Comic Book Crossovers: A Retrospective

The Core Media Forum
21

Oh, are you going to do Zero Hour? That was quite an interesting comic as it was another attempt to clean up the continuity of the DC Universe. :smiley:

Okay, I have read SW, know about SWII, SWIII, CoIE, ZH, and (hopefully this one will be here to) House of M is what it was called I believe. Personally, I think SW was pretty good, the story was simplistic though and I always wanted to know why the Thing could transform when he wanted. CoIE sounds great, but I can’t really get it right now and ZH also sounds great. SWII seemed like it could work, but I guess not. Don’t remember much about SWIII.

Oh and one thing, Wil. My family got a book that talked about just about everything major in the DC Universe(like the unknown comic strip, The Reign of the Supermen, and the fact that Batman killed just about every enemy he came across for awhile in his beginnings) and in it, it said that the Anti-Monitor had been disguised as the Monitor the entire time. I’m not sure about this, could you set this out for me?

22

OF COURSE I am! :wink:

Oh, are you going to do Zero Hour? That was quite an interesting comic as it was another attempt to clean up the continuity of the DC Universe. :smiley:

I intend to describe every major crossover put out by Marvel and DC in these last two decades, so yeah. (I may leave out the crossovers with other companies, however, since they are likely not canonical.)

Oh and one thing, Wil. My family got a book that talked about just about everything major in the DC Universe(like the unknown comic strip, The Reign of the Supermen, and the fact that Batman killed just about every enemy he came across for awhile in his beginnings) and in it, it said that the Anti-Monitor had been disguised as the Monitor the entire time. I’m not sure about this, could you set this out for me?
That’s not correct as far as I know. Unless it’s been retconned -and Lord, have there been lots of moronic retcons on DC- the original Monitor really was a good guy. (Perhaps they mean that one of the New Monitors -created during the Crisis sequel, “Infinite Crisis”, as we’ll see later- was the Anti-Monitor, which seems to be the case.)

23

Hmm, that might be it, thanks Wil. :smiley: Well, have fun with Zero Hour.

One thing, couldn’t you call a West Coast meets East Coast Avengers comic a crossover as it involves a shiat load of characters?

24

Leareth: I thought about it, but decided against it. Comic books cross over all the time, especially those that feature related characters, such as the various X-Men titles. I want to focus on crossovers where characters who seldom if ever meet encounter each other. Besides, this list is big enough as it is. :stuck_out_tongue:

THE EVOLUTIONARY WAR (MARVEL, 1988)

I found it ironic that both DC and Marvel had Events involving the evolution of humanity in the same year. But it was likely a coincidence; just as “Millennium” came about because of events in Green Lantern, “Evolutionary War” was actually an attempt to bring back an old, classic Marvel character, the High Evolutionary. I suspect that this was a decision of Mark Gruenwald, who as I mentioned above was a Marvel editor and expert on Marvel continuity.

Created in the pages of THOR back in the 60s by the classic team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Evolutionary was sort of a nonevil version of Doctor Doom- an armored scientist obsessed with evolution. He’d served as a supporting character in many stories, but hadn’t been used in years. Possibly determining that such a character should have a bigger impact, the Evolutionary War brought him back and revealed his plans for the human race.

EW was unusual in that, instead of running on its own miniseries or across several current ones, it ran on all of Marvel’s Annuals for that year. (For those not familiar with comic book lingo, an Annual is a special story published once a year (duh) for a comic that is particularly popular.) In addition, a backup series recounting and expanding upon the history of the Evolutionary, written by Gruenwald, also ran in the various annuals. Each main Annual story, however, was written and drawn by their current creative teams. This setup would be used for more crossovers in the future.

There really wasn’t much story for the EW; each Annual was mostly a stand-alone story with the Evolutionary as a guest star. Basically, after years of experimenting, the Evolutionary decided he was ready to evolve ALL of humanity into a higher form. Aided by fanatical, armored “Purifiers” he began a series of steps to prepare the world for his project. Notable among these were:

*Attempting to eliminate mutants, whom he saw as genetic deviations. This led to a fight with Apocalypse; he then changed his mind. (X-Factor Annual)

*Attempting to end drug abuse, since drugs corrupted the human gene pool (Punisher Annual.) (Too bad he failed.)

*Recreating the Savage Land, a jungle with dinosaurs hidden in Antarctica, that had been destroyed by the alien conqueror Terminus (X-Men Annual) (He did this apparently on a whim.)

*Determining that the clone of Spider-Man’s murdered girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, wasn’t really a clone, but a woman altered to look like her (Spider-Man Annual.) (This was a really strange retcon, mainly done -it seems- to explain how come a lowly High School Teacher (the Jackal) could have known how to clone people. Note that this was re-retconned away later. Basically, the H.E. lied out of jealousy (!))

*Talking with Alf, a Melmacian stranded on Earth, to make sure he wasn’t going to interfere in his plans (Alf Annual.) (This is the only instance of Marvel’s adaptation of the ALF TV show crossing over with the Marvel Universe. Personally I consider it noncanonical… but it was funny! :stuck_out_tongue: )

The story finally climaxes in that year’s Avengers Annual, when the Evolutionary attempts to detonate a bomb that would cause the spontaneous evolution of the whole human race. Deciding that doing such a thing without first asking “May I?” was not a good thing, the Avengers interfered and defeated him.

Since then, The Evolutionary has given up on evolving humanity, instead focusing on his own creations. He still appears occasionally in various Marvel Comics.

Note: the following year, in their series “What if?” Marvel did a “What if the Avengers lost the Evolutionary War?” story. Probably to find if having forcibly evolved the human race would have been a good or a bad thing (which some of us fans wondered about.) As it turns out, the evolved humanity would have achieved world peace- but the (even more evolved) superhumans would have destroyed the Universe! (This is a classic example of the What If stories being mainly “See? The actual story was much better!” propaganda.)

Next: Is a story a crossover if it doesn’t cross over with other titles? We’ll find out when I review DC’s second big event of 1988, “Cosmic Odyssey!”

25

Man. These event crossovers never seem to turn out well for anyone involved. makes you wonder why they keep doing it.

