Yesterday Marvel officially kicked off their next big event/storyline Siege in the one-shot Siege: The Cabal by Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano. They also shared the checklist for the event and its tie-ins, which you can see at the end of this six-page preview of January’s Siege #1 (Which, um, is basically just the beginning of Civil War, but with Volstagg instead of Speedball, and Bendis dialogue over top of it, isn’t it?).
Based on the list, the event will run from December to April and involve a Volstaggering amount of tie-ins during that time. To be precise, it will involve 37 titles important enough to make the checklist.
That’s not a completely insane amount of comics exactly, and certainly less then there would have been if Siege were a more standard six, seven or eight-issue event series, but it’s not quite as self-contained an event as was originally being sold.
Back in October, Jim Beard quoted Bendis talking about the event at the Diamond Summit for Marvel.com thusly:
We gave it a good hard look and I talked to [Marvel Publisher] Dan [Buckley], [Editor-in-Chief] Joe [Quesada] and [Executive Editor] Tom [Brevoort] about it and I said if we’re going to go down this ‘event’ road again the one thing we have to [remember is that] people are not committing a year of their life and a lot of money [to events]. We really need to meet them half way. I was shockingly able to get it all done in four issues without it feeling weird.
At the same event, David Gabriel spoke a bit about Marvel’s new focus on shorter, four-month long events like Siege, and you can read his thoughts on the new way of doing business here.
Thirty books in the space of a few months sure doesn’t sound all that small and self-contained to me, but then, if the alternative was 60 to 75 books over the course of eight-to-ten months (allowing for the usual delays) then, well, I guess that’s simple math, huh?
December 4th, 2009 at 9:15 am
complain, complain, complain. you only have to read the 4 issues to get the meat. everything else is for your pleasure. When DC tried to keep Final Crisis self contained with hardly no tie -ins, it was considered a flop. Make up your mind people…
December 4th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I hope the Volstagg/Speedball analogy does not go to its ultimate conclusion. It would be a waste to “Pennace” him. I do look forward to Ben Urich and Volstagg together in Siege Embedded.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:24 am
I’m glad to see Marvel taking the approach of a more compressed, immediate payoff. I think fans would rather see these ‘events’ happen in spans of six issues or less and on time, than to have big 8-issue event minis that take the majority of the year to complete. I’m on board for Siege, but if the endgame for Osborn doesn’t directly involve Peter Parker, something is amiss.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:28 am
final crisis was considered a flop because it sucked. nothing to do with the amount of tie-ins
December 4th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Meh this event will be another flop on marvels part, that will change the landscape of the MU as we know it. Then lead into another event that changes the landscape as we know it…. rinse repeat… rinse repeat…..
So glad i stopped reading comics, saved a ton of case since HoM.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I would love to believe that Siege is a 4 issue story and then we’re done with the events at Marvel, but I have a feeling it’s a stop gap mini series that will end in the disgrace of Norman and reformation of Steve Cap, Thor, and Iron Man. Then another “real” 8 part event will follow after where Norman’s endgame is played and the Avengers reform.
“people are not committing a year of their life and a lot of money [to events]”
I expect at least another year’s worth of mini-events and tie in books, like Dark Reign.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I agree with Joey, four issues is enough for an event, even less, some of the Dark Reign minis are just 3 issues, and that’s cool, IMO less issues means more action and that’s not a bad thing.
And for the tie-ins, just gonna buy what I’m buying right now, so no big deal.
Peace.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I imagine the similarities to Civil War are intentional. Civil War was the event that helped start Norman’s rise to power. Siege is the start of his fall. The symmetry of the two events make a lot of sense.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Oh come on, there’s nothing to complain about here. It’s a quick four issue miniseries and the tie-ins are almost exclusively the Avengers/Thunderbolts/Thor series from which the story springs. The only other tie-ins are a few issues of Dark Wolverine and one issue of New Mutants, aka easily skipped books. Marvel could have extended this much further into Iron Man, Captain America, Hercules, Ms Marvel, and Spider-Man, along with a bunch of pointless miniseries.
