In this issue: Your hosts answer the question, “What is your favorite comic book event,” and discuss the issues of future stories that are now past their future date.
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9 Comments
I agree completely that 52 was the greatest of the DC events… My only objection to “The New 52” is that when I reference how wonderful 52 was, uninformed people think I’m talking about The New 52
52 was good, and has some really awesome stuff in it, but…
It’s poorly paced in several spots.
It suffers from “cliffhanger syndrome,” feeling the need to freak us out about something before we cut away for five months to watch something else.
A few of the plot-points are really overworked and tortured (notably Booster’s “death” and time-traveling antics, no matter how good the character development was.)
There was a massive inconsistency in art over the 52 weeks, which led to some mood dissonance on occasion (Todd Nauck drawing scary stuff?)
Ah yes the future ain’t what it used to be thats for sure. My theory is that all that cool stuff really did happen but the machines keep erasing our memorys. Think about it do even remember where you were on july 14 1997? Were you wearing factor two million sunblock? Did you have a really bad day?…
August 29 even, oops.
Fun Star Trek: TNG fact – the building used as Lore’s headquarters in season 6’s finale is the same building used as the Command Center in Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.
I realized this while watching the episode with my girlfriend a couple weeks ago. The mocking I received for my “I should know that building… Wait! It’s from Power Rangers!” comment was legendary.
My first comic book ‘event’ was the return of Jean Grey from the dead and the launch of X-Factor. I only read X-men at the time, but prior to the launch of X-Factor the story was set up and crossed over into Avengers and Fantastic Four promting me to read those books, when I had never done so before. I did read bits and pieces of Secret Wars II around the same time, but recall it being really awful.
As for the future now, I think we live in a universe where George Orwell and Aldous Huxley had a baby…in that they both really did accurately predict certain cultural and governmental attitudes and eventualities that exist today, without totally getting it right on either side.
The first big event that I remember reading parts of would of either been “Atlantis Attacks” or “Acts of Vengeance”. The first one I actually sat down and read all the way through would have been “Secret Wars”, as I love Spider-Man’s black suit and found out that’s where it debuted. I think the first big crossover that I picked up as it was coming out I think would have been Maximum Carnage. I was a big sucker for Venom and the symbiotes back in the day. Even though I was only about 12 at the time I made every effort to pick up all the issues. Considering the closest comic store was 30-45 minutes away in another city, I did pretty good to only miss about 3 issues of the 14 part crossover. Of course that story really doesn’t hold up today, but at the time I loved it, all these heroes backing up Spidey to take down Carnage.
As for my favorite crossover, that’s tough to say as certainly both Crisis on Infinite Earths and 52 rank high up there, as does Secret War. Certainly on of my favorite in recent memory was the Sinestro Corp War followed closely by Blackest Night. I think mainly it was the steady build up to the events that really made me look forward to them, and they payed off for the most part. As for Marvel, Annihilation certainly ranks up there as a favorite even though it’s not an all inclusive crossover. Some of the build up to Secret Invasion was interesting, but the series itself seemed to fall flat. World War Hulk was ok, but I thought the 3-part side series with the X-Men where Hulk confronted Xavier was great. In the same vein while I didn’t really care for Final Crisis, I thought the side stories of Legion of 3 Worlds and Rogue’s Revenge were great.
I’d love to see a Top 5 where you all give a rundown of your favorite company crossovers, maybe with young Zach getting some suggestions from Twitter.
P.S. Certainly one of my favorite books that involved several characters from their respective universes, although it wasn’t really a company wide crossover in the modern sense with several tie-in issues, would have to be Avengers/JLA (or JLA/Avengers). It had a great story and great art with several nods to the histories of both the Marvel Universe and D.C. Universe. For my money one of the coolest scenes is that final battle where the roster is constantly shifting and Captain America is commanding this massive group.
A battered and bloodied Superman holding Captain America’s Shield and Thor’s hammer.
I feel like the entire event was meant to lead to that one image.
The one that still blows me away is how Ender’s Game predicted the power of social media before the Internet was even a thing.
The Avengers/Defenders War was the first big crossover that I remember. I bought them them off the spinner racks. But I’m old enough to have been blown away when Sgt. Rock met up with the crew of The Haunted Tank.