Comic Book Crossovers: A Retrospective

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

Yep, it’s me again, doing another comics retrospective. I had so much fun with the Wonder Woman one, I decided to do another. But, what character to spotlight? I couldn’t make up my mind. So I went over my old list of “things to write” and found out that I’d wanted to see all those big comics crossovers collectively discussed in one place… so, why not do it now? Hopefully we’ll come to some interesting conclusions (such as, how come some of these crossovers are good, but others suck so much?)

Once again, my thanks go to d. Galloway for keeping my interest on doing retrospectives alive with the ones he also posts here. Go read those too if you haven’t done so yet.

DEFINITION

Ok, first thing we have to do is define exactly what a comic book crossover is. The actual definition is pretty simple: “It’s a story where characters from two different comic books meet”. That’s obvious. However, “crossover” has sort of taken on a special meaning of its own over the years. Heroes meeting each other happens almost all the time now. The REAL Crossovers are when a LOT of heroes -sometimes ALL of them- join forces, with big stakes -the fate of the World, or even the universe- to fight for.

Crossovers like that used to be a rare thing. They started happening in the 80s, as a sales gimmick, with Marvel and DC putting out one every year. Recently, however, the number of “event crossovers” as they have come to be named, are happening more and more often -most likely because comics sales in America are slipping and the comic companies are holding on to whatever gimmick sells. Which results in the somewhat strange situation that universes full of superheroes are finding themselves in almost-constant danger (?)

Let’s look at those crossovers one-by-one:

CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS
“Contest of Champions” is, technically speaking, the first Event Crossover. Oh sure, there had been plenty of stories, in both Marvel and DC, where the universe is saved by superheroes. And there had been stories where lots of characters got together for some reason. But CoC was the first one where such an event got its own mini-series, as opposed to the story being told in one (or more) existing titles.

Ironically, CoC owes its origin to… the Olympics? That’s what comics rumors claim. Apparently, Marvel had planned to do a story promoting the 1980 Olympics, in which their heroes saved the athletes, but the plans fell through. Still, someone at Marvel thought that the story was worth using, especially since, let’s face it, American comics often have a dearth of non-American superheroes. A story spotlighting those international heroes Marvel had (and creating a few new ones) was only the fair thing to do. So, the Olympics story got reworked into a “heroes from all over the World join forces to save the Earth” mini-epic in 1982: Contest of Champions, written by writer/editor Mark Gruenwald, who would come to be known as Marvel’s continuity expert.

The story went like this: The Grandmaster, an alien obsessed with gaming, wanted to resurrect his recently-killed brother, The Collector (guess what his obsession was.) But, the only being with the power to do that was… Death herself! And, being who he was, Grandmaster just had to challenge her to a game, with his brother’s life as the price. So, what was the game? A nice round of chess? Bah, why bother with that when you have super heroes to play with?

The cover above is slightly misleading- yes, EVERY superhero on Earth was brought before the two Cosmic Beings so they could choose who to use, but only two dozen were actually chosen, half of them being non-American. (Still, technically this is the first time ALL Marvel heroes were in the same place and at the same time- even characters like Rom the Spaceknight, who Marvel had use of only due to temporary licensing!) Most of them ended up just sitting in the sidelines, though.

The heroes were not given a choice- Earth’s populace had been put in a trance and wouldn’t wake up unless the heroes did as told. The two “players” then selected 12 heroes each. (Note: no indication was given of why the particular heroes were chosen- I guess they just picked their favorites! ) Grandmaster team was composed of: Captain America, Talisman (Australian hero, invented for this series), Darkstar (Russian), Captain Britain (guess), Wolverine (Canadian), Defensor (Argentina, new as well), Sasquatch (Canada), Daredevil, Peregrine (French, new), She-Hulk, The Thing, and Blitzkrieg (Germany, new.) Death’s team were: Iron Man, Vanguard (Russia), Iron Fist, Shamrock (Ireland, new), Storm (American, despite growing up in Africa), Arabian Knight (Egypt), Sabra (Israel), Invisible Woman, The Angel (of the X-Men), Black Panther (from the fictional African nation of Wakanda), Sunfire (Japan) and Collective Man (China, new.) (For the curious, all of these characters have Wikipedia entries.) These heroes were then sent after the four pieces of the “Orb of Life.” Whoever got the most pieces would be the winner.

There isn’t much to tell about the story. Over the course of the 3-issue miniseries, the heroes split into four teams each, travel around the World, clash with their opposites and claim the pieces. Eventually, Grandmaster’s team is declared the winner (though it seems it actually was a draw- I don’t have the comic itself so I don’t know) however, he is then informed by Death that while the Globe will resurrect the Collector, someone else has to die in his place. Grandmaster accepts this, and dies, while the Collector lived again. (What a good sport! Or was he? Years later, it was revealed the whole thing was part of a larger plan to steal Death’s powers for himself. Still, that’s some sweet cosmic-level scheming!)

Overall, CoC isn’t that impressive; it’s main contribution was creating more international heroes for Marvel, though they were criticized for being a little too stereotypical (but that is a problem that plagues most national-themed heroes.) Most of those heroes were hardly used afterwards, anyway.

The series didn’t get the publicity that the following Events would generate. I missed it the first time, too; I really need to find the CoC trade and read it one of these days.

Next: The real granddaddy of Event Crossovers: Marvel’s “Secret Wars”!

Note: Comments and corrections, as usual, are welcome!

[GG_Crono]

Ooh, this ought to be fun.

Do you recall that whole Marvel vs DC/Amalgam shenanigan? My dad has every one of those books.

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

Crono: Indeed I do. I’ll cover it in due time as well (I’m going in chronological order, so I’ll be covering EVERY major crossover since the 80’s!) :eek:

Edit: I decided that not listing the superhero “contestants” was a cop-out, so I edited my first post to name all of them.

