Hero Realm!

The back-issue bin

August Marvel Previews	The Back-Issue Bin Written by: Nathan Riggins Presented by: http://www.HeroRealm.com The Birth of The Crossover Event: Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions No. 1; June 16, 2008 Welcome to Hero Realm’s new feature, “The Back-Issue Bin”. Here I’ll review some of the best and worst stories from the last few decades that has come from DC and Marvel. Join us at the Hero Realm Forums to voice your opinion about any back-issues I review, or about the review itself. I welcome feedback of all kind, as does the friendly and lively community of posters at the Hero Realm Boards. Click the following link to check it out: http://www.herorealm.com/hrboards/index.php The best way to kick this thing off is with a long-term look at the Crossover Event, something that should be quite familiar to today’s comic fans. It seems now, more than ever, the crossover event is the main focus of today’s comic book industry. No more is there just a single summer event from each company; but rather one event leads to another which spawns another. Over at DC the current trend began in 2004 with Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis, which led to the Prelude Infinite Crisis Events (Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Rann-Thanagar War, Day of Vengeance, Villains United, and O.M.A.C. Project), which then carried directly into Geoff John’s Infinite Crisis, which was followed up with 52, from that was birthed Countdown to Final Crisis which was the prelude to the currently running Final Crisis by Grant Morrison (Whew!). They aren’t the only guilty party though as Marvel has their own long-running trend going that dates back to 2005 with Brian Michael Bendis’ alternate reality tale House of M (HOM). Decimation (the fall of most of the mutant population as a result of HOM) directly followed HOM, as a result The Illuminati one-shot happened which directly caused the Super-Human Registration Act which we all know caused the Marvel Civil War which concurrently ran alongside the space-epic Annihilation. As soon as the dust settled from that slobber-knocker, Gladiator Hulk and company land on Earth to cause some destruction (World War Hulk (WWH)). Now, shortly after WWH, the long-time planned out Secret Invasion has begun. Supposedly the ultimate brain-child of writer Brian Michael Bendis, which fans have no argument against so far. Despite how ridiculous that all sounds, most of those crossovers have been pretty good. But just how did we get to this point? What happened to the days of yonder when a title was only affected by what happened to the characters that starred in that said book? To answer that question, let’s look back at the beginning. Let’s look at the birth of the Crossover Event: It was 1982. A Crossover Event was something loyal comic reader had dreamed of, but comic companies were too scared to try as of yet. Every fan conjured up images in their head of the Avengers meeting the X-Men in an all-out brawl, or a threat so immense that it took the combined efforts of all of Earth’s heroes. But the comic companies thought that the overload of characters would cause fans to lose interest, and that it would hinder the story (if they only knew…). Marvel, as usual, was the first one to step-up and try something new. The first attempt was more of an experiment than a grand-plan. The resulting effort was Mark Guenwald and John Romita, Jr.’s Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions. This was a time when Mini-Series were fairly new, let alone Crossover Events. The Direct Market was something just being experimented with as well. So due to changing times in the industry, this series didn’t get the attention that it’s descendant’s would get. Which might have been for the better, because the story was pretty simple and art was nothing to write home about. It was fun though, and was something new and seemed to garner interest slowly over time. Next Page	Ultimate Spider-Man #122
August DC Previews		Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1
July Marvel Previews		The Mighty Avengers Vol. 1 HC The Ultron Imperative
July DC Previews		New Dynamix #1
June Marvel Previews		The Last Defenders #1
June DC Previews		Cemetery Blues: The Haunting of Hernesburg
May Marvel Previews		UNCANNY X-MEN 496
May DC Previews		DYNAMO5 #11
		Urban Monsters #1