Kudos to Marvel for keeping Siege tight and focused.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I agree with Joey. Besides, I only get the first issue of any series that tie-in to a miniseries event, so I don’t go broke. I don’t feel I miss anything. If anything in the tie-ins is major enough (assuming the mini is well-written), it should be reflected or re-capped at some point in the main series. For example: I didn’t buy the last issue of Blackest Night: Titans, but the conclusion of that was explained in Blackest Night 5.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:54 am
The whole “you only need to read the main miniseries to enjoy the story” line is spurious at best. You may only need it to get the very bare bones of the story points, but characters introduced in secondary titles only become important in later issues of the lead miniseries, so we don’t know who or what will be important to the enjoyment of the overall story until after its happened. And the publishers are either unwilling or unable to predict exactly which titles will be necessary to the main plot and which are interesting side developments.
I still don’t like these large events (or however Marvel wants to bill them), but I do believe that DC is doing it right. With exception to the Green Lantern titles, most of the interaction between Black Lanterns and Earth-bound heroes is contained to short miniseries, instead of directly impacting most of the ongoing titles.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:57 am
No, I’d say Final Crisis was considred a flop because the story was all over the place, made references to far too many things that the casual reader wouldn’t understand, changed villains near the very end of it, and STILL relied on an outside source (Superman Forever) that was essential reading to understand the last issue.
Personally, I preferred the events like Zero Hour or Underworld Unleashed where there was the big even mini-series that was self-contained and then related issues were all within just that month. Of course, instead of making it mandatory right across the board, the companies could make it voluntary for individual titles, so as not to much up whatever momentum they’ve got going in their own title.
For me, I’m just getting tired of events in general. Everything these days seems to be about “Everything will be forever changed” even though the status quo returns not too long after. Or it’s “everything you know is a lie” with reverse retcons that may or may not stick (how’s that Spider Totem thing work out?), depending on the NEXT writing team.
Worst of all, I’m tired of editorially-driven titles instead of a creative team just cutting loose and doing their own thing for a long run. The best comics these days have been ones that are relatively free of events: Captain America can be read on its own; Incredible Hercules (though it SPUN out of an event) is one of the best books out there. And then you have the Cosmic stuff since Annhilation and onwards.
Honestly, as far as events, I kind of wish BOTH companies would follow the route of the Cosmic Marvel: make it small (length-wise), contained (enough that only one or two volumes would need to be collected) and then let the events naturally spin from there.
A few more examples of how a crossover could work better or differently:
-Identity Crisis: Say what you will about the series itself, but as an event, it was done rather well. It was self-contained in itself and then writers such as Geoff Johns followed up on it in their own books if they wished. However, there was also the problem with a book like Robin, where a major change occured in IC and it was barely acknowledged in his own book.
-Sinestro Corps War: In other words, how Blackest Night SHOULD have been handled (it’s been going on so long, it’s starting to feel like Secret Invasion all over again). It ran through the two main titles and had a couple of event-related one-shots. It’s collected into three volumes (which I hate, but that’s another rant) and the third volume is pretty much moot.
Secret Wars: Have one issue where the heroes disappear off the Earth, then return in their own title one issue later with mysterios changes. It’s kind of the One Year Later syndrome, but remember when Spidey got that black costume? A couple of big changes occured by the end of Secret Wars and it was also pretty self-contained.
December 4th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Its won’t be tight and focused, it will splash over into other books because Marvel likes to re-live key events with players that were too busy to be a part of the original event. Look at 2099, House of M and another Clone Saga as recent examples this year of past event or series.
December 4th, 2009 at 10:34 am
To be honest, I’m not fussed about the siege tie-ins because all the titles are titles I already buy every month, except for New Mutants. For any fan who’s been following the Avengers, it’s just a question of buying Siege and one or two tie-ins.
And when you look at Secret Invasion, you could read it and understand the whole story without reading the tie-ins.
