Oh God yes! I can't agree with you enough! I mean, the whole point of an event is to make change and to see how the cast or the universe are affected by the result of those changes. We as readers can't possibly take in those changes or even get our facts straight if they keep changing things up!
Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.I agree as well. I've only been collecting comics for a year now, and even I realize how there's too many events. I think they're trying too hard to emulate Summer Blockbuster s.
edited 5th Dec '11 7:13:09 PM by EnglishMajor
With blood and rage of crimson red ripped from a corpse so freshly dead together with our hellish hate we'll burn you all that is your fateFrom what I understand, the event craze started (at least at Marvel) with Avengers Disassembled, which was an ambitious project that nobody thought would sell that well. Combine that with the fact that (at least according to Rob Liefeld) Marvel got royally screwed out of the film rights to everything but the Avengers characters (I think they get less than 10% of the royalties from the X-Men films) and voila, endless Avengers events.
DC did something similar with Identity Crisis, but that one has a far skeevier origin: reportedly, editorial just wanted a story about rape...
Marvel tried going relatively event-free in the early 2000s during the period that was colloquially known as "Nu Marvel". The problem was, when that happened, a lot of people were complaining about the lack of crossover events. (During Nu Marvel, most of the books were largely self-contained, with hardly any of the combined universe explored.
The problem is basically that most corporations only act in Broad Strokes. Oh, hey, this decision was unpopular with 15% of our audience! Let's cut it out completely, along with anything that even remotely resembles it! On the other hand, this other thing we did boosted sales by 60%! Let's do more of that!
I love continuity in comics (it's the main reason I read the mainstream universes, but I somewhat agree with you. I don't think another "big" event should happen within 10 issues of ongoing series, but "small"* events like Spider Island, Schism, World War Hulk, and Annihiliation are fine.
They're called comic book EVENTS for a reason: they (ideally) only happen once a year, tops.
DC's really gone into overkill, though, with back-to-back events. Blackest Night was directly followed by Brightest Day, which was directly followed by Flashpoint, which was directly followed a huge reboot. Enough already! If you're constantly writing lead-ups and tie-ins to comic book events, it becomes overkill.
It used to be that "Big Events" happened only once or twice a year like, yes, Summer Blockbuster Movies. And that was OK: I used to look forward to what the Big Crisis next year was going to be about.
(Note this isn't counting the smaller crossovers within related titles, but even those were rare.)
But then DC had to go and invent the continuous Crisis Crossover, where not only one follows right after the other, but they last ridiculously long, sometimes up to a year! It gives the impression that the DC Universe is under *constant* menace, which makes you question the effectiveness of its heroes. (And that's not even mentioning their obsession for killing off characters. Gorily.)
With Marvel it hasn't been so bad in that they plan for the long run (unlike DC which seems to make things up as they go- ask Grant Morrison re: Final Crisis) and their events set up circumnstances to be explored, and effects that you knew would be reversed, but not immediatelly. Marvel Civil War set up the anti-superhero law, which led to the Skrulls almost winning in Secret Invasion, which led to the 'Dark Reign', which finally ended with Siege. And hardly anyone was killed (except Captain America, and he wasn't going to stay dead anymore than Superman did. But it was interesting to see how the other heroes got along without his guiadance.)
Still, by Fear Itself I too had lost interest in the Marvel Events.
Both companies need to go back to spacing out their Events. And make them feel more 'natural' that is, like stuff you expect to see happen (Dr. Doom taking over the world, for example) rater than something picked out of a hat.
Oh and find other consequences for the events than "so and so got killed."
This. Sometimes, I wish the brain trust at these companies would allow the characters some down time. Let Hal Jordan have an adventure or two close to home. Let the Justice League face some crisis that doesn't involve the fate of the whole DCU and continuity and general. (That's another quibble of mine. C'mon, DC—find a continuity and stick with it!) Heck, maybe a fun two-parter instead of a six-issue story arc once in a while!
I remember reading a suggestion somewhere once that Marvel and DC should have different series set in different times. Like DC would have Batman and Wonder Woman set during the 30's and 40's, have a Hal Jordan Green Lantern series set during the 50's and 60's, and have legacy Batman and a legacy Green Lantern with their own stories set in the modern day. Similarly, they suggested that Marvel do stuff like have Captain America set during WWII, the Fantastic Four be set in the 60's, and Spider Man be set in the 2000's.
I don't know whether that idea as a whole could work, but it would have an interesting effect on events. The time period differences would make a complete company wide event nearly impossible, so instead they'd have to do stuff where all the titles set during a certain era would have a crossover event, then they'd go back to doing non-event stories while titles set in another time period had their own event. That could create some nice balance.
