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The Decade According to Multiversity: Best Event

By | December 3rd, 2009
Posted in Columns | % Comments

Love them or hate them, event comics are becoming more and more prevalent in mainstream comics. Whether or not you’re lamenting them, claiming a bad case of “event fatigue” and desperately yearning for decade break from massive battles and “things will never be the same” stories, it’s hard to argue that they do not generate real excitement in the industry. In marketing, you should always try to make people love what you do or hate it. Either way it makes people talk about it, which makes people buy what is being talked about.

That is why event comics are here to stay, and we had better get used to it. Hopefully comic publishers will take a look at this list so they can get an idea of what works and what doesn’t.

As per usual, leave a comment and vote in the poll before you go. Our discussion in the best villains of the decade category has been fantastic, and I’m sure this is the type of subject that could generate similar conversations.

10. Secret Invasion

9. One More Day

8. Final Crisis

6 (tie). Identity Crisis

6 (tie). Annihilation

5. Messiah CompleX

4. House of M

3. Civil War

David: Out of every event that hit during the decade, I could say 100% that this was one that I was the most excited for. I had stopped reading comics for the early part of the decade, and Civil War was the first one that had come up after I had fully started reading again. Not only that but it was written by Mark Millar (whom I loved from reading Wildstorm’s The Authority) and illustrated by Steve McNiven, whom I was not very familiar with but was completely blown away by immediately.

And you know what? It mostly did what it set out to do. Millar and McNiven provided an exciting and beautiful story of the heroes of the Marvel Universe being split down the middle, handling large groups of characters in realistic and exciting fashion and seeing some of our long time favorite heroes (Tony Stark, for example) being turned into what basically amounted to villains. They were doing what they thought was right for the world, and it set up an interesting deviation on the standard event formula: what if both sides were basically right?

That it also managed to have lasting ramifications on the Marvel Universe that have led organically to where we are now in Dark Reign and at the beginning of Siege is even more exciting. A well told story that also happens to be monumental in its importance to the comic world that we love? I’ll take that any day of the week.

Matt: When I think of Mark Millar, 9 times out of 10 I think of his crazy over-the-top stories that are fantastic but completely unrealistic in any given comic book universe. Even his Fantastic Four run, which was highly entertaining, will probably be retconned in a few issues upon the publication of this article (especially with the upcoming Doomwar). Mark Millar is a fantastic writer, but what he really excels at is writing the craziest of crazy tales. While it is not unheard of for him to write a story that doesn’t defy all logic, it’s not something that happens often. Then comes Civil War. Civil War is one of the most important events in the Marvel Universe in the past decade, and the only one aside from World War Hulk that wasn’t written by Brian Michael Bendis. However, it was a complete (pleasant) shock and surprise when Mark Millar wrote one of the most important events in the past decade, and it was absolutely amazing.

Continued below

In the past five years alone, since the Avengers disassembled, we’ve seen the Marvel Universe go through quite an extensive upheaval. Pretty much all of this was under the watchful eye of Bendis. When Millar was brought in for Civil War I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who found the decision confusing, considering the implications. However, despite his natural tendencies towards the more absurd spectrum of storytelling, Civil War was a harrowing and very realistic tale bringing to light ideas that have existed for quite some time. While I’m not usually one to lean towards bringing realistic edges to comic books (as I prefer my fantastic elements), the things introduced by Civil War were both appropriate for the time and eye opening in regards to what is possible in our comics. Superheroes were torn apart in a way similar to Johns’ Infinite Crisis, but ultimately with greater stakes. While IC saw heroes disagreeing with one another and moving in other directions, Civil War actually put heroes against heroes in a full on war unseen before this time. And when it was all said and done, one of the greatest heroes of all time, Captain America, lay dead on the steps of a court house. It was a ballsy endeavor, but it never felt too out of place, and it never felt over the top.

The best part of Civil War, however, is how anyone who doesn’t regularly read Marvel comics could read Civil War and not only understand it without any previous reading, but also take something from it. With the other big events, such as House of M or Secret Invasion, even World War Hulk, there was some previously required reading. With House of M, you should have been reading X-Men around that time, as well as having at least read Avengers Disassembled. World War Hulk required the reading of Planet Hulk and that which led up to it. Secret Invasion required the reading of all of these things plus Annihilation. Civil War? While reading New Avengers up to this point would have helped, it wasn’t necessarily required. The story was self contained enough that one could enjoy the story without reading most of the Marvel titles surrounding it. And while there certainly many tie-ins, none of them were required reading to really enjoy the implications of the book, except for maybe Road To Civil War one-shot featuring the meeting of the Illuminati. Civil War was definitely Marvel’s best and most contained event which really broke away from the mold, and would still help to shape the future of the universe to come.

