At Den of Geek, James Hunt names the best and worst of DC and Marvel’s “event” comics. Unsurprisingly, he gives the DC crown to the grandaddy of the company’s continuity-fixing -rattling series, Crisis on Infinite Earths.
But for Marvel, Hunt passes over the likes of The Clone Saga and The Infinity Gauntlet in favor of Age of Apocalypse, the 1995-1996 X-Men story arc:
While it’s hard to fully appreciate this crossover if you’re not deeply interested in the X-Men and the hundreds of mutant characters that exist in the Marvel Universe, those that DO understand it are free to appreciate the sheer intricate majesty of it all. Even though it only featured the X-Men, it easily hammers any prior or subsequent attempt into the ground.
I sat out comics for the better part of the ’90s, so I can’t speak to the crossover’s “sheer intricate majesty,” but any storyline that hinges on “a time-travel hiccup” gives me pause. But perhaps I’m missing out.
Hunt’s list of event comics “we wish they hadn’t done” includes Zero Hour and Civil War.
August 11th, 2008 at 11:32 am
“But perhaps I’m missing out.”
If you’re an X-Men fan, then you probably are. Otherwise, probably not.
The event was actually so good it made me angry that the regular titles couldn’t hold a candle to these, so I dropped pretty much everything X shortly after AoA. It was creative, unpredictable, and really shook things up the way you expect an X-Men comic to do.
August 11th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I usually approve of James’ criticism, but “sheer majesty” may be over-cooking it slightly. “Mildly diverting”, tops.
August 11th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I loved Zero Hour. That’s all I have to say.
August 11th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Its hard to take a list seriously that praises Age of Apocalypse and puts down Civil War. It is my impression that the only people who actually like AOA are the ones who havent read it since the 90’s, it is infact very poorly written despite how awesome it may have been when we were 14
August 11th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
The article doesn’t strictly say Civil War is one “we wish they hadn’t done”.
I’m pretty sure if he’d have chosen the Clone Saga then all hell would have broken loose.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Yeah, I reread a bunch of the AoA material and the only stuff that has aged remotely gracefully is Ellis’s run on X-Calibre. Most of the rest was fairly awful.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Gratuitous plug…I’ve spent the past six weeks or so looking over the entire AoA event at my Not Blog X review site. For the most part, it is a consistent event that has a clear goal in mind and a pretty definite ending. The final chapter, X-Men Omega, is a disappointment, but I do think the creators deserve credit for (mostly) pulling off such an ambitious storyline.
http://notblogx.blogspot.com/
August 11th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
lame article
any crossover that makes Deathstroke a badass and has the ability to make Dr Light a threat is ok in my book
August 12th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Thanks for reading everyone!
I have to admit nostalgia plays a large part of my enthusiasm for AOA, but I re-read it recently when it came out in TPB and I still throught it was great – what I like is the fact that every storyline was self-contained, yet contributed noticeably to the plot, whether it was Gambit’s team going to find the M’Kraan crystal or Generation X rescuing Illyana, it all got paid off in X-Men: Omega. Current trends favour a “crossunder” approach that makes the stories feel inconsequential in the wider scale of the crossover, if not the character.
AOA also had the ability to go out with guns absolutely blazing, without worrying that that it had leave the status quo as a springboard to another story. Civil War especially suffered from that – it had good ideas floating around it, but as a story the plotting got weaker and weaker towards the end until it seemed that the only plan was just to have a really big fight. I did enjoy it for the most part, but it wasn’t my favourite Marvel story.