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Definitely not. House of M came close, with a few good tie-ins, but that’s about as close as anyone has made it. Civil War is at about HoM quality, and the Infinite and Identity Crises was pretty bad, Identity Crisis were pretty bad.

What was the one before One Million? Onslaught?

Erm, wouldn’t an “inter-company crossover” be a crossover between two or more different companies?

And I have absolutely no idea why I just posted that, since that’s not the phrase used in the original post two inches above…

I need coffee.

Too slow, Mr. O’Brien! I changed it 15 minutes ago! But yes, good catch! That’s exactly why I edited it.

I don’t think so. I like the original Crisis and Invasion!, but neither of them was as inventive as DC1M.

i remember being excited about Armageddon 2001, but thats probably because I completely missed parts 1 and 2 , and only read one Batman special, one Superman special and the JLA/I/E specials. I also thoroughly enjoyed Infinite Crisis until about issue 6, then wished to God number 7 had never happened because it completely destroyed any chance of pulling the whole thing off.

Zero hour – oh dear. Without a doubt, it gets my vote for WORST THING EVER, ANYWHERE. I’d never read it and picked it up a month or two ago off of EBay (surprise surprise). I knew it was supposed to be bad, but nothing could prepare me for the sheer, terrifying onslaught of craptacular that lurked within those covers. I started to become hopelessly confused right about the point where they “killed” Wally West. Okay, I need to take a shower because I feel dirty and violated…

/ shower

….that’s better. Though “Breakdowns” from the end of the JLE/I era wasn’t exactly a company wide event, it DID have a big blastzone with regards many of the ongoing titles at the time. It was pretty ambitious stuff, too, from what I remember. Certainly it was something different than the usual template of OPEN WITH BIG DISASTER / OH NOES ALL GOING WRONG / KILL FLASH, LOL / LOADS OF TALKING / EPIC FINAL BATTLE WITH OPTIONAL NOBLE SACRIFICE THAT ULTIMATELY MEANS NOTHING.

If you include the big 90s crossovers that didn’t necessarily span the whole line, I was always partial to Operation Galactic Storm in the Avengers books.

Siege to Avengers Mansion only involved Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man and WCA. But it was far better than any other crossover that I recall.

I really liked the first three Mutant Crossovers before they became overkill: Mutant Massacre, Fall of the Mutants and Inferno. Especially Inferno. I enjoyed every single tie-in associated with it, except for Amazing Spider-Man, because it was written by David Michilinie. But yeah, I’d rank all three of those over DC One Million, even though I liked DC One Million. Plus, DC One Million loses alot of points for allowing Val Semeiks to pencil the main miniseries.

Ahhh, excellent point, T.: Semeiks does bring the value down on DC One Million.

Still … surely passable art with an original, kick-ass story ranks far higher than beautiful art with a dreadful story — (cough, Civil War) — or mish-mash art with a dreadfully muddled story (cough, Infinite Crisis).

Age of Apocalypse would have my vote if the rest of the Marvel books had participated as well, but that might’ve been overkill.

Still … surely passable art with an original, kick-ass story ranks far higher than beautiful art with a dreadful story — (cough, Civil War) — or mish-mash art with a dreadfully muddled story (cough, Infinite Crisis).

Yes, indeed. Civil War has especially been a disappointment. Even though Infinite Crisis was worse in my opinion, I never had much hope for it. Civil War however was talked up so well in interviews that I actually expected it to be half-decent.

Acts of Vengeance!!!

The only other real competitor is Invasion.

I think The Final Night is pretty good, and somewhat innovative in crossover terms because there’s no big threat to punch to make the problem go away — I mean, the sun’s gone out. How do you deal with that? I don’t think the actual execution quite lived up to the premise, but the whole thing is still pretty good, has some nice Stuart Immonen art, and gives Hal Jordan’s character arc an excellent conclusion that I wish they’d just have let stood.

