EDITORIAL: Are MARVEL Events Even Events Anymore?

Totally agree. I mean a lot of them are great stories (I loved Civil War and AvX was a better read than what you'd expect from a gimmick like it is. Hell, there was already an AvX in the 1980s called X-Men Vs Avengers) but they don't even feel like events anymore.

Agreed!!! I think Marvel need to pull a "New 52".

Almight

Understood.

I think Annihilation was the last Marvel good event. I think the problem with Marvel whether its Comics, movies or tv is that they are just strying to sell/promote their heroes instead of concentrating on giving us a good story. They really need to build up their villains, I think. To marvel's credit, they really know how to do their heroes justice, bu I really don't think any of the movies had a great villain yet. The closest one was Abomination. I really like the character Loki, just not as a main villain. Agents of Shield hasn't had any good villais yet. And I definitely agree with Superior that the comics are too much hero on hero, especially the events. An event should consist a villain, or villains, wrecking shop across multiple titles, not heroes getting into slapfights...

I love Marvel Events. Some are done better than others, some are utterly forgettable (Fear Itself, AvsX), and some are incredible (Infinity, Civil War).

I'm not against this "hero against hero" thing that people seem so upset about. "Hero" and "Villain", especially as they're used in a comic book context, are exclusive comic book concepts - the kind of clear morality doesn't exist in any other medium (it's completely *childish*, too - there needs to be drama, character development, real choice and real risk rather than re-hashes of the same stale "Cap fights Skull, Cap almost loses, then comes back and wins! Status quo preserved!") so explicitly.

If you work with a group of people, if you function in the real world, if you have a group of friends, people in those groups fight, argue, disagree and see the world fundamentally differently...

If you have being with the power and capability to alter the world, whether they identify as selfish or selfless, they're going to conflict and someone's going to think they know the solution, have the right answer. They'll fight. "Heroes" will fight each other - you're not going to get someone to dress up and risk their lives unless they have a vision or ideal that means something to them.

And Marvel characters live in an especially complex world, where most marvel characters have a few serious personality defects - they're going to fight each other.

I love when an event happens and a character you care about has to make a REAL choice, not the choice we "know" they're going to make, as in the case when aliens invade or someone robs a bank - what do you do in the case of Super-person registration? What do you do if the Phoenix returns to inhabit your friend? I really appreciated in Uncanny Avengers were Cap's stubbornness came to bite him in the ass with the fragmenting of the group - these characters of great power and great willpower need that kind of drama to make them interesting and new.

No... Marvel is where DC was in the early 80's. at that time DC had a mess of a continuity. Readers were confused everywhere. That's WHY they did Crisis on Infinite Earths. DC needed to streamline and adapt to bring in a younger audience.
Marvel is a freakin mess. 616, The Ultimates, Marvel Now. New readers have NO IDEA where to start.
This is a natural occurrence for something that has been around as long as they have. But Marvel needs a massive event like DC did with Crisis and even more so with the New 52.
DC had a solid plan with the new 52 and Marvel did a half ass job with Marvel Now.... marvel is in DIRE need of a "Crisis" or "New 52"
There is just too much confusion and the company relies too much on their crappy event comics.
Old readers will hate it, but you HAVE to do that in order to excite a new, younger audience. Because as of now, they are turned off by the confusion.

The events are done to death, but reboots are not the answer, anywhere, ever. A change of direction id all that is needed as opposed to messing with decades of mythology.

honestly the only book I'm reading right now is 'New Avengers' & 'Avengers' just because they've been written by Johnathan Hickman.

he's is by FAR, one of the best writers I've read in a long time, ever since I read his run of Fantastic Four and later on Avengers, I'm a truly fan !

'Infinity' is such a great read !!!

Currently there are only two titles I'm reading. Wonder Woman and Batwoman. Why? Because they stand as far away from the over-arching continuity as possible.

Marvel is pulling out a new Iron Fist title which will probably go on my buy-list and She-Hulk might end up there. Still waiting for a Doc Strange ongoing, he does not work like he should when he's on a team.

You can always see it, once they start with cross-overs the quality of the writing goes down. There's nothing that I dislike more in comics than this whole "look at how high the stakes are this time" nonsense. Its meaningless if there's no plot, characterization, pathos, an idea other than what you'd find in some fan's "what-if" discussion. You know, an actual story?

And event comics are exemplifying this meaningless type of story writing of late. I had high hopes for Hickman, but by what I've heard Infinity is just more mindless chatter.

I never got around to reading "Spider-Men" and I love Miles Morales and Peter Parker. I just read the collection yesterday...the most underwhelming graphic novel I've read in a long time. It wasn't...bad, but i expected so much more.

I never actually read comics before New 52.

I was just wondering if anyone could tell me: When they rebooted with New 52, did they just cut off story arcs halfway through that were going on before? or did they wrap up every single storyline or what?

I was just curious how they handled that sort of situation. Hope that question even makes sense.

@orpheus - what??? There aren't heroes and villans in other mediums???
Sith
Borg
Decepticons
The Smoking Man
Lord Voldamort
Sauron
Davey Jones
The agents in the Matrix
Reapers in Mass Effect
And so on.

My favourite time of Marvel comics was the time of the major dissasters, before leading up to the heroic age. You know, the part wich includes Civil War, Secret Invasion and Siege, that was my favourite. I also think that the Heroic Age is very fun, i love it. I really like the dissaster time when the Winter Soldier storyline took place, aswell as World War Hulk, Osborn's Thunderbolts... And death of Captain America. Dark Reign is also awesome.

Comic books are fetish items. The Silver Age Is Dead.

Well, I didn't really like AvX, it made the X-Men look like villains. I also hated House of M, Scarlet Witch was acting like a crazy bitch, which she isn't. But Civil War?? Civil War was great!

@darkknight2149 I'm glad someone remembers the original!!