Oh, right, money.

26

Crono: separating the good crossovers from the bad ones is exactly why I’m doing this overview. Though admittedly many of them seem pointless or poorly done, the good ones had really good stories and long-lasting effects.

And made a bunch of money. :wink:

My opinions so far:

Contest of Champions: average
Secret Wars I: average
Crisis: Very good!
Secret Wars II: below average
Legends: average
Mutant Massacre: bad
Fall of the Mutants: below average
Millennium: bad
Evolutionary War: average

27

COSMIC ODYSSEY (DC, 1988)

Before I start my review, I have to make a confession: unlike most of the other crossovers listed here, I have not personally read Cosmic Odyssey. I wanted to, but it was never available at the places I bought my comics from. (Apparently, it was published in a graphic novel-like format, and was available only at comic-specialty stores.) All the information I have about it comes from places like Wikipedia. CO also didn’t cross over with other current DC titles. Still, it featured a universe-threatening menace, characters from various DC comics, and had lasting consequences (for one character, at least) so I’m going to include it here. (Corrections and additional information from anybody are welcome.)

CO was written by famous comic book artist/writer Jim Starlin (best known for his work on the Marvel “Adam Warlock” series, as a writer of “cosmic stuff”) and drawn by Mike Mignola (creator of “Hellboy”.) The miniseries itself brings back our old friend Darkseid, and tries to finally answer the question “Just what the heck is the Anti-Life Equation?” Those of you familiar with the New Gods saga know that it is something Darkseid has long been looking for. The name sounds like the formula for a weapon, thought Darkseid made it sound like it would give him the power to control all minds. (Note: we actually get a glimpse at the ALE in the last episode of the Justice League Unlimited TV series… but it was STILL unexplained there.)

In CO, the ALE is revealed to be an actual, evil sentient force from another dimension. While trying to discover its meaning, the New God Metron (who is obsessed with knowledge) somehow allowed four parts of the ALE to enter our universe. These four parts then begin a plan to destroy four planets –Earth, Rann (home of the DC space hero Adam Strange), Thanagar (home of Hawkman) and Xanshi (invented for this story, I think.) Apparently, doing so would collapse the galaxy, and allow the rest of the ALE to enter our universe.

(Wait a minute. None of those planets –with the possible exception of Xanshi- is even close to the center of the galaxy, or any other such important celestial position, that I know of. Why would destroying them cause the Milky Way to collapse?)

Anyway, Darkseid, discovering this threat and realizing it was too much for him, made a deal with his enemies, the good New Gods, to battle it. In turn, it was decided that the help of several Earth heroes was needed: Superman, Batman, Martian Manhunter, Starfire (from the Teen Titans), John Stewart (the black Green Lantern) and Jason Blood (the human side of the demon Etrigan, a supernatural DC hero.) (No, I don’t know exactly why most of those specific heroes were chosen.) Informed of the danger, the heroes are equipped with devices that can capture the ALE fragments, are paired with several of the heroic New Gods, and split up to go to the various planets in question.

In each case, the ALE fragments, possessing somebody, had set up bombs to destroy each planet. (Wait. A cosmic force needs something mundane like a bomb to destroy a world? Not altering its orbit, or its core, or making its sun go nova, etc. etc.? The answer to this is, of course, that the story needed something that even the weaker heroes could easily overcome. But wouldn’t it have been better to simply choose MORE powerful heroes who could deal with bigger menaces?) The heroes succeed in deactivating the bombs, all except one- in a case of unexplained hubris, John Stewart insisted on dealing with the Xanshi bomb by himself, which of course, turned out to be a YELLOW bomb (which GL rings cannot affect- how conveeeenient!) so the planet went “kaboom.” Stewart then suffers an episode of guilt where he considers quitting the GL corps, but the Martian Manhunter (using reverse psychology) convinces him not to.

Meanwhile, Darkseid, in a “shocking development”, merges himself with The Demon, in an attempt to absorb the power of the ALE for himself (Oh, come on, it’s Darkseid. OF COURSE he was going to betray everyone else and try to get something out of the deal!) But, it turned the ALE was too powerful even for him, and he (and Etrigan) would have been killed if they hadn’t been rescued by Dr. Fate (whom Batman had secretly contacted for help). In the end, the ALE remains trapped in its universe, everyone goes his separate way- and Darkseid, it turns out, kept the ALE fragments for himself. Thought, that I know of, nothing was ever done with them.

Coming to conclusions about “Cosmic Odyssey” isn’t really fair from me, since I didn’t read the story (and sometimes, the storytelling itself makes even a dubious story work, as was the case with Crisis). Still, from what I can tell, it was disappointing. First, having the much-ballyhooed ALE turn out to be some evil alien being is kind of an anticlimax. Second, you’d think a menace like this would require alerting ALL the big forces of the Universe (the Guardians, the whole Justice League, etc.) What was Batman, for example, doing there? OK, it turned out that one of the ALEs was in Gotham City, but you can tell THAT was done to justify Batman’s presence. And what I hear about the way the characters were handled, especially Stewart, sounds outrageously out of character. It’s disappointing to hear that a writer as good as Starlin could’ve misfired like that. Not to mention the other questions I raised above. No, it doesn’t sound good.

As for consequences, I read somewhere that it was revealed that the thing that they fought WASN’T really the ALE; you can see Darkseid still looking for it in later stories. Which kind of invalidates THE WHOLE POINT of the miniseries… Other consequences: Stewart would carry the guilt of Xanshi’s destruction for years (and a villainess, Fatality, would be established as a survivor of Xanshi who killed Green Lanterns in retaliation.) That smacks of “let’s give Stewart some tragic background” and not a really worthwhile piece of storytelling. Oh, and Jason Blood and Etrigan remained merged afterwards (I’m not sure if this was a post-Crisis reboot of the character or not.)

Personal Rating (tentative): Bad

Next: The last of the DC 1988 Crossovers- and the best: “Invasion!”

