Top 5 Reasons Why Comic Events Don’t Work
I love reading comics, but I don’t read as much from the Big Two (Marvel and DC) because the stories are terrible. There was a mandate over 10 years ago where the Big Two made it a point to publish comic events every year. I feel like this became a thing when Marvel’s Civil War came out. Coincidentally, it’s also when I started reading Big Two comics again. Since I mainly read Marvel, this will skew towards (against?) them, but it applies to both the companies.
1. NOSTALGIA NAMING
Comic events were a thing when I was a kid, but they weren’t a company policy where they did it every year. Because comic readers tend to be shrinking, they prey on those people like me who read comics growing up. That’s why all the names are very similar. Some classic events were Secret War, The Infinity Gauntlet, and Crisis on Infinite Earth. More recently named events were Infinity, Secret Wars, Infinity Wars, Identity Crisis, and Final Crisis.
Because they have very similar names, people automatically think of the good events they read when they were a kid and may be interested. More often than not, the new events are terrible. Not only do they have the same name, they have the same plot.
2. RECYCLED IDEAS
Just because you call something the same, doesn’t mean that the idea or plot has to be the same. Unfortunately, it usually is. It’s just different enough so it’s not a blatant ripoff of what came before. Often times with the exact same characters. Of course, those characters do change based on movies, or which ever character they’re trying to push. Not sure why they feel the need to tell it again and not try something new.
What’s funny is that even in the grand events they’re based off of, they end them with saying, “The Infinity Gems will never be used together again,” or having the main character retire or learn a lesson from the event. For some reason, subsequent writers forget all that only remembering the cool moments. They forget the build up of those cook moments.
3. SAME PLOTS
Back when I was a kid a lot of events had ideas that were fresh and new at the time. In hindsight, they were the same, but since no one had ever done it before, it all felt new.
All events go like this: the heroes (and sometimes villains) team up to fight the new BIG BAD VILLAIN. Now the BIG BAD always has the same goal of destroying the Earth. Of course, these days, it destroys the multiverse. While this can be done well, more often times it’s not. The reason for that is it’s a villain that we’ve never seen before, or we’ve seen very little before, and it’s usually some kind cosmic god. There’s no build up to it, and the BIG BAD always comes off as one dimensional and shallow. Oddly enough, you would think that they would devote time to develop the villain in the series, but they never do.
One of my favorite events of all time is Age of Apocalypse. It worked because they cancelled all the main stream books and created the limited series and mini series just for this one event. Not only that, but the villain Apocalypse was a character we had seen before. We knew his motivations and his goals. He had substance and weight and desire. While we had seen him countless times before, and his “survival of the fittest” was growing a bit tiresome, this was just the first time he actually won. What would happen because of that?
4. NO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
Because there are so many characters in comic events, that leaves little room for any actual character development. There may be one or two characters that get some development, and if you’re a fan of them, great. If not, well sucks for you.
Because The Infinity Gauntlet was originally supposed to be a Silver Surfer event, all of Starlin’s characters take top billing and get a lot of screen time. It makes sense. It works because that was what he build it up to. It also works because it’s cosmic and back then, The Avengers and X-Men didn’t really deal with the cosmic nor should they.
There were great events that did do things right and that was Marvel’s Annihilation (both of them) and War of Kings. A lot of those dealt with characters that I didn’t know or care for, but suddenly found myself caring. Of course, before Guardians of the Galaxy became a thing, no one cared about Marvel’s Cosmic since Starlin so they were able to do their own thing. Funny how things work out when you don’t have to deal with the bean counters.
5. B/C LIST CHARACTER DIES, B/C LIST CHARACTER LIVES
The Big Two always say that “nothing will ever be the same.” It’s always the same just slightly different. One of these things that happen is some B/C list character will end up dying. Usually a minority or woman but sometimes not. In any case, it has no emotional bearing at all because it’s a character you barely remember, if that.
Conversely, because this is comics, some character that you may actually care for and remember will come back. Still a B/C character but you’re still glad to see them.
While I think the majority of comic events are terrible and don’t need to be read, that’s not to say that good stories can’t come out of them. I’ve found the ancillary stories to be OK to good. DC’s Dark Metal event was terrible, but the book containing all the origins of the Batmen was interesting. Marvel’s Secret Invasion was also terrible, but all the side titles were excellent. They each had different plots that felt essential to the story and were fun to read.
I’ll never understand why people continue to fall and buy comic events. I’ve learned to avoid them and only buy them when I can get them for less than $5 or for free. And I’ve learned I’m not missing much. They’re so empty and pointless. They never have any lasting impact because by the following event, it’ll get undone or worse yet, the entire universe will get rebooted.
I blame the shared universe for this. When I was a kid, it was cool. But now when I read a book, I want the story to be small enough to only affect that world. It doesn’t have to affect the world or the multiverse. It only has to affect their world.
There were a lot of great events that took place when I was younger. Things like Fall of the Mutants or Kraven’s Last Hunt. I also enjoyed Maximum Carnage and part of Spider-Man’s Clone Wars. It always felt as if THEIR world was at stake, and not THE world at stake. That’s the key to a really great event. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering just earth-shattering to them in their neighborhood. A great event should deal with characters you care about in situations you feel for. I hope things go back to that. They probably won’t.
Marc Johnson
