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When a comic slaps a big, visible "CrisisCrossover" logo on the cover, but has only a token ShoutOut to the Big Event that only peripherally affects the plot of the issue in question, that's a RedSkiesCrossover.

The name's taken from the original Crisis Crossover, ''CrisisOnInfiniteEarths''. Almost every comic in {{the DCU}} was involved, but in many cases, the "involvement" was just characters looking up and wondering why the skies were red.

Since then, most Crisis Crossovers have had at least a few. For example, in ''Infinite Crisis'', a squad of blue cyborgs would rampage through a few panels and then fly off, leaving the characters (and the reader) wondering what the heck that was before going on with the story.

This, generally, is good for the book it appears in, getting it the extra readers from the crossover without having to derail its storyline because of it, but bad for the crossover overall, through dilution of the brand.

See also WolverinePublicity.
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!!Examples:
* In the original ''Inferno'' crossover, one of the first that MarvelComics did involving all series in their universe, most crossover issues not directly connected to the [[Comicbook/{{X-Men}} X-titles]] featured minor content at best, or at worst, totally contradictory writing to the actual central story. This is particularly glaring in the case of, for example, ''Comicbook/TheAvengers'' #300, when [[spoiler:the newly-assembled group of Avengers fight to retrieve Franklin Richards after his being kidnapped by N'astirh and, despite New York still being consumed by demons, and N'astirh -- whom they clearly saw take him -- still being at large, they go home with the apparent satisfaction of a job well done.]]
** A better example (probably because it was rather more low key, with only the occasional editorial blurb) from a few years earlier involved [[MacGuffin the Casket of Ancient Winters]] being broken open in ''The Mighty Thor'' and almost every other title being smacked with impossible blizzards atop what they are dealing with at the time.
* Inexpertly subverted during ''The OMAC Project'', a mini-CrisisCrossover that helped set the stage for ''InfiniteCrisis''. One of the key plot points for both crossovers -- [[spoiler:WonderWoman killing Max Lord to break his mind control over Comicbook/{{Superman}}]] -- took place in WonderWoman's own title. Despite [[DCComics DC]] hyping the issue, most believed that it would ultimately be a RedSkiesCrossover, like several others published during that time. Instead, the only reference to the event during the main MiniSeries was an incomplete {{flashback}}. The fanbase was annoyed, though the Wonder Woman issue in question ''was'' included in the collection of O.M.A.C. Project, as well as "Countdown to Infinite Crisis".
* ''InfiniteCrisis'' had plenty of the normal variety, too. For a while, every single book had either an OMAC appear out of nowhere to fight the main character or a few pages devoted to the Spectre destroying something.
* ''Cable And Deadpool'' did a really small CrossOver with ''House Of M'' that lasted one issue (they were conveniently out of the universe during most of it.) It was so small that if you go back and read the trade you probably won't realize it was really part of ''House Of M''.
* There was an event where a {{Predator}} took on characters from Dark Horse's "Comics' Greatest World" line. Apparently the writers of ''Ghost'' didn't really want to spend much time with this, so they have one or two panels at the end of one plot where a Predator jumps out and she [[IntangibleMan phases her gun through its face plate]] and fires, killing it instantly. She doesn't spend any time wondering what that was about and goes back to her own plot.
* A rare live action TV example was "Blackout Thursday," in which NBC's first sitcom of the night, ''MadAboutYou'', featured the characters causing a citywide blackout trying to get free cable. That night's episodes of ''{{Friends}}'' and ''MadmanOfThePeople'', both also set in New York, also featured the characters dealing with a blackout, hinting that all three of them shared the same universe (though ''Mad About You'' and ''Friends'' had already confirmed that the characters played by Lisa Kudrow on both shows were actually twin sisters). Things were spoiled a bit by ''{{Seinfeld}}'', whose script for that week (The Gymnast) had already been written before the idea was announced, and the writers refused to change it.
*Lampshaded during DC's "Last Laugh" storyline, where Joker, after jokerizing most of the worlds villains and cutting them loose on the planet, begins complaining that the sky is perfectly clear and normal, and that he's going to have to "kick it up a notch" in order to achieve the desired sky effect.
* While ''Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns'' was a perfectly good story and important to the next crossover, ''BlackestNight'', it didn't have a damn thing to do with ''FinalCrisis''. Considering though that this was the only tie into suffer from RedSkiesCrossover, DC did a pretty good job of keeping things focused.
** It was connected in that it happened at the beginning of ''Final Crisis''; "Rage" actually stating "The following takes place between Final Crisis #1 and #2".
* As per the vast scope it covers, BlackestNight is spread out over nearly every corner of the DC Universe, starting with three mini series that run separate of "Blackest Night" and "Green Lantern" and "Green Lantern Corps", and as of November, will spread out to several other ongoing series. In this case, it is more like "Black skies crossover".
** It still has a Red Skies Crossover - the final issue of the ''Solomon Grundy'' miniseries is bannered as a Blackest Night tie-in, but the alleged crossover occurs on the last page.
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