Over the past few months, a lot of stuff has gone down within comic books. From Forever Evil to Axis, events seem to have dominated a lot of the more recent comic book publications. However, it's not the domination so much as how frequent this domination is. By the time one event is over, another has begun. Or worse, two events run alongside each other, as is currently the case with Axis and Spider-Verse. So I beg the question: Has the event dominated the comic book storytelling media beyond tipping point? Has something which once caused great surge in comic book vitality now become the norm, and thus, no longer something to be in uproar about? Read on for my thoughts on the matter.
I recently picked up a few issues all of which were Spiderverse tie-ins, purely to see if it was worth getting really into. While in the comic book store, it struck me just how much has gone on recently with comic books. Axis, Spiderverse, Forever Evil and Future's End all occurred either very recently or are currently ongoing. These events are massive crossovers and span several months with many different ongoing series getting tie-ins. I asked myself if this abundance of events was a good thing and quickly came to the conclusion that it really wasn't! There was no need for most of these things to be happening and it just seemed to me that they were there to increase sales figures. I understand that these comics come from publishers that need money, but they're also a creative hub of immense talent, yet they no longer seem to act like it. I also picked up the first two issues of Guardians 3000 (which I highly reccomend, it's looking good so far) and I enjoyed it so much more than the Spiderverse stuff I'd bought. I know that sounds completely redundant coming from a guy who does nothing but talk about cosmic Marvel all the time, but it's a valid point.
Nevertheless this budding series, of which I'd only read two issues, was so much more entertaining than the several books linking the Spiderverse event together. I certainly won't be following along with Spiderverse any further but Guardians 3000 is a must buy for me now. After that, I got to thinking again. Events used to be such grand occasions. Remember before Avengers Disassembled when Marvel didn't rely on crossovers to advance any of their characters? I have to applaud DC for doing the New 52 back in 2011. They knew they weren't catering to the same audience as before and they rose to the challenge of getting new stories out there in a fresh continuity that would make everything so much more accessible for first-time readers. At the same time though, since then there have been a great deal more crossover events than in recent years. Marvel on the other side of things kept lurching from one Bendis written disaster to the next and before they knew it, their continuity was royally screwed with characters dead and gone for no logical reason. I'm totally not mad he killed Richard Rider in the most pathetic way imaginable. Anyway, I'm probably starting to sound like I'm just bashing Marvel, but I'll now focus entirely on the idea behind the crossover event.
I want you to put your mind back to the times before Avengers Dissassembled and the New 52. Weren't those days just glorious? You could read a series knowing there was nothing outside of that series influencing it in any great way. You could just read something and never fall out of the continuity of it. An event might happen within that series for all of six issues, then everything went back to normal. Then, once or maybe twice a year, a crossover would happen and you'd by the collected hardback the following year. They were the best of times. Times when things like Infinity Gauntlet and Crisis on Infinite Earths were things to be gawked at and treasured. Not just that, but the events served a purpose. A story was told with some grand message behind it. Go read any crossover event from the eighties up to the dawn of the twenty-first century and tell me there isn't some message behind the events you've read. Now though, events just happen s a spectacle. No real substance to anything, just a cool idea with a measely attempt at a message to the reader. I remember reading Secret Wars, which was written purely to sell toys, and even that had a brilliant message to it! That message being that no matter what the universe is throwing at you, you're always going to pull through it. And if you didn't get that from it, read it again and keep that in mind.
I've never really gotten too into DC. I've read the odd book, one of the more recent being a reprint of a section of Forever Evil. I enjoyed it a lot more than I have some Marvel comics recently, but due to it being part of an event, I had missed out on some of the story. Therein lies another issue I have with crossovers of the gargantuan nature. If you miss one of the issues or possibly even a tie-in, you're immediately out-of-the-loop with the entire thing. In my mind, that little summary they give you at the start of a comic isn't enough. Especially if, like me, you're only a casual reader of one company's books. So, crossovers lately haven't been great experiences for me.
They can't be all bad though, surely? Looking back it's easy to dismiss most of the crossover events of the more recent years as just that. Events. Nothing more and nothing less with nothing to offer but a mediocre story and pretty fight scenes. Yet people seem to regard them in such high esteem. I don't think I'll ever understand that. I look back on reading old events and just thinking how much better they are than what's currently being produced and how the idea of the crossover event has spread out to the movies and television shows. Although, those crossovers actually serve to advance a greater plot. Take the Arrow/Flash crossover for example. We already know that a revelation is going to arise in regards Sara's murder. If the crossover is what gives rise to that, I have no issue with it.
In a way, the crossover event seems to have served its purpose within the comics and now it's providing a great basis for other forms of media like the movies or the shows. With that in mind, I can't help but think that in the current run of things, mass crossover events may come to saturate the market, deadening that sense of individualism within a series and detracting from the overall arc of a series. I sincerely hope within the next few years, the crossover becomes something worthy of actually being referred to as an event again. Thank you very much for reading, be sure to leave your own thoughts on the matter in the comments below.