Comic Book Resources

Everything said here is true. I fondly remember when the DAY OF JUDGEMENT crossover got me into the excellent HOURMAN series, and OUR WORLDS AT WAR got me to finally go full-time on collecting YOUNG JUSTICE (both of which I tracked done the back issues to)…

An interesting point here (which, obviously, will be in the book I’m writing on crossovers when I someday finish the damned thing)…Steve Englehart mentioned that the first time he started to hear “crossover backlash” was in the 90s, when he did Break-Thru, the Ultraverse crossover. Previous, smaller crossovers (like ‘The Avengers/Defenders War’) had been rapturously received by fans, but (his theory) as comic prices increased, and readers had to budget their purchases more carefully, buying additional books to get the full story became less of a thrill and more of a chore.

I also think it’s worth mentioning that the sales tactics like crossovers, multiple covers, shock deaths, relaunches, et cetera, are what I call “trading on the goodwill of the readers”…that is to say, they don’t like the tactic, but they like the company and characters enough to put up with it for a while. So I buy a crossover title I wouldn’t otherwise buy, even though I’m not happy, because I like the main title I’m following and I’m willing to part with a little extra cash every once in a while to keep up with the story. But reader goodwill is not an unlimited resource; I still remember when mine ran out, and I went from about twenty titles a week down to three without looking back.

I agree with just about everything here– even have similar views about what the good payoffs were from each event.

That’s right — my first Alan Moore comic was this big dumb corporate crossover tie-in book, and it STILL blew me away

Mine too! Bought it for the Phantom Stranger appearance and was totally hooked for the Brujeria story.

It’s funny, Brotherhood of the Fist was exactly what ensured I’d never like the Connor Hawke Green Arrow. When I saw them try to establish Hawke, a johnny come lately, as a grand martial artist whose skills eclipsed Dick Grayson (who doesn’t need any more help in looking inadequate, thank you), it pissed me off. It just reeked of Mary Sue-ism to me, and it always seems like whenever you need someone to lose or get trounced in a fight to establish another guy’s credibility, Dick Grayson always gets volunteered.

Also, there was a rotating art cast of Damaggio, who I loved, and Rosado and Braithwaithe, who I loathe, and I didn’t feel like skipping two out of every three issues.

As far as I can recall, the only DC book that DIDN’T have a Crisis crossover in 1985-86 was Batman & The Outsiders. I’ve always wondered how Mike W. Barr avoided doing one. Hell, even G.I. Combat had a Crisis crossover.

I half-followed the death of Superman through a friend, but had absolutely no interest in the return. DC presented four options of who the real Superman was: a guy in a metal suit, a fourteen-year-old kid, a robot, and Superman wearing sunglasses. I remember being eight looking at the posters and thinking, “wow, the answer is not going to surprise me at all.” That’s some bad marketing if you can’t keep an 8-year-old in suspense.
(I now know what happened, but that’s beside the point.)

The Dracula/Silver Surfer thing confirms what I’ve thought for a while: the Marvel universe should be split up into several completely isolated universes with no contact between them. I propose:

The Mutantverse, with the X-Men, Magneto, sundry evil mutants and bigoted humans.

The Magicverse, with Dr Strange, Dracula, and perhaps Thor.

The Cosmicverse, with the Fantastic Four, the Skrulls, Galactus and the Silver Surfer.

The Ashcanverse, with everyone else.

“Let’s start with the granddaddy of them all, the one we can blame for the trend becoming a trend in the first place.”

I’d say that distinct really belongs to Marvel Comics’ Secret Wars, which preceded DC’s Crisis by a year.

Distinct? Distinction! So much for my spelling.

My favorite crossover was a very early one for Marvel, which I read years later in reprints- the Hulk vs. Thing story from FF 25-26, which continued from Avengers #3, and featured the Avengers quite prominently as guest-stars in FF #26.

The Marvel ones were worse–I hated Inferno and ACts of Vengeance–I didn’t buy any crossovers, but they wrecked some other books for a month or 2 or 3… I skipped Secret wars I & II as well…

But DC had some bad ones too.

And comic shop owners expected you to get them all…

I’d say that distinction really belongs to Marvel Comics’ Secret Wars, which preceded DC’s Crisis by a year.

You’d think so, and I did consider it — but think about the way Secret Wars was set up. If you were there for it, you’ll remember it was very odd.

Secret Wars was a maxi-series that ran for a year. But unlike Crisis, which ran the same length of time and tied into current issues of the line while it was running, Secret Wars was a story that took place between the END of one month’s worth of Marvel Comics and the BEGINNING of the next. It was as if DC started publishing “One Year Later” the same month Infinite Crisis #1 came out. All the changes at the END of the series were ALREADY in place in the regular books the whole time the series was running.

