Fear Itself begins this week, ushering in this year’s blockbuster event season as Marvel and DC compete for topspot with their respective events. However, with Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen behind this powerhouse title, things are currently looking favorable in the Marvel camp – especially when the first issue isn’t out yet and positive reviews are already popping up online.
It’s with that in mind that we, who are not so lucky as to get advances from Marvel, have decided to instead take some time to look back at our favorite Marvel events of the past, looking over Marvel’s expansive history and voting for our top 5. It’s a fairly ecclectic list, although if you look at the list at the end of the article you’ll see why.
Take a look behind the cut for our top 5 and chime in in the comments with what you think.
5. Civil War
While Mark Millar is certainly a controversial writer, there is something to be said for the accessibility and modern take on superheroes that Millar often writes, noticeably in Civil War. Featuring career defining work from Steve McNiven in the art department, Civil War essentially pushed through an idea that had been in comics for a long time, and that was that superheroes needed to register to perform their acts of heroism. While this certainly is an easy enough idea to run with, the story was not as surface value as one might expect from a writer like Millar. Instead, we were looking at a story featuring a character named Captain America going up against the United States government. I suppose it was originally safe to assume that Cap would back-up any actions taken by his government, but the line was drawn rather firmly as Cap led an underground resistance against techno-genius Tony Stark in a tremendous battle of hero against hero, the likes of which had never been seen before. It was as much a political allegory to the times we were living as any other, with reflections on personal freedom in the wake of 9/11 and the Patriot Act. The story also went on to shape the political climate of the Marvel Universe for quite some time, sending some of the world’s greatest heroes underground and leading the way to Norman Osborn becoming Top Cop at the end of Secret Invasion.
And I suppose on another level, yes, it was just a big awesome superhero fight as well. – Matthew Meylikhov
4. (TIE) Messiah CompleX vs Infinity Gauntlet
Despite the deceiving appearances, I am actually not the worlds biggest X-Men fan. Yes, I of course read Chris Claremont comics when I was a kid and of course I watched that delightful 90’s cartoon, but my comic reading habits as a younger lad were much different than they are now. It’s with that in mind that I largely abstained from reading a large majority of the X-Men ongoings as an older reader due to the very large continuity that went in to being an X-Fan. That is, until Messiah CompleX.
The story was simple: post House of M, there had been no mutant births. Now there was one – and everyone wanted it. With that little bit of information, the modern X-Event began, and with it a long form saga of adventure that spread throughout various titles. Messiah CompleX was brilliantly accessible in the best of ways, allowing people who hadn’t been regular readers easy access into the current story with gorgeous art and fantastic writing from a great collective team. On top of that (as later research showed), those who had been following along with the saga of the X-Men in their various titles were rewarded by a great form of cohesion as all the writers traded back and forth in an incredibly smooth fashion.
Suffice it to say, Messiah CompleX gave birth to the dormant X-Fan that lay asleep inside me, obsessed with finding more and more X-Men stories in the modern age. And years later, as Second Coming rolled around, we at Multiversity were able to share that with another writer of the site who wanted to know the path to take in order to read along. If that’s not a great testament to the strength of an event arc (especially surrounding one of the most heavily infested mythologies in modern comics) then nothing will. – Matthew Meylikhov
Continued below
As much as we here at Multiversity love everything that DnA have done with the Cosmic Marvel scene, none of it could have happened without this monumental event – which is, in my opinion, the comic that defined Marvel’s event comics from then on out. While events such as Annihilation and Chaos War have come close, there are no events that top The Infinity Gauntlet in terms of sheer scale and magnitude. I mean, come on – Thanos goes up against the living embodiments of the abstract concepts of love, hate, order, and chaos. Yeah, it’s just as awesome as it sounds. Considered by many to be the crowning achievement of Jim Starlin’s massive volume work in Marvel’s cosmic setting – and penciled in half by comics legend George Pérez – this landmark of a comic really sets the bar for all comics that are considered an “event.” – Walter Richardson
3. House of M
Back when Brian Bendis was still really making a name for himself at Marvel with Daredevil and New Avengers, he published his first major crossover event (depending on how you define Secret War or Avengers: Disassembled) that spun out of the (aforementioned) status quo altering Avengers: Disassembled, House of M. Featuring Olivier Coipel on art, House of M told the story of Wanda Maximoff’s creation of an alternate universe in which mutants reigned supreme under the leadership of Magneto and most people were given exactly what they wanted out of life. Only two people remembered otherwise – Wolverine and newcomer Layla Miller. Together, the two had to assemble the X-Men and the New Avengers and somehow take down Magneto and Wanda in order to restore reality.