Unlike Blackest Night, where the plot becomes very complicated if you don’t read Green lantern and all the tie-ins D Didio said we wouldn’t need to read…
December 4th, 2009 at 10:51 am
man all these dummies sayin final crisis was a flop???…really..cause secret invasion was prob the worse “crisis/event” i ve read in years…the real probelm guys is that stories in between the events are just a waste of time…marvel and dc are both guilty of telling stories that are just filler between the events…this trend has really effected what books i buy…whens the last time u just read a regular issue that wasn’t involved in whatever event was on the horizon
December 4th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Holy crap, it’s 4 issues! If you had this big thing going on that involved the Dark Avengers, New Avengers, Thor, Cap, etc., etc., and it wasn’t even mentioned in those books, people would cry shenanigans for that. With 4 issues, you don’t even have to worry about the decompression people complained happened with House of M and Secret Invasion.
Wesley Smith said: “With exception to the Green Lantern titles, most of the interaction between Black Lanterns and Earth-bound heroes is contained to short miniseries, instead of directly impacting most of the ongoing titles.”
See, that’s not even true. Yes, for the characters of those 6 minis, their ongoings don’t seem to be direct tie-ins (Flash doesn’t even have a current ongoing). But there are tie-ins for Adventure Comics, Booster Gold, JLA, REBELS, etc. And it’s still possible for Detective Comics or Action Comics to be affected, since Batman and Superman aren’t even the main characters in those titles right now.
December 4th, 2009 at 11:02 am
I’ve made the decision last year sometime in the middle of world war hulk and one of the 52s or crises that I would no longer be buying into Marvel and DC events. That pretty much means I am no longer buying Marvel and DC but whatever. I voted with my wallet. Frankly I am happier for it and enjoy what I do buy even more.
December 4th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Pariscub, I completely disagree that Secret Invasion could be read without the tie-ins. For example, (SPOILERS!) Wasp blows up, but we get no explanation as to why or how. Just that she’s being blown up. To understand that, you have to read The Initiative. To understand how, why, when or where many people were replaced by Skrulls, you had to read Mighty and New Avengers for the backstories.
Of course, the biggest problem with “Secret” Invasion was that it wasn’t secret at all. What’s so secretive about a giant army of Skrulls landing in Time’s Square?
December 4th, 2009 at 11:50 am
what im saying is that nothing was tying in to FC during the initial mini series and everybody was complaining about, “when does that tie-in? when does this tie-in?” Im saying the tie-ins help with the continuity, DC tried and the fans spoke up, thats one of the reasons Blackest Night is so successful across the board, because of how it relates to the whole DCU. DC learned from that. Marvel has been doing it for years and thats one of the reasons why they are so successful. Joey Q even said it in his blog. Blackest Night is better marketed with the entire line. FC wasnt…
By the way I loved FC!!
December 4th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. 7 to 8 titles a month isn’t a big deal. The heroes and villans guide can be skipped entirely.
MOst of those books are pretty obvious, 4 ongoing avengers books, Seige and Seige embedded, and Thor.
The only added one really is Dark Wolverine, but sales on that book are probably slipping.
There is the NEw Mutants tie in but that acutally makes sense after Dani Moonstar’s deal with Hela during Utopia.
This isn’t a big deal it is way more selfcontained then every other marvel event Secret Invasion averaged 12 tie ins a month
December 4th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Wesley Smith- “I still don’t like these large events (or however Marvel wants to bill them), but I do believe that DC is doing it right. With exception to the Green Lantern titles, most of the interaction between Black Lanterns and Earth-bound heroes is contained to short miniseries, instead of directly impacting most of the ongoing titles.”
The other side of that arguement is that people who are buying books like Batman, Superman and Titans now have buy another series to get the BN story. Marvel has done the same thing in the past. There were Secret Invasion minis for X-men, Spider-man and Thor, thus not having to impact the ongoing series. Civil War and WWH did the same thing as well.
I think the arguement is 50-50 on each side. 1/2 want the tie in to take place in the monthly book so they aren’t forced to buy a separate mini and the other 1/2 wants a mini so it doesn’t impact the ongoing.
