The Greatest Marvel Universe Event!

think it was me who voted civil war, enjoyed it far more than secret wars, which is just terrible in every way

Yeaaaahhh...I wonder if those who voted for Secret Wars have read it at all recently.

Annihilation is a worthy champion. I like WWH a lot, but mostly as a part of the larger Planet Hulk narrative.

Annihilation sort of fades into a blur of Marvel attempts to get me to give a fuck about Nova.

Yeaaaahhh...I wonder if those who voted for Secret Wars have read it at all recently.

I reread a few years ago for the first time since the 80s, and was surprised how good it still was. There are some awesome superhero feats (Hulk holding up a mountain), some funny stuff (Klaw is the perfect foil for Doom), some cool new characters (Titania!), unexpected twists (who would've guessed Doom could do that?), all in all just lots of great moments (the scene where the heroes get resurrected, and Klaw's explanation of is just perfect - the perils of omnipotence). Sure, there are some pointless stuff too: I never got why Shooter thought Kitty and Peter should be separated, since as far as I understood their age difference was only 2 or 3 years; the undermining of Captain Marvel is kinda nasty (especially she was the only major black superheroine besides Storm); and the Wasp/Magneto romance is just pointless (though from what I've gathered it was because Shooter didn't know about Claremont's plans for Magneto, and was preparing for him to become an Avengers character). But all in all it was a tight series with an exciting plot that had a clear beginning and ending; being the first company-wide crossover event in superhero comics, it didn't yet suffer from things that came to define such stories soon afterwards. For example, even though Crisis on Infinite Earths was more "important", compared to SW it's a mess: multiple climaxes, pointless attempts to include every minor DC character to the story, plotlines that don't go anywhere and can be followed only by reading stuff beyond the main series, shaking up the status quo just for the hell of it, only for things to revert back to the way they were not long afterwards. Sadly CoIE, and not SW, was the model for future crossover events for both DC and Marvel.

IIRC, Secret Wars was only a crossover event in the most perfunctory sense (i.e. heroes mysteriously disappear in one issue only to mysteriously reappear in the following issue).

Yep, that's pretty much it, and I think that's the proper way to do a crossover: have everything that matters happen in the main crossover series itself. It's kinda irritating to read one of the later Marvel crossovers and realize that in order to get some important plot points I have to acquire other titles I would never otherwise read.

And even more irritating is when I'm following only one or two Marvel titles and don't care about big events, but these titles still get enmeshed in them, so I'd need to read a dozen other comic books in order to get what happening in that one series I follow. For example, the only Marvel book I'm currently reading regularly is Avengers Academy, and it would work perfectly as a standalone book, but they still have felt the need to cross it over with all this Fear Itself and Avengers vs. X-Men bullshit. That kind of plotting policy is really unfriendly for the casual reader who doesn't have the time/money/interest to read 10 different books a month, no wonder all the casual readers have abandoned Marvel and DC and all that is left is hardcore superhero fans.

thank god for the purity and integrity of jim shooter

original secret wars crossed over into spiderman at least?

IIRC, the only major changes that SW caused were:

1) Spider-Man got the new suit, though I'm not sure whether Shooter intended it to be a symbiote instead of just a cool new outfit?

2) The new Spider-Woman was introduced. I can't remember whether she even got her own title, though?

3) Kitty and Colossus broke up because of Colossus' affair with the alien woman. (Like I said, this was because Shooter thought Kitty was too young to date Colossus, which feels a bit odd, as Colossus was constantly referred to as a teenager himself. Maybe it was because Colossus didn't look like a regular teenager, and Shooter thought a casual reader would think he's an adult man?)

4) The Thing stayed on the Secret Wars planet and She-Hulk became a temporary member of the Fantastic Four.

Yeah, there were ramifications in other titles after SW. It just wasn't a crossover in the traditional sense.

And, Tuomas, while I understand your complaints about more recent crossovers from a practical/personal standpoint, I think it's unfair to judge them from a qualitative standpoint just because they require you to spend more money. There's definitely an argument to be made that they've become too bloated (I was appalled once it dawned on me late in the game how much I was spending on Secret Invasion and Blackest Night (the latter of which effectively ending DC's association with my wallet)), but from a story standpoint, I vastly prefer this modern style of crossover to that more perfunctory style of old. For example, I recently re-read The Infinity Gauntlet, and I realized that the crossover issues were completely useless in the context of the larger story. In terms of actual crossover, a serious waste of time and money. So while, yes, the Secret Invasion miniseries on its own is awful and borderline insulting with respect to how little of the story is contained within its boundaries, the larger crossover is much better and more engaging because it treats the crossover issues like tiles in a story mosaic. YMMV whether the larger story hangs together for you or justifies the expense, but I find this type of crossover much more satisfying from a narrative standpoint. Particularly in the context of Marvel's more recent attempts to create one large and cohesive world with a more all-encompassing larger story which is perpetuated over the course of years. That "cohesive world building via modular narrative" thing is a large part of why I enjoy mainstream comics, in a nutshell.

Saleswise? THE AVENGERS flick, obv.

Operation Galactic Storm would've gotten a vote if I hadn't missed this poll.

In the mood for an big comic event to get caught up in, and with me spurning the new DC as I would spurn a rabid dog, I dipped into Marvel Infinity to see if it was any good.

Having not bought more than 5 Marvel comics in the last 10 years, Can anyone give me a heads up now if I am totally wasting my time.

Spoiler = I know I am totally wasting my time.

I think you only really need passing knowledge of Thanos Rising, Avengers (since Marvel NOW) and New Avengers. The tie-in issues have been rank though, and Thanos Rising was mommy-issues.

"In the mood for an big comic event to get caught up in..."

Annhilation and Planet Hulk are really good self contained reads in trade paperback form and probably will always be in a 'best-of Marvel Comics' of this period.

Anyone familiar with Atlantis Attacks? I used to have the X-Men annual from that year, but nothing else. Is the whole crossover any good?

How is Onslaught in here but not Age of Apocalypse?

This seems like as good a place as any to ask a stupid continuity question. I understand Noh-Varr/Marvel Boy is in Young Avengers now, and had a brief run as both a villain and a shitty off-brand superhero with a wretched costume called "The Protector". What the Wiki articles (yes, I consulted Wikipedia and the Marvel wiki, it's been that kind of weekend) don't mention is how exactly this works, since Marvel Boy didn't even take place on Marvel's usual Earth-616.

WIZARD DID IT, I'm guessing?

Sure Marvel Boy took place on 616 who says it didn't, huh

(they hand-waved it and he was found in the same prison they stuck him in at the end of the Morrison mini-series)