The "Perfect" Event

[racemccloud]

We sure spend a lot of time with our "event" comics these days. Big events, little events, company-wide events, character "family" events... of all the different "event" storylines that have come at us over the years, big or small, which one has been the closest to perfection? And not arcs or runs by creator teams, but honest-to-goodness EVENTS.

I'm gonna cast my vote for Secret War 1, because the "plot" boils the event comic down to its purest schoolyard essence: "Wouldn't it be cool if, like, we put all the Marvel heroes and villains and put 'em in a box and shook it up and saw what happened?! That would be AWESOME!" Well, Marvel went and created some cosmic muckity-muck called The Beyonder, and this is essentially what he did: he put all the Marvel heroes and villains, not in a box but on a custom-made planet (keeping the Magratheans busy) and "shook it up" because he thought it would be cool to "watch what happens". So simple, so fun, so comic book.

Plus, we got awesome action figures out of it. AND it was twelve huuuge issues. Event Comics just don't have that kind of weight anymore. Secret War 1, I salute you!

(Let's not mention Secret War 2.)

[labor_days]

Top 5 Events That Were Not Bullshit; Official.

1. Secret Wars
2. Infinity Gauntlet
3. Crisis On Infinite Earths
4. The Great Darkness Saga
5. Sinestro Corps War


Also, any other event written by Jim Shooter. Am I rite?

[optimus187prime]

Sinestro Wars has been excellent, and my hopes are high for Blackest Night. A more "family" event that I loved is Bruce Wayne: Fugitive.

[racemccloud]

Sinestro Wars has been excellent, and my hopes are high for Blackest Night. A more "family" event that I loved is Bruce Wayne: Fugitive.

Hey, would we count "Green Lantern: Rebirth" as an event? (I know, it's my post, I should know the answer to that myself.) If so, I'm putting that in my top five. I love that mini.

[racemccloud]

Top 5 Events That Were Not Bullshit; Official.

1. Secret Wars
2. Infinity Gauntlet
3. Crisis On Infinite Earths
4. The Great Darkness Saga
5. Sinestro Corps War


Also, any other event written by Jim Shooter. Am I rite?

What was the Great Darkness saga?

And I must say, I was a little surprised to see two Marvel events on the top of Labor's list. I guess good comics is good comics, no matter who's publishing them.

[paper]

Great Darkness is a Legion event.

[racemccloud]

Great Darkness is a Legion event.

This would be why I've never heard of it/read it.

[optimus187prime]

I dont think Rebirth is a event per-se more of a mini.

[paper]

Yeah, it depends on what you define as an event.

Me, I consider each issue of Justice Society of America an event.

[valoharth]

Is 52 an event, if so it was the Perfect event in my mind. So good, oh so good.

[gungadin]

I'm gonna throw out Identity Crisis for my vote. I freakin loved it. Every issue was solid. Good art, good story, good writing, good mystery, and [for me] a satisfying ending that had closure but also set things up for the future.

I'd put Sinestro Corps on the list of "perfect" but that's meaning I'd have to include the GLC issues, which I didn't find as good as the GL issues.

[paper]

Identity Crisis is a great pick. A great story and a sentimental favorite for me as well.

[labor_days]

What was the Great Darkness saga?

And I must say, I was a little surprised to see two Marvel events on the top of Labor's list. I guess good comics is good comics, no matter who's publishing them.

I grew up Marvel. But yes, comics can't get much better than Captain America telling Thanos he's tired of his bullshit.

Or the Hulk lifting up a FUCKING MOUNTAIN.

Man, I hate modern day comics. Nothing badass happens in them anymore.

[labor_days]

Also, the Great Darkness Saga (http://en.dcdatabaseproject.com/Great_Darkness_Saga) was one of the best things ever published.

Some may call it the first true "event " comic ever. Pre-dates CoIE.

And it was fucking awesome as Darkseid nearly destroyed the past and future. Dude was not dicking around in the 31st Century.

[gungadin]

No Man's Land.

Love that series.