Speaking of Blackest Night, I don’t really follow DC that much, but I kept hearing how tight that event was going to be, but there seems to be an aweful lot of tie ins when I go to my LCS every week.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I’m lost here….a lot of you are saying that this isn’t a lot of tie-ins? Um….count the damn checklist. For a 4 issue re-hash event…there are 33 tie-ins. For all it’s “flaws”, Final Crisis only had 23 (not counting a “Secret Files” issues). 13 of these tie-ins were self-contained side-stories that can be read whenever you’d like and another 5 issues only directly tied-in main story. It wasn’t like that World War Hulk crap where Punisher and Ghost Rider had tie-ins (those two didn’t send Hulk off-world…why the hell were they involved??). At the very least, there isn’t a moronic Daily Bugle tie-in thing in this. And by the by….Civil War (7 main-issues…..was a total of 100+ including useless tie-ins). All and all…Marvel needs to stop over saturating the damn market.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Oh yeah, this is why I don’t shop marvel or dc anymore… I always forget why, then they go and remind me again with another inclusive 40 issue story that’s spread between 10 books and 15 writers/30 artists; All released in a couple months! Yay!
Are kids (using parent’s money) and trust-fund geeks all that can afford the big two’s overhyped, underwritten epic sagas, which will all be retconned next month anyways? Or am I crazy?
I’ll say one thing for them, they keep a lot of people employed, and that’s nice.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
There’s always the option of not buying it. If you want to read the story, then I don’t really pity you for having to buy something you want to read, no matter how much it ends up costing you. If you just want to know about the big status quo change, you’ll probably find out in the first issue of any Marvel comic after the event.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Final Crisis haters can fuck the hell off!
Yes, that response is as mature as you lot whining and moaning about FC all the time.
Get over yourselves.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
V, if you looked at the tie-is, they all pretty much make sense. Its an Avengers centered event, of course those 4 titles would be included. Its also a Thor event, makes sense for his book to be involved. The Thunderbolts are Norman’s Black Ops team. He’s going into battle, of course he’s bringing them along. New Mutants can even be jusified base on the Dani story from Utopia. Needed probably not, but at least its only 1 issue. Daken is useless, I’ll give you that.
BTW, there isn’t a Daily Bugle tie-in (I assume you’re talking about Frontline), but Embedded is pretty much that.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Honest haven’t read the comics in years. But the ideas behind ‘these’ Events are great. The whole shaking up the ship is fantastic. Seeing how they are now going to go back to the way things are, but with the knowledge of what has occurred has really revitalized the entire Comics line. Seeing how they enlarged a basically small villain in Spiderman into its company’s Lex Luthor. Is basically brilliant concept. Kudos to Quesada for seeing the big picture. Watching how the developments have altered and enriched many of the titles has brought fresh insight to all of the characters.
The Loki angle was very fresh. I’m still not onboard with the Hulk RED and such… but great to see these books get real wake-ups. I mean remember these titles have been running for 40, 50 and sometimes 70 years and some have been running on fumes for decades.
It would be real cool, if somehow these events could be translated into either full length films or television series. Each season would translate each major event. So that they could really spend the time to flesh out the details… Just a thought.
Thanks the Powers that be for the internet, you can still enjoy the excitment without having to go and out and pay a lot of money to buy them… this has actually gotten me interested in going out and buying them… me thinks, that Marvel had that in mind in the first place. Getting me the reader to go out and actually spend money on their books… congrats, job well done
December 4th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
As long as it doesn’t affect Brubaker’s Cap overly much, I don’t care. Marvel lost me on their events a long, long time ago.
December 4th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I think this is a tough road for the comic companies themselves. On the one hand if they just sell the mini then people are only buying 4 comics, which is not a lot of money. But if they spread it out over several comics they can sell, in this case, 33 more comics. I’m pretty sure the math adds up and that makes for a much larger bottom line.
But there are ways for us the consumer to save money and to perhaps let the companies know that maybe 30 or more books is too much.
Everyone here seems to know when a mini or tie-in issue is going to be bogus and just has the banner on it to trick you into getting it. Well STOP GETTING IT! Someone mentioned the Punisher and Ghost Rider WWH tie-ins. If you weren’t buying those already, did you really think you HAD to get them to understand the main WWH story? I don’t think so.
Some books are all just the same thing. After reading 1 Blackest Night mini you understand how they’re all going to play out. Main character(s) mourning the loss of character X. RISE! Here comes zombie character X to emotionally torture and fight Main Character. Someone dies. Zombie is beaten or Main character escapes to meet up with everyone else. Once you realize this you can see that you probably don’t have to pick up the other mini’s.