[Cidolfas]

“Collective Man”? That screams awesome.

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

“Collective Man”? That screams awesome.

It was an interesting concept, indeed: 5 Chinese brothers with the power to combine into one super-being! (possibly inspired by the Chinese fairy tale of the Five Brothers.) Sadly, he was rarely used again.

OK, continuing:

SECRET WARS

Like Contest of Champions, “Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars” had an unusual origin: it began as a toy promotion! Back in the early 80s, the idea of extensive “action figure series” was beginning to take root. Mattel, the company that made Marvel’s toys, wanted them to come up with a single story that would tie up all their various characters together, presumably to increase sales by motivating kids to get all the toys so they could “reenact” it. I guess CoC was not suitable, because only a few of Marvel’s best-known heroes were featured in it (and none of the villains) so, then-current Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter -who, ironically, would come to be known as one of Marvel’s most hated E-i-Cs, because of his habit of micromanaging everything- came up with this new crossover for their toys to tie in with.

“Secret Wars”, published in 1984, was revolutionary in many ways: for starters, it was Marvel’s first 12-part Limited Series, which meant it would take a WHOLE year of monthly issues for the story to be told! In addition, Marvel came up with a clever way of promoting it: on the month the series began, all the heroes involved “disappeared” in their own series; then, the following month, they would “come back” from the Secret Wars- many of them with startling changes! (the most famous being Spider-Man’s new costume, which eventually became the symbiotic monster, Venom!) The gimmick was, in order to find out HOW those changes had happened, you had to read the full SW series! This way, Marvel induced fans to pick up the series, without having to interrupt their publication schedule for those characters who starred in their own series (Spider-Man, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, and The Hulk). Clever indeed!

Of course, comic book characters, sooner or later, return to their Status Quo; of all the changes brought about by SW, only the existence of Venom (and the fact that the Avengers produced a secondary team, the West Coast Avengers, in the absence of their primary members) did last. Still, the series was a big hit; much more so than the toys based on it, which were quickly forgotten (I saw them; they were no big deal. )

The story of SW was written by Shooter himself. It was about a Cosmic Being, “The Beyonder”, who came from another universe, where it was apparently the only thing that existed there! Accidentally discovering the Marvel Universe, it became intrigued by the nature of “limited” beings (as he saw them) in particular, by the concept of desire- the need to have what you don’t have (which was foreign to it, being a (supposedly) all-powerful being.) After studying Earth, it decided to test the nature of desire by gathering Earth’s greatest heroes and villains on a planet of its own creation, that would come to be known as “Battleworld”. It promised to grant the wishes of whoever won the struggle.

(For the full cast of characters, please see Wikipedia’s entry on the series: Secret Wars - Wikipedia)

Strangely enough, Magneto, considered a villain by most people, found himself brought by the Beyonder on the heroes’ side! (This was probably because, at the time, he was starting to be written as a more sympathetic character) while Galactus, an amoral Cosmic Being, found himself along the villains! Magneto and the X-Men soon founded their own, third side (the mutants’- you’d think the X-Men would trust the other heroes more by then.) Galactus was not amused and tried to challenge The Beyonder- only to get knocked down like a dog! Now THAT was an unexpected event, stating that the scale of the Beyonder’s power was (no pun intended) beyond anything then seen in the Marvel Universe! :eek:

The villains ended up under the leadership of Doctor Doom. As the three sides battled and lived in Battleworld (the whole thing took at least a week) several things happened. Unknown to everyone, the Beyonder was already granting their wishes, but in subtle ways: people with romantic problems, such as The Human Torch or the shy villain called The Molecule Man, found their “perfect” lovers while on Battleworld; Spider-Man got a “better” costume from a machine (actually an alien symbiote, something he would not discover until after returning to Earth); The Thing found out he now could change back-and-forth to his human form at will, etc. (Special note: this has been forgotten by now, but the whole Black-and-White scheme of Spider-Man’s new “costume” was actually copied by him from the second Spider-Woman, a new heroine introduced in this series.) This experimentation apparently backfired on the Beyonder, because what Doctor Doom really wanted was to have the Ultimate Power- the Beyonder’s! And he eventually obtained it!! Fortunately, it took every ounce of Doom’s willpower to keep the power in check, or he would destroy the universe, so he couldn’t really do anything! In the end, the Beyonder reclaimed its power and left (so I guess nobody won.) The heroes and villains then went back home using the transporters the Beyonder had created- all except The Thing, who wasn’t sure if he wanted to return to Earth if it meant being trapped in monster form again. (He was replaced in the Fantastic Four by She-Hulk.) This was a plotline that was carried along in The Thing’s own series for a while; eventually he realized that Battleworld was just granting his fantasies, and decided to go home. The moment he did, the planet exploded. Although that wasn’t the end of Battleworld, as it would return (sort of) in another, more recent miniseries, “Beyond!”, which I’ll discuss later.

SW has been criticized for being a story full of “big” action moments (at one point, the Molecule Man hurls an entire MOUNTAIN RANGE onto the heroes, who survive only because The Hulk lifted it! That had to be Battleworld’s “magic” at work, as Hulk has never been THAT strong) but wasn’t much of a story otherwise. I remember disliking the artwork, which looked crude and unimpressive to me.

Still, as I said, Secret Wars was a success- it sold well and kept fans interested on its effects on many Marvel characters for a while. It became (for better or worse) the ideal that most Event Crossovers would aspire to follow for quite a long time. A sequel, “Secret Wars II”, was set for the very next year.

Next: You think DC Comics was going to take that lying down!? Get ready for their answer: the much- ballyhooed CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS!!

[Cidolfas]

It was an interesting concept, indeed: 5 Chinese brothers with the power to combine into one super-being! (possibly inspired by the Chinese fairy tale of the Five Brothers.) Sadly, he was rarely used again.

