As always when it comes the middle of the blogging week, I try to think about what else to write/bitch about.
Today I figured I'd do something fun and interesting, and force myself to choose my Top 5 least favorite crossover events over the years, from Marvel comics. Not an easy task, but a challenge worth undertaking.
So here's the Marvel Top 5:
5). Secret Wars 2 (1985-85)
The sequel to the first, this one was all/mainly about the Beyonder sporting a jericurl and an all-white tracksuit and pants wanting to grant all the Marvel heroes' one main wish.
It just sucked ass and fell flat. Vastly inferior to the original, and nowhere near as fun.
Although he did get Spider-Man to teach him how to the bathroom while he masqueraded as Captain America.
Do they still clown on Cap about that?
4). Atlantis Attacks (1989)
Basically the evil god Set and a bunch of evil Atlanteans want to use the Serpent Crown to impregnate seven super bitches and destroy/rule the world.
Points for being ambitious enough to wanna' capture, rape, and impregnate 7 of the most well-known and hottest super-heroines around at the time though.
3). Civil War (2006)
Some of you may be surprised to see this particular event on here. Not me. It was all a highly-advertised and over-hyped excuse for Mark Millar to make super-heroes fight each other like they traditionally do during some team-ups. Millar even admitted as such in a Wizard Magazine article.
It was just awful, and it ruined the characterizations of Iron Man/Tony Stark and Mr. fantastic and some others for a really long time. If it weren't for those Iron Man movies, I wonder if Tony would've recovered as quickly as he did. Just horrible mis-characterizations all across the board.
Plus it was excuse to kill off someone as important as Captain America, only to bring him back in like what, 6 months time?
And where is that Registration Act now? Repealed/conveniently forgotten and done away with.
Yep. Figures as much.
2). Onslaught(1996)
It's what passed for a decent storyline back then, as Marvel was really struggling to stay out of bankruptcy(which it later succumbed to officially by the next year anyways) I personally the enjoyed the The Crossing storyline from a year previous, despite how universally panned and hated that one is(and it kinda' deserves it honestly) but damn did Marvel really stink up the joint with this one.
It did accomplish a few things though, both good and bad:
a). It got rid of the main franchise players for a year, in preparation to set up the horrible "Image Makeover" from Jim Lee and Rob Liefield.
b). Really fucked over the X-Men for a longtime in the MU, setting up Operation: Zero Tolerance, and for giving the common man and woman in the MU another reason to blame mutants for bad things happening.
c). Made most of 1997 an interesting year, by kind of being forced to rely on previously failed titles in Alpha Flight and Ka-Zar another chance to make it in the marketplace and MU without the big guns around.
1). Heroes Reborn (1996-97)
I won't front and say I didn't buy up these titles as they were being cranked out. I was curious like everyone else, and drank the kool-aid that was being passed out.
Time and most of us have not grown particularly kind to this desperate attempt by Marvel to stave off bankruptcy and gain new readers.
It didn't really do much of either, at least not in the long run.
It wound up driving off readers than it attracted, and the whole thing was done by the end of '97.
17 comments:
@Karl: Who the fuck asked you to pee in person? Damn, but run with a rowdy crowd;)
I know you've probably posted the link elsewhere, but you gotta' tell me or type the link to that crazy ass FF forum again. Jeesus you guys are nuts;)
Onslaught....yeah, the less said about that the better. The set up was better than the follow through. Plus they had already done variations of evil Xavier before, especially 10 years prior with the X-men/Micronauts mini.
As for the crossing....again, nice set up, but major fuck up on the follow through. Plus who really wanted the IM they knew for over 30 years to become such an evil douche? Okay well more of an evil douche than allowed.
