Crossed Out
Back in the olden days, Comic Book Cross Overs were simple and cool. For example, I'd be reading "The Silver Surfer", and Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman would hang out for a few issues. Characters would interact, stuff would happen, then everything would (more or less) get back to normal.
Then, along came the intercompany crossover (actually, intercompany crossovers started way before I started reading comics, but I digress). At first, they were even kinda simple. You bought the core book to give the overlying story, and then there were sorta related side books you could pick up if you wanted to add a tiny bit of depth to the main story. For example, I could read "Infinity Gauntlet" #1-6 and pretty much get the entire story of the Infinity Gauntlet, but if I read this issue of Spiderman or that issue of the Hulk, then I might pick up little bitty side pieces of the story as well. But the cool part was, all I needed to do was read the main story, and it was all good.
Then things got more intricate. I remember, once again, I was reading "The Silver Surfer", minding my own business, when all of the sudden there was an issue that was directly linked to a big crossover involving Thor. And I mean Directly linked. As in this issue picked up where another (non-Silver Surfer) issue left off. Now, I had already bought the issue (cause back then I just bought every issue of the Silver Surfer sight unseen), and here was an issue that made no sense and had nothing to do with what had happened in the previous issue. The only way I could make sense of it was to buy a bunch of issues of comics I wasn't reading.
Which is, of course, the marketing ploy. To get the whole story of these elaborate crossovers nowadays, you've got to buy the whole thing. It's the comic industry's lovely way of trying to milk the fans dry.
Now, obviously, if you could give less than a crap about alla these crossover schnanigans, the best defence would be to skip issues that are part of a big crossover, right? Hell, I was reading a couple of the Batman books over at DC for awhile, but I stopped because every time I turned around there was another freaking crossover gumming up the works. It got to the point where you almost had to read all 6 or 7 Batman books every month just to understand what was going on. Screw that, I said.
Thankfully, the way I buy comics has changed. I typically follow writers and artists, not titles. Typically, the best writers tend to work on titles that don't end up in the middle of crossovers every ten minutes, and on the rare occassion that they do, you can usually check the credits on the front cover to find out whether the writer wrote this crossover issue or whether they brought in some hack.
The big advantage to this is that I can pick and choose which Crossovers interest me and which ones don't. For example, I'm not reading Infinite Crisis, Omac Project, or Rann/Thanagar War at DC, but I am reading Seven Soldiers. I'm not reading Planet Hulk or any of the half dozen other crossovers at Marvel, but I'm gonna try out the Annihilation crossover (big surprise: this one features the Silver Surfer, as well as two other characters from my childhood, Ronan the Accuser and the Super Skrull).
So, are crossovers good or bad? They're neither. They're just stories. They can be interesting and exciting, or they can be dull and tedious. Some are little more than cheap marketing gimmicks designed to get you to buy a bunch of books you'd never buy, while others are intricate, brilliantly written works of comic art. And that's that.
Of course, then there's always the intercompany crossover...
Then, along came the intercompany crossover (actually, intercompany crossovers started way before I started reading comics, but I digress). At first, they were even kinda simple. You bought the core book to give the overlying story, and then there were sorta related side books you could pick up if you wanted to add a tiny bit of depth to the main story. For example, I could read "Infinity Gauntlet" #1-6 and pretty much get the entire story of the Infinity Gauntlet, but if I read this issue of Spiderman or that issue of the Hulk, then I might pick up little bitty side pieces of the story as well. But the cool part was, all I needed to do was read the main story, and it was all good.
Then things got more intricate. I remember, once again, I was reading "The Silver Surfer", minding my own business, when all of the sudden there was an issue that was directly linked to a big crossover involving Thor. And I mean Directly linked. As in this issue picked up where another (non-Silver Surfer) issue left off. Now, I had already bought the issue (cause back then I just bought every issue of the Silver Surfer sight unseen), and here was an issue that made no sense and had nothing to do with what had happened in the previous issue. The only way I could make sense of it was to buy a bunch of issues of comics I wasn't reading.
Which is, of course, the marketing ploy. To get the whole story of these elaborate crossovers nowadays, you've got to buy the whole thing. It's the comic industry's lovely way of trying to milk the fans dry.
Now, obviously, if you could give less than a crap about alla these crossover schnanigans, the best defence would be to skip issues that are part of a big crossover, right? Hell, I was reading a couple of the Batman books over at DC for awhile, but I stopped because every time I turned around there was another freaking crossover gumming up the works. It got to the point where you almost had to read all 6 or 7 Batman books every month just to understand what was going on. Screw that, I said.
Thankfully, the way I buy comics has changed. I typically follow writers and artists, not titles. Typically, the best writers tend to work on titles that don't end up in the middle of crossovers every ten minutes, and on the rare occassion that they do, you can usually check the credits on the front cover to find out whether the writer wrote this crossover issue or whether they brought in some hack.
The big advantage to this is that I can pick and choose which Crossovers interest me and which ones don't. For example, I'm not reading Infinite Crisis, Omac Project, or Rann/Thanagar War at DC, but I am reading Seven Soldiers. I'm not reading Planet Hulk or any of the half dozen other crossovers at Marvel, but I'm gonna try out the Annihilation crossover (big surprise: this one features the Silver Surfer, as well as two other characters from my childhood, Ronan the Accuser and the Super Skrull).
So, are crossovers good or bad? They're neither. They're just stories. They can be interesting and exciting, or they can be dull and tedious. Some are little more than cheap marketing gimmicks designed to get you to buy a bunch of books you'd never buy, while others are intricate, brilliantly written works of comic art. And that's that.
Of course, then there's always the intercompany crossover...
2 Comments:
You forgot Nova he is part of Annihilation as well.
True, forgot Nova. There's a reason why I'm more hyped about the Silver Surfer, Ronin, Super Skrull books though. When I started reading comics, one of the definitive story arcs that I read, that influenced me to make comics, was a story arc in the Silver Surfer that featured the second (or third) version of the Kree/Skrull War. It was an unusual story for a lot of reasons, mostly because the Kree were usually the "Good Aliens" and the Skrulls were the "Bad Aliens". But in this story arc, the Silver Surfer accidently joins the Skrulls, turning everything on its head. Not only did have a couple of Epic clashes with Ronan the Accuser, but he also formed a brief friendship and alliance with the Super Skrull. That's why I'm pretty excited about those comics. Pure nostalgia.
Nova was just some kid who flew around on the New Warriors. Bah to him.
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