One problem with Marvel's events is that they always derail something better. Spider-man's going good till Civil War, Spider-man's Starting to get good again till One More Day, ect
Every team not the Avengers suffered ever since Marvel got a hard on for Justice League light. New ideas usually come from good writers trying to salvage things, Civil War and M-day concluded with interesting New Warriors lead by bandit but then Secret Invasion went and derailed them and Miss Marvel too. They don't stick to those new ideas, they do more Skrull invasions! Do they put something like Next Wave on their website's front page? No they promote Mighty Avengers because the Sentry, the Superman nobody likes, is important to the next five events.
Even when the event should be mostly harmless, like World War Hulk, which gave the star lots of character development and managed to leave most other books unharmed(besides Heroes For Hire, who weren't going anywhere anyway) Marvel decided to undo all that character development and all of Planet Hulks then have a red guy derail everything. Cornette Face!
I do feel the Big Two are too event happy; the creative folks at both DC and Marvel are, in fact, in total agreement with me. There are quite a few more indy-type talents who'd kinda like to take a stab at DC and Marvel's character stables, but won't because they don't want whatever storylines they concoct to be derailed by a big crossover. However, as Fred Mc Guinness once pointed out, while everyone claims thay hate all these big crossover events, people still apparently buy the hell out of them. I figure the events will continue to happen until they become unprofitable.
Well, I think the Big Two are focusing on big events not just because it's profitable, but because they believe that they will avert (or subvert) the tropes Continuity Snarl, Status Quo Is God, and Superman Stays Out of Gotham with these events and appease the fans. I'm not saying that they're right to do this, I'm saying that they are likely using this as their reasoning for making one event after another.
That, and they probably asked themselves "Why should we make a storyline focusing on one character, when we can make a storyline focusing on every character?"
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!Don't the Big Events generally end up making the Continuity Snarl worse, though?
Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.I don't understand. How does a big event make the Continuity Snarl worse? Is it because it creates so many books, and you have to read every single one of them so that you don't miss any details, or is it something else?
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!Dan Didio specifically said that he wanted the crossovers to reflect how their universe was interconnected. Which is a good thing- when done right. Unfortunately, their editors, writers (and sometimes even the artists) often seemed to not be in the same page. See the mess that was Countdown To Final Crisis for examples.
edited 19th Dec '11 6:50:42 AM by Sijo
DC and Marvel need to just produce a handbook or something annually that details what their current continuity is that they hand out to all their creative people (from what I understand, DC's Who's Who project from the 80's began as this, to let everyone know how all the characters stood after Crisis on Infinite Earths).
Well, for Marvel Comics, let's see if there's a pattern...
2008: Secret Invasion (June), and Dark Reign
(December).
2009: War Of Kings (March).
2010: Siege (January), Realm Of Kings (January), The Heroic Age (May), The Thanos Imperative (July), Shadowland (September), and Chaos War (October).
2011: Age Of X (January), Onslaught Unleashed (February), Fear Itself (March), Spider Island (June), and Shattered Heroes (October)
These are only a few years. However, a list I found indicates that events on Marvel's side used to be one, two or three a year. This year and last year Marvel has been able to write more events than they do on average!
edited 20th Dec '11 5:50:52 AM by TiggersAreGreat
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!Eh, half of those aren't the big events we are complaining about though. Onslaught Unleashed doesn't belong since it was just a mini. As was The Thanos Imperative. Things Like Age of X and Spider Island weren't events either, just extended arcs in their respective books with tie ins. Chaos War and Shadowland are technically events, but mostly they were minseries with tie ins to a few ongoing books.
Dark Reign and Age of Heroes and this Shattered Heroes thing aren't exactly what I would call events either. There isn't a big overarching story that is hijacking the plot of ongoings. More like it is a label that gets slapped on the books that are dealing with the fallout of the previous event.

Don't get me wrong, I like massive crossover events, and I like events that impact the whole universe, but it just feels like comics these days are far too concerned with having some kind of massive event that changes the face of their universe occur every two years. Especially DC.
There seems to be the idea nowadays that if something isn't radically altering the nature of the characters' existence every five minutes then the comic isn't exciting or catchy enough to survive, when really all they're doing is slowly stereotyping and cheapening the genre.
The events lose their impact, because they're happening too often. You're not compelled to be interested in the new state of affairs, because you know they're going to be changed, probably back to the status quo, in a few months anyway. And then the status quo will be changed to something again, all while keeping all the changes to try and satisfy everyone, resulting in a major to minor Continuity Snarl.
Again, I like events, but I like them even more when they're far and in between, so that their effects are more meaningful and far reaching. I like things that change the status quo, not in far too major ways that must be readdressed, but in subtle ways, or even drastic ways that are not so huge they can't stand on their own.
Sigh... what are you guys' thoughts?