Oh, is that all? I thought he was a Communist superhero. 8p

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

@Cidolfas

Oh, is that all? I thought he was a Communist superhero. 8p

Oh, but he was! I remember him arguing with other heroes over their being “capitalists!” He also had the ability to call on the strength of all China (he did it the time he fought The Hulk.) (Presumably, he could channel the strength of the entire human race… he just preferred calling on his people’s.)

See his Wikipedia entry for more detail.

For more communist Chinese super heroes, see DC comics’ The Great Ten, also on Wikipedia.

[d_Galloway]

I actually read Secret Wars a few years ago. It had some good points, to be sure, but the total lack of a real plot was a real detriment.

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

We now continue our year-by-year review of Marvel and DC Comic’s “Crossover Events” with what is considered one of the best, if not THE best Crossover ever (and certainly, the one with the longest-lasting effects):

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS

In 1985, the DC Comics company became 50 years old. To celebrate, they decided to have a “big event” in the form of a 12-issue limited series. While it is suspicious that it came right after Marvel’s own megaevent of the previous year, “Secret Wars” and had the same year-long format, “Crisis” had actually been planned for years. (Still, the success of SW had to have at least convinced DC that the format could work. Comparisons between the two among fans were unavoidable.)

The original idea for the story came from writer/editor Marv Wolfman, best known for reinventing the Teen Titans -with help from artist George Perez- into DC’s best-selling comic. Wolfman was annoyed at how hard it was getting to remember all the facts of a story continuity that extended over five decades of comics. He also hated the fact that DC had been using the concept of “Parallel Universes” to explain how all their stories that didn’t fit together had taken place “on a Parallel Earth.” By the time The Crisis rolled along, the DC Universe had at least a dozen such worlds. Wolfman felt it was better to start the whole thing over, with new versions of all their characters now living in one world. But, he also felt all those characters deserved one last hurrah. CoIE was his means of doing all these things. As it turns out, Perez was also the artist chosen to draw Crisis- a good choice, given his ability to draw literally dozens of characters on a page and still have them look good!

The story of Crisis is pretty complicated even for fans of the complex DC continuity (like me ) so I’ll cover only the basics here: Billions of years ago, an alien scientist named Krona performed and experiment to observe the creation of the universe. His time portal, however, somehow disrupted the process, resulting in an “infinite” number of parallel universes. It also created two cosmic beings: The Monitor, so called because of his habit of observing all that existed, and his counterpart from the Anti-Matter Universe- an evil being that would come to be known as “The Anti-Monitor.”

The two Monitors battled, and knocked each other unconscious for billions of years. Until another scientist attempted a similar experiment- and ended up awakening the Monitors. It also destroyed his universe in a matter/antimatter reaction. This gave the Anti-Monitor the idea of destroying all positive universes with antimatter, since each destruction weakened the Monitor while strengthening him.

Unable to face his counterpart directly, the good Monitor set up a series of events designed to merge the surviving Earths into one (using giant “Tuning Forks”) which apparently would make it immune to the “anti-matter wave”. He also started gathering allies to his cause. Most notable among these were: Harbinger, a woman whose life he saved from a sinking ship, and to whom he had granted a part of his powers; Pariah, the scientist whose experiment had started the Crisis, now “cursed” to appear on every universe as it was being destroyed; and Alexander Luthor, son of the heroic Luthor of Earth-3, a world were good and evil were reversed. Earth-3 was destroyed, but somehow Alexander survived with both matter and anti-matter related powers.

But the Anti-Monitor was a master schemer as well. As Harbinger gathered superheroes and villains to protect Monitor’s forks, one of the Anti-monitor’s “shadow demon” servants possessed her. She then struck the Monitor by surprise- killing him!!

But, in another surprise twist, it turned out that Monitor WANTED that to happen, as only his death would “energize” the forks enough to work. The handful of surviving Earths were indeed merged. Monitor left Lyla (Harbinger) a message explaining this. His three assistants then gathered ALL the superheroes in the universe to explain what was going on. The most powerful ones then attacked the Anti-Monitor on his own universe, in an epic battle were long-time DC character, Supergirl, was actually killed! :eek: The heroes were forced to retreat.

Not long thereafter, the Anti-Monitor prepared an “Anti-Matter cannon” that would affect even the merged universe. However, the sacrifice of The Flash -another major DC hero, whom the Anti-Monitor had taken captive- destroyed it. Now really pissed off, the Anti-Monitor decided to go for broke and went back in time to attempt to change the original accident that created the multiverse so that ONLY the Anti-Matter Universe would have ever existed! Once again, the superheroes of Earth traveled back in time and faced the mighty being at “The Beginning of Time.” While they defeated him, somehow Creation was changed anyway: now, there was only ONE universe ever, and nobody remembered the Crisis! (Except those who were involved in the fight in the past.)

The Anti-monitor still existed, though, and he made one last attempt to destroy Earth and kill all its heroes. Once again, with much sacrifice and death (including Wonder Woman’s) the heroes battled and (finally!) killed the Anti-Monitor, though in the process, four people were lost “beyond the universe”: Alexander Luthor, The original Superman from 1938, his wife (an elderly Lois Lane) and Superboy-Prime (a new character invented in the series.) This was, of course, just the writer’s way of sending off these characters (which he believed, would never be used again) with dignity, rather than just killing them (shades of the end of Lords of the Rings!)

And thus ended The Crisis, with a new universe where continuity from before the crossover needed not be followed, where characters could be reinvented in more modern ways, and all interaction took place in one Earth. Not to mention a hell of a story and a dignified sendoff to the classic characters. Mission accomplished!

