Context Is Key: Superhero Event Comics Hit Their Mark

If there is one thing that will get fans of superhero comics talking and (most likely) arguing, it’s a big crossover event. Probably more than any other comic book run, a crossover event will divide a fandom and even entice non-fans to get in on the conversation. Unfortunately, a lot of the dialogue, especially in the internet age where anyone can post their thoughts online, comes from a negative place, often disparaging the story, criticising the character representation, and calling the publishers out for their blatant marketing ploy. However, the fact that the “event comic” exists at all is most likely a marketing ploy, mixed with a wider publishing decision, and it is this thought that shapes the event’s narrative and characters, not the decades of comics that came before it. The simple reason for this is that the publishers want to change something about the current direction of a particular comics series, or even their entire publishing line.

Do you think it was Jonathan Hickman’s idea to destroy the Marvel Multiverse and restart it? Was Mark Millar badgering the Marvel offices with his magnificent idea of forcing the superheroes to fight against each other? Did Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert hate the Flash so much they wanted him to run the multiverses to death? No. All of these, and most other event stories, were born out of publisher necessity or desire, and it was the creators who had to sell it to the readers.

But before we start piling all of the blame on the publishers, let’s not forget that it was the fans, and the creators who grew up reading superhero comics, that necessitated the first in-world shake up event: Crisis on Infinite Earths. The story goes that in 1981 Marv Wolfman received a letter from a fan asking why a character did not recognise Green Lantern in a comic that he had edited, even though the characters had met before. Wolfman did not have an answer, but it did raise the issues of a) why he didn’t know, and b) why there was no way for him to check this information. After several decades of ongoing comic titles, continuity was becoming a problem, especially at DC, who hadn’t really linked their comics into a shared universe in the same way as Marvel. Benjamin Woo has noted that “Comics were not only sequestered from the media choices readily available to most people but also increasingly incomprehensible to anyone uninitiated into the culture of fandom” (1). This situation had occurred because of the changing comic book landscape in North America from the 1950s to the 1980s. Publishing had changed, distribution had changed, and fandom had changed.

From the very beginning of comic book publishing, money has been a driving force; “Comics as a medium in the United States have largely been produced within a business environment, where profit is the ultimate goal, and the creation of good comics is a by-product of that goal” (2). This can be seen dating back to the original comic strips, where the infamous Yellow Kid was so profitable that newspapers fought over the rights to publish it. Then, in the 1950s, the comic scare was used as a way for a small number of publishers to gain control of the market, introduce the Comics Code Authority, and force other publishers, most noticeably EC Comics, out of business. This shrinking of prominent publishers, along with the rise of the direct market and specialist comic shops that catered to a specific audience, created a fandom that was obsessed with characters, titles, and continuity, most notably for the main two publishers, Marvel and DC. By the early 1980s, most of the people working within the comic book industry had grown up with and been fans of comics. The comic book world was made up of “organised fan groups, professional collectors and sellers, and observable groups of readers” (3). This, ultimately, meant that when errors in continuity turned up in the monthly books, there were enough readers out there who would notice.

Marvel turned this continuity spotting into an unofficial competition and issued what they referred to as “No Prizes” to fans who wrote in. Marv Wolfman, however, was surprised that no one at DC had thought about doing something about the complex history of their characters. At first, he suggested The History of the DC Universe as a way of simplifying the decades long back catalogue, but, partially influenced by Flash of Two Worlds (an early comic and the start of all of DCs continuity problems), Wolfman’s comic evolved into DC’s first major event maxiseries and was to change the landscape of the DC universe.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was born out of a creator’s desire to simplify a publisher’s continuity, and make their comics more inviting and easier to follow. The publisher saw the opportunity to make changes to the entire line of comics, making it more streamlined and easier to sell to new readers. This housecleaning becomes the backbone of each successive big “Crisis” event story published by DC. The success of these event stories is debatable, but the driving force behind each one was the same: “The multiverse and the clean-up of it were attempts to deal with what it meant to have popular symbolic characters with long histories, but who were timeless in appearance” (4).