Also, buy comics online. I began using Mail Order Comics a few months ago and the savings are ridiculous. I save almost 50% on what I used to spend which lets me try out new comics (like Chew…read it!) which I wouldn’t have looked at otherwise.
And finally, borrow comics form friends. I mostly buy Marvel but I have 2 friends who are more into DC. We can all read a lot more stuff this way. I realize this might be a problem for people who don’t want their issues messed up, but it’s still an option.
That is all. I’m done ranting.
December 4th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
And then if I want to read something without the big status quo change, I can wait a year, when it reverts BACK to status quo.
December 4th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
“Kudos to Marvel for keeping Siege tight and focused.”
lol
December 4th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Will you need to read THUNDERBOLTS #141 in order to understand SIEGE #4? No. Get a grip.
December 4th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
There are a few problems with all these events. First there is fatigue. Marvel hasn’t stopped doing an event since Avengers Disassembled. It’s been pretty constant. House of M, Civil War, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Siege. DC is the same since Infinite Crisis: 52, Countdown, Final Crisis, Blackest Night. If you’re a reader of both companies’ titles, it’s exhausting.
And there are other related stories that you also probably will want to (if not need to) ready to fully understand the full story. Like Secret War was a self-contained mini-series, but it explains the fall of Nick Fury, which is what allowed Tony and Norman to take control over SHIELD/HAMMER. The X-Men story Utopia ties into Dark Reign, so even though that is really an X-Men event that affects all the X-books, it is still relevant to Dark Reign. Marvel’s universe is so inter-related that all events regardless of size impact the overall landscape.
Blackest Night is tied into the Green Lantern books, and the whole thing traces back to the Sinestro Corps when DC realized after 60 years of history, lanterns didn’t have to be just green. DC probably has invested money into the Crayola company to create new colors of crayons so they can create even more colors of lanterns. But that is another topic. As another poster said, there are ties in Booster Gold and Adventure Comics.
Changes in the Batman characters after RIP and the events of Superman titles that are no longer about Superman have an impact on these events too. I haven’t been reading JLA but as I understand it, Dick Grayson is joining them. The team will be aware of the change, which makes the reader aware of the change, so many people who don’t follow Batman will want to read “Batman RIP” and “Batman Reborn” to understand what happened to the man who was Batman for 70 years. Not that they would get a conclusive answer (and this ties into whether or not an event should cross into the regular monthlies or not). If you didn’t read Final Crisis, you saw Batman “die” in a helicopter crash at the end of “RIP.” Yet, if you read Final Crisis and not RIP you saw Batman die to Darkseid’s omega beams and Superman carrying his corpse away.
Then there is the retcon, the infamous reversal, the backing out. When people were laughing off the “Death” of Captain America, Joe Quesada assured us it wasn’t a typical comic book death; that Steve Rogers would remain dead. Now he’s back, “lost in time.” Interestingly enough I read DC’s solicitations for an upcoming issue of Red Robin which reveals that Bruce Wayne isn’t dead either, but simple “lost in time.” Spoiler is back to life as Batgirl, after “dying” in a big Bat-event.
I could go on, but many posters already made most of the other arguments that could be made. I am not saying that events are bad. It’s just too much in the last 5 years or so now. I liked 52, House of M, Avengers Disassembled, Civil War. I even like Dark Reign that is going on right now. But my favorite periods in comics are when a title has a single writer and has a long stretch to develop itself free of events. New Avengers #1-20 were some of my favorite comics ever. Not that Civil War killed the Avengers. As I said I liked Civil War, but it’s nice to see a comic develop a story of its own for a while.
December 4th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I’m so tired of people complaining about events. No one is forcing you to buy the books. You have free choice. You can choose not to buy the books. That is all.