So really, the hook was that if you wanted to know how the changes came about, you had to buy the monthly Secret Wars book. But your regular buying habits weren’t really expanded beyond that — and if you hated the changes, like She-Hulk replacing the Thing in the FF, or Spider-Man’s alien costume, you leaned more towards DROPPING your regular books.

See what I mean? Crisis was set up so you were tempted to buy more of the regular line. Secret Wars was set up, either by accident or design, more just to tempt you into buying Secret Wars.

It’s a fine line, certainly; and I don’t think you can deny that Secret Wars certainly broke a lot of new ground that Crisis benefited from (the comments from fans at the time were basically, “This is what Secret Wars should have been!”) But I also think that the Crisis crossover template is what stuck in terms of marketing technique and selling new series, which is what I was trying to consider. As far as marketing new books is concerned, I just don’t see Secret Wars doing a lot there. But your mileage may vary, of course.

Along with being driven by a desire to sell toys versus simplify the multiverse for new readers, Secret Wars wasn’t really a crossover like Crisis. Characters disappeared to go fight SW and then immediately came back with SW’s changes already in place (She-Hulk in FF, Spidey’s black costume); the only book that actually told the story of how these changes occurred was SW itself. This is very different from a crossover that spreads plot points over a zillion different books.

Yay, let’s hear it for great minds and all that

You’d think so, and I did consider it — but think about the way Secret Wars was set up. If you were there for it, you’ll remember it was very odd.

Secret Wars was a maxi-series that ran for a year. But unlike Crisis, which ran the same length of time and tied into current issues of the line while it was running, Secret Wars was a story that took place between the END of one month’s worth of Marvel Comics and the BEGINNING of the next. It was as if DC started publishing “One Year Later” the same month Infinite Crisis #1 came out. All the changes at the END of the series were ALREADY in place in the regular books the whole time the series was running.

Bad analogy. It’s actually more like if DC started publishing “One Year Later” the same month 52 #1 came out (which is what they did). A gap in time occurs, the regular books jump forward in time that skips that gap and show the changes that occur, then another miniseries comes out simultaneously to “fill in” that gap and explain the changes. For Marvel, that gap filling mini was Secret Wars, for DC the gap filling mini was 52.

“In addition to telling a really gripping story of Dracula squaring off with Doc Strange, he set up a great little cliffhanger, with Blade the vampire hunter meeting Hannibal King the vampire detective, as an epilogue. It didn’t impact the Dr. Strange storyline in any way but it got me interested enough to come back the following month.”

Good point about how a crossover can work well in getting you to expand your interests, and a striking contrast with how many superhero books work these days. Writing for the trade means that stories are more or less self-contained in (typically) six issues. But back then writers typically created overlapping plotlines, so that a new story was starting up even before the current one had resolved. It’s fascinating to consider that the boom in massive crossovers is occurring simultaneously with a narrative trend that reduces how effectively they widen readers’ tastes. (Yes, I’m probably oversimplifying a complex situation here, but I think there’s nonetheless a kernel of truth to my argument.)

Also, of course, there’s a big difference between small crossovers between a few titles, like your Dr. Strange/Tomb of Dracula example (and jeez, that later TOD logo was horrible), and nearly company-wide crossovers. For some reason I’m lured to an agricultural analogy here: Small crossovers are like little experiments in crossbreeding or grafting, which often yields “hybrid vigor,” whereas company-wide crossovers are more like massive monoculture, which can temporarily produce very high yields but in the long run is often unstable.

“Along with being driven by a desire to sell toys versus simplify the multiverse for new readers, Secret Wars wasn’t really a crossover like Crisis.”

I always think the claim that Crisis was “driven by a desire to … simplify the multiverse” is, at best, only part of the story. As those Crisis covers above remind us, COIE was an event celebrating DC’s 50th anniversary. As such, I believe DC editorial was searching for a story that could use most of its publishing history, as well as integrate the recently acquired Charlton characters (who were dear to DC editor-in-chief and ex-Charlton editor Dick Giordano). COIE was the solution to that problem; simplifying the multiverse was, IMO, more a “lucky” (in DC’s eyes at the time) byproduct.

If massive crossovers were still driven mainly by such special occasions, I think there’d be far less animus toward them. Nowadays there are just too darn many of them.

One last thing: Why shouldn’t Gene Colan draw the Silver Surfer, Greg?

“O,” the increasing number of trades has not necessarily coincided with a growth in mega-crossovers. Quesada-era Marvel began with a policy of no mega-crossovers AND a policy of writing for the trade (typified by the Ultimate line, the Uncanny/New X-Men split, etc.). The most successful DC trades have been books that are entirely self-contained: Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Sandman. They seem like they’re just ways for the two companies to make as much money as possible by catering to both the casual bookstore reader and the direct market gotta-have-everything reader.

