Beyond The Panels #8- You Folks Like Event Books, Don't You?
So, I was talking about Marvel and the things they've done lately that have pissed me and other fans off and one of the things I didn't bring up was their never-ending calendar of event books. Let's name some from just this year alone- Inhumans vs X-Men, Monsters Unleashed, Secret Empire, Venomverse, Generations. That's five and I'm probably forgetting one or two. If you're anywhere online reading about comics, you'll find people complaining about "event fatigue". Well, I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
Are you ready? Here goes-
I like event books. And so do most of you.
Fucking shocker, right?
You see, it's not that the comic buying public doesn't like event books themselves- it's a lot of fun to see all our heroes together, fighting some big bad that they could never handle on their own. We get to see characters that don't spend any time together do stuff and at the end, we get an overhaul of the status quo. All of that stuff is fun and if done correctly, can be great. The problem comes when you have, say, five events (and those are just the one you can remember) in a year and all of them have some kind of status quo ramifications. It sort of makes the whole thing meaningless.
Why is it special if, say, you get to see the Avengers and the Inhuman royal family team up for something if you've seen it two other times this year? Why is cool if the Justice League and the Justice Society get together to fight Johnny Sorrow if it happens every three months? Do all the big bad guys get together at the beginning of the year and decide when to schedule their separate potentially world and/or universe ending attacks? How are things an event when the happen all the time?
Another problem is that publishers start to advertise crossovers like they're events and it sours people on crossovers. While Marvel stacks it publishing schedule with event books, DC does it with crossovers between books and advertises them like they're big events. They aren't, though, since it's usually within a family of titles (like the Batman family one from the beginning of Rebirth, Night of the Monster Men) or characters who hang out anyway in teams (The Button, which was between League members Batman and Flash and, full disclosure, was damn good). Crossovers are great and fun, but advertising them like they're these huge events makes it so regular readers just skip them. Now in the case of The Button, which we've established I'm a fan of, the big deal being made out of it was warranted because it had ramifications for one of the overarching storylines of DC Rebirth, but what about something like the Titans/Teen Titans?Deathstroke crossover The Lazarus Contract? It was a decent story, better if you read any of the books, but did you need to advertise it in every book in the months leading up to it, making it seem more important than it really was? No, you didn't. People who hadn't been following those three books or didn't know the years of history between all the characters might have picked it up, gotten completely lost, and decided to never read any of those books again. Unless it's an outlier like The Button, it's not going to important to people who aren't reading the books affected.
So what should be done about all of this? Can the event genie be put back in the bottle? Is there a way to make them special and cool again?
Of course there fucking is.
Look, I know I rag on Marvel a lot here, but I'm going to do it again- I think Marvel needs to take a page from DC. DC usually does one big event book a year (this year, there'll be two- Metal and Doomsday Clock, but this is the first time in the long time they've done that sort of thing) and they feel fucking special. Let's be real- of the five Marvel event books I listed, only one of them is important enough to be an event book. The other ones sould have merely been mini series with some crossovers into regular books and ten years ago, would have been. We didn't call them events, they were just cool stories. Now, I know why Marvel does this, just like I know why DC advertises their crossovers like events- it puts butts in the seats. Eyes on the product. Moves tickets. Other metaphors meaning it makes people buy their products. Humans like flashy advertising. They like to think they're getting something special, even when all they're getting is the same thing they've gotten a hundred times before.
Also, how many times a year can you change a status quo before it's not special anymore? And does it always need such radical changes every year? Again, this is more a Marvel thing than a DC thing, but years ago, when stuff in the Marvel Universe changed, it seemed organic. It felt real. Now, it just feels like a publishing initiative. It's a product and yes, all comics are a product, but it's better when it seems like they're stories made by creative people and not marketing ideas being handed down by corporate paymasters and bean counters.
I don't think any of us would want for there to never be an event book again. I love event books. I love Infinity Gauntlet, Crisis on Infinite Earth, Infinity War, Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, DC One Million, Final Crisis, Civil War, Secret War (2015), and Blackest Night. I love talking about how much House of M sucks and is among the worst, most boring things I've ever read. I love talking about how much of a boring let down Secret Invasion was (I really hate Bendis written events... except Siege, which was pretty good, but mostly because it was only four issues, so Bendis didn't have the page count to bore us out of our minds). All of those events that I named, even the ones I didn't like, all have something in common- they were the only one for the year they were in and they all had a point. They were all stories that felt like they'd organically grew out of their respective universes and they had consequences.
That's what an event should be. It shouldn't feel like it was a marketing thing or a focus group thing or something to drive sales. It should feel like an earned event with lasting consequences. It should feel real. That's what we want. We'll gladly pony up our four or five bucks an issue for six to eight months for that. We want crossovers, too, but we don't need for them to be sold to us as if they are massive events that we need to read. If we're buying the books they're in, we're probably gonna buy them anyway. This next point is going to go back to my last post- we want to be respected. We're already buying, you don't have to treat us like idiots, beckoning us with shiny bullshit. We want good stories. That's it.
So, if by some strange chance, someone out there who works for a comic company ever reads this, just remember that- respect us. Respect the characters. Tell great stories. And, of course, join us here, next time on....
Beyond The Panels!