28

INVASION! (DC, 1988-89)

Invasion was the last of DC’s big events of ’88, coming out in the later part of the year. It was a three-issue miniseries of extra-sized issues that crossed with most then-current DC comics titles. It was plotted by artist/writer Keith Giffen (best known as the creator of DC’s Lobo), though it was actually written by Bill Mantlo (best known for writing many Sc-fi comics for Marvel, such as Rom and Micronauts.) Each issue was drawn by a different artist (including Giffen himself.)

“Invasion!” was about The Dominators, an alien race that was highly logical, but ruthless (kinda like evil Vulcans.) I’m not sure if this was their first appearance, or if they had already been introduced in some comic. This was their first major storyline, anyway.

The Dominators ran some experiments on kidnapped human beings in an effort to determine why some humans had superpowers but others did not. (In the DC Universe, there are plenty of human-like alien races –it has never been explained why- and some of them have natural superpowers (all Imskians, for example, can shrink down in size) -again, why is unexplained- but Earth humans were the only ones that got random powers instead of having the same ones for everyone. The “experiment” consisted of firing blasters (ray guns) at the humans and then seeing the result. Most of the prisoners died, but seven survived, and gained superpowers in the process. The Dominators concluded that some humans had what they called a “meta-gene” that allowed them to develop random powers upon being exposed to dangerous situations. (This finally explains why superheroes are often created by accidents that would realistically KILL most people.) The leaders of the Dominators decided to exploit the meta-humans of Earth for their (likely nasty) purposes. The problem was, how to capture them? Earth’s heroes had repelled alien invasions before. They concluded they needed to overcome them by sheer force of numbers. Of course, why waste Dominator forces on this, when they could trick OTHER races to do it for them? :wink:

After securing the new metahumans they had created (one of whom, unknown to them, was Snapper Carr, who in his teen years had been the “mascot” of the Justice League, until he fell out of their graces) in a space prison called “Starlag”, the Dominators called for an alliance of various races that had a beef with Earth’s heroes, or who simply disliked them for not being “genetically homogenous” (read: most aliens of the same race look alike, but humans don’t- another old comic book cliché.) Among these were: The Khunds (sort of DC’s Klingons), the Durlans (shapeshifters), the Thanagarians (Hawkman’s people), The Citadel (evil rulers of the Vega Star System), The Warlords of Okaara (who cared only about fighting), the Psions (yet another race of cold scientists) and the Daxamites (home race of Mon-El of the Legion of Super Heroes, though note that the character himself had not yet been reintroduced in the Post-Crisis Universe.) The fact that the Green Lantern Corps had, at the time, been depowered (in a really stupid storyline that I’ll discuss another day) made it the perfect moment for such an Alliance. Any aliens that might have sided with the heroes were eliminated (such as many ex-Green Lanterns) or captured (such as the Omega Men of the Vega system.) The combined space fleet then attacked Earth, taking over Australia (why Australia? Beats me) and then demanding that Earth give up its metahumans willingly or all would be destroyed. (Note that none of the Dominator’s allies –or even most of the Dominators themselves- knew that the real plan was to capture them alive.)

Naturally, Earth’s heroes wanted to fight, but they worried that the United Nations might accede to prevent worldwide devastation. Fortunately for once Earth showed some spine and refused to yield. (You know, if it had been Marvel’s Earth they probably would have offered their heroes in a silver platter. Ungrateful wretches…)

Naturally, what followed was a lot of alien versus heroes (and Earth’s armies) combat. Even places like Atlantis and Paradise Island were attacked (and, oddly enough, so was Cuba. I don’t know why, other than for having the rather ironic situation of superheroes saving the live of Fidel Castro. :stuck_out_tongue: ) Most of the Invasion tie-ins that month were about the heroes fighting the alien forces all over the world.

Superman attacked the main enemy base in Australia, but then the Daxamites –much to even their own surprise- developed powers just like his under Earth’s yellow sun! (The Daxamites are somehow related to the Kryptonians.) Having an army of “Supermans” attack them could have meant BIG trouble for Earth, except the Daxamites soon fell ill due to some pollutant in our atmosphere they were vulnerable to (lead, as anyone familiar with Mon-El’s origin knows.) Instead of allowing them to die, however, Superman rescued the Daxamites and found a cure. Ain’t that nice of him? Of course, it would’ve also been VERY stupid, except that the Daxamites, impressed with human generosity, decided to switch sides. (See, kids? Do good and in the end, you’ll win! :wink: ) With the Daxamites help, the invasion was soon defeated.

BUT! The story wasn’t over, yet. It turned out that one Dominator scientist, acting on his own (he was hoping to be given a higher rank for his achievements) had perfected a “gene bomb” whose radiations could affect all metahumans on Earth, robbing them of their powers! And he detonated it without permission, causing the majority of Earth’s heroes to lapse into comas.

Instead of being rewarded, the scientist was beaten and incarcerated on Starlag as punishment by the Dominators, since he had destroyed what they wanted all along. (I guess the Dominator Leaders’ own treachery backfired on them.) Meanwhile, Earth’s unaffected heroes –people like Batman, who had no powers, or Superman, whose powers were not due to the metagene) went into space to find a cure. On Starlag, Snapper Carr and the other prisoners escaped with help from a Coluan named Wril Dox (the son of Superman’s foe, Brainiac, and ancestor of the Legion’s Brainiac Five.) The heroes rescued the disgraced Dominator and learned how to reverse the process from his mind. So, Earth’s stricken heroes were soon cured.

Consequences: The Alien Alliance was broken up. Although there still was no Green Lantern Corps, Dox soon established his own organization, the L.E.G.I.O.N., to protect the galaxy (but not for free.) They received their own series which lasted a few years. Carr also founded his own group with the other Dominator lab subjects, who called themselves “The Blasters”, but it failed to star anywhere and was soon forgotten. A new version of Mon-El was soon introduced (under the name “Valor”- his original name implied an (incorrect) relationship with Kal-El (Superman)) and he also got his own series. Minor but lasting changes included some people actually gaining powers from the gene bomb event, such as Fire (of the Fire and Ice duo, members of the Justice League) whose powers increased to Human Torch levels (bah, that’s unimaginative; I preferred it when she could only breathe fire) and Maxwell Lord (the League’s somewhat corrupt financer) gaining the power to control minds (which would lead to part of to the events of Infinite Crisis, as we’ll see later.)

