Crossovers. Events. We all know them… and we all have to admit that they kind of suck.
That said, some suck worse than others. The problem is that there are two kinds of crappy crossovers: pointless reboots and continuity snarls.
I grew up reading DC, so I read a lot of reboots and relentless crossovers. I admit I have some affection for some of DC’s crossovers. Underworld Unleashed took a lot of terrible lame-ass villains that needed to be redone and also redressed a few annoying problems like Lex Luthor’s health. Their Eclipso crossover actually spawned a pretty good anthology book and marked one of the few times their desperate attempt to make Anarky cool kinda worked. Even the cheesefest Bloodlines had its good points: For example, it spawned Hitman.
And Marvel has a few home runs or at least solid base hits. Secret Wars remains goofy fun, and there isn’t a nerd alive that didn’t feel a little thrill at the hints Marvel has been dropping that it might bring The Infinity Gauntlet to the screen.
That said, though, there have been some real turkeys. So I put it to you: what’s the worst crossover you’ve ever read? And why is it the worst?
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Ultimatum was maybe the hackiest and lamest comic series I’ve ever read, so I’ll have to go with that.
THIS…literally destroyed the nice little lane the ultimate universe had. the ultimates 1 and 2 are classics in my mind
Thirded. Plenty of crossovers have sucked on a spectacular level, but how many others have pretty much destroyed an entire comics line?
I avoided it. Honestly, I hated the Ultimates, but what I saw made me cringe.
Ugh. Deathmate. Seeing that actually makes me glad to be old and bitter.
This got started because, true story, somebody actually tried to sell my local comics shop a complete run of Deathmate. He wanted triple figures for it!
I didn’t even know it was completed. I stopped reading comics for years just after I bought the first book.
I dont know if this counts, but Brightest Day was literally one of the worst crossovers/events I’ve ever read. All that for Swamp Thing? Seriously? That’s it? That’s All you got for me?
Also, Deadman eats burgers and porks Dawn. This was important. The DCU needed that.
And then proceeds to go back to being exactly what he was before. White Lantern is a huge dick is basically what that storyline came down to.
“Glad you enjoyed life Deadman, now go f@ck yourself.”
Secret Wars II
Are you sure? The multiple panels that had the Beyonder becoming Steve Rogers with Michael Jackson’s hair didn’t redeem the series for you?
I know it was meant to be funny but Archie Meets The Punisher failed on every level for me. It was…horrible.
Damn it, the person above me beat me to it. Secret Wars II was by far the worst comics crossover of all time. The main series was written by an illiterate, but it compounded it’s horrors by having terrible tie-in comics in the regular series…and it tied in with EVERY regular series.
On the general topic of comics crossovers though: In the mid-80s (after the first Secret Wars and Crisis were just published) Paul Kupperberg was asked at ChicagoCon if fans could expect a big event crossover every year from then on. Kupperberg’s brilliant (and disarmingly honest) response was “Well yes, of course we will. We’re going to do it every single year as long as it makes money. And when it stops making money, we’re going to do it another 2 or 3 times just to make sure.”
There are so many that SOUND awful that I’ve never actualy read (Like Superman v. Muhamad Ali).
I really hated Avengers Disassembled, but I doubt it’s the worst.
I rarely read Universe-wide crossovers, because they’re too expensive and I can’t keep track of everything. I really f–king hated the Batman War Games/War Crimes crossover if that counts.
The worst crossover ever was the entire run of the Crossgen Universe.
And the fact that their one true crossover even never concluded proves that.
event, not even
Infinite Crisis
Infinite Crisis
INFINITE CRISIS!!!
Geoff Johns hurt my feelings with that book.
Yeah, that was a disaster.
Secret Invasion
World War Hulk
Civil War
Fear Itself
Pretty much all the recent Marvel ones have been pretty bad in my opinion.
just curious, what didnt u like about civil war and secret invasion?
Secret Invasion was too long, and it ended in the dumbest way possible (Let’s all get together in one spot and face off against Earth’s heroes when that’s literally failed EVERY OTHER TIME. Especially because the reason they do it was based on some Skrull religious fundamentalism BS).
Civil War’s problem was that the tie-ins were all over the place and it made the story hard to reconcile between tie-ins and the constantly late main title. It was good in general.
I agree with Martin on Civil War, but I really liked World War Hulk. Even though some of the tie-ins were kinda sloppy, overall I thought it was kind of an amazing conclusion/catharsis for Planet Hulk. Planet Hulk being one of the greatest Hulk stories in ages.
Secret Invasion was really sloppy and filled with people standing around talking about things. Which is fine except its an action book. Plus it set up the lamest retcon ever, it was shape shifters.
Civil War was just dumb. Being a vigilante is always illegal. They didn’t have a right to protect their identity. Plus I felt it was a really missed opportunity to elevate Spidey to more prominent leadership type role in the Marvel Universe. Obviously that wasn’t the plan since they reverted him back to old Peter Parker with Brand New Day. Which I also hated, but not nearly as much as The Other.
Marvel’s Onslaught crossover. It dragged the rest of the Marvel Universe into the quagmire mess that was/is any X-title. On the plus side, Heroes Reborn did start a turnaround for everything not dealing with mutants.
On the minus side, Heroes Reborn hurt like a painful discharge…
I just dug out the SPAWN/BATMAN book written by Frank Miller. that was… interesting.
Secret War II – hilariously, desperately out of ideas but still kinda entertaining.
Infinite Crisis – typical DC bullshit where they try fix stuff and just make it worse.
Final Crisis – Screwed up what ever was left to screw up after Infinite Crisis
Ultimatum – regardless of weather or not you liked the Ultimate titles, this was a huge, lazy, disservice to all of them.
Marvel/DC Crossover – I waited my whole childhood for something like that to happen and the end result was fucking boring as hell. So disappointing.
The WORST crossover? Maybe Parallax/Final Night… NOPE, FLASHPOINT.
By a mile.
I was actually pretty psyched for Batman coming back from his adventures through time and then Flashpoint happened. I guess it was necessary to clean up the retarded stuff from the various Crisis’s but holy shit did I stop reading DC after this. Wildstorm shoulda been left the fuck alone.
New 52 can kiss my surly ass btw.
(except for Batman, I’ll always love ya Bats. Even when Kevin Smith poops in your cannon.)
Millenium. “Hey, we need a crossover! Everyone, you have two months to decide which one of your supporting cast was actually planted by the Manhunters to turn on the main character.”
Of course, several of the writers decided that instead, their supporting cast member was actually kidnapped by the Manhunters, and returned a month or two later. Including the god Pan. Yeah. The GOD Pan was kidnapped by the Manhunters and replaced with an android and none of the other gods noticed. Not to mention, at that point the Spectre was so wussified that he was barely readable, and they made his lame powerset a key element of overcoming the Manhunters.
Wow, did that suck.
Marvel vs. DC. Never has a crossover with so much potential to entertain failed so horribly.
It’s a shame the end of Armageddon 2001 got rewritten because DC telegraphed who was going to become Monarch before the reveal could happen.
The Superman issue where he becomes President was neat though.