Next Issue- I talk about Marvel and DC a lot, but next issue, I'm going to highlight three of my favorite Image books. Which ones will they be? Here's a hint- they aren't on my list of Image books that I buy every month. If you want to find out what they and why, come back next ish.
Are you ready? Here goes-
I like event books. And so do most of you.
Fucking shocker, right?
You see, it's not that the comic buying public doesn't like event books themselves- it's a lot of fun to see all our heroes together, fighting some big bad that they could never handle on their own. We get to see characters that don't spend any time together do stuff and at the end, we get an overhaul of the status quo. All of that stuff is fun and if done correctly, can be great. The problem comes when you have, say, five events (and those are just the one you can remember) in a year and all of them have some kind of status quo ramifications. It sort of makes the whole thing meaningless.
Why is it special if, say, you get to see the Avengers and the Inhuman royal family team up for something if you've seen it two other times this year? Why is cool if the Justice League and the Justice Society get together to fight Johnny Sorrow if it happens every three months? Do all the big bad guys get together at the beginning of the year and decide when to schedule their separate potentially world and/or universe ending attacks? How are things an event when the happen all the time?
Another problem is that publishers start to advertise crossovers like they're events and it sours people on crossovers. While Marvel stacks it publishing schedule with event books, DC does it with crossovers between books and advertises them like they're big events. They aren't, though, since it's usually within a family of titles (like the Batman family one from the beginning of Rebirth, Night of the Monster Men) or characters who hang out anyway in teams (The Button, which was between League members Batman and Flash and, full disclosure, was damn good). Crossovers are great and fun, but advertising them like they're these huge events makes it so regular readers just skip them. Now in the case of The Button, which we've established I'm a fan of, the big deal being made out of it was warranted because it had ramifications for one of the overarching storylines of DC Rebirth, but what about something like the Titans/Teen Titans?Deathstroke crossover The Lazarus Contract? It was a decent story, better if you read any of the books, but did you need to advertise it in every book in the months leading up to it, making it seem more important than it really was? No, you didn't. People who hadn't been following those three books or didn't know the years of history between all the characters might have picked it up, gotten completely lost, and decided to never read any of those books again. Unless it's an outlier like The Button, it's not going to important to people who aren't reading the books affected.
So what should be done about all of this? Can the event genie be put back in the bottle? Is there a way to make them special and cool again?
Of course there fucking is.
Look, I know I rag on Marvel a lot here, but I'm going to do it again- I think Marvel needs to take a page from DC. DC usually does one big event book a year (this year, there'll be two- Metal and Doomsday Clock, but this is the first time in the long time they've done that sort of thing) and they feel fucking special. Let's be real- of the five Marvel event books I listed, only one of them is important enough to be an event book. The other ones sould have merely been mini series with some crossovers into regular books and ten years ago, would have been. We didn't call them events, they were just cool stories. Now, I know why Marvel does this, just like I know why DC advertises their crossovers like events- it puts butts in the seats. Eyes on the product. Moves tickets. Other metaphors meaning it makes people buy their products. Humans like flashy advertising. They like to think they're getting something special, even when all they're getting is the same thing they've gotten a hundred times before.
Also, how many times a year can you change a status quo before it's not special anymore? And does it always need such radical changes every year? Again, this is more a Marvel thing than a DC thing, but years ago, when stuff in the Marvel Universe changed, it seemed organic. It felt real. Now, it just feels like a publishing initiative. It's a product and yes, all comics are a product, but it's better when it seems like they're stories made by creative people and not marketing ideas being handed down by corporate paymasters and bean counters.
I don't think any of us would want for there to never be an event book again. I love event books. I love Infinity Gauntlet, Crisis on Infinite Earth, Infinity War, Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, DC One Million, Final Crisis, Civil War, Secret War (2015), and Blackest Night. I love talking about how much House of M sucks and is among the worst, most boring things I've ever read. I love talking about how much of a boring let down Secret Invasion was (I really hate Bendis written events... except Siege, which was pretty good, but mostly because it was only four issues, so Bendis didn't have the page count to bore us out of our minds). All of those events that I named, even the ones I didn't like, all have something in common- they were the only one for the year they were in and they all had a point. They were all stories that felt like they'd organically grew out of their respective universes and they had consequences.
That's what an event should be. It shouldn't feel like it was a marketing thing or a focus group thing or something to drive sales. It should feel like an earned event with lasting consequences. It should feel real. That's what we want. We'll gladly pony up our four or five bucks an issue for six to eight months for that. We want crossovers, too, but we don't need for them to be sold to us as if they are massive events that we need to read. If we're buying the books they're in, we're probably gonna buy them anyway. This next point is going to go back to my last post- we want to be respected. We're already buying, you don't have to treat us like idiots, beckoning us with shiny bullshit. We want good stories. That's it.
So, if by some strange chance, someone out there who works for a comic company ever reads this, just remember that- respect us. Respect the characters. Tell great stories. And, of course, join us here, next time on....
Beyond The Panels!
Next Issue- I talk about Marvel and DC a lot, but next issue, I'm going to highlight three of my favorite Image books. Which ones will they be? Here's a hint- they aren't on my list of Image books that I buy every month. If you want to find out what they and why, come back next ish.
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