Acts of Vengeance has some very fun moments — notably Magneto Vs. The Red Skull and Daredevil fighting Ultron with a stick and a pickup truck — and Invasion is rather fun as well. The frustrating thing about both Infinite Crisis and Civil War is that they both had the potential to be quite good — if everyone would pause to remember, the blogosphere reaction to the first couple issues of each was overwhelmingly positive — but fell apart in the execution.

I remeber being really excited about Our Worlds at War. I don’r recall if it was any good, but I remember liking it even thought I wasn’t buying the Superman books at the time, and I’m pretty sure I bought a good portion of the tie-in books.

I liked Final Night and Underworld Unleashed at least as MUCH as One Million, and better in places. Truthfully I thought One Million was one of the weaker JLA arcs Morrison did.

It depends on how you’re judging them. Final Night and Underworld had much easier tie-in concepts that other writers and artists could springboard off of and as a result did a better job. Legends and One Million both had a more interesting main story but I thought a great many of the tie-ins were disappointing and occasionally out-and-out lame. If you are going to insist on ‘company-wide’ then really I wouldn’t give it to One Million because of the tie-in factor. There I think I’d say “Underworld Unleashed.” Good main story, best tie-ins.

On the other hand, if you ask “which one made the best TPB?” then it’s absolutely One Million, followed by Legends. There I’d put Underworld third.

I guess I’m not a Marvel guy, at least not a modern Marvel guy. I can’t think of a Marvel event that I enjoyed that much. None of the X-events really did anything for me, or any of the Secret Wars, or anything like that. Really for me you have to go all the way back to the Avengers/Defenders War to find one I was into as much as the DC ones. Clearly, I am old-school.

I haven’t liked any Line-Wide crossovers, DC1M included. So, to answer the question, I guess the answer is no since I was no more impressed with it than anything else.

Infinity Gauntlet.

Ew. Infinity Gauntlet was some ugly, boring stuff.

I really miss the days of those one-month DC crossovers. You knew that every year you’d get one four- or five-part mini with a fairly loose tie-in in every book except 2 or 3 which would be key to the main story, and maybe a one-shot featuring one character that didn’t have his own book but was important to the story. We all knew they’d be at least somewhat inconsequential, with maybe a big debut or a semi-big death, and an excuse to get everyone together for an enemy no ten of them could handle alone. Even Genesis, the lamest by a factor of at least fifty, provided us with the awesome Steel tie-in story. While Civil War and Infinite Crisis are almost certainly better from a bottom-line and cultural-awareness standpoint, I would have to say that I preferred these mini-crossovers from a personal standpoint and wish we could have them back instead.

Final Night WAS really good, and probably makes a great trade. Also served as a great redemption for Hal, back in the day.

One million was okay, but not spectacular. If you want the worst of the worst, go for the whole Millenium Giants crud.

Okay, I know that I am going to be shot and killed for this, however.

I really liked Onslaught. I really did.

I actually waited for the next comics to come out with a level of excitement that I’ve rarely duplicated.

Now, I know that Heroes Reborn was terrible.

I am not denying that.

But I thought that Onslaught was beautifully played out, and had some cool moments. It wrapped up some long standing issues (the traitor, Bishop “completing” his task, And hey, here are two important facts that that are often forgotten:

- Onslaught/Heroes Reborn helped remove the blight of de-aged Tony Stark.
- Onslaught launched the Thunderbolts.

Didn’t like DC One Million, but I only read the trade and none of the tie-in issues.

Did like:

Secret War
Infinity Gauntlet
Mutant Massacre
Age of Apocalypse

One Million is one of my favorite mainstream superhero stories period. In the otherwise lackluster field of crossovers, it stands out even further. Besides, how many other crossovers has the God of All Comics written?

Final night is good, but oh man, for some reason the art in the last few parts is horrendous, presumably because they switched artists. I mean, whats the deal with those drawings…everyone suddenly has huge heads and little tiny bodies with strangely stunted arms. It just looks *weird*.

