Crossover events have become big business of Marvel and DC Comics over the decades. Events were always a big part of the comic industry, with Marvel telling amazing stories like “The Galactus Trilogy” and “The Kree-Skrull War”. It wouldn’t