In comparison, Marvel were less obvious with their clean ups than DC. Almost from the beginning, Marvel promoted the shared universe idea and seemed to keep a better in-house record of their history. However, this does not mean they did not make changes, even if a number of these were subtle, or relating to only one family of titles. Every time The Punisher‘s origin story was told, small changes would be made to make the story fit the era in which it was published. For example, the Vietnam War became the war in Afghanistan, and then finally an all-encompassing, unnamed war. Characters would have their histories rewritten, in story, so that they could return from the dead, or just become more interesting characters. See the Hobgoblin saga in the Spider-Man comics for an example of this, as that character’s real identity was revealed several times, each time rewriting the previous reveal.

There are two big moments in modern Marvel history that were born out of the publishers desire to reinvigorate their comics and make them more appealing to a new audience: The Amazing Spider-Man: One More Day, and Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars. The former rewrote the central character’s history, basically stopping him from getting married, as it was deemed by the editors at the time that no one would be interested in a superhero who was married (they claimed it aged the character too much and made it less appealing to the younger fan base). The latter, meanwhile, was a sweeping event story, like Crisis on Infinite Earths, that allowed Marvel to streamline the history of their characters and, most importantly, merge several of their universes so that popular characters from their fringe comics could become a part of their mainline titles. Part of this shift was to allow the comic book universe to align more with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which reaches a much larger audience. Marvel wanted the cinematic audience to be able to pick up a comic and understand and recognise the characters, making the transition from one medium to another as smoothly as possible.

This link between mediums and event comics is also not a new phenomenon. In fact, Marvel’s first crossover story, and arguably the starting point for Marvel’s love of event storytelling, only came about because of a deal with Mattel regarding a new line of Marvel based superhero toys. Just like The Transformers comic starting in 1984, the 1980s Secret Wars (not to be confused with the aforementioned comic of the same name) was actually a promotional pamphlet for the new line of toys, with Mattel providing guidance to the creators regarding the title of the comic and the design of the characters within it. The Secret Wars comic was an advert for toys, and this informed the way that the comic told its story, just like Crisis on Infinite Earths was an in-house restructuring of DC’s comic titles.

I started this article by saying that Jonathan Hickman wouldn’t have gone to Marvel with the idea of doing Secret Wars. However, evidence shows that Hickman originally conceived his concept of a shrinking multiverse and the inevitable end of all things for his Fantastic Four run. He even introduced the idea at the start of his Fantastic Four series. But at the time, Marvel didn’t want to use the idea for that comic. When they offered Hickman the Avengers titles a few years later, however, the concept was reintroduced, this time with the long term aim being the Secret Wars crossover. The aim suited Hickman’s ongoing narrative, and in fact produced a conclusion to his many Marvel comic series. It also suited the publisher. At the time Marvel wanted to promote something world shattering to a) compare to the cinematic universe, and b) create a situation where the publisher could bring back some much loved comics characters/stories from its past and reinvigorate or reboot the existing line of comics. It was a win/win situation for the creators and the publisher.

If you only look at the narrative of an event comic for insight into whether or not the series is successful, you are actually missing out on the real world events that led to the event and the aftermath of the short lived comic book series. In short, you are missing out on the very reason that particular comic exists. Those few issues may help form your opinion of the story, but that is different from whether or not the comic was a success. It has been 40 years since Crisis on Infinite Earths was released, and no matter what you think of the story, the fact it had such an impact on the comic industry, and the fact that people still talk about it today, means that on many levels the event was a success.

It is important to remember that “as much as readers might like to romanticize the comic book business, it’s still just that: a business” (5), and many academic books that you can read about the industry makes this point abundantly clear. In fact, one of the best is Comic Books Incorporated by Shawna Kidman, which delves into the murky backroom of the business side of the comic book industry. Love them or hate them, event comics exist for a number of reasons, and the reader’s enjoyment, which may seem like the most important, more often than not is actually quite low on that list. It is easy for people, especially reviewers, to focus on narrative and the art of a comic, but I think it is also important to look at the situation in which a particular comic was created, especially if we are looking back on old comics.

Remember, context is key.

Notes
1 from Comics Studies: A Guidebook edited by Charles Hatfield and Bart Beaty page 118,

2, 3, and 4 from Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods edited by Matthew J. Smith & Randy Duncan pages 145, 159, and 164

5 from Slugfest by Reed Tucker page xi