Can’t say I cared for DC1M myself. But I have to fall into the category that hasn’t really liked any company-wide crossover very much. I enjoyed a few core stories in trade (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinity Gauntlet, Secret Wars), but tie-in issues always annoy the living hell out of me, and hardly ever contribute anything very useful or interesting to a book.

DC1M doesn’t really tie together enough for my tastes.

For what it’s worth, I’m rereading Acts of Vengeance right now and absolutely loving the idea behind it, but that doesn’t tie in too well either.

Janus Initiative was pretty good, no?

I’m surprised nobody has stuck up for the original ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’, which has gorgeous art, some excellent old-school writing by Marv Wolfman, and most of all, genuinely meant it when it said it was going to be an earth-shattering event that would forever change the DC Universe. And for the most part, it stuck to its guns, even if Mark Waid and Jeph Loeb have been doing their damndest ever since to reverse it all.

Acts of Vengeance is very fun, and I’ve got a soft spot for it, but it’s really just light entertainment. (Then again, really, so is DC1M. Very very fun, but it’s not the kind of thing that was intended to shift the axis of the DCU.)

Final Night and Underworld Unleashed both do good work, and Underworld Unleashed probably holds the record for most permanent changes introduced–after all, nobody’s going to complain when you take a lame villain and give them extra super-powers. Oh, and the Joker selling his soul for Cuban cigars is brilliant. But I’d still give it to DC1M over either of those two.

Onslaught…well, my full thoughts on Onslaught will take up a chapter (no, seriously) of the book I’m working on, but I’ll sum it up here: It was like chemotherapy. Absolutely horrible when you’re going through it, but totally necessary. It acted as a sort of ‘Crisis’ for Marvel, allowing them to take a lot of the excesses of the 90s and retcon them out of existence, returning the characters to their classic state. (Go back and read ‘FF’ and ‘Avengers’ just prior to ‘Onslaught’ and just after ‘Heroes Return’, and you’ll be amazed at how many horrible, _horrible_ character changes you forgot about while Lee and Liefeld were doing ‘Heroes Reborn’.) The only opportunity I think they missed with ‘Onslaught’: They should have chucked both Ben Reilly and Peter Parker into the vortex, and had only one come out. Was it the original? The clone? Who cares, the horrible abomination of a plot is dead!

Oh, and Death/Funeral/Reign of the Supermen is much better than you probably remember. Which reminds me, anyone have any talent in illustrating a comic in the Silver Age style? I’ve had this idea I want to get out of my head, but I can’t draw worth a lick…

I’ll add another vote for Acts of Vengeance. Really well coordinated, too.

And does no one remember Atlantis Attacks?

Underworld Unleashed probably holds the record for most permanent changes introduced.

It seemed that way at the time, but how many of those villain changes have lasted? Most villains have either reverted to their old states (Major Disaster, Shadow Thief) or died (Copperhead, Blockbuster).

I suppose one could argue that Lex Luthor has retained his Neron-granted youth and vitality, but that’s debatable given Birthright.

Outside of the utterly brilliant Hitman tie-in, I wasn’t crazy about DC1M. Oh, and that I worked at a comic store when it came out and the promotional t-shirt for the crossover made a great work-out shirt for me for years to come.

My favorites? Company-wide, it’s simple: DC’s best is Invasion! (with The Final Night a good runner-up) and Marvel’s best is Infinity Gauntlet. But if Age of Apocalypse counts, that takes the cake.

Count me in the Invasion! boosters, too.

How many books do you have to touch before you qualify for this award, anyhow? Because if The Janus Directive makes it in under that threshold, it’s another good choice.