Gil: During Marvel’s barrage of events that came from the mind of the talented Bendis, we got something that had only been portrayed in out of continuity books like The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. The government stepped in and said “look, we need you guys to rein it in, and work for us.”

Of course this drew people right down the middle, as politics always does. Quesada tried to say there was no allegory here, but it was clear from the script that Mark Millar wrote that The Patriot Act was the target of his pen. A terrible tragedy that befalls out nation and the public reacts by supporting something that (for better or for worse) curtails some freedoms we enjoyed before. I would even say the ending was allegorical, with the symbol for The USA in the Marvel U losing freedom outright.

The best stories have something to say other than strictly what’s on the printed page, and Millar and McNiven pulled it off in spades.

Brandon: Talk about events that had a lasting effect and you would have to look at Civil War as one of if not the greatest examples. This was an event
that literally changed the Marvel Universe, as we knew it. A hyped tagline overdone in the world of comics actual was relevant this time. It’s a change that still lasts to this day.

Without Civil War we never would have had great storylines like Brubaker’s Captain America run, Secret Invasion and the current Dark Reign. All of these events have helped to make the Marvel Universe a richer place. Many more new ideas and concepts have been introduced. New sides of characters have also been explored, Tony Stark for
example.

Continued below

Now it’s all these years later and were on the verge of seeing the ramifications of Civil War start to come full circle. Where the Marvel Universe will go after that is anyone’s guess but thanks to Civil War I’m willing to bet that any ramifications of future events will last. Not something I would have said pre-Civil War.

2. Infinite Crisis

David: I have an interesting relationship with Infinite Crisis. It was the first even I jumped into after returning to comics so I was a little shell shocked reading it, but I had read and loved what led up to it (in particular, Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Rann/Thanagar War, Villains United, The OMAC Project, and Day of Vengeance) so I felt sufficiently prepared. It started out brilliantly, with every issue up to issue four being absolute stunners. Issue four was especially superb, with its slugfest between Superboy Prime and (if memory serves me correctly) the JSA, the Outsiders and the Teen Titans, along with every speedster known to man.

While it tailed off a bit into insanity towards the end of the series and really suffered from delays and scattershot art, overall it did what it set out to do – establish the DCU as New Earth and giving us a new 52 world universe to play around with (in the incredible series 52). It may not have been a uniform success, but it did manage to create some indelible memories (namely the demise of Alexander Luthor for me), some truly horrible villains (Superboy Prime), and some tragic deaths (holy crap, our Superman and Earth 2 Superman versus Superboy Prime for the fate of the Universe). What more can you ask for? Another example as to why Geoff Johns was one of the top writers of the decade if you ask me.

Matt: There have been many crises since DC began, but there are only a few truly universe shattering ones that many fans consider the “main crises.” In my opinion, there are five: Crisis on Infinite Earths (which changed the face of the DC universe as a whole, aka “the death of the multiverse”), Zero Hour (which attempted something similar and featured Parallax), Identity Crisis (which helped to change how we saw the interactions of our heroes, or “the personal threat”), Final Crisis (the culmination of all the previous events, as well as “the day that evil won”), and of course, Infinite Crisis. Infinite Crisis came two decades after the “first” crisis and is very much the sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths. Many people even believe that Infinite is in fact the best crisis (we had a big discussion on our site a while back about the exact topic). The reasons for this are obvious — great writing, great artwork, and an amazing story.

In Infinite Crisis, you have Geoff Johns at some of his best. Johns comes in and tackles one of the biggest problems plaguing comic books these days, and that is the nature of making everything darker. Comic books used to be rather light hearted, but in recent history we had Identity Crisis, which featured rape and murder, and the events of Countdown that led up to Infinite Crisis, including the brutal murder of Maxwell Lord by Wonder Woman. Such an event was absolutely unheard of. One of the Holy Trinity not bringing someone to the proper law enforcement? Followed by the destruction of the JLA Watchtower, Batman learning to distrust everyone, and Superman becoming very disillusioned with the nature of mankind as a whole. This just doesn’t happen. So Johns brought back a group of characters who we hadn’t seen in 20 years — the only other survivors of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. The multiverse had been collapsed, and there was nowhere else to go, so they remained in pocket dimension until now, when they return to fix the rights that we have wronged. If that’s not an epic callback, I don’t know what is.

