’s difficult for a reader to simply enjoy a good story when everything is so intricately intertwined that you have to spend a fortune on comics you don’t want or a hours poring over synopses on the web to figure out why you’re supposed to care about this book you bought where hardly anything happened but did so very dramatically.
If the business of comics really has become all about the trade paperbacks, then do me a favor, comic publishers. Stop releasing monthly books that suck and just sell trades.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Well, Marvel and DC both seem to go through cycles of highs and lows… they burn out their customers with these crossovers, tie-ins, etc after a year or two… sales drop to nothing and they are forced to go back into making each series good on its own, things get better, fans come back, sales go up, cross over happens, fans buy everything, industry gets overzealous and does it again and again and the fans leave… really dumb… you would think they’d learn from history…
October 12th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
here here my friend, the clashes to save the entire universe should be rare, i mean if it happens so often then its like no one would care anymore.
October 13th, 2007 at 3:49 am
I’ll buck the trend and say I’ve enjoyed WWH immensely, but then, I’m a long time Hulk fan. Planet Hulk has been incredibly popular and well done, in fact, it stands as a clear example of a book ignoring cross-overs and mega events to tell it’s own story. It was not Mr. Pak’s intention for WWH to be a cross-over though, that was Marvel’s idea as a money-maker. Frontline has been surprisingly good for a laugh. Heroes for Hire has dovetailed plot threads laid down in Planet Hulk nicely — plot threads that would just convulte the main story. So sometimes there’s a point to cross-overs. But an entire issue of Iron Man where Dum Dum Dugan wrings his hands cause his boss is missing? What the heck? All the same, the Hulk smashing heroes and a city is hardly a universe-shattering crisis. In fact, it’s been long over due. I think the scummy portrayal of the “Illuminati” was just to make fans enjoy seeing the Hulk handout a smackdown all the more.
Annhilation was a universe-shattering crisis, and almost completely lost on the shelves compared to Civil War. Sad, since Annhilation was much better written, and had greater impacts than the quite pointless main story (almost as pointless as the seven part gigantic event of Atom’s Ex-wife killing Elongated Man’s wife. What the heck was that about?)
52 did well (I personally didn’t like it) so it’s followed up by Countdown, the bigger, more-money making crossover event that leads to the third crisis. And really, isn’t DC pushing this way too fast? As it is, Infinite Crisis pretty much killed my interest in DC and with Monitors and Anti-Monitors popping up again … Yes, I agree with the original post that it’s just too much cosmic turbulence too quickly.
I none-too-fondly remember when cross-overs where a summer time event. Infinity Gauntlet-War-Crusade. Zero Hour (the DC reset none of their current writers remember). All those annuals with the same theme… Are the big two returning to those mistakes of the 90s? Probably. All you can do is not buy the books if you don’t enjoy the story.
October 14th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
The last good crossover I read was DC’s Invasion! crossover.
It even spawned one of the funniest one-shot comics I’ve ever owned.
October 14th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Heh, I stopped reading comics almost entirely back around ‘98 because of this.
I had been following the X-verse part of Marvel’s line-up. Long story short, I got tired of having one “OMG! The world’s going to be destroyed and nothing will be the same evar!” event after another, without a chance to explore the consequences, assuming said consequences won’t be entirely negated within a few years (Hell, they even gave Wolvie his adamantium back eventually). Not to mention being expected to follow upwards of 8 titles at any given time just to have a single clue what was happening in ONE of them!
They had Fatal Attractions, which was awesome. Then they had the Phalanx Covenant… still really good. Then it was Age of Apocalypse, which wasn’t as great but set up some of their best new stories/characters (X-Man #1-20 or so, characters from Exiles, etc). Then we had Onslaught almost immediately after AoA, and that fed directly into Zero Tolerance, during whose aftermath I simply stopped buying any of it. Reading about things like House of M (AoA with Magneto), Civil War, and so on, I’m glad I did.
I never really got into the DC comics, much as I love the characters. And having learned everything I have about what passes for continuity, I’m glad I didn’t. Bruce Timm’s DC-verse will always be the definitive version in my mind.
Even Archie Comics’ Sonic the Hedgehog series. It started as a cheap tie-in marketing product, cut it’s teeth and became a really compelling series that was very loosely based on the games, spawned some neat 3-issue miniseries and specials that came out about 1 or 2 a year, then… All of a sudden they killed Robotnik for issue #50 (which everyone knew wouldn’t last, they’d already killed him and brought him back around #27-28). Hey, Endgame was a great storyline. If they had actually had the cajones to end it there, or stick with the eggman being gone it was a great way to do it.
But afterwards they started putting out 48-page specials quarterly, Knuckles got a permanent series, and they started ramping up for an epic storyline about the aftermath, and infighting over what to do now that the good guys won. Before that even really ended, they started a new storyline with a new(-ish) arch-villain named Ixis Naugus. Eh, I took some time off from the comic. I came back to find they were just finishing the Ixis storyline, only to start an epic fight with the now god-like Mammoth Mogul (a Knuckles villain that had been introduced before Robotnik’s “death”). Sorry Archie, I’ve seen this before, and I wasn’t going to buy into it.
Atomic Robo #1 is awesome. I highly anticipate the rest of it. Guys like you (Dominic Deegan), Brian Clevinger (Atomic Robo), and Michael Poe (Errant Story) are my new regulars. You guys get how to handle on-going dramatic narratives. I’ve picked up some Exiles and Thunderbolts trades, and they’re good. I read a lot of limited-run (ie, with a definite ending) manga now (some great stuff there). But I’m done with big-name American Super Hero comic books. When they make good movies or other tie-ins, I happily check it out, but following comic books is for suckers, apparently.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:12 am
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