Crossovers

Ah, the topic that plagues comic book messageboards, fan letters and all other forms of expression within the comics community. It's the positives versus the negatives. It's continuity versus stand alone tales. It's publicity and commercialism against justice and righteousness.

Okay, that last one was a bit much, but you get my point. And besides, that last comparison is exactly how some enraged fanboys and fangirls view all things related to that dirty word, crossover!

As I was reading October's issue of Wizard Magazine I came across a Yes vs. No debate on crossovers in which two perspectives on events such as (and specifically citing of course) House of M and Infinite Crisis. The funny thing is both views were way off on a couple of their main points, but I digress. The whole debate got me thinking about my feelings on crossovers and how I would like to share that opinion with the world and let my voice be known. And thanks to this little thing they call the internet that is now possible. Of course I am only aware of about 4-5 people who actually read what I write in this blog, the possibility still exists, so it's good enough for me.

But seriously, in the wake of the House of M and Infinite Crisis events we are faced with two line-wide major changing crossovers done two completely different ways by the biggest and most popular two comic publishers in existence today, Marvel and DC. But inherently, though Joe Quesada says differently in this week's Joe Fridays, aren't they both doing the same thing? Both in the marketing aspect of it as well as the storylines themselves? I'll get to that in a minute. First I'd like to take a look at the main theme of this post, which is the crossover itself rather than any one particular crossover, though I'm sure I will cite examples of the two aforementioned because they are the freshest examples in my mind at present.

A crossover, by definition in comics lingo, is loosely a storyline that carries over into multiple books involving multiple characters. By that definition Marvel takes the stance that House of M is NOT a true crossover, but an Event. They may have a point, but I'm getting ahead of myself. With that definition in mind one has to assume a few things for such an initiative to be possible. First off you have to deduce that the characters and/or titles involved exist in the same universe, at least for the duration of the crossover. You also have to accept that the storyline involved could happen to all the characters/books involved and have some sort of impact, whether felt afterwards or not. With that all cleared up, it begs the question, what good are crossovers?

There are many reasons to have crossovers, and according to "fans" many reasons why certain crossovers existed in the first place. There are theories that crossovers exist to capitalize on popular characters. Or to capitalize on a gimmick created for the crossover, ultimately also to make money. Then there are those who think crossovers exist to entertain or because certain characters teaming up or facing off make great stories. And you know what? They're all right, every time. And this is where you may disagree with me.

See, it is my belief that a comic company truly does care about telling good stories. Being a writer myself I understand that true writers are passionate about anything and everything their name is attached to. We are a proud people, a creative people, that like to stand by what we say and do. Sure there are exceptions, but that's the rule. Sure at times we will do stuff to pay the bills, but even then we pour as much of ourselves into the project as we possibly can. It's part of what makes a writer. So it's hard for me to believe that comic companies sit back in their chairs laughing maniacally, plotting on how they can bleed more money out of unsuspecting consumers with crappy stories in a shiny package. It is my firm belief that someone there really thought these things (as well as any and every book in and of itself aside from crossovers) were really great stories that should be told. It's really unfair to think otherwise and to sit back at the comfort of our computers or on our couches with pen and pad in hand and produce letter after letter, comment after comment on how we know better than they do. Yes, we are the ones reading and buying the product, but that doesn't make us experts. Should our voices be heard? Of course, but we shouldn't get bent out of shape when a story doesn't go as we would have done it either. These aren't life and death issues, people. Get over it.

You also have to realize that the comic industry, like anything else, is also a business. They have to make money or we won't have any books to moan and complain about, or more importantly to sit back, relax and enjoy. So you can't fault them for making crossovers or "events" involving popular characters. But when they do, I assure you they really do believe they have good stories to tell with those popular characters, even if at times they are wrong.

But the whole commercialism part of it is what brings us to crossovers in the '90's, which I feel were of a completely different ilk all together. At that time I will admit many crossovers were being done to cash in, but not for the reasons you suspect. See, at that time comics had finally enjoyed somewhat of a crossover of its own into popular media with national recognition. Maybe this was in part to Rob Liefeld's Levis commercials, or DC's Death of Superman extravaganza, but whatever the cause it was a good time for the industry. People were buying more comics than ever before and companies weren't blind to that fact. Yes, they overdid it and played their cards too soon and too often producing foil covers, multiple covers, weekly crossovers, and all kinds of other stuff because of one reason: The collectors.