December 4th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
But most of these titles are things that if you are reading SIEGE you would most likely buy anyway. It’s not Siege: New Avengers along with New Avengers. It’s just New Avengers tying into an Avengers event. Same with Dark Wolverine, Dark Avengers, etc…
If you’ve been following Dark Reign, you’ve probably already have been purchasing and following most of these titles. You’ll be spending exactly as much as if there wasn’t an event, maybe just a little extra on the 8 Siege specific titled issues. Besides NEW MUTANTS and maybe THUNDERBOLTS, there isn’t really much being added on…
December 4th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
It sounds like they’re trying to say it’s 37 titles. This is not that bad–only 8 regular titles (at their regular prices. No Thor: Siege and X-Men: Siege minis that are overpriced like they always do). One new side mini with Embedded, and three or so one shots? Origins of Siege is free anyway, so it doesn’t count. Secret Invasion had double this in just the first four months. Marvel is doing a great job containing this.
December 4th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
You’re forgetting that part of it being self contained is that it doesn’t affect all of Marvel’s most popular titles. All it affects is the Avengers/Thunderbolts books, and Thor. That’s it. As a reader of only 3 Marvel Titles, FF, Amazing Spider-Man and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, I am skipping this entirely. That’s an option if you read Marvel comics now, it was not for civil War, House of M or Avengers Dissassembled.
December 4th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
New Avengers, Dark Avengers & Thunderbolts I already get. I plan to pick up those title w/ Siege in the titles & maybe I’ll check out Thor for these issues as well. Mighty Avengers, New Mutants & whatever else can stay on the shelves.
Honestly, it’s time for publishers (that means you too, DC!) to cut down on tie-in issues or do away with them completely. Just tell the story in the mini/maxi-series proper and allow it as many issues as the story demands.
December 4th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Wouldn’t it be strange if the Avengers / Thunderbolts / Thor books DIDN’T tie into this event?
No one’s complaining about tie-ins. What people complain about are FORCED tie-ins. Constantly interrupting Ms Marvel, for instance, to cram the Event-Du-Jour down our throat, before that book has had a chance to create its own stable fan base, is book-suicide.
But to have the Avengers books IGNORE Siege while the event is going on? That’s just ridiculous.
Daredevil & the X-Men aren’t being forced into this… I’m cool with the tie-ins.
December 4th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I agree the the tie ins do effect the big event minis. I wasn’t reading New Avengers or Might Avengers during SI or SI. I bought the SI trade and I was lost. You need two other trades to understand and see everything going on in the event book. Same thing with Blackest Night/GL/GLC right now.if you’re not reading those 3 all together you’re missing the big picture. This will clearly be the case for this event since it’ll Be running in all the Avenger books and Thor. I wish they just did this event like they do X-Men events. Wasn’t the idea of having 4 Avengers titles inspired by the X-titles? Why not do a big event crossover the same way? I’d prefer a 8-12 issue $3.99 event series if it came out weekly. I don’t know if you would, but I’ve always thought that would be much easier.
December 4th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I’ve read them all since 2002, except for World War Hulk. Breakdown of just the event miniseries’ themselves:
HoM- D- Plot device needed a background.
IC- C History needed an upgrade and some gravity.
52- B- Went from great to bland and back again. Probably could be compared to Dark Reign in terms of scope, but was more compartmentalized and in ONE book.
CW- B+ Really looked forward to every issue. Seemed like there was real s#!t happening to our beloved, corporately-owned characters…and, there was, at least for a bit.
CIC- F Countdown was just awful, plain and simple. Only thing that sticks out at all is the Piper/Trickster thread.
SI- C Really looked forward to every issue, even after the nothing started repeatedly happening. Needed a drink of water after ending left me dry.
FC- B+ Sucked from p.o.v. of normal comic book reading, but was actually quite good. I’d bet that this would make waaay more sense to my friends who read literature but do not read comics than anything else I’m taking on here.
As for what’s going on right now, BN is pretty awesome in the doing, we’ll see for sure once it’s done. DR has largely sucked, except for it’s effects on Iron Man have made for a great story. I suppose there’s been some interesting implications for some unstable characters like the Sentry, but, so far, nothing’s been done to capitalize on them.
Here’s hoping Siege is Bendis’ best “event” outing yet..it better be if he wants to keep me reading.
December 4th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Volstaggering? Well played, sir.
December 4th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Volstaag!!!