House of M ended up being really special in that it was quite bigger than most people expected (because really, what event doesn’t claim to be a game changer?). Really, there is something to be said about the enjoyment of “alternate universe” storylines because they’re always rather self-contained (look at DC One Million, for example), but House of M was so large that it has since ended up being one of the most significant events of the past decade, with reverberations of the story still being felt and resolved today, over 5 years later. Wanda’s “No more mutants” has in turn become one of the most famous lines in comics, and in just three simple words Bendis managed to literally change the Marvel Universe forever. While events all certainly have their lasting effects in some form or fashion, very few have had such an Empire Strikes Back-esque ending in which the heroes didn’t really win and there was nothing really to celebrate by “beating the villain”, as more than half of our mutant heroes were lost to us. If that’s not a great way to wrap up a power-house story and leave people anxious to see more, then I’m kind of lost as to what is! – Matthew Meylikhov
(Note: It’s also kind of amusing, I suppose, that Brian Bendis so definitively left a stamp on the X-Men books – yet he has never written an X-Men comic. Just something to muse over.)
2. Age of Apocalypse
When I first got into superhero comics, I was intimidated by the massive amounts of backstory behind the X-Men. True, any one of these serialized superheroes have decades of stories behind them, but due to its many titles and large cast, the X-Men franchise has always seemed the most impregnable to new readers. Taking this into consideration, a friend of mine recommended the now classic Age of Apocalypse, and since then it has been the alternate universe tale to beat. As much as everyone harps on the 90s as being the dark age of mainstream comics, there were a lot of good things going on in comics at the time, and this event captured most of those positive qualities with very few of the negatives – quite a feat, considering a lot of those negative qualities were born in the X-Men franchise. Age of Apocalypse was also my first exposure to the mighty Warren Ellis, and it would always have a special place in my heart for that, even if it wasn’t as great as it was. If you haven’t read Age of Apocalypse yet, you are missing out on some of the best the X-Men franchise has to offer. – Walter Richardson
Continued below1. Annihilation
Some fans of the site might remember that a year or so ago when I was the main writer on Multiversity 101, I wrote an article in three parts defining what an Event was, to the point that in the third part I offered up what I thought was the perfect event. That event? Annihilation. It was essentially the perfect form: one event prologue, a series of interwoven minis, and a limited series – all of which tied together perfectly in a massive and coherent story of cosmic battles. The thing about Annihilation is – it came at a time when there were no more really cosmic adventure stories from Marvel. Yes, other cosmic stories were obviously still viable and relevant, and made for great re-reads, but before Annihilation, no one cared that much about things like the Nova corps, or cosmic entities (except where convenient). The main cosmic element that we had as a recurring thing was Silver Surfer and Galactus appearances, and that’s kind of a shame. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning brought all that back in a powerhouse story that can be picked up and read just by itself without any prior knowledge to the cosmic Marvel U. Does that help? Of course, but the great thing about the way Annihilation was written is that it was created to give a brand new generation of fans a place to get into this untapped side of the Marvel U. Around the time Annihilation was happening, the regular Marvel U was getting ready to go to Civil War and/or reacting to it already, so Annihilation may not have had as big of a chance to shine as it theoretically could have – but since then the cult fanbase around these characters and stories has grown and grown, and in between Conquest, War of Kings, Realm of Kings and the Thanos Imperative, DnA have told one of the most engaging and engrossing cosmic dramas the Marvel Universe has ever seen.
So start at the beginning: Annihlation. – Matthew Meylikhov
Walt
5. Civil War
4. Second Coming
3. Infinity Gauntlet
2. Age of Apocalypse
1. Annihilation
Matt
5. Civil War
4. Secret Wars
3. Messiah CompleX
2. House of M
1. Annihilation (and all that came after it)
David
5. X-Tinction Agenda
4. House of M
3. Annihilation
2. Age of Apocalypse
1. Dark Phoenix Saga
Brandon
5. Operation Zero Tolerance
4. Annihilation
3. Civil War
2. Messiah CompleX
1. Age of Apocalypse
Josh
5. Secret Invasion
4. Onslaught
3. House of M
2. Civil War
1. Age of Apocalypse
Gil
5. Messiah CompleX
4. Civil War
3. House of M
2. Annihilation
1. Infinity Gauntlet