…Or was it? Wolfman did not contend with one thing: not EVERYONE in DC liked the idea of losing the old continuity. The logical thing to do after Crisis would have been to immediately relaunch all DC titles with new #1 issues, and start rewriting the characters right away. But it took a year for that to start happening- and only a few titles actually relaunched. Others chugged along, regardless of the inconsistencies. DC had always suffered from internal strife due to its editors running their appointed titles almost like individual fiefs, and sadly, they couldn’t overcome that even when the whole point of Crisis WAS relaunching the company’s entire universe! Thus, we ended up with very contradictory stories, such as a new Superman who had never been Superboy, yet Superboy was still a member of the Legion of Superheroes; Hawkman had just arrived on Earth, yet there was one in the Justice League; etc. It would take many years for DC to make their continuity work together… only to get ruined again, as you’ll see in future postings of this retrospective.

But none of that was Wolfman’s fault. As a story, despite being overly complicated, CoIE worked; mainly because it focused on the characters- on the effect that all the chaos and deaths was having on them. Never before have we fans felt that our characters really were threatened (heroes used to always survive in the end). The story felt epic in a way that Marvel’s crossovers had failed to. It truly was the End of the Universe, and the beginning of a new one. And Perez’s art made it equally stunning visually. My only real complaint was that Wolfman should have checked his physics better- anti-matter destroys matter, true, BUT it is also destroyed in the process: so, technically, as he destroyed other universes, Anti-Monitor was also destroying his own!

Another major complaint lobbied against CoIE was that, while the central story itself was solid, most of the series that crossed over with it, felt rather superfluous (most of them just had heroes rescuing people from the space/time chaos caused by the Antimatter wave.) In fact, this gave birth to the term, “Red Sky Crossovers” to refer to crossover stories were the tie-ins barely link to the main story at all. (The sky turning red was a sign that the antimatter wave had reached a world.)

Regardless, Crisis was a success; Event Crossovers were now here to stay, in an at-least-annual schedule, all the way to the present.

Next: We aren’t done with 1985 yet! While DC was having a Crisis (hah) Marvel counterattacked with a sequel to its own successful megaevent: Secret Wars II!

[d_Galloway]

I’ve been meaning to read Crisis for…what…YEARS now. I guess I should get started on that…

And good luck with Secret Wars II. I never managed to read the whole thing, but what I saw left a bitter taste in my mouth.

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

d: DC eventually collected CRISIS in Trade format (though I hear it’s rather expensive.) On the other hand, Wolfman himself adapted the story in the form of a prose novel some years ago. That is really the cheapest way of reading Crisis (and probably the easiest to understand.) Google it up, it should be on sale on Amazon or something.

[TaranWanderer]

I read that version of Crisis. It’s pretty good, but the whole thing is done from the point of Flash while he’s captured by the Anti-Monitor, and he witnesses the events of all the stories because he’s in the … what’s it called… “Prime Speed”? Something. Anyway, it’s a bit odd, but it works out well enough, and you get a nice feeling that the Flash is content and accepts his death at the end.

In other news, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the Death of Superman Wil, even though it’s not exactly a crossover It’s the only other major Comic event that I know of, probably because I got the novel of that too

[GG_Crono]

I think what you’re looking for is “Speed Force”. I read about it on Wikipedia recently.

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

Yeah, the “Speed Force” was something they came up to explain all the physical impossibilities of Flash’s superspeed; it’s also been a handy story device, as in the case of the Crisis novel.

The Death of Superman was a sales gimmick, I and every comic book fan could tell (like DC was really going to kill off Superman ) Still, it was surprisingly well written and drawn (better than some crossovers, in fact) and introduced characters that are still in use (Steel, Cyborg Superman, Eradicator and the new Superboy) so it had lasting effects as well.

OK, back to the reviews:

SECRET WARS II

As mentioned above, the first Secret Wars ended somewhat inconclusively- the Beyonder regained its lost powers and left, and everybody just went home. But, there was still a near-omnipotent being loose in the Marvel Universe, and that had to be dealt with sometime. Not to mention, DC Comics was having its own Big Crossover that year, and Marvel needed something to compete for the fans’ attention (and money.) A sequel to Secret Wars seemed a good idea.

The SW writer (Jim Shooter) came up with an intriguing concept: what if the Beyonder BECAME human? After all, if it wanted to understand mortality, becoming mortal was the logical thing to do! After trying various forms he settled on this one:

Wow, can you tell this came out in the 80’s? Check that hair!

Anyway: as a human, Beyonder had human sensations and needs, but he was still all-powerful. As you can imagine, having the equivalent of God suddenly turn human (and knowing next to nothing about Life) could only lead to trouble, both the amusing and the chilling kinds. It’s a rarely-seen idea, especially in comic books.

Unlike the first SW, this series was limited to only 9 issues, with each covering an aspect of Beyonder’s evolution as a person. Each issue crossed over with some of Marvel’s then-current series, though some of these were “red skies” (as explained above.) In fact, rumor is that Shooter forced many editors to cross over their comics with SWII regardless of the current plans for their plotlines; if true, you can see why Shooter became so hated. (Not that this would be the only time something like this happened, in both Marvel and DC.)

At first, the Beyonder was just an amused spectator on Earth, causing chaos by the reckless use of his powers. Later, he gained some friends (including the Molecule Man, a villain he met in the first SW; Boom-Boom (a runaway girl who became better known later as a member of Cable’s X-Force); and some normal dude whose name I just can’t remember now, grrr (and Wikipedia doesn’t say!! O_O ) They help him understand humanity… however, as he continues to fail to gain a sense of purpose, he becomes more and more frustrated.