See, at that time people started seeing the value in collecting, so they were hording up on the stuff. So the companies decided to make EVERY book and EVERY crossover not only mean something to the respective universes, but also be worth something, which, as we all know, resulted in the majority of everything being worth practically nothing, which in turn sent the industry into a downward spiral it is only now starting to climb out of. But why did they do this? Just to get our money? To coin a phrase, "I don't think so."

It is my stance that the companies really wanted to capitalize in order to entice more people to buy, not to only fill their pockets (and let's face it, any company in any industry would be stupid not to try to make some money off a revolution like that) but also in order to expand the comic industry and keep it alive and thriving for years to come. And it is also my belief that even the stories told in those mass produced, commercialized, nonsensical masterpieces were thought to be great stories that would be entertaining and possibly even needed to be told. Someone felt that way about those stories, I guarantee it. I guarantee when the whole Clone Saga idea was brought up someone thought it was brilliant. And actually, I was into that storyline, it just got carried away and overdone a bit. And I'm sure someone thought Armageddon 2001 was a great idea, and it was until someone made Hawk the major villain. And somebody probably thought Image and Valiant's universal crossover series Deathmate was brilliant at first. The list goes on and on. My point being, though, that they aren't done just for the money.

Let's shift gears a bit for a minute and talk about events vs. crossovers. For the sake of this part of the discussion we'll revert back to the definition I stated of a crossover and what Marvel considers an event. But we'll look at them as two types of crossovers instead.

The first type is the kind mentioned above, involving multiple books and possibly multiple characters. One example of that would be the Clone Saga, which crossed over through all the Spider-Man books and involved other characters from the Marvel Universe. A better example might be X-Cutioner's Song, which spread throughout the main X-Men related titles at the time and involved all the characters of those titles. Or even more recently, DC's Infinite Crisis, which seemingly involves every single book the company produces in its main line.

The second type of crossover happens in a mini or maxi series, or series of mini or maxi series involving a single event that may or may not have repercussions in the universe or titles afterwards, and may or may not produce spinoff titles or events thereafter. Examples of this type of crossover are The Secret Wars, Identity Crisis (until it was revealed as part of Infinite Crisis, of course) and more recently House of M, which predominately took place in one maxi series with a bunch of spinoffs and tie ins.

Now given the descriptions and the examples cited above, it really starts to blur the lines between the two types, doesn't it? On the one hand you have something like Secret Wars, which happened in a contained story, but seemingly had no repercussions on the universe as a whole, unless you count that whole symbiote thing. On the other you have an event like the Clone Saga, which took place smack dab in the middle of the 616 (the regular Marvel U. for those unaware) and involved many characters and left many repercussions. Either way there are after effects. So it boils down to preferences to a point. But what about when these crossovers really do require you to buy many titles you wouldn't normally buy?

Let's now take a look at our two current major events rocking the Marvel and DC universes. First up is House of M. The seeds for this storyline were planted long ago, if you buy into that notion, with the Scarlet Witch's made up children. Those seeds started producing in the pages of Avengers Disassembled, a storyline many felt didn't live up to expectations. But I'll get to that in a minute. Then after certain repercussions were felt from that we learn that it was just the beginning as the seeds come to fruition in the recent 8 issue series, House of M. Now of course there were other House of M tie-in books, which were not required for the whole story as those particular titles only showed the lives of more popular characters in this alternate reality, and were promoted as such, so noone can fault Marvel for that. But the kicker is that the events of House of M have a huge effect on the entire Marvel Universe, and that's what upset everyone. Some fans felt cheated because now they learn that Disassembled was part of this major storyline and now they've missed so much. And to get a full picture not only would they have to go back and read all those connected titles, but also the current and upcoming ones just to get the whole story. But as most of us are aware, with HofM that is not the case. Marvel, in my opinion, has done a very smart job with this "event" because they have created a storyline that effects everyone in the Marvel Universe, but to get the main story you really only have to pick up the main series. All the tie-ins, spinoffs and ongoings before and afterwards really only tell the stories of how those particular characters' lives are affected. Of course a greater understanding would come by reading the whole line, but then again, so would a greater understanding come by reading the whole Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms collections, but it's not necessary to enjoy the one novel, or the one event. It's the same thing, and Marvel has done it right. And more importantly, we care about it. We care about the characters and the repercussions. And that's how you differ between a successful and unsuccessful story.