Coming twenty years later, Infinite Crisis needed of course to make a big splash, and it did by completely reinventing the multiverse. Now, instead of having an infinite number of parallel universes for us to be confused about, we had 52. 52 different universes, 52 new places to invent stories. To have a DC Universe without parallel worlds always felt wrong to me, and now that we had a place where these stories would have a home, it made things like traveling through the multiverse a possibility again (which was of course then played out later). Infinite Crisis was amazing in that Geoff Johns had absolutely no problem coming in and saying, “Ok, I’m really happy for you, and I’mma let you finish, but the previous form of the DC Universe that was made up of various different parallel worlds was the best DC Universe of all time”, and not only did it play out with style and a colossal ending (featuring the noble death of one of my favorite characters, the re-invented Superboy), but it worked. The biggest issue with this entire storyline would be, right from the bat, “Will this work?” And it did. The multiverse is very much alive again, and expansive story telling can now function on an even more intense format than before. Viva la Multiverse!

Continued below

Gil: As I said in our Saturday Showdown some months back, this is my favorite crisis. I felt that some of the changes made in the original Crisis were unnecessary, and actually hurt some of characters it was meant to help, and caused some more continuity problems while fixing others. What this book does, however, is keep the changes that were good (like stripping down the Multiverse) while getting rid of the ones that were not helpful (like…getting rid of the Multiverse altogether).

Over seven fantastic issues, Geoff Johns (you hear his name a lot on these lists, if you haven’t realized by now) put together another winner for Marvel’s Distinguished Competition. I also think this was the point where I started caring about DC more than Marvel. Not to say Marvel is terrible, but they didn’t have this.

Brandon: Not the most critically acclaimed event of the decade I found it extremely enjoyable. Many complained about it’s huge crossover into titles, whether it required it or not, I personally was picking up a lot more titles then and didn’t have a problem with it. Now I could see where it might be a problem.

The end of the first issue was one of my favorite comic moments of the decade as the reveal of the Crisis exiles blew my mind at the time. I did not expect to see them at all. The end of the series launched 52 as well, which was one of my favorite titles of the last decade. It was great despite the negative attributes.

Oh and who couldn’t love Superboy Prime tearing people to pieces in the most gratuitous example of violence to hit DC in years.

1. Sinestro Corps War

David: This is how event comics should be made. Almost no tie-ins. No central title to read, just two titles (Green Lantern Corps and Green Lantern) going back and forth, working together to tell an absolutely stunning story. It did start with a one-shot, but it was necessary and a classic issue in itself. Geoff Johns really threw out all the stops on this one, pitting the whole of the Corps versus Sinestro’s new Corps, featuring Cyborg Superman, Superboy Prime, Amon Sur, Parallax, and, oh yeah, the Anti-Monitor. Just an insane crew of villains, and that was barely the tip of the iceberg.

Not only that, but this was basically the driving force behind the past two years of Green Lantern comics that led up to Blackest Night, effectively creating an opus of three plus years all crafted by the grand architect himself, Geoff Johns. This was filled with sharp pacing, brilliant storytelling, incredible art, massive moments, incredible showdowns (Prime versus Sodam Yat – ’nuff said), and even the Guardians getting their hands a little dirty. Epic, insane, and irrefutably important, this is the event comic which all other event comics must be measured against. Now I just want to go back and re-read it.

Matt: I didn’t used to read DC Comics. I was introduced to DC Comics by a friend of mine asserting rather strongly that I was a member of the Sinestro Corps, and explaining a bit of what that meant. Upon repeated insistence of such, I decided to check it out. I went to a comic store and found every issue of the crossover, reading it from Green Lantern issue 1 all the way through the end of the Sinestro Corps. War I thank my lucky stars that I was able to find every issue because, in all honesty, Sinestro Corps War was by far and large the greatest event I had the pleasure of reading. Out of every event this year, this one has by far been hailed by all who read it as the single most satisfying, and it is quite easy to see why.