He tries falling in love, but that doesn’t work (apparently causing people to fall in love isn’t one of his powers- shades of Bruce Almighty.) He tries being a hero, but his greatest heroic act -destroying Death herself!- only ends causing universal suffering (since nothing could die, but they could still be hurt or starve) and he was forced to sacrifice his best friend to resurrect Death (similar to what happened in Contest of Champions). He tried just giving up and going home, but his universe was totally empty (only he existed in it) and he soon got bored. At one point, he considered destroying our universe so it would not remind him of his frustration; this led to most superheroes attacking him ( to NO effect) and eventually, all the combined Cosmic Beings of the Marvel Universe as well (and he STILL won!!) Finally, he came to the conclusion that to TRULY understand humanity, he had to experience life like we do… by growing up! So he turned himself into a baby!! In that form, he was mostly helpless, and his own friend, The Molecule Man, killed him to stop his menacing all of reality ever again.

In the final issue of the series, we see Beyonder’s universe suddenly sprout worlds and life, probably from the energies released at his death. A very ironic finale.

As a story, Secret wars II wasn’t that good; in fact, many fans HATE it. I’ve seen worse crossovers (just wait until we get to DC’s “Millennium”- urk!) but I agree that, while it had an interesting premise, it wasn’t written very well. The art didn’t help, it felt crude and simplistic; when compared to DC’s current Crisis miniseries, SW looked even worse.

Still, SWII left a long legacy. For one thing, they brought back the Beyonder- only to state that he NEVER was really omnipotent! Huh? It seems that Beyonder was actually part of a Cosmic Cube (sort of an egg from which Cosmic Beings hatch) that got split in two (the Molecule Man had the other half of his power!) Beyonder was just deluded; his power only LOOKED infinite to mortals, while Galactus and the other Cosmics were just “playacting” being helpless before him to “help his development”. Does all that sound like BS to you? It probably is. This story (in Fantastic Four) came out years later, AFTER Shooter was no longer at Marvel, and the writer says he was ordered by an editor to write it. As if somebody just wanted to undermine Shooter’s work out of spite. How petty.

Oh, and Beyonder -who was still alive in the “beyonderverse”- decided to become physical again, this time as a woman (!!) named “Kosmos”, saying he believed his male form may have been the cause of his earlier frustrations. Gee, thanks a lot, Marvel! She eventually went mad anyway.

Also, the name “Secret War” was used for another crossover that had nothing to do with this one (more on that later) while somebody else later pretended to be The Beyonder in the recent miniseries “Beyond!”

Oh, and a recent story by Marvel’s current “darling writer” Brian Michael Bendis, hints that Beyonder actually was a mutant inhuman. WHAT? That makes even LESS sense than the Cosmic Cube retcon! And why come up with that NOW? (It’s been hinted that Beyonder only pretended to be an Inhuman to fool Earth’s heroes… but again, why?)

Next: It’s 1986, and we get to see DC’s first big crossover taking place in their spanking-new, post-Crisis Universe: “Legends”.

[d_Galloway]

Marvel, here’s a Protip: Drop the Beyonder. Don’t do another thing with him. His purpose was to propel the two Secret Wars. He has accomplished this. For once, let a character die out with dignity.

And just from reading that, I’m really glad I never finished Secret Wars II. Man, FORCING editors to incorporate your precious pet project into what they’re doing is not a way to make friends, or even a very good crossover.

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

Gallo: To be fair, Shooter did Marvel a lot of good: their comics sold well, he secured better pay for his employees, etc. It’s just that he was a control freak and certain editors and writers came to resent him for that. Similar things happened on other companies he later worked for…

OK, let’s now look at DC’s “LEGENDS”.

As I mentioned above, it wasn’t until 1986 that DC’s new universe started to really work (the series that started it officially, John Byrne’s MAN OF STEEL, which introduced the modern version of Superman, came out about six months after Crisis.) LEGENDS was their first big event, and fans such as me were eager to see how all the redefined heroes would work together. Legends was a six-issue series, written by long-time DC writer Len Wein and drawn by Byrne. The story concerned the efforts of the evil alien god Darkseid (DC’s greatest villain, best known from the Justice League cartoons) to destroy “Earth’s Legends” -that is, its heroes’!

The story begins with Darkseid making a wager with The Phantom Stranger (DC’s most mystical hero) that he could make Earth’s people turn against the heroes they claimed to love. The Stranger accepted. As part of this wager, the Stranger had to give his word that he would not interfere in any way. (No, I don’t know why he did that. I missed the first issue.)

Darkseid then sends several of his minions to Earth with orders to undermine the public image of superheroes. Dr. Bedlam, a villain with the power to switch his mind around several artificial bodies, pretended to be a supervillain named “Macro-Man” and battled the superhero Captain Marvel- and then exploded during the battle! Naturally Bedlam was unharmed, as he simply jumped to another body, but to Marvel -and the people watching the fight- it looked like the hero had killed him!

Darkseid also created a new menace called Brimstone- a giant monster composed of nuclear plasma. (Brimstone also appeared in an episode of the Justice League Unlimited cartoon, though his origin there was different.) Several heroes tried to stop him, but failed, and a building full of people was destroyed by it. (Note: at the time of the LEGENDS events, there was no longer an official Justice League; the group had broken up due to infighting and personal tragedies that started even before the Crisis- not to mention low sales.) In fact, it turned out to be the Suicide Squad - a team of supervillains blackmailed by the US government into performing “Black Ops” missions for them in secret- that actually succeeded in killing Brimstone.

These events began to undermine the people’s confidence on its heroes, especially since a popular TV personality named G. Gordon Godfrey was criticizing them heavily. In reality, Gordon was actually Gorgeous Godfrey, yet another Darkseid agent with the power to mesmerize people with his voice. The situation got so bad, the President of the United States (Ronald Reagan, at the time, though of course that’s topical by now) had to order all superheroes to stop their activities! (Most heroes just ignored him, however.) Eventually, mobs controlled by Godfrey tried to take over Washington D.C., while Darkseid’s armies began to directly attack the Earth.

