“That kind of sucked.
Marvel, it’s time to slow down with the big crossover events. They can be fun. They can be REALLY fun. But part of the fun is that you don’t go from one huge crossover to another. You have to give us some time.
However, it seems like you insist. So maybe we could lay some ground rules that I think would be mutually beneficial?
1. Let’s try to have the maximum number of characters in their default state when it comes to these huge crossovers.
What I mean is that we have these big events, so for the most part they aren’t about one or even a handful of characters. They focus on a dozen or even more. What I’m asking is that we do our level best here to try and have those characters be in their most recognizable form.
Classic example: the Captain American and the Avengers beat-em-up arcade game. Awesome game, players could be Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, or…the all-beige, Speedo-wearing version of Vision?
What the hell?
It was unfortunate, but the game came out during a period when the Vision looked like that instead of like this:
Okay, maybe not the raddest costume. But it was the one we all liked, and part of the fun in the game was being these cool characters. So it’s a real shame when I have to play weird albino Speedo man instead of, you know, killer android.
In Avengers vs. X-Men, we have a few of these going on. Most notable is the Red Hulk, who is not actually the Hulk but a guy who really hates the Hulk. We don’t need to get into it here, but the point is, the dude’s not the Hulk, and I want the goddamn Hulk. Real Hulk shows up later, but by then it’s only more confusing.
Or Colossus. Who is apparently possessed by the Crimson Gem of Cytorrak. You don’t need to know what that means, but it does make a great declaration in the workplace (“By the crimson gem of Cytorrak!”).
2. Can we make these stories so that we don’t have to assume one character becomes a complete, unmitigated dick?
Because that’s what happens a lot. In order for these good guys to fight each other, someone has to start acting like a real ass. It was Iron Man in Civil War, and it’s Cyclops here. I mean, they start out okay. Iron Man just wanted some good stuff to happen….theennnnnn started putting people in an interdimensional prison. Cyclops just wanted to protect a child….thennnnn he mostly focused on burning people alive.
It just doesn’t make sense. One character always ends up so hardline that it completely denies everything that’s happened before. For some reason, it just doesn’t seem possible for folks to write a story where one can see both sides of an issue and understand why both parties might start punching each other and destroying flying aircraft carriers.
3. Give me someone to care about.
I know, it’s my own fault. Comics storylines and characters are like the law. Knowing the law is your responsibility. But in this case, Hope Summers, a girl who I gather was a baby born sometime after one of the last couple big crossovers, who was then raised in the future(?) by Cable(?) and taught to survive some kind of apocalypse(?)
Again, you don’t need to know anything about that beyond the fact that it has spawned what I consider to be one of the most hilarious X-Men images of all time:
Anyway, just not someone that I really care about. Sorry. And if I don’t care about the focus of all this, or more importantly don’t even really know anything about her or understand what she is, it’s tough for me to care.
I’m not saying it’s always got to be Wolverine or Captain America. But if you’re going deep, you’d better give me some solid character moments with this person in order for me to be on board.
~
Overall, the crossover thing is killing me a little bit. There are always great moments.
But for the most part, the drama getting there doesn’t add much to the moment. Which is really sad because these are the sorts of things that should be enhanced by the rest of the story building to them. That, to me, is the whole idea behind a mega crossover event. And that’s what they are almost always missing.
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