December 4th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
This is an Avengers event, of course it will be covered by the Avenger titles, what did people expect those titles to be on hold for 4 months? Then the same people would be complaining about that instead. The tie ins they’ve listed make sense, it’s not obscure characters who have nothing to do with anything, it’s the people directly involved in the conflict. If you don’t want the tie ins don’t get them or skip the event entirely! What good does arguing over an acceptable amount of tie ins accomplish in the end.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Small big event from one of the Big 2? Yea right they don’t know what that means. I member DC said Blackest Night would be a small big event only taking place in it’s own mini-series, the Green lantern books, and maybe one or two more minis but look how that’s gone. The Batman and Titans mini-series were irrelevant since both titles are dipping into Blackest Night now. So we get the same story repackaged and sold to us twice just so DC can make a buck. Too much of a good thing IS a bad thing. I agree with thatNickGuy, Blackest Night seems like it’s already been going on for a year. Even if most of its good your bound to get filler issues and crappy tie-ins. That said I still think 4 issues is too few. I mean this is supposed to be the “event 7 years in the making” bum bum bum….but they only give it 4 issues? Now there are other events happening round that time that may or may not tie-in so that may help out. But that’s the problem. In a bad economy how can Marvel(or DC) expect us to throw out money for an extra title when all some people want is the event? Regardless I think we’ll see many extra tie-ins come out once Siege gets started cuz that’s how it goes with DC and Marvel. I think the events would be better if the companies concentrated on the main storyline instead of trying to sell other books by putting the event title on the rim regardless of it’s quality. No wonder most new books fail nowadays it’s cuz they can never get their footing cuz every 6 months the writers hafta tie their book into an event.
December 4th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Jeff, both companies have said that on numerous occasions. But as people have pointed out, there has been not one crossover that has truly been able to say that.
IF Siege is different, then kudos! It’ll be the first in a very, VERY long time. I’ll believe it when I see it.
December 5th, 2009 at 12:04 am
for Joey at the top – Final Crisis was considered a flop (at least by me) because it read like the first couple of issues of Youngblood back in the 90s. a bunch of disjointed stories that would fit together if the editor had not fallen asleep prior to press time.
December 5th, 2009 at 8:12 am
To be fair, the Stamford Incident comparison might not be unintentional; when taken with THE CABAL #1, itself a mirror to THE ILLUMINATI, the idea may be that the villains are making a lot of the same mistakes as the heroes and going to lose because of it.
The shorter series length is a very good idea.
December 5th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Blah, blah, blah… If you do not like them, do not buy them.
Really, though Blackest Night sucks? Sure, it probably could be cut to 5 or 6 issues but that’s no how Johns wants to tell his story. Why rush it? If it’s compelling and the pacing suits the building of a good story people will keep reading. It’s storytelling 101. Sure it helps to have a few months of a main story in order to include peripheral books. But that’s marketing 101.
Nate, comics are glad you stopped reading them.
December 5th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Marvel lost me with Secret Invasion – barely finished that series and was disgruntled that it merely led into Dark Reign. It wasn’t because of how many books it involved, it was because Bendis failed to do anything with the story. Dark Reign has been way too many one shots and minis for me to follow and I refuse to shell out $4 for anything with a Dark Reign banner. I’m skipping Siege entirely.
On the flip-side, loved Final Crisis – bought all of the minis involved and loved them all. Blackest Night, same thing. I could really care less how many books they have. If I’m really interested I’ll pick them all up, if I’m mildly interested I’ll buy just the main series, and – in the case of Siege – I have zero interest and will skip it. No-one is putting a gun to my head to read comics. Don’t let the hype get to you – buy what you like.
Plus, do you really expect every single issue of every single tie-in to blow your socks off? That’d be like expecting every episode of a TV show to be “the greatest episode that will change everything!!!” It just doesn’t happen.
December 5th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Ha Ha Russ, youre funny…
December 5th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
“The Batman and Titans mini-series were irrelevant since both titles are dipping into Blackest Night now.”
Funny, seeing as how the minis so far have focused on characters that have died and come back it seems to me they actually are relevant. Furthermore, the discovery of Dove’s part in the whole scheme of things seems to be important. Hmm, looks like you’re wrong Angelous.