Fortunately, DC’s greatest sorcerer, Dr. Fate, gathered together several heroes to fight the invasion, including Wonder Woman (who as you might recall from my WW retrospective, had been reinvented as a “new” hero at the time; this was her first encounter with the rest.) But it was Robin (the second- that would be Jason Todd) who managed to break through to the mind-controlled masses by rallying their children to stop them (since kids were conveniently immune to Godfrey’s power) as even hypnotized, their parents wouldn’t strike them. Godfrey tried to steal Fate’s magic helmet as a last gambit to win, but his mind was unable to deal with the hero’s spirit (which is contained in his helmet) and was left a mindless vegetable.

As a result of the “Legends” event, the Justice League was reformed, but the Suicide Squad would also stay active for years (behind the scenes.) The Stranger gave Darkseid an appropriate “Heroes’ legends will last forever” speech, to which the dark god basically replied “Hmph, I’ll get them next time.”

“Legends” doesn’t feel like much of a story by itself. That might be because much of its effects were explored in the tie-ins (which where even conveniently numbered for the fans to buy and read in the correct order! That was very useful, but sadly most crossovers never bother to do this.) I also wondered why The Stranger, who usually only gets involved when heroes need help with supernatural menaces, would bother even making a wager with someone like Darkseid, much less one that left his hands tied. My guess is, they needed a character who would represent unmitigated faith on DC’s heroes and The Stranger was the best they could think of. Other things that annoyed me were: Why did Darkseid reveal his involvement before the heroes were subdued? And why weren’t the GOOD New Gods involved in all this?

Also, for a series that was supposed to be about people’s faith on their heroes, it totally forgot about the point in mid-story- people only revolted because they were mind-controlled, not because they had truly turned against the superheroes; and even what snapped them out of their trance wasn’t the heroes, but their own children. The whole thing thus ended feeling like just an average superhero story, for all the Stranger’s posturing. At least Byrne’s art was good- not George “Crisis” Perez good, but still pretty good.

Next: 1986 also brought us the first X-Men centric crossover- one of the most violent and controversial ones ever, too: Marvel’s “The Mutant Massacre!”

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

THE MUTANT MASSACRE

OK, so far we have seen that comic book Event Crossovers:

*take place in their own miniseries, which crossover with existing titles;

*feature most of, if not all, of a company’s characters;

*feature a menace to the entire Earth, or even the whole universe.

*The heroes win in the end.

None of these apply to the Mutant Massacre. It truly was the first big crossover that broke all the rules.

For starters, MM ran concurrently in several Marvel Comics, not on its own series, mainly in X-Men and X-Factor (more on this in a moment) with partial crossovers on Thor and (of all titles!) Power Pack, Marvel’s pre-teen superhero comic! Also, the world wasn’t endangered- only the Morlocks, a commune of homeless mutants living in the sewers under New York city; and most shocking of all, the heroes failed in preventing scores of Morlocks from being brutally assassinated. Heck, some of the heroes were badly hurt themselves! Some people might not consider this to be a true “event” in the style of Marvel’s previous ones, but since it involves more than just the X-Men related books, and it did have long-lasting effects, I’m going to include it here.

A little background first: The Morlocks –named after the underground dwellers in H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine”- had been introduced a while before in X-Men, apparently as a way to show that not all mutants had a peachy life as superheroes (or villains.) But writer Chris Claremont –the man responsible for modernizing the X-Men, writing their best stories, and creating the Morlocks in the first place- decided that he wanted to get rid of them, in such a way that would be physically and emotionally taxing to the X-Men. At the same time, a new series, X-Factor, starring the five original X-Men in a group separate from the X-Men, had started publication. This was done by other people than Claremont, and in fact its very premise involved the resurrection of Jean Grey, over Claremont’s protests (a case of one of the most infamous comic character resurrections; most fans hated it too.) Both teams operated independently and knew little of the other; The X-Men had no idea Grey was alive while X-Factor believed the X-Men had fallen under the influence of Magneto (who had indeed replaced Xavier at the school, but was now reformed.) It’s to Marvel’s credit that both titles managed to cross over without complaint, even if, actually, the two teams never met during the massacre.

As for the actual story: a group of powerful, cold-blooded mutant killers called the Marauders (introduced in this story) managed to follow one of the Morlocks back to her home, and proceeded to kill the poor mutants right away for no apparent reason. Some of the Morlocks reached the surface and contacted some heroes for help; but for the most part, the story had the Morlocks, the Marauders and the heroes run around the maze of NY’s sewers blindly, with violent battles taking place as they ran into each other. This was a level of brutality rarely seen in Marvel Comics up to this point; X-Factor’s Angel, for example, was pinned to a wall by his wings, which later necessitated their amputation (this would later lead to his agreeing to become one of Apocalypse’s Horsemen (Death) since he restored his wings.) Colossus, Nightcrawler and Kitty Pride were all badly hurt and put out of commission for a while. Thor had to incinerate all the corpses to prevent their decomposition causing an epidemic in the city!

Still, some Morlocks survived, by escaping into another dimension (this was a later retcon of the story.) In particular, the Morlocks Callisto, Caliban and Marrow would later join the X-Men teams, while the evil (and disgusting) Masque would become the survivor’s leader.

Quite honestly, I found this story shocking and disgusting (though the level of gore, sadly, would not match those of more modern comics) and more importantly pointless, except as a way to eliminate the “surplus mutants” loose in the Marvel Universe. (Why is this a problem? Because they don’t want to keep track of them all? Note: Marvel would perform more “character purges”, both mutant and non-mutant, in later years, as you’ll see in my future postings.)