(Worst nominees: War of the Gods, Shattered Image, Bloodlines…)

Judgment Day is sort of amusing for it’s “Rob Liefeld pays Alan Moore vast sums of money to insult him” qualities…

Jeff:
HA! I just re-read Judgment Day (thank you, Checker reprints) and once again laghed out loud as the murderer is revealed to be Liefeld, and the victim isn’t some Youngblood girlie, but the entire comics industry. And Liefeld drew it! HA! again.

Invasion is close to one million just for the sheer scope and organization of the event. it established the spaceways of the DCU, and had lasting effects with heroes losing powers or gaining more powers. plus it had vril dox forming l.e.g.i.o.n

I must agree with John Seavney; I’m amazed that no one is bringing up COIE. When I read the question, my response was “Sure. Crisis on Infinite Earths.” In terms of scope, craft, impact and emotion COIE is so far and away ahead of the rest there shouldn’t even be a discussion. I mean, Acts of Vengence? Invasion? Onslaught, for God’s sake? Get serious. Perhaps this is like one of those discussions about who the best band of all time was, and no one says the Beatles, because it’s too obvious and then there would be no fun in discussing the topic….

But yeah. Crisis on Infinite Earths. The first was also the best– still.

“Perhaps this is like one of those discussions about who the best band of all time was, and no one says the Beatles, because it’s too obvious and then there would be no fun in discussing the topic…”

..you do realise the next six hundred posts will be about the Rolling Stones, right?

Except I don’t think COIE is very good at all. Gorgeous art, sure, and a genuinely epic story, but it’s insanely convoluted and lacks the kind of heart that it desperately needs. The choice to feature a million characters at the expense of having a central protagonist or group of protagonists really hurts it, and it’s kind of frustrating in that it tells a story which wipes itself out of continuity.

Years later, and we still don’t really know what the Crisis looked like in the post-Crisis continuity, only that the Flash died in it and it involved the Anti-Monitor, Harbringer, and the others.

I’d disagree with the “insanely convoluted” notion–at its heart, Crisis is a relatively simple story. There’s a creature from a negative version of our universe, an anti-being that hates all life, and it’s trying to kill us, one positive universe at a time. It tries method after method, until it’s finally foiled by Earth’s super-heroes and villains.

I will, however, agree that it hurts it to not have a single “viewpoint” character; it dazzles you with its scope, but Wolfman does kind of rely on your familiarity with the various DC super-heroes to allow him to shift settings frequently, and that works to varying degrees through the length of the series.

And personally, I don’t need to know what post-Crisis DC heroes thought happened in the Crisis; the whole point of Crisis, I thought, was that once it happened it should never be referred to again. Part of the big problem with post-Crisis DC was that the editors couldn’t stop the writers from obsessing about DC continuity, which led to a number of very bad–if not very important–decisions (bringing back Krypto, re-retconning Byrne’s Krypton backstory, dueling retcons involving the death of Joe Chill, the whole chaos surrounding Wonder Woman, Troia, and Hawkman, and two additional crossovers in the form of Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis that continued to pick at the metaphorical scab.) Crisis was, by its very nature, something designed to cut the Gordian knot of continuity–referring back to it defeats its very purpose.

The Janus Directive? I just reread that recently and wow, was that a mess. I hope this wasn’t a serious suggestion…

I’d disagree with the “insanely convoluted” notion–at its heart, Crisis is a relatively simple story.

Oh, I wouldn’t deny that at its heart it’s a tremendously simple, effective story. What I’d argue is that they attach so much other stuff to it… Krona and the Antimatter Universe, Harbringer’s betrayal, the various tuning forks… that it bogs the whole affair down. It’s narrative detritus.

I would generally agree that it should pretty much have been the end-all be-all of that type of linewide crossover, though.

You can hand DC1M to someone in trade and expect them to be able to be able to fully enjoy it, regardless of their level of familiarity with DC minutiae (unless they’re the ultra-fan who is super-familiar and thinks that Kyle Rayner is an affront to good taste and also Jehovah); this is a major advantage it has over CoIE, which starts you on Earth-3 and gets worse (from this perspective).

