The Fall of the Comic Book Epic Event
Remember when comics were entertaining? You didn’t need to have 3 or 4 fancy crossovers every stinking year just to increase sales because there was a creative team who created interesting stories. There was no need to have someone on this team accidentally kill someone on that team, or have an explosion from another universe bring all the heroes together to fight one cause. Not on a regular basis, anyway. Though originally started to help sell toys (Secret Wars) or celebrate anniversaries (Crisis on Infinite Earths); “Epic Events” and “Crises” were things that people got excited about because they only occurred once in a while, say once every few years These days the big two comic companies (Marvel and DC) have gotten into the habit of having these ginormous events AT LEAST once a year, and Marvel is worse than DC.
In recent years, Marvel has just thrown money at some of their big name writers and said, “Sure, you can make a shitty epic event title, but just make sure it’s got as many characters in it as possible so we can make as many tie-ins as we can.” The lack of relevant stories has been multiplied because of this. When Captain America died a few years ago it was big…no, it was huge! But it was a good story. The X-titles’ House of M was both done well and has had an impact that is still felt today throughout the Marvel U. The superhero Civil War wasn’t even that bad, just a little too drawn out for most peoples’ tastes. But Chaos War? Siege (don’t even get me started)? Even The Thanos Imperative, which I enjoyed, seemed to not really do anything other than kill off a couple cool characters which could have been done without a huge event. It didn’t carry any epic story that brought a significant change, it just kind of happened and the status quo resumed, unlike the Annihilation War from a few years ago that had a HUGE impact.
Now DC has been better, but far from not having a piece of the blame pie. DC’s Crisis events just tend to have a more extensive impact on all characters throughout the DCU. The recent epic events like Green Lantern’s Blackest Night which killed off some characters while bringing back others, has had a significant impact. The return of Aquaman and Hawkman was big enough, but the return of Max Lord gave a profound impact on several different ongoing series’. Not to mention all the awesome merchandise that has come out of the woodwork as a result. So, you see? There can be profound epic events! It is possible! But the millions of tie-in issues were not necessary.
Now all these events may be a little more acceptable if they weren’t so…freaking…long. Secret Invasion went for 8 issues PLUS all of the tie-ins when it could easily have been finished in 4 or 5 issues. I know Bendis is wordy, and a lot of the time it’s worth reading that wordiness, but for 4 whole issues that don’t move the story along and don’t really need to be there? You’re killing me!
A friend brought up a good point to me the other day about the “Dark Reign” era, which though it wasn’t an “event” still had a similar impact in the Marvel U. at the time. It was a long and drawn out era that, if you look at the Marvel U. now, hasn’t had an impact impact other than bringing back and subsequently killing The Sentry. We’re back to where we were at the start, as if “Dark Reign” had never happened. So what was the point!? Oh, that’s right…the comic industry 
needs to make money. Batman, the JLA, Captain America, and the X-Men can’t make money by themselves, even if they have exceptional creators who consistently, arc by arc, move the story along and progress the characters. No, no. We don’t need good storytelling in comics anymore, we just need someone to make a big stinky pile of poop with every character in it so we can appeal to everyone and make the most money.
This is my plea to both Marvel and DC writers, editors, and senior staff: please bring back the epic event the way it was meant to be, something to look forward to. I don’t want to cringe every time I hear that there is a new event like Fear Itself or Flashpoint, especially when it seems the publishers don’t even have enough faith in it themselves that they push it in the fans faces hoping people will cave in (hint, hint Marvel). All we ask is that it’s dialed back a few notches. We don’t want to always be running at 11, turn the nob down to 6 or 7 so when you crank it back up people get excited and are happy to throw down their hard earned cash to read it instead of regretting the purchase and loathing the day the epic event was first created.