Crossovers (outside of a few anecdotal examples) generally don’t broaden readers’ tastes, or at least they don’t anymore. The Infinite Crisis/OYL initiative was basically a failure; 52 cannibalized DC’s sales.

And I believe that if a writer has a good story, it should be told, regardless of how many books it takes; outside events (particularly anniversaries of dubious worth) shouldn’t dictate crossovers. Remember the return of Peter Parker’s parents for Spider-Man’s 30th? That was truly awful and not needed in the slightest. Infinity Gauntlet had no outside-continuity reason, but it’s still the best crossover ever.

It’s a fine line, certainly; and I don’t think you can deny that Secret Wars certainly broke a lot of new ground that Crisis benefited from (the comments from fans at the time were basically, “This is what Secret Wars should have been!”) But I also think that the Crisis crossover template is what stuck in terms of marketing technique and selling new series, which is what I was trying to consider. As far as marketing new books is concerned, I just don’t see Secret Wars doing a lot there. But your mileage may vary, of course.

Another reason I don’t consider Secret Wars the first is because it was nothing more than a spoiler tactic, (You know, like those stories a current affairs show will ruch into the program before another show’s “exclusive” hits the airwaves in an effort to spoil the hype).

Crisis was five years in the making….Jim Shooter only produced Secret Wars for two reasons:

1. So that when Crisis was finally released, Marvel could say that they “did it first”.

2. So that Jim Shooter could say “This is how its done”.

So, the reason why Secret Wars isn’t what it should have been was because Marvel rushed it into production to get the jump on the Distinguished Competition.

….Heh, just like I rushed that last response and forgot to put my name on it.

Bloodlines begat Hitman, which got me to read Preacher, and then the string runs right through Kev to The Authority to Planetary to Flex Mentalo to Doom Patrol. Tons of good reading I discovered because of Bloodlines.

Age of Apocalypse did it for me, I must admit, on the ’slap on a fresh coat of paint’ principle. I was working in a small bookstore at the time, so was able to see all the tie-in issues as they came in. Was absorbed very quickly.

I’d been a sort of peripheral fan of the X-Men for awhile. Loved the animated series, read a few of the collections etc. But reading AoA was a huge ‘Wow, the possibilities are totally cool!’ moment…

…So I picked up a Spider-Man issue next month, all eager and excited - I’d been a Spidey fan since about, oh, birth - and found myself smack in the middle of the Clone Saga. Was confused and heartbroken (Peter Parker *wasn’t*? The hell?) and promptly gave the whole comics thing up again.

So I’m not sure which side of the argument I’m on…

“So now it’s Marvel’s turn. You win, Mr. Quesada. The trick still works. You’ve got our attention. We’ve had the silly crossover and the Big Media Event. Now where’s the good stuff that spins out of it? That’s the REAL payoff. What are the books you guys are trying so hard to get us to look at?”

I’m still waiting to see what books they were trying so hard to get people to look at from “House of M” and “Disassembled.”

Ha. Remember “Atlantis Attacks” ? what was the point of that, anyway?

The only big-event crossover I’ve ever read that I not only really enjoyed when it was happening and thought it made an impression an a character’s subsequent storyline was/is “Operation Galactic Storm.” I was reading several of the Avengers solo titles at the time anyway, so I didn’t really add any new titles (except for the duration of the crossover), but what interested me was the changes it wrought on Wonder Man and his solo title. Which of course were all wiped out by the title’s cancellation, and the character’s subsequent more-permanent “death” in the first issue of Force Works.

“So, the reason why Secret Wars isn’t what it should have been was because Marvel rushed it into production to get the jump on the Distinguished Competition.”

Wow, some companies never learn. Marvel just did the exact same thing with Civil War, hurrying it out a week before 52 to try to steal some of its thunder. I don’t think there’s any question which is the more satisfying series. (Although, to be clear: It’s reasonable to call 52 a publishing “event,” but I wouldn’t call it a crossover.) (And, to be fair to Marvel: Who knows — Johns, Waid, Morrison and Rucka might well pull an Identity Crisis and f*ck the whole thing up right at the end.)

One last thing: Why shouldn’t Gene Colan draw the Silver Surfer, Greg?

I knew somebody would ask this.

Because the Surfer has always been, to my mind, the ultimate expression of the whole Jack Kirby cosmic-grandeur vision. He should always be presented on a godlike, galactic scale. He lives in a world of chrome and clean lines and spacescapes and supernovae.

Gene Colan was always the anti-Kirby in terms of his vision of human anatomy, of realism, of light and shadow, and, hell, of his whole style. Even Stan Lee, who in the 60’s was encouraging all his artists to ‘do it like Kirby,’ knew better than to ask that of Colan. It’s not in him.

