It’s a surprise to no one that comic book sales have been in a major decline over the last decade.  Where as a book could easily sell over 500,000 copies in the early 1990′s, it’s rare to see one break 100,000 today.  Marvel and DC Comics have done everything they can to combat the slump, and one of their biggest weapons seems to be, “major events.” I mean, what better way to attract readers to your books than the threat of an impending worldwide apocalypse?  The problem is that, since these company-wide crossover books actually seem to successful draw sales, the major comic publishers seem to be over-saturating us with these big event series.  But how many times can the entire world be on the verge of total annihilation before it gets a little boring?

Marvel's "Fear Itself" event. It's hammer time!

 

One of the first major events in comic book history was Marvel’s Secret Wars. For many, it was the first time that nearly every Marvel superhero was allied together against a common enemy, albeit a cosmic, slightly-insane enemy. The crossover series was a huge success for the company, despite being a fairly mediocre story overall (though it did give us Spider-Man’s black suit for the first time. Score!)

DC and Marvel would continue to release the occasional game-changing mini-series/crossover every so often, such as Marvel’s Age of Apocalypse, Avengers Disassembled, The Infinity Gauntlet, and DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Death of Superman and Knightfall. And while some events were definitely better than others, they were at least spread out enough that they actually meant something. When the banners started appearing on the tops of your comic books, you knew that fecal matter was about to hit the fan for your beloved heroes. Now, we have not only multiple events happening in the same year, but also at the exact damn time!

For example, let’s look at what’s currently happening in the Marvel Universe:

The company’s mega-crossover event, Fear Itself, is currently approaching the final stretch of its saga.  This seven-month series witnessed the return of the Red Skull’s daughter, Sin, as she resurrected an ancient evil buried at the bottom of the sea.  Known as “The Serpent,” the godlike entity summoned seven hammers, each containing the spirits of his personal legion, and threw them to Earth.  Unknowing and dim-witted heroes and villains decide that picking up strange mystical hammers is probably a great idea, and are transformed in to the Serpent’s greatest warriors, causing total carnage and destruction wherever they go.  Oh, and Captain America died.  Again.

At the same time, we have a big five-part X-Men event called Schism.  In this story, the Hellfire Club (you may remember them as the villains from X-Men: First Class) is reforming under new leadership… A ten year old boy.  Maybe twelve.  But still, it’s pretty bizarre.  This kid leads his army of prepubescent assassins to cause mayhem and headaches for the X-Men, ultimately leading to strife between team leaders Cyclops and Wolverine, with a split between the two happening in November.

But wait, there’s more!  Currently, in Manhattan and within the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, thousands of normal citizens are waking up with spider-powers!  The entire island has been quarantined as most of the newly-developed superhumans begin using their powers for ill gain.  The entire roster of the Avengers is attempting to reclaiming Manhattan and reverse what has happened to New York’s citizens.

That’s three major events, all with their own tie-ins and accompanying mini-series to expand the stories further.  The silliest part is that, at least currently, none of them have any connection or relationship to the other.  If the Avengers are fighting spider-people in Manhattan, how are they also defending Washington D.C. from a hammer-possessed Hulk or Ben Grimm?  It completely breaks the immersion and cheapens the impact of these world-breaking situations.

Unfortunately, numbers don’t lie.  Event books sell, and Marvel is simply operating like any business would that has discovered gold in the midst of an economic slump.

DC's "New 52" event

DC Comics, while not as ridiculous as Marvel, also looks towards events to generate temporary sales spikes each month.  The company’s mega event, Flashpoint, just concluded that leads directly in to the publisher’s “New 52″ initiative, where every single comic series that DC releases is starting fresh at issue one.  While it definitely has succeeded in garnering attention towards their books, it also reeks of desperation as DC has consistently trailed behind Marvel each month for a while now.  They also just concluded War of the Green Lanterns, a major crossover epic involving every character from the Green Lantern books.

Comic events are not new, but the gluttony of them certainly is.  In the 80′s, Marvel published an absurd amount of X-Men events because it was their most successful property at the time.  We had Mutant Massacre, Days of Future Past, the Dark Phoenix saga, and many more.  The important distinction is that these crossover titles were not overlapping and releasing at the exact same time.  The worst part is that, before the current events are even finished, Marvel is releasing teasers for their next big cataclysmic confrontation.  It’s exhausting, it cheapens the impact of each individual story, and the big end-of-the-world multi-part epics just get a little stale and boring after a while…  Especially when it’s almost a certainty that, *gasp!* someone dies each time!

So, my plea to Marvel and DC is to simply calm the **** down.  When comic readership is at the low point it is currently, the last thing we need to do is drive the rest of them away.  Make the individual books meaningful with great stories to tell and people will read them.  It worked before, and it could certainly work again.