Actually, I remember giving the first issue of DC1M to my girlfriend at the time, and she was completely lost.

All crossovers suffer from lack of accessability. By their very nature, they require the reader to have a working knowledge of the characters involved and their setting, because they are all essentially a linewide attempt to boost sales. But crossovers never draw in new readers, no matter how many press releases the PR dept sends out. They sell to the established fans, and hopefully all of them.

I don’t agree that Crisis would be better served if it were focused through one or two eyes; this is a mistake, in fact, that other subsequent events have suffered from. Crisis is a big story; to limit it’s narrative would reduce it’s scope.

Crisis is mainly of historical interest to me. I can’t say I enjoyed reading it. Nice art, epic scope, and definitely impactful … but not a good story.

When I stop and think about it, and in spite of the fact that I started my life as a comics fan as a hopeless Marvel zombie, I’d have to say that Marvel has never done a company-wide crossover that was worth a damn.
I realize that Secret War is looked back on fondly by many, but its appeal still escapes me. And don’t say that it’s because I wasn’t there for the excitement of the first big crossover, because I remember mentioning to PLOK a year or so before then how cool a crossover involving EVERY SINGLE BOOK (little did I know how bad such a thing could be back then) would be; then it happened…
Talk about disappointing. Shooter’s whole “no writer/editors” edict should have been applied to himself. Not to mention his whole “I want all art to be all pale, washed out, and have too many blank white backgrounds” art policy that made so much work by anyone not a big star at the time (Byrne, Miller, etc.) look cheap and stiff.
Of course, that’s not the worst. Marvel’s worst crossover has got to be Inferno. Definitely one of the things that helped drive me over to DC in the 80s (along with Claremont just digging himself into a hole of overwrought crap and losing all appeal to me over on the X-books).

Marvel’s worst crossover? Starblast. Easy.

When I was a kid, I loved Bloodlines and Infinity War. Were I to go back and read them, I’m sure that I wouldn’t dig them near as much, but there you have it.

DC 1 Million was… decent, but it wasn’t that great, in my view. Too muddled overall, but I did miss out on some of the tie-in issues, having only read the tpb.

They’ve all pretty much disappointed me in one way or another, but Crisis on Infinite Earths had me eager to read each issue, which isn’t true of most of the others.

Other than that, Final Night (which really should have been called Blackest Night — Did they not do that for fear that people would guess Hal Jordan would save the day?) was one that I thought worked pretty well.

Bad ones: Genesis – the Godwave? What the hell? I can’t even remember what happened?

Acts of Vengeance – None of the big masterminds realized that all of the others also treated the strange guy with no name who came up with the idea like he worked for them? No one said “Hey, how exactly does sending villains against unfamiliar heroes automatically give the villains the advantage? They’re facing unfamiliar foes also. Don’t they also have to be reasonably effective villains?” (OK, Walt Simonson’s FF issues showed some awareness of the outright stupidity of the concept. Also, Dwayne McDuffie did some nice stuff within the framework with Damage Control and Iron Man.)

Special awful award to every crossover that took place in the Annuals – Annuals are supposed to be special, not a place where the heroes tread water for 40 pages because there are 13 more chapters to go.

Special “It could have been so good” award to War of the Gods – It’s a shame this one went off the rails artistically and scheduling wise. Perez art and warring pantheons should have been a no-brainer.

“Untold Tales” award to Tony Isabella’s Shadow War of Hawkman – Tony proposed a crossover that would occur after a year or two of build-up showing how devious and manipulative the Thanagarians were and how they compromised existing characters. Some aspects of Millennium were similar to this, but we probably would have been spared the New Guardians and Byrne’s brilliant idea that the entire population of Smallville had been mind-controlled for decades. Read the Isabella-written issues of Hawkman and dream of what might have been . . . .