[dave-accampo]

The Great Darkness Saga was awesome, but... I'm not entirely sure how we're defining an event then. Is the Dark Phoenix Saga also an event? Any epic story in a comic book series?

Not contesting, just asking.

For me to wrap my head around this, I'm thinking of events as mini-series outside of a main series that bring various characters together (Crisis, Secret War, etc.). Something designed by nature to bring a universe of characters together.

That's just my definition, cuz i need a way to think about it.

So, what i come up with is:

- DC One Million - Morrison masterminded it, and as I recall it was pretty strong as an event. Maybe it's just because I was very invested in DC's line at the time, but I recall really enjoying this one.

- Identity Crisis - Thus far, the only Crisis that I really think holds up. Mostly because it really is a STORY more than anything.

- Civil War - Yeah, I'm gonna take shit for this, but I do feel like it told a very sensational story, had a lot of peak moments and changed the landscape in a more realistic fashion than a merging of earths, etc.

- No Man's Land - OK, so this didn't have its own mini-series, but it affected the mini-universe of Batman titles. Yeah, I'm kinda pushing the definition I laid out for myself, but I thought this was a very good event, so I'm bending my own rules slightly.

I think there are probably more I've enjoyed somewhat. But by and large, I think "Events" are really hard to write well and while they can often be remembered as epic and status-quo altering, the writing doesn't often hold up.

[gungadin]

The Great Darkness Saga was awesome, but... I'm not entirely sure how we're defining an event then. Is the Dark Phoenix Saga also an event? Any epic story in a comic book series?

Not contesting, just asking.

For me to wrap my head around this, I'm thinking of events as mini-series outside of a main series that bring various characters together (Crisis, Secret War, etc.). Something designed by nature to bring a universe of characters together.

That's just my definition, cuz i need a way to think about it.

So, what i come up with is:

- DC One Million - Morrison masterminded it, and as I recall it was pretty strong as an event. Maybe it's just because I was very invested in DC's line at the time, but I recall really enjoying this one.

- Identity Crisis - Thus far, the only Crisis that I really think holds up. Mostly because it really is a STORY more than anything.

- Civil War - Yeah, I'm gonna take shit for this, but I do feel like it told a very sensational story, had a lot of peak moments and changed the landscape in a more realistic fashion than a merging of earths, etc.

- No Man's Land - OK, so this didn't have its own mini-series, but it affected the mini-universe of Batman titles. Yeah, I'm kinda pushing the definition I laid out for myself, but I thought this was a very good event, so I'm bending my own rules slightly.

I think there are probably more I've enjoyed somewhat. But by and large, I think "Events" are really hard to write well and while they can often be remembered as epic and status-quo altering, the writing doesn't often hold up.

I actually don't disagree with any of those, although I feel that DC One Million did fly over my head a little...

[humphrey-lee]

The perfect event is one that becomes one during its tenure; it's not billed as one. Most of these things fail, IMO, because they try too hard to be important, or give into their own hype. I think this is why Sinestro Corps has been so popular, because it just kind of found this fanbase through it which lent it a lot of energy. That's why I think Annihilation is probably my favorite, because it just looked like a long overdue Marvel Cosmic story, but turned out to be oh so enjoyable.

But, more often than not for me, the "perfect" event is the one that doesn't happen. I really could give two tugs about them for the most part...

[dave-accampo]

The perfect event is one that becomes one during its tenure; it's not billed as one. Most of these things fail, IMO, because they try too hard to be important, or give into their own hype.

While I don't disagree, I do think that people tend to overlook the anticipation and hype as PART of the event.

Yeah, that's probably a really unpopular thing to say, but...It's like this:

We're all readers here. We all love a good story. And most of the year we get these good stories. We know which writers we like, and we follow them. However, despite the "event fatigue" the anticipation of these "universe changing" stories does get us excited. And I think it's OK to include that as part of one's criteria for judgment. But only part. I think part of the reason I liked Identity Crisis is because the hype built up all these changes for DC, and I spent hours on message boards reading theories about who the killer was. It almost doesn't MATTER if I was or was not disappointed by the final reveal because I spent hours dwelling on it, chatting about it, etc. I was ENTERTAINED by it. Similarly, I felt that way all through Civil War. Even Zero Hour, which was horribly written, had a huge universe altering campaign to it. I was a heavy DC reader at the time, and I was sucked in. Sure, about the only good book to come from that fiasco was Starman, but I have to admit, the HYPE around that event was fun if you were in the middle of it (I worked at a comic shop at the time).