My Opinion: “Invasion!” was the best of the three event series put out by DC in 1988 (though considering how bad the other two were, that’s not saying much.) The series was well-written, adequately drawn (not great, but not bad either), it made good use of resources DC comics had laying around for years (such as their various alien races) and introduced the concept of the metagene, which helped make the DC Universe a bit more credible.

My Rating: Good

Next: As we move into 1989, New York City goes to Hell- literally- in Marvel’s “Inferno!”

29

INFERNO! (MARVEL, 1989)

As you can tell by now, some crossovers are wholly original stories, but others are actually based on existing plotlines. “Inferno” is the latter, being made mostly to solve two lingering X-Men related plotlines: one involving Colossus’ sister, Illyana, and another involving Jean Grey’s mysterious lookalike, Madeline Pryor. Sit down and grab a drink, folks, because this is going to be looong:

Illyana became involved with the X-Men when she (along several other friends and relatives of the mutant heroes) was kidnapped by a villain called Arcade. After being rescued by the X-Men, they allowed her to hang around them for a while. Baaaad idea.

In one of their missions, the X-Men went to a mysterious island where a portal to a demonic realm called Limbo existed. (Note: This should not be confused with the Limbo that is the realm of the Avenger’s enemy, Immortus.) The ruler of this realm, the sorcerer Belasco, kidnapped Illyana. The X-Men went to rescue her but, due to the strange way time works in Limbo, they found that she was now a teenager, having lived several years in that world! They brought her back to Earth, where they later found she, too, was a mutant (who had the power to open portals to Limbo, coincidentally enough.) She joined the X-Men’s trainee team, The New Mutants, under the name “Magik.”

But Illyana was keeping a terrible secret: the reason Belasco wanted her, is that he needed an innocent person’s soul in order to form five “bloodstones” from it that he could use to summon his Dark Gods to Earth. The process, however, took years; it also gave her magical powers, including the ability to create a weapon called the “soulsword.” Illyana used it to defeat Belasco before the process was complete (only three bloodstones were made.) Ironically, however, Illyana was now the ruler of limbo, and thus master of all its demons. Another effect was that the more she used her magic powers, the more demonic she became. She developed an evil side called “The Darkchilde” that would occasionally pop up.

As for Madeline, she was a woman who just happened to look exactly like Jean Grey, who had died recently after losing control of her powers (in the classic “Dark Phoenix Saga.”) Scott Summers (Cyclops) found her working for his grandparents in Alaska. Naturally everyone assumed that she was Jean resurrected, but she insisted she wasn’t. After an adventure that seemed to prove her claims, Cyclops and she fell in love, married, and even had a child, a baby named Nathan Christopher Summers. Note: According to the original writer, Chris Claremont, Madeline was indeed meant to be JUST a lookalike, and his way of having Cyclops marry and be happy after he was forced to kill off Jean Grey (that had been Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter’s idea.) Unfortunately, other people would mess up his plans.

As noted above, somebody else decided to bring back Jean Grey from the dead (supposedly, she never died, The Phoenix turned out to be an impostor who had replaced her) for use in the new X-factor series, which also included Cyclops as a member. So now, Claremont’s plans for Madeline were moot, and it was decided to kill off the character. Inferno was the –rather convoluted- way to do it.

Basically, after Cyclops found out Jean was alive, he went to determine if it was really her, leaving Maddie and the baby alone. Bad idea; they were attacked by the Marauders, who captured the baby, though she got away. When Cyclops came back to look for them, not only he couldn’t find them, but there were no longer any records of Madeline ever having existed! (This was the doing of the Marauders’ master, Mister Sinister.) Baffled, Scott went back to X-Factor. Meanwhile, Madeline contacted the X-Men for help, but they rescued her just in time to be caught in the Fall of the Mutants events. She was one of the persons who agreed to sacrifice their lives to bind The Adversary. This meant that now Scott believed Maddie to be dead, while in reality she was hiding with the X-Men in Australia. From HER point of view, Scott had abandoned her to be with Jean, and she was very bitter.

During a dream she had, the demon called S’ym –Illyana’s second-in-command on Limbo- contacted her, and made her the offer to give her the power to avenge herself on Scott in exchange for her soul. Knowing it was just a dream, she agreed- but apparently, pacts with demons are binding even if they are made in dreams! (Note: later during the crossover, a demon called N’astirh appeared, and seemed to be the one who had actually influenced Madeline. Why the change? Perhaps because S’ym was actually based on Cerebus the Aardvark, a fantasy comic character who did not belong to Marvel; maybe they feared that if they brought too much attention to him, Cerebus’ creator (Dave Sym) would notice and sue them.)

Anyway: After several more convoluted events, Madeline was captured by Sinister, who revealed that she was just a clone of Jean Grey he had created, given false memories and public records. His purpose was to have her procreate a baby with Cyclops, whom he had predicted would have incredible powers that he planned to use to destroy Apocalypse with. Driven mad by all these events, Madeline became the demonic Goblin Queen, and unleashed the forces of Limbo on New York City. Not only did this mean the city was attacked by demons, but even inanimate objects became hellish- toilets would overflow, buses became monsters, etc. Most of the Inferno crossovers featured the heroes of New York City desperately trying to save people amid the chaos. (Hey, where was Dr. Strange in on all this? You know, Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, who happens to live in New York City? I don’t recall right now, but I’m sure it must’ve been explained. Come to think of it, why didn’t the X-Men ever take Illyana to him for help with her “problem?” Oh, well.)

Madeline tricked the X-Men and X-Factor into fighting each other, and then tried to sacrifice her own baby to make Earth merge with Limbo!! Jean Grey stopped her and after a psychic duel, Madeline committed suicide. S’ym and N’astirh were destroyed, baby Nathan was rescued and Mr. Sinister was apparently killed by Cyclops. Oh, and Illyana, whose portals allowed her to travel in time, finally made the realization that SHE COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND PREVENT HERSELF FROM EVER BECOMING THE DARKCHILDE. File this under “DUH!” It seemed to work, as a seven-year-old Illyana appeared and Limbo’s influence on Manhattan vanished.