The in-story reason for the massacre was eventually revealed as being the whims of X-Men villain Mr. Sinister, who saw the Morlocks as “genetic refuse” that should not be allowed to survive in the mutant gene pool. (In a later retcon, it would be established that Sinister’s rival, The Dark Beast, had founded the Morlocks; in addition, it would be revealed that it was everyone’s favorite Cajun Thief, Gambit, who organized the Marauders for Sinister for money. This was done to give him a ‘dark secret’ that would shock the X-Men, of course.)

While there would be more -lots more- of X-Men centered crossovers, most of them wouldn’t be this grim, thankfully.

Next: The Mutants can’t get a break, as we will see in 1987’s “Fall of the Mutants!”

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

1987 was a bad year for crossovers, it seems. After doing some research, I found only one major crossover that year, and that was a mostly X-Men related one. Oddly, DC comics had none that year. Perhaps they wanted to get their Post-Crisis characters (who were still getting reinvented) established first.

So let’s now cover Marvel’s

FALL OF THE MUTANTS

FotM was actually TWO separate X-Men storylines (in the X-Men and X-Factor books) that happened at the same time and (barely) crossed with each other.

The first was the resolution of a plotline involving the character of Forge, who was created basically to be a romantic foil for Storm. Forge was an Native-American inventor (and a mutant with the power of… inventing things?) who worked for the US government. He had invented a device capable of neutralizing mutants’ powers. The device was used (without his permission) to strip Storm of her powers. Forge rescued her (without telling her it was his invention that had robbed her of her powers.) They fell in love, but as you might guess, she eventually found out, and feeling betrayed, left him. Storm actually was without her powers for a long while in the X-Men series; I guess Claremont wanted to show what a badass Storm could be even without powers (too bad he also had to have her get a MOHAWK during this time X_X ).

Forge was also involved in some other bad sh*t. It turns out that during his time in Vietnam, his entire squadron was killed. Enraged, he used his shamanic abilities (a Native American character with Shaman magic? How UNUSUAL! sarcasm) to summon demons to kill the Vietnamese soldiers. Realizing what an horror he had unleashed, Forge banished the demons, but his actions had allowed a powerful demon, The Adversary, to gain a link with Earth.

During Fall of the Mutants, Forge’s mentor was killed and his powers stolen by a Dire Wraith (an evil alien from the ROM the Spaceknight series). The false Naze tried to summon the Adversary but lost control of it. The Adversary then captured Roma, the “Majestrix of the Omniverse”. He battled the X-Men in Dallas, Texas (where Forge lived.) In the end, it was revealed that the Adversary could only be banished by the willing sacrifice of a group of people. The X-Men accepted and Forge cast the spell, and (on National television) the X-Men died, saving the world.

However, Roma, in gratitude, revived the X-Men. Since The X-Men wanted to stay hidden from the world that pursued them, Roma fixed it so that these particular X-Men were invisible to artificial detection. She also transported them to Australia, where they found a hideout in an abandoned Outback town. She also gave them the Siege Perilous -no, not the seat from Arthurian Legend, but rather, a gem/portal that gave people the chance to restart their lives over. This became the new setting for the X-Men for a while (and boy where we fans baffled by it- especially when all of the X-Men were eventually forced to use the Siege, scattering them with amnesia across the world! (?) )

The other plotline involved Apocalypse, a major X-Men villain with a mutant-supremacy agenda and a biblical fixation. Apocalypse organized his own team, which he named (of course) The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse. As I mentioned last time, one of them (Death) was actually a transformed Angel (he now had wings of steel.) (Another one, Plague, was another victim of the Mutant Massacre- she was a surviving Morlock.) Apocalypse captured X-Factor while unleashing the Horsemen to ravage the World. He was trying to get the heroes to accept the supremacy of mutants, but of course, they escaped, and even got Angel to rejoin them. Apocalypse, however, convinced Caliban (another surviving Morlock, and a friend to X-Factor) to join him, and escaped with the rest of the Horsemen.

So, these stories related to each other… how? Err, other than the fact that they happened simultaneously, and that X-Factor (and the rest of the World) ended up believing that the X-Men were dead, there was NO connection. Something tells me that Claremont already had his plans set for X-Men and wasn’t going to change them to fit into somebody else’s crossover agenda. Fine, but don’t advertise it as part of the crossover, then. (Note also that the only mutants who “fell” were the X-men, so even the crossover’s title is wrong!)

Oh, I almost forgot: another mutant heroes title, New Mutants, was also part of the crossover… but had even less to do with the other plotlines. Basically, the students of Xavier’s school had to deal with some mutant-haters and one of them (Cypher) was killed. Between this and the “deaths” of the X-Men, they were disappointed and ended up leaving the school (which at the time was headed by Magneto.) They would eventually be back, of course.

To be fair, FotM did cross over with a few non-mutant titles: Captain America, Power Pack, Daredevil, Fantastic Four and The Hulk. All of them were just about the heroes dealing with the destruction brought about by the Horsemen.

As you can see, FotM can barely be called a crossover. It’s obvious that while Marvel didn’t want to force the various writers to bend their storylines so as to fit in a general crossover (perhaps as a result of the bad blood Secret Wars II caused) the result was a barely cohesive plotline. This has always been the problem with comics crossovers. Though, as we’ll see in future postings here, when people work together to create a massive storyline, it CAN work.

And I want to take the chance to ask: Mr. Claremont, WHAT HAPPENED? I mean, X-men had always been one of the best-written comics around, but that Adversary plotline just reeked of “let’s set up events that will establish my new direction, never mind if they make sense.” Part of the Forge storyline had him and Storm stuck in another dimension FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR (time passed faster there) and not only they made up, but Forge restored her powers. How conveeeeeeenient! And AUSTRALIA? WTH??

Next: Perhaps to make up for having no Event Crossover in 87, DC Comics had three (Count them, THREE!) huge events in 88. …Unfortunately, not all were of the same quality. To get the garbage out first, next time we’ll cover the worst one: “Millennium!”