In regards to Final Crisis, I thought it was too short and if Grant didnt feel the need to experiment in storytelling, we might have had a 12 issue maxi series and have a true sequel to Infinite Crisis.
So Siege is 4 issues? Good, let’s hope it’s a good 4 issues, but my hopes aren’t up. The fact that the villains are practically rehashing the same damn scheme feels cheap to me
December 6th, 2009 at 1:58 am
..
Does Bendis KNOW how to write ANYTHING other than the SAME FOUR STORIES over and over again?
NEW content boys!!! We ALL read Civil War, what? ONLY three years ago? Do we have to be spoon-fed it AGAIN?
..
December 6th, 2009 at 7:13 am
You’ve got a point there. But evil people often lack imagination. And Osborn just thought “it worked once, how about doing it again?”.
About Volstagg, I hope he doesn’t die and it lead to him becoming a more important character at Marvel. They should use him instead of Hercules as this heavy drinker/eater that likes to party. He’s an Asgardian and is also super-strong. What it amounts to is that he could be Marvel’s Hercules analog(instead of using a character in Hercules that is used elsewhere).
December 6th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Those of you complaining that this is too similar to Speedball / Civil War simply haven’t read Siege: The Cabal yet.
It’s pretty damn clear in this book that the resemblance is intentional. The Gov’t needed the Stamford incident to allow the SRA to finally go through… and Osborn needs a similar incident to green-light the attack on Asgard. Loki SPECIFICALLY states that they need a similar incident to get the Gov’t support required to attack Asgard.
This isn’t the “incident that will bring down Osborn” — this is calculated and will do exactly what it was intended to do by Loki/Osborn.
Osborn WILL end up falling, but it won’t be because an Asgardian was involved in a fight that had thousands of casualties. The only direct consequence of that is the green-light to invade Asgard.
I believe Osborn’s downfall will come from Doom, somehow. Which has nothing to do with this.
December 6th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Events work well when they’re planned out. I think it is just as simple as that. When you look at something like “House of M” vs. “Siege”, you can definitely see how far Bendis has come as an event coordinator. There is a definitely “weight” to Siege that was lacking in House of M. It reads like a different event because characters have shifted around and you get a sense of the organic nature of the Marvel Universe.
Not to be out-done, DC’s Blackest Night works in a sense of prophecy and longstanding plot points being brought to bear. Blackest Night comes out of a comic book nearly 20 years ago and it has been building ever since we had the GLC book about 3 years ago. Whereas Marvel has a very personal story (about reunifying heroes and the egos of one insane goblin), DC’s story is a cosmic one about larger stakes and even larger villains.
Personally, I’d love to see someone adopt the Valiant model of storytelling, where each story has a yearly focal point that spins the line of books in a completely different, personal direction every year. Unity was unlike any book and the line of books really made it feel like a very large norvel with a cast of dozens acting out the main parts. Out of any big event, I’ve always felt that Unity was one of the few that sounded like it would make a great movie.
December 6th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
So Anal, you’re saying I have to read Siege: The Cabal to make sense of Siege? So that kind of puts paid to the ‘self-contained’ argument…
December 7th, 2009 at 7:03 am
The only Marvel “Event” I felt required a tie in to understand was Civil War. and that was the only Marvele event not written by Bendis (Dont consider Hulk to be an “Event”) so I’ll trust that I read siege without having to pick up Dark Wolverine or any of the other books I don’t already buy. but when it’s the avengers titles primarily? Well I already buy those so it’s no adding to my pull list.
December 7th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Dominic, how do you know that what’s explained in Siege: The Cabal *isn’t* explained in Siege?
Don’t you find it a bit premature to conclude (and complain) that it’s not?
December 17th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
They always start out small but are gigantic by the end. Its all part of the hype machine. Start’em slow and then overwhelm them slowly but surely with unnecessary tie-ins and marketing mumbo jumbo.
DO NOT GIVE INTO THE PEOPLE
And Thor is now in a world of hurt for the next 2 years. First Bendis and then Fraction will ruin him badly. Now I can see why JMS left.