So Colan did the best he could and the art in that issue actually is pretty good — but it just looks too freaky. It’s as awkwardly inappropriate as it would have been to have Jack Kirby drawing Colan’s Dracula attacking the FF in the Baxter Building circa 1967.

Of course, this is just my opinion, not necessarily shared by the universe. But you asked.

Incidentally, I just got my pro registration form for San Diego and they are listing novelist David Morrell (creator of Rambo) as an attendee this year. The project he’s shilling for? A revamp of Captain America for Marvel. So maybe THAT’S the project all this hype is setting up.

I guess I just can’t empathize with the feeling of interest/curiosity about what’s going to happen, just because something’s happening. They’ve done such a thorough job of losing my interest at Marvel, that I’m reluctant to even try any of the new series because they’re all starting out based around the event. I don’t care about the event, so I have absolutely no interest in the effects of the event, you know?

I want stories, not events.

The superhero comics landscape has become entirely unappealing to me.

Another great column, Greg.

One of the crossovers I remember fondly was a three-parter than ran through the annuals of Batman (or perhaps it was Detective, not certain), Green Arrow, and the Question, back in the late 80’s. I picked up the Bat-annual on a whim, thought it was pretty good. My roommate at the time was reading GA, so I was able to follow that one, as well. After that, I picked up the Question annual, even though it was a title I really didn’t have any interest in at the time.

I liked the annual so much, I immediately started hunting down the back issues of the Question.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that a) the annuals were written to be enjoyable as stand-alone stories, and b) they were each very well-written by Denny O’Neil.

Oh, and Marvel really should have released that ToD #44 cover as a black-light poster.

Gotta say that it was a “crossover” that destroyed my life.

The time…late 1970’s.
There I was, a young lad innocently reading MAN-THING *1st series* back-issues (primarily, because when all my friends would go to the comic shoppe and plunk down big $$ on Amazing Spidey, Thor, X-Men or Ghost Rider back issues - I didn’t have a lot of the green and was relegated to buying from the 25cent bins - and old 1st series MAN-THING was all about the 25cent bins. Of course, it helped me because I loved monster/horror/mystic/emo stuff and MAN-THING was all about THAT too).

Then in 1980, MAN-THING got a NEW, 2nd series and I jumped on.
With 3 new issues that gripped my $#!+,
Man-Thing # 4 hit the stands with a guest star!
Some guy named DOCTOR STRANGE.

The issue ended with Strange’s death at the hands of a Mordo-controlled Man-Thing and the story would continue in the next issue of Doctor Strange’s book.

Well… I bought it and while THAT issue wasn’t GREAT, it WAS good enough to get me to buy the next… and the next… and the next…

It wasn’t long before my mania for a complete Doctor Strange collection (not just comics, but EVERYTHING he’s ever been in, on around or near) turned me into a warped old man.

There have been other crossovers to get me to buy new books (Starman was a good example), but more often that not, were just things that would shake up the status quo on books I was already buying.

These days I see BIG x-overs as a chore.

I much prefer smaller, more intimate ones that allow the guest star to breathe their life into the pages allowing you to WANT to know more about them, and thusly BUY their book.

Oh, and as for Gene Colan thing… while I LOVE his work on many books, I just couldn’t understand HOW the heck he had worked on IRON MAN.
Gene’s line is fluid and soft, and IRON MAN…well… isn’t.

He always made I.M. look like his armor was made of putty.
But then, since I had NO interest in the character, I just let it go.

His work on that T.O.D. issue with Silver Surfer, while definitely NOT “Kirby”, worked just fine with the fluid, streamlined Surfer.

That’s just i.m.h.o.
You are free to think otherwise.

~P~
P-TOR

I know crossovers used to work on me, but these days I think they are so big and they are trying to change everything, that the attention they are trying to get is backfiring for me. I hate the direction Marvel is going in after Civil War, and have no intention of picking up anything spinning off of that. I buy two Marvel books, Spidergirl and X-Factor, and the only comic I have any interest in picking up in the future is Starlord miniseries, because Rocket Raccoon and Bug from Micronauts will be in it. But anything else, no. Because the place that Marvel is at is no fun to me anymore, but depressing.
As for DC, it’s getting to that point, where I won’t be picking up anymore crossover stuff. I liked Shadowpact and Secret Six from Infinite Crisis but they seem big on killing all their characters, very graphically, and replacing them with new versions that aren’t all that interesting to me. (And I don’t know who’s designing all the new costumes, but they all pretty much suck). DC seems to have a lack of respect for their characters and it’s turning me off. Gone for me are the days I used to try everything.
I think in the pursuit of new readers, Marvel and DC have scared off alot old readers, and there must be a way to do both. I hope someday to enjoy crossovers again, but for now, I don’t.