[Wilfredo_Martinez]

MILLENNIUM

This series is an example of a crossover that has an inspired concept, but fails in the execution. It was written by longtime comics writer Steve Englehart, and drawn by artist Joe Staton (here was the first mistake, in my opinion: Staton’s art has always looked crude to me, and certainly, after the good artwork seen in the two previous DC crossovers, it looked poor in comparison.)

“Millennium” has nothing to do with the coming of the New Millennium (which was still 12 years away at the time); it actually spins out from events in the GREEN LANTERN series (which at the time were also done by Englehart and Staton.) As many of you probably know, The Green Lanterns are sort of an interstellar police corps, overseen by a group of immortal aliens named the Guardians of the Universe. After certain events in the GL series, the Guardians decided their time in this universe was over, and left for another dimension, allowing the GL Corps to rule themselves.

In Millennium, two of the Guardians, a male and a female one, appeared on Earth, and announced that it had been decided that the next race of immortals that would take custody of the Universe would be born from humanity. They contacted Earth’s heroes and informed them that they had already selected 12 individuals to be granted immortality, so that they could give birth to the new Guardian race. They asked the heroes to find them and bring them to their presence.

Unknown to them, however, the Manhunters, old enemies of the Guardians, discovered their plans. The Manhunters were a race of androids created billions of years ago by the Guardians to serve as their first crimefighting force. However, the Manhunters became obsessed with the act of “hunting” people itself, and not the guilt of their victims. The Guardians banished them and replaced them with the Green Lanterns. The androids infiltrated many worlds, including Earth, creating “Manhunter cults” and waiting for a chance to get even with their old masters. They decided this was it.

So far, so good. The new Guardians of the Universe were going to be human? And the Manhunters (who had been defeated once by the Justice League) were back? Cool! That Millennium was a weekly miseries –a format not used before for a crossover- gave it even more of an air of urgency, as if something really big was going to happen!

Unfortunately, the seeds of Millennium’s mistakes were planted as early as right after the Crisis. You see, to help fans catch up with the revised history of their universe, DC put out a two-issue miniseries called HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE. It starred Harbinger, who you might remember was the good Monitor’s assistant during The Crisis. In HotDCU, Harbinger decided to honor her mentor by recording the history of the new universe in a sphere… and then just let the thing drift into space. What? She collected all the secrets of the universe and then, instead of keeping them safe, she just ALLOWS THEM TO DRIFT AWAY? Didn’t she think that, maybe, just maybe, somebody EVIL would find the thing and use it for his own purposes!? Which is, of course, what happened. The Manhunters got the sphere, found out the secret identities of ALL of Earth’s superheroes, and proceeded to plant sleeper agents among their circles of friends. DOH!! (To her credit, she left the thing in what she believed was an empty solar system… unfortunately, there WAS a planet there: the Manhunters’ cloaked (invisible) homeworld.

When the “Millennium” event was announced (no, I don’t know why it was called that; I’m assuming it was because the New Guardian race wasn’t expected to be ready for its duties until 1000 years later) the Manhunters activated its agents and had them attack the heroes and the chosen humans. (Part of the fun was finding out which characters on other series were going to turn out to be Manhunters.) They actually succeeded in killing two of the chosen. Another one, Terra of the Teen Titans, was already dead (yes, this is the same Terra from the Teen Titans TV series; though unlike the TV one, she was a traitorous psycho who died while trying to kill the Titans.) Another one was a man who had gone senile. So, only 8 of the Chosen were actually brought before the Guardians. All but two of these were new characters: A vegetal supervillain called Floronic Man (who had been going through some life-changing experiences) and Tom “Pieface” Kalmaku, an Inuit and longtime-supporting character on Green Lantern. One of the chosen was a white man from South Africa, who, upon finding that there were nonwhite members on the group, quit in disgust. (Apartheid was still a big issue at the time.) So the final group was composed of 7 people.

Harbinger then shows up and confesses about her goof, then leads the heroes on an assault on the Manhunter world, where they defeated the robotic race for good (well, until recent times anyway.) The Guardians then transform the Chosen and they… become regular superheroes? Each with his or her own powers, appearance and code name? THAT was it? No cosmic powers, no superior wisdom?? And, to top it off, the two Guardians then DIE, having apparently spent all their energy in the process!! I was very unimpressed. I was also disappointed that nobody really important turned out to be a Manhunter. Wouldn’t it have been fun if, say, the Jason Todd Robin had been one? (Marvel would handle a similar situation much better in their current crossover, “Secret Invasion!” decades later.)

OK, to be fair, part of my hate for this series lies in what happened afterwards. The chosen, now known as The New Guardians, got their own series, which lasted all of 12 issues before being cancelled. Instead of heading for space, the group stayed on Earth and… looked for partners to reproduce with??? Several of the team members could not even mate (one was made of silicon, another was a spirit, Floro was a plant, and one was GAY! This would be Extraño, who was a blatantly gay version of Marvel’s Dr. Strange.) Tom’s power was unrevealed (it later turned to be “the power to bring the best out of people” (huh?) ) Harbinger joined the team mostly because she had nothing better to do. And the villains they fought? God! There was The Hemogoblin, a vampire with AIDS, who actually infected one of the Guardians! And worst of all, that white supremacist who rejected membership in the group, not only created his own group of “superior humans” (via human experimentation) but later, the spirits of the two Guardians show up, and declare that THESE beings are to be the true Chosen. WHAT? That was never explained, since the series was cancelled. In fact, almost nobody from this Event has appeared or been mentioned since. Maybe DC was so ashamed of the whole thing they just swept it under the rug.

Next: As 1988 continues, Marvel presented its own, evolution-related crossover: “The Evolutionary War!”

[d_Galloway]

So…are you going to mention the ALF crossover with the Evolutionary War?