Now, with any given event, you have a series of build-ups and hints towards the eventual inciting incident, but I would argue that no event was built up better than the Sinestro Corps War. We really started at Green Lantern Rebirth, in which Sinestro was banished to the anti-matter universe as well as the re-invention of Parallax as the definition for the yellow impurity. Then, throughout issues of Green Lantern, we had a very slow and gradual build-up to the Sinestro Corps revelation. One of my favorite moments of this is after Batman and Green Lantern have finally made up, and Batman is randomly assaulted and indoctrined into the Sinestro Corps. It was a big “WTF” moment as a seemingly random nothing had happened that would eventually pay off into some of the most explosive story telling of the year. Slowly after that we would have the build up towards the eventual revelation that, upon being sequestered to the anti-matter universe, Sinestro had learned how to harvest the power of the yellow light and make it his own. With this we entered into a whole new era of Green Lantern, as though Sinestro HAD been able to harvest the power of the yellow light, never had it been so incredibly powerful or as menacing as it was with the Sinestro Corps.

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Of course, being a crossover event rather than an event with tie-ins, it allowed for the Sinestro Corps War to not be tied down by conventional standards of length. One of the biggest problems I have with any event is that writers usually feel they have to limit it to 8 issues, as well as having it expand into various tie-ins. I can enjoy a good tie-in, but I always prefer a story to be kept inside itself and be allowed to run it’s course. I don’t think that arcs have to be limited to single digits if they are well told and help flesh out the story. Sinestro Corps War is the only event that I can think of off the top of my head that didn’t have it’s story be expanded upon in tie-ins, nor did it restrict itself until the entire story was told. Yes there were tie-ins, and yes the Sinestro Corps War did bleed out into a title aside from Green Lantern (like that issue of Blue Beetle I bought “just because”), but none of that was even remotely essential to understanding the storyline. You didn’t need to read anything but the issues of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps that the story was contained in, and in the end you got such an incredible ending with a such a devious twist that by the end of it, not only was there not one thing to complain about, but you went home satisfied and incredibly hungry for the Blackest Night to come. In other words? Sinestro Corps War was, without a doubt in mind, one of the most successful crossover events in the history of comic books, let alone the decade.

Gil: Oh, the Sinestro Corps War. If they ever teach a class at the Joe Kubert of Cartoon and Graphic Art or teach a seminar on how to construct the perfect event, this should be the textbook. It’s the perfect example of how one should be constructed. First of all, the buildup was flawlessly executed and maddening (if you’re me, anyway). It was clear that ever since Geoff Johns began his Hal Jordan saga with Green Lantern: Rebirth, we were in for something special. But we didn’t know how special.

Methodically planned, Johns kept the collective “us” on the edge of our seats, eagerly awaiting the next chapter in the series. And this was just the set up! The event also stands out as one of the few that got loads up hype, but actually lived up to, and for some, exceeded expectations. It elevated a onetime D-Lister to the upper echelon of DC villainy, and made even better heroes out of our Earth-based Lanterns, for better or for worse. The corps finally saw Hal as the hero he was, rather than the villain he was corrupted into being, and Kyle Rayner was corrupted by that very same force as well. And even the ending left you wanting more, as we’re now getting the pay off of what was hinted in Sinestro Corps War with The Blackest Night. It’s been a hell of a ride, Geoff.

Brandon: The little event that could, Sinestro Corp War came out of nowhere as the runaway event of the decade. It was compact and full of great moments which made it easy to follow and incredibly memorable. The one-shot that started it was one of the best issues of the decade as well.

Let’s also not forget that without this amazing event Blackest Night, as we know it wouldn’t have been possible. Having said that, I like many others would have loved to see Blackest Night keep to the slimmed down style of the Sinestro Corp War than the bloated project it has become. Either way its impact on DC is indisputable.

Individual Lists

David

1. Sinestro Corps War
2. Annihilation
3. House of M
4. Civil War
5. Old Man Logan
6. Infinite Crisis
7. Messiah CompleX
8. Final Crisis
9. Blackest Night
10. Secret Invasion

Matt

1. One More Day
2. Sinestro Corps War
3. Final Crisis
4. Infinite Crisis
5. House of M
6. Identity Crisis
7. Civil War
8. Messiah CompleX
9. Secret Invasion
10. World War Hulk

Continued below

Gil

1. Sinestro Corps War
2. Identity Crisis
3. Infinite Crisis
4. Annihilation
5. House of M
6. Civil War
7. Avengers: Disassembled
8. Blackest Night
9. Old Man Logan
10. Secret Invasion

Brandon

1. Messiah CompleX
2. Sinestro Corps War
3. Infinite Crisis
4. Decimation
5. Civil War
6. Secret Invasion
7. Avengers: Disassembled
8. Brand New Day
9. Identity Crisis
10. Blackest Night

What do you think is the best event? Weigh in with this poll! And if you picked other, let us know what your other is!


//TAGS | The Decade According To Multiversity

David Harper

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