As for HR, again, I'll cop to buying 'em up, even towards the end, with the mash-up crossover with Wildstorm. Now? You can't even give copies of those issue away. Not even for toilet paper. Okay,maybe you could I guess;)
What are the some of the crossover events I didn't list that pissed you off?
i've read only a few issues from the Civil War story line that i happened to find in back issue discount boxes. i have to admit it i did like them for the most part especially when it came to the characters debating the merits of the registration act. plus it's how i got to know the Maria Hill character. as for Secret Wars II mini-series it certainly did not live up to the hype and it wasn't Al Milgrom's best work. but it did have at least a side benefit in terms of the cross overs. i can't speak to all the Marvel title The Beyonder guest starred in but in Rom #72 he cure Rick Jones of his cancer and sends Brandy Clark to Galador where she reunites with ROM for the finale of the series a couple issues later.
@Shlomo: Well I stand corrected then; SW2 gave us something after all in that cured Rick of cancer, but couldn't be bothered to cure his ex-partner Captain Marvel. Sure he'd been dead for 3 years at that time, but still.....what a dick.
I didn't think much of Zero Hour - and even the readership of the early 90s didn't either. I mean, what did it actually fulfil? Monarch was Hawkman all along? Oooh, right up there with seeing the Statue of Liberty in that Planet of the Apes movie - NOT! We got to see what happened to the JSA [ and no-one gave a fuck] and a brief glimpse of Barbara Gordon/Batgirl. Well that was worth all those crossovers. ZH was basically a soft reboot - soft? Practically flaccid [I had to look up that word to find out what it meant].
What about the X-Man one Inferno? More like infernal. What did that achieve, well we got an animal-like Beast, a watered-down X-Factor, some romper suits for Cyke and Jean and an abscure reference to some old X-Men tale you had to remember from twenty years back.
@karl: Introspect, ZH really was the flaccid penis of reboots at the time. I loved it at that age myself, if only for the excitement of seeing Wally get possibly killed off even though he was my Flash at the time.
It also established a timeline of events in the DCU, gave us Starman, get rid of he mess that was Hawkman and gave GA his one true shining moment of regretful heroism. what's not to love?
Oh and Monarch was supposed to be Captain Atom, not Hawkman btw.
Inferno was alright. Although it wrecked Cyclops' characterization for years. How does one just up and leave their newborn child and wife to go play slap and tickle with supposedly dead ex?
But damn was Goblin Queen fucking hot or what?
Dayum!
speaking of CM did you see the Rom and Captain Marvel vs the Superskrull sketch i did last week?
No, no I don't think I did. You have a link?
"I know you've probably posted the link elsewhere, but you gotta' tell me or type the link to that crazy ass FF forum again. Jeesus you guys are nuts;) "
Kmmmmmpt .... sometimes the comments page is better than the post.
Dude I been looking for Karl's FF page as well. He trying to keep that mutha fucker a secret.
@Karl: What's the link chap?
Dale, cmon dude you don't have to be the world's greatest detective to figure out where the most likely place I would have that kind of art posted.
Nice article man, very much enjoyed.
Secret Wars II, I agree- it was well shite.
I enjoyed Atlantis Attacks... I've never liked Inferno. It just didn't work for me at all...
I again agree- Civil War was such a meandering waste of time. There were a few cool moments here and there- but a few cool moments and ideas do not a good cross-over event make!
The Onslaught Saga started off SO strong. That issue where they find The Juggernaut with his ass beat-down and they're all like "WHAT?!", so good... But, yeah- poor planning, not very well thought out. And like you said- it set up Heroes Reborn. -Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld working on a relaunch of classic characters and making them more like early Image Comics? Thank goodness THAT never happened again. *cough*
That would be my #1 too but it was not really an official crossover event- Heroes Return was, but not Reborn.
My #1 would be Secret Invasion. Cool concept- HORRIBLE execution. Also Brian Michael Bendis is one of the WORST writers to be THAT popular ever! He is terrible.
He's like Joss Whedon if Joss Whedon suffered severe head-trauma and had a partial lobotomy.
-He's 12 concussed Geoff Johns locked in a room with a typewriter for 60 years. He is the worst hack ever.
And single-handedly ruined SO much of Marvel for SO many years because they just kept giving him the keys to the car... even though he lost control and crashed it every. single. time.