Now, the other side of the coin is DC's Infinite Crisis. In some ways it's very similar to House of M in that it is a line wide event that will have major repercussions on the DC Universe and everyone in it. And certain events change the status quo and shakes things up a bit. But the difference is Crisis is more of a true crossover going by the first definition covered in this post. Though Identity Crisis served as DC's Assembled in terms that it planted the seed, or rather showed growth in the seeds as seeds were planted throughout prior to that mini. And then, like HofM we learn it is part of a greater storyline, which will also involve another mini series serving as the main story. But here's where the similarities die, because in the DC crossover there are more tie-ins and minis than you can throw a stick at. The prelude, or as they referred to it, the Countdown involved 5 mini series, if you include The Return of Donna Troy, and MANY tie-in books and issues before, during and following the minis to get the whole picture. The bad thing was that there would be tie-ins in the middle of issues or in the middle of minis instead of going from one to the next. In my personal opinion DC messed up when they had captions on certain pages telling readers 5 pages into a book to go read an issue of another title all together before turning the page. That was too excessive. However, in their defense I must say they coorelated these titles so well that in certain instances that you really didn't need to read the others because they repeated the events. Sort of like what Marvel did between Secret War and The Pulse recently.

The main thing about these two crossover events, though, is regardless of all the excessive measures they went to to involve the entire universes into brilliant tapestries, they accomplished a few things. First of all they both made compelling stories with real repercussions, which is something we fanboys and fangirls cry about all the time, so how can we complain when they give us what we want? They also gave us extraordinary creative teams on most of the titles. These writers made us want to pick up all the other books. Granted, some were written and drawn better than others, but when you take the talents of writers like Bendis, Johns, Rucka, etc. and throw in artists like Coipel, Jiminez, etc. the results are great books and what more could we ask for? And finally, you have to realize that by making these universes so cohesive as to affect every character and every title in some way, small or big, it takes a lot of planning and work. There is no way you can come up with something as involved and complicated as this, no matter how many people are involved in the process, and not have your heart in it. It's just not possible. So for us to sit back and heckle and judge and not understand all the hard work these talented people put in just for our enjoyment and their livelyhood it's just not fair.

And this is my final point concerning crossovers that affect the entire universe. Every major event that happens to us on the earth as a nation or as a world, whether it be war, terrorist acts, or the occasional blessed events that come our way, they always have lasting effects on us and our world as a whole. In every great novel, whether fantasy or otherwise there are events that take place that alter worlds or affect a people as a whole. Not all are affected as much as others, and maybe they don't even realize how they were affected, but they were affected nonetheless. So why should we want anything different from this medium of storytelling we so love and devote countless time, money and thought to? Do you really want to read a bunch of big events that take place in some alternate reality that have no affects on the rest of the world? If Sue Storm were to dye her hair purple and divorce Reed would you really want her showing up in a Spider-Man book with the blond hair and hanging on Reed's arm two weeks later? If Superman went blind and lost his powers would you really want to look over in Superman/Batman the next week and see him flying around with ease only to come back to Superman and he still be blind, but it take place at the same time? Not me, I'll take my crossovers any day. Just please, companies, don't make me have to pick up another title before turning to page 6 of my book. And don't make me have to read a five issue crossover in the middle of a mini series in order to get what happens in the fourth issue of that mini. Then we'll be cool.

And that's that. Agree or disagree, I know there will be those of you who do either. This is how I feel, and these are my opinions, and I thank you for allowing me to share them with you. Who knows, maybe someone will read this and actually change the way they are doing things. Ya never know.

B-Out