Consequences: Illyana was apparently finally saved from her damnation, though strangely, her soulsword still existed; other people would find and use it. (come to think of it, if she had REALLY changed history, none of the Inferno events would have happened, right?) Unfortunately, years later she died from the Legacy Virus, a mutant killing disease. Probably because Marvel didn’t know what to do with her now, and they needed victims for that stupid plotline.

Madeline Pryor was now gone, meaning Scott could go back to Jean without looking like an ass for cheating on his wife. Ironically, decades later Cyclops DID cheat on Jean, who is now dead again, and he has now hooked up with- old X-Men foe The White Queen!? What is this, “Days of Our Lives?”

Oh, btw, Madeline DID return from the dead, too. I think. It’s very convoluted. I’m not going to explain it; go read her Wikipedia article.

And Mr. Sinister also came back, but he’s a villain so that’s to be expected. (They never did explain how, though… maybe he cloned himself?)

And the people of New York convinced themselves that the whole “inferno” thing had been a mass hallucination. Though Spider-Man villain, the Hobgoblin, did become permanently “demonized.”

Baby Nathan would later grow up to become Cable, leader of X-Force.

THIS JUST IN! Believe it not, Marvel is doing a SEQUEL to Inferno! It seems that Belasco, trying to resurrect Illyana, recreated the Darkchilde, but she lacks her innocent soul. She’ll now attack San Francisco (where the X-Men just moved to) in a story to be called “X-Men: Infernus”. Gee, how original. :stuck_out_tongue:

My Opinion: Man, was the X-Men series a downer during the 80s or what? This is the third X-Men-related crossover in a row that sucks. Turning Madeline evil just to kill her off was pathetic. But at least they cured Illyana. And some of the crossover stories WERE actually spooky, especially since most people had no idea why Manhattan had suddenly turned into a living nightmare.

My Rating: Below average

Next: 89 was a good year for demons, as the ancient demon Set leads the forces of Atlantis to attack the surface world in Marvel’s “Atlantis Attacks!”

30

I have to say, I thought Grant Morrison was a better X-Men writer than Clermont, although they’re the only two who made it actually worth reading.

This makes me want to get over my aesthetic disdain for DC’s design and read some DC stuff, since it sounds like it’s actually well written.

31

ATLANTIS ATTACKS (Marvel, 1989)

Remember how DC had three event crossovers during ‘88? Well, they had none on ‘89- but Marvel DID have three! How ironic! I guess Marvel was copying what DC did, while DC decided to give crossovers a rest for now. (Seriously, when you have too many big events happening, they begin to lose their impact. A problem we will address later…)

“Atlantis Attacks” was another all-annuals crossover, like the preceding year’s “Evolutionary War”. This time, though, the story was more coherent; each annual was a chapter of a larger story, instead of separate stories that just featured the same villain.

The title was somewhat misleading, though; although Marvel’s version of the legendary sunken kingdom of Atlantis was used, and it did attack the surface world, the story was really about Set, the evil, seven-headed snake god, a character that originated in, of all places, Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian comics. This is confirmed by the fact that a multi-part backup story also ran on all the Marvel Annuals that year as well, retelling and expanding Set’s origin, as was done with the High Evolutionary on the EW annuals. I guess “Set Attacks!” just doesn’t have the same ring as “Atlantis Attacks!”

I must admit I’m surprised that Marvel managed to use Set (not to be confused with the Egyptian god Seth, who also has appeared in Marvel Comics) in its stories, since it’s a Robert Howard character. Apparently, Marvel’s version of the character is distinctive enough that the Howard state never minded that they continued to use it even after Marvel lost the rights to use the Conan characters.

Set, according to Marvel, is one of the Elder Gods of Earth (in effect, Marvel’s version of the Old Ones). All of the Elder Gods turned into demons, with the exception of Gaea, The Earth goddess. Worried that her siblings would threaten life on Earth, Gaea gave birth to Demogorge the God-Eater, who, well, ATE most of them. A few escaped by banishing themselves to other dimensions, effectively trapping themselves; Set was one of them.

But of course, Set was looking for a way to return. A cult developed around him, and they eventually created the Serpent Crown, an object that gave great powers to whoever wore it… but also put that person under Set’s influence. However, Set’s plans were foiled when the continents of Lemuria and Atlantis sank thousand of years ago, since the Crown was on Lemuria at the time. A race of water-breathing, blue skinned men eventually came to inhabit the sunken Atlantis (their origin isn’t clear); a separate branch of this race came to live in the sunken Lemuria, where they found the Crown and came under its influence, eventually turning green-skinned.

Marvel’s Atlanteans were introduced in 1939, in the story that introduced the hero Namor the Sub-Mariner, who is a pink-skinned human-Atlantean hybrid. (Before anybody says this is a rip off of DC’s Aquaman, Namor actually came out before Aquaman did!) The Serpent crown appeared on several Marvel titles (such as The Avengers) while the Lemurians, especially their Priestess Llyra, were foes of Namor.

Actually, before the green Atlanteans, another race lived on Lemuria: the Deviants, a monstrous race (each one looks different; they consider humans hideous.) They survived the Cataclysm by living in underground cities. Ghaur, high priest of the Deviants, was another villain used several times previously. In “Atlantis Attacks”, Ghaur allies himself with Llyra to finally summon Set back to Earth (of course, each planned to betray the other- there is no honor between vile villains. :wink: )

For this plan, they needed a huge blood sacrifice. And who better to use than their longtime enemies, the Atlanteans? The Lemurians pretended to ally with them, who, at the time, where under the rule of Namor’s old foe, Attuma (Namor was missing and presumed dead) and convinced the Atlanteans that the people of the surface where a threat to them. What they really wanted was to get Atlantis to send all of its armies to attack America; meanwhile, Lemuria’s armies would attack Atlantis, killing its civilians and thus getting the sacrificed they needed. (Kinda stupid of Attuma to trust them, no? He was never very bright.)

In addition to dealing with the underwater armies, the Marvel Superheroes found several of their female heroes kidnapped, by Llyra and Ghaur; the plan was to use them as “brides” for Set, to bear him children after his manifestation! (EEEEWW!!) Fortunately, Namor turned up alive in time to prevent the Atlantean massacre; still, the two evil priests managed to find a way to get Set to manifest on Earth. The Elder God was way too powerful for most superheroes; it took Thor, having possessed the body of Demogorge (by allowing it to EAT him; don’t worry, he got better) to defeat Set. As for Ghaur and Llyra, they fought over the Serpent Crown, only for the spirit of Naga (the first king corrupted by it) to appear and struggle for it as well. They all vanished in the process. (OK, that made no sense. I guess it was a hastily cooked up ending.)

As with “Evolutionary War”, a “What if?” story was eventually written to show what would have happened if Set had won. Although the demon was eventually destroyed by the surviving heroes of Earth, his “brides” gave birth to new serpent demons, which proceeded to eat their mothers. DOUBLE EEEWWW!!!

My Opinion: I was somewhat disappointed when I found out the story didn’t really focus on Atlantis as much as it could have; and I was positively revolted by the “Brides of Set” idea. Still, it was interesting to learn more about the origins of Set and the Serpent Crown.

My Rating: Below Average

Next: OK, you’re a supervillain in the Marvel Universe. You’re tired of losing to the same hero over and over. What do you do? Why, you TRADE opponents with other villains! As you will see in the last 1989 crossover, “Acts of Vengeance!”

32

Actually, I believe the name of the Egyptian god was indeed Set.

33

It’s both Set AND Seth; the spelling changed over the centuries. In the Marvel Universe, however, they specifically call the Egyptian god Seth, to distinguish him from the Snake Demon.

34

ACTS OF VENGEANCE (MARVEL, 1989)

Authors: unknown; there was no central miniseries, it ran on several current Marvel comics; my guess is that it was writer/editor Mark Gruenwald’s idea.

Synopsis: Marvel’s greatest villains join forces to finally destroy their foes.

…So what? You might ask. Doesn’t that happen all the time in comics?

Well, yes and no. Supervillains cooperating regardless of their origins is more of a DC comics thing, where, for example, The Joker keeps showing up as a member of the Secret Society of Supervillains, DESPITE being a certified murderous lunatic. Marvel has had team-ups between its mastermind villains on occasion, but, as far as I know, this is the first time so many powerful and smart Marvel villains join forces. (Secret Wars doesn’t really count; with the exception of Doctor Doom and Magneto, the other villains included in that crossover where powerful but not particularly bright.)

The whole thing was the idea of one of Marvel’s most notorious villains- Loki, the Norse god of trickery, archenemy of the Mighty Thor. In particular, Loki wanted to destroy The Avengers, since he feels that it was his fault that the superhero group formed in the first place (He provoked a fight between Thor and the Hulk that ended up bringing several of New York’s heroes together.) Instead of openly inviting the various villains to join forces, Loki disguised himself as a sort of messenger, appearing before every villain and inviting him to join in the name of the group. I guess he did this both to hide his presence in the group, and (I suspect) to obscure precisely whose idea it had been to join forces- if any particular villain had said it was HIS idea, the huge ego of the others would have prevented them from joining. Instead, most of them where intrigued enough to at least meet and find out what this about. Besides, Loki always does things in sneaky ways.

The mighty villains who joined were:
-Doctor Doom, armored archfoe of the Fantastic Four;
-The Red Skull, Nazi enemy of Captain America;
-The Kingpin, crime lord of New York and archenemy of Daredevil;
-The Mandarin, Chinese archenemy of Iron Man;
-Magneto, archenemy of the X-Men;
-The Wizard, scientific archfoe of… no hero in particular.

What was The Wizard doing here!? He’s a second-rate villain! I think his greatest claim to fame is having formed the Frightful Four, a group of occasional Fantastic Four enemies. Oh well, at least HE thinks of himself as being a mastermind.

Come to think of it, The Kingpin’s presence doesn’t make much sense either; he concerns himself mainly with street crime and tries to keep the rest of the world from knowing his identity. I guess he got thrown in because he’s such a big name Marvel villain.

And Magneto hadn’t been a villain in years! Though at the time, he was slowly slipping back into that role, disappointed over his failures with the X-Men and having joined the Hellfire Club (supposedly to spy on them.)

Also invited into the gig was the X-Men foe Apocalypse. However, he not only refused, he guessed the messenger was Loki and battled him (!) claiming that it was precisely because of beings like the gods that he pushed his “survival of the fittest” agenda for humanity. (Yeah, right.) Other no-shows included The Mad Thinker (FF foe), The Cobra (another second-rate villain who must have been asked to join only for being the leader of the Serpent Society) and Namor the Submariner (who isn’t a villain, though his occasional rampages give him a bad reputation.)

The villains were transported via magical portals to the Isle of Silence, located in Marvel’s version of Asgard. (That was a pretty good hint about Loki’s involvement.) There, their big plan was revealed to be… exchanging foes? They didn’t even fight personally; they freed several lesser supervillains from The Vault (Marvel’s superprison) and arranged for them to attack heroes they did not usually fight, assuming the unfamiliarity would give them an edge.

Among the match-ups were:
-Power Pack (Marvel’s preteen superheroes) versus The Hobgoblin (Spider-Man foe)
-Quasar (sort of Marvel’s Green Lantern) versus Absorbing Man (Thor foe)
-Daredevil versus Ultron (Avengers robotic foe)
-Spider-Man versus Goliath (Avengers villain)
-The Fantastic Four versus an entire army of villains

And several others.

But apparently the switch-arounds didn’t give them enough of an advantage. Most heroes quickly figured out how to beat their new foes. (If I remember correctly, Daredevil actually tricked Ultron into ripping out his own insides, looking for his “soul”…. O_O) Part of it was just plain luck, since Spider-Man, as a result of an accident involving an exploding experimental generator, had become AS POWERFUL AS SUPERMAN at the time! (Seriously! He punched The Hulk into orbit!! This was a storyline that ran in Spider-Man’s titles for several weeks. More on this in a moment.)

You know, I can’t help but think that the Masterminds were only putting out a token effort. I mean, the greatest evil minds on Earth get together, and THIS is the best they come up with? There didn’t even seem to be any actual strategy behind the match-ups- no taking in consideration the heroes’ known powers or flaws, for example. (In fact, I strongly suspect that most of the writers of the tie-ins themselves only put a token effort, accepting using a new villain for an issue or two without letting it have an impact in their current storylines. Another case of “Don’t bother me with this Overarching Plotline” attitude that has ruined many crossovers. Sure, sometimes a crossover gets shoehorned into a writer’s plans, ruining them, but by the same token, sometimes the writers are just plain selfish.)

Then again, perhaps Marvel was being more realistic with their villains than DC. Egotistical, evil persons should NOT work well together. I always wondered how Luthor and The Joker always worked together in their little villain get-ups, even if on the previous occasion they ended up trying to kill each other. (In fact, there was a particular pair of villains in AoV that you’d think would try to kill each other on sight. More on that, again, in a moment.)

The alliance didn’t last long; no sooner had the first wave of attacks failed, than the villains started blaming each other; Dr. Doom “blew up” revealing he had been a Doombot all along; the Wizard realized who their “manservant” was, and fled in fear, only to get captured by the Avengers, leading the team to the Isle of Silence, where the remaining bad guys fled through the mystic portals before getting caught. And… that was it for Acts of Vengeance.

Well, actually, there were two stories that may be considered follow-ups to the story: One was a Spider-Man story where Loki, pissed off that his ploy didn’t work, turned a robot owned by the Hellfire Club into a walking nuclear bomb and sent it to destroy Manhattan! Fortunately, Superspidey stopped it- and it was revealed here that his new powers actually came from Captain Universe, a superhero identity granted temporarily by a force known as The Unipower to humans in order to fulfill specific missions (cool idea :slight_smile: ). In this case, Spider-Man was supposed to stop this nuclear disaster from happening. The exploding machine hadn’t granted Spidey any powers; in fact it had prevented him from gaining the knowledge (and costume) included with the CU power set. After defeating the “Tri-Sentinel” Spidey lost his extra powers.

Another follow up to AoV was a story involving the Nazi Red Skull and Magneto, who, apparently unknown to the Skull, was a Jewish Holocaust survivor. After the gig was up, Magneto captured the Red Skull and imprisoned him so that he would starve to death as punishment for his wartime crimes. However, the Skull escaped thanks to his followers. Neither villain has ever followed up on this little incident. Skull probably is counting his blessings, while Mags has been too busy.

My Opinion: What a letdown. Here we had the chance to finally see the big evil Marvel Mastermind come up with some fearsome scheme to really test out the heroes, and it fizzled out very fast. The only good points were the intriguing match-ups and Super-Spider-Man (though technically that was a separate plotline.)

My rating: Average.

Next: We finally get to the decade with the BEST comics crossovers ever… the 90’s!!

35

I haven’t read much of Acts of Vengeance, to be honest. In fact, the only one I can really remember is Doctor Doom taking on the Punisher…with the whole thing pretty much ending in a stalemate. Which is understandable, since Marvel would never dream of killing off one of their most popular characters with a simple gunshot.

Oh, wait.

36

Like I said, the villains were only putting a token effort. And it was just a Doombot anyway.

Ok, I said that mostly to annoy Gallo. Sorry, buddy, couldn’t resist. :hahaha;

Which is understandable, since Marvel would never dream of killing off one of their most popular characters with a simple gunshot.

Oh, wait.

Oh yeah, I can’t wait to get to “Civil War” and discuss it with you. But, that’s still some time away, in the 2000’s.

37

THE INFINITY GAUNTLET (Marvel, 1991; six-part miniseries)

Authors: Jim Starlin (writer), George Perez (artist)

Synopsis: No, I didn’t forget about 1990- there just were no big crossovers that year, except for Marvel’s “The X-Tinction Agenda”, another X-Men related story. However, since this time ONLY X-Men and its spin-off titles were involved, I decided not to cover it (the previous three X-Men-related crossovers DID include some nonmutant heroes, though some just barely.)

Anyway: As we have seen, some crossovers feature old plotlines and some feature new ones. Infinity Gauntlet sort of did both- it was mainly an excuse for bringing back characters from Starlin’s critically acclaimed ‘70s comic book series ADAM WARLOCK; but it also introduced a cool new concept; that of the Infinity Gems, which would be used in several major Marvel stories besides this one.

390px-Infinity_Gauntlet_1.jpg390×598

First, a little background: Adam Warlock was one of Marvel’s space heroes, and his series is best remembered for combining both action and highly philosophical ideas. Warlock himself was an artificial man granted the legendary “Soul Gem” to combat certain great menaces. However, the gem came with a high cost: it sometimes forced Adam to kill and absorb the souls of others! Despite this “curse” Warlock found himself forced to depend on it, especially against the menace known as The Magus, who turned out to be an Evil Future Version of himself. To battle Magus, Adam found himself forced to ally himself with Thanos the Mad Titan, who is pretty much Marvel’s version of Darkseid. He also had two unusual helpers in the characters of Gamora, the deadliest female assassin in the galaxy, and Pip the Troll, a crude, hard drinking little troll-like alien. Although Adam was eventually able to negate the Magus’ existence (we’ll learn more about him when we cover future crossovers) Thanos betrayed him and it seemed like Adam, Gamora and Pip had been killed by the Soul Gem. As it turned out, the world inside the gem was a PARADISE where all the “eaten" souls, even the evil ones, coexisted in happy peace, thus providing an ironic ending to the Warlock saga. (Oh, Adam’s soul killed Thanos before he retired, seemingly forever, to the gem’s paradise.)

The events of Infinity Gauntlet actually begin in the Silver Surfer series after Starlin took over writing it. When Death herself decides that the universe is overpopulated, she revives Thanos (who was in love with her) to have him kill half of all living beings! While researching the way to do so (using something called the Infinity Well) Thanos stumbled onto the secret of the “Soul Gems”. It turns out that each is a fragment of a Godlike being who, despairing over being the only thing that existed, committed suicide. (Hmm. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) Each “gem” had power over a different ‘element’ of existence- Soul was just one of them; the others were Power, Space, Time, the Mind, and Reality. Further, while each gem was mighty enough on its own, anybody who had all six would become ALL-POWERFUL!! (I know what you’re thinking: isn’t this a rip-off of The Beyonder? I guess so, however, remember that by now, the Beyonder had been retconned as never having really been an all-powerful, living universe. Besides, Infinity Gauntlet would handle the idea much better.)