Honorable mentions to Maximum Security, which I did a video on once... That crossover was so bad- my computer ate half the review. It had so many unnecessary parts. And it was just SO poorly planned.
And World War Hulk. I LOVE The Hulk. But this was SO fucking boring. I get it was a new direction to take things... It just did not work at all for me. I hated it...
Dale and OmegaAgent1 , I give in...you want the link for this crazy FF forum , here it is on ONE condition...don't tell anyone I 'invited' you to participate. The people on there are fine in the main [made some good friends who all hang out, in fact - oh, not in that way!] but there are some crazy cat-fuckers on there like fan4 [she's the freak who wants to fuck the Thing and has mad dreams about him, she is FUCKING MENTAL, one plea DO NOT MESS WITH THIS NUTTERS HEAD, she will fuck you up] who none of us talk to because she is nutso fuckso. Everyone ignores her. The other week she suggested Neil Sedaka could play Reed Richards in the new FF movie, the mad fuck.
Apart from her, everyone else is normal.
Heres the link;
type TWGCM [stands for The Worlds Greatest Comic Magazine] and its on the Alvaro Comicboards.
And I never heard of you, right?
@Shlomo: ;)
@Omega: Ask and it shall be delivered. Thx Karl:)
@King: I agree 100% on the Bendis assessment. I haven't liked him for awhile. He seems to be more suited for street-level stuff like Spider-Man and D than the X-Men, GoTG and the Avengers.
Maximum Security. Yeah I remember that. I forgot how they straightened that whole mess out anyways. Seems like a job for the Illuminati....
Secret Invasion really was horrible in the execution. Bendis and his friends were all jerk each other off on all the little easter eggs and behind the scenes shit they did to set it up, but as always, the ending fell flatter than an -A cup-sized chick.
@Karl: I plan on trolling the fuck out your fan with the Thing fetish. Destroy her I will;)
The Crossing - I loved the Avengers back then, and was looking forward to the full-page teases of The Zodiac crossover ahead. Then suddenly The Crossing is here, Iron Man's a teenager, his adult self is Kang's hand puppet and Force Works is ending.
Secret Wars 2 yip.
Planet Hulk/World War Hulk. AWESOME concepts just not enough Hulk SMASH!
Shadowland - Iwaited years for Marvel to put a huge event behind Daredevil, they brought in all the cool characters, Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, Elektra, Cage and more but all the writers and artists phoned in their assignments and it was the biggest ball of shit on a stick ever. Flys are still swarming.
@Dan: Agreed big time on Shadowland. What a major, major disappointment there considering it was, as you pointed out, DD's big event for himself.
Thankfully Waid's such a damn good writer he's pretty much made us all forget about that.
I enjoyed the Crossing at the time too. It just seemed like a cool concept, plus the Mike Deodato jr art. Again, it fell flat, and we were stuck with Teen Tony in an attempt to copy DC replacing their known franchise players with newbies.
Not a super good time for Avengers fans, but we made it through the decade okay.
Has the Crossing ever been brought out in a trade? I remember reading it years ago but not recently and there's too many issues to re- read again. I think it'd be a cool TPB.
Glad the acts of vengance didnt make this list . I loved atlantis attacks though. One issue in this crossover had attuma wanting to take jean grey as a mate with the blue beast to here rescue. There was a bonus story in this book one of the best shorts from marvel. Dr.Doom meets Magneto. They set there pasts against one anothers minds.Doom has a child held hostage to erik of course with a twist. This short is very good having nothing to do with the crossover. On a whole the serpent crown story is true to subbys very start but if you didnt read subby it didnt jive as well.
@Joseph: Hey, s'up man. Thx for stopping by.
I have that same issue you talked about, with the beast and jean. Glad there wasn't sexual tension between those two, cause they were awfully close at the end, especially sine the Beast's technically half naked.
That doom sorry was awesome. I'd heard stories about it before on a forum, but yeah, Magneto beat Doom, and Doom simply pretended like he meant for it all to go down like that. Typical Doom.
@Karl: I think so, but I'm not 100% sure. Check Amazon/ebay.
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