Anyway, just wanted to mention that. I suspect a lot of people end up feeling ashamed that they were excited for an "event." And often the execution is so bad that the shame is probably...appropriate. But I don't think anyone should feel bad about getting into the hype -- particularly if they derive entertainment from it.

[labor_days]

DC One Million? All of it?

You're putting me on, Dave Accampo.

[esophagus]

Top 5 events:
1. No Man's Land
2. Identity Crisis
3. Planet Hulk
4. 52
5. I haven't read the entire Sinestro Corps War yet, but from what I have read (and from reading GL: Rebirth) I know it will end up here.

[dave-accampo]

DC One Million? All of it?

You're putting me on, Dave Accampo.

Well, all of it, meaning every 1Million issue that DC put out? Probably not, no. But, while I haven't read this since it came out, I do recall being pleased with the main mini-series and many of the issues. I think this was a time I was also really enjoying DC's main universe. Morrison's JLA, Robinson's Starman, Hourman, Resurrection Man, stuff like that. I don't think I bought every 1 Million issue, nor did you need to.

So, as a result, I remember that one as being very enjoyable.

I could have also been deeply scarred by Zero Hour and Final Night and Underworld Unleashed. That may have changed my expectations.

[dave-accampo]

Maybe someone can jog my memory here...

There was a little mini-event in the 80's that ran through DC's "government/espionage" type books. It was probably very average in execution, but I remember thinking it was such a cool idea.

As a reference point, it ran through titles like:

Suicide Squad
Captain Atom
CheckmateAnd maybe one or two other titles...

[dave-accampo]

Found it!

The Janus Directive. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_Directive) (such an awesome title!)

Also ran through Manhunter and Firestorm.

[paper]

Oh, I was 5 years old then.

Does sound good. I don't imagine it's collected anywhere?

[dave-accampo]

Oh, I was 5 years old then.

Does sound good. I don't imagine it's collected anywhere?

Young man, in my day, we didn't "collect" our comics into books. We knew that books were books and comics were comics, and the way you got your comics was to dig through dusty bins in old comic book stores that smelled like nacho cheese and lost glory. And we'd pay three times the value of the book because it was tucked it a plastic sheath and taped with yellow masking tape that tore the plastic the first time you tried to open the package, but none of that mattered because you KNEW that this was a new crown jewel in your collection, not because it was hacked out by a stoned hippie or drawn with only faintest resemblance to actual human anatomy but because you found it, damn it, you found it and no one else got to it first.

[esophagus]

What Dave is getting at is "In my day, we had staples and ONLY staples. There was no way we could possibly staple that many issues together."

[labor_days]

Also of note, when Dave says "back in my day"- he really is talking about the primordial hell before the dawn of time when horrible beings and gods beyond the mind of man lurched in the darkness.

http://i27.tinypic.com/9094w4.jpg

[paper]

Dave doesn't just predate photography; he predates the natural and artificial light which made it possible.

[cormano]

Infinity Gauntlet is the first thing that comes to mind. As far as current, I doubt many people will agree, and I'm not sure if it is technically an "event" but I have been absolutely loving Brand New Day. This last arc was maybe the best, but there hasn't been one that I haven't enjoyed.

[euchre0]

Everyone will hate me, but there has never been, or ever will be, an even that had me as excited, from start to finish, as Onslaught. I thought it may have been that I was in middle school when it happened, but I recently revisited the even and, boy howdy, still good!

[racemccloud]

Everyone will hate me, but there has never been, or ever will be, an even that had me as excited, from start to finish, as Onslaught. I thought it may have been that I was in middle school when it happened, but I recently revisited the even and, boy howdy, still good!

Oddly enough, I don't hate you.