Thanos thus decides to rename the fragments “Infinity Gems” and get them all for himself. In a two-part series called “The Thanos Quest” the villain confronts the beings who currently have them: The Elders of the Universe, each whom is a survivor from a different race from the early days of the universe. (The Grandmaster and The Collector are two of them.) Brilliantly outthinking all of them, Thanos beats them all and gets all the gems. Putting them on his right glove, he creates the “Infinity Gauntlet”, and it does indeed make him omnipotent. When he tells Death, however, she isn’t pleased- because now Thanos is more powerful than she is! (I really don’t understand what Thanos sees in her; besides of what she is, she’s also a big bitch. She never even talks directly to him, but has a zombie do it for her!)

IG thus begins with Thanos already having the Gauntlet. To please his “mistress” he causes half the living beings in the universe to cease to exist, but with a thought!! Naturally, this causes panic everywhere. However, unknown to Thanos, Adam Warlock was aware of what was happening, and had developed a link to the Soul Gem so that he could tap its powers without Thanos being aware of it. He thus used it to revive himself (and his friends Pip and Gamora) on Earth. Meanwhile, the other Cosmic Entities of the universe met to discuss Thanos’s actions; they demanded that their leader, the Living Tribunal (yeah, I know, absurd name) interfere; however, the Tribunal decided that Thanos had a right to conquer the universe if he could do it. However, while he would not interfere, the other Entities were free to try to stop him.

Adam gathers Earth’s heroes and tells them what is going on. They decide to try attacking him. Thanos allows this to amuse himself fighting them, and kills most of them in the process (!) Then the Cosmic Beings attack, and he beats them all as well.

Feeling triumphant, Thanos allows his spirit to fill up the universe… leaving his mindless body behind. But he forgot that there was one person left next to it- the Space Pirate called Nebula, who boasted of being Thanos’ granddaughter, so he punished her by turning her into a zombie. Even in this state, Nebula had enough will to try getting the Gauntlet for herself… AND SHE DID! Suddenly Thanos was normal again, and now she was the invincible one. (I know this sounds like an unbelievably stupid error on Thanos’ part, but there is actually an excuse for it; keep reading.) By wishing to undo all that Thanos had done, Nebula becomes a living being again, and also (accidentally) revived everybody who had been killed. Thanos and the revived heroes then escaped.

On Earth, Adam faced Thanos, and forced him to admit that, for all his intellect, he kept making stupid errors like that- because deep down, he knows that he isn’t worthy of such powers, and is subconsciously sabotaging his own master plans! Adam knows this for a fact due to his Soul Gem powers. Thanos reluctantly agrees to join forces with Adam and the heroes to stop Nebula. While the heroes attack Nebula (who doesn’t have as good a grip on the Gauntlet’s powers as Thanos did) to distract her, Adam used his link to the Soul Gem to temporarily disrupt the synergy of the gems. During this moment, he steals the Gauntlet for himself- and announces that he will keep it “for safekeeping.” The heroes aren’t really happy about this but can’t prevent it. Thanos meanwhile causes an explosion to cover his escape.

Consequences: All life that had been erased came back to existence. In a follow-up series, “Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch” The Living Tribunal decides that the Gauntlet should not be used anymore (don’t ask me why he changed his mind) and forces Adam to agree, since a fight between them would tear all reality apart. The tribunal fixes it so the gems will not work when put together anymore. However, he allows Adam to keep the gems. Since they are still pretty powerful, Adam decides to form a group, each member of whom will keep one of the gems for safekeeping. This “Infinity Watch” is formed of himself (with the Soul Gem), Gamora (Time Gem), Pip (Space Gem), the heroine Moondragon (Mind) and the hero Destroyer (Power) -both also characters created by Starlin. Wait, one gem is missing…the Reality Gem, whom Adam gave to- THANOS!? Even Adam was amazed by that later. It seems that the Gauntlet had affected his mind (we’ll find out exactly why later) and he made that choice while he was still recovering. As it turns out, Thanos didn’t abuse the gem, and in fact he laid low for a while, humbled by the whole experience.

The whole Infinity Gauntlet story was adapted (with many changes) into video game form as the Capcom Marvel Super Heroes Fighting game, which I’m sure some of you have seen or played. There would also be two sequel crossovers to IG in the 90’s, the Infinity War and the Infinity Crusade, both of which I’ll cover soon.

My Opinion: Despite being mainly a vehicle for Starlin’s characters (meaning the other heroes didn’t look that good) Infinity Gauntlet was still a good story. They are very good characters that the writer himself had eliminated years ago and nobody expected to see them ever again. Also, expanding the “soul gem” concept into the Infinity Gems was very creative. Plus it had art by George Perez, who, whoever, couldn’t finish the series in time, so part of the art was done by Silver Surfer artist Rom Lim; it still looked pretty good though. IG is widely considered one of the best crossovers ever made, though it wasn’t as deep or influential as Crisis.

My Rating: Very Good.

Next: To celebrate Wonder Woman’s 50th anniversary, DC comics has all of their mythological pantheons fight each other, in the epic “War of the Gods!”

38

I’ve heard nothing but good things about the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, though I haven’t read it. I wonder if there’s a trade…

39

GG: The miniseries was indeed collected, I’m sure you can find a copy either at Borders or a similar bookstore, or online. “The Thanos Quest” prequel is also available as a trade, and I recommend it- it not only gives you the story background, it’s one of the coolest Marvel cosmic stories ever, with Thanos out-thinking some of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe. It really shows why he’s Marvel’s smartest villain ever.

40

The thing I thought was stupid was the leader of a Romani nation siding with a Nazi, and vice versa. You know, um, he tried to kill your entire ethnicity, right, Doc?
It was just poorly thought out and sort of impossible for me to get past in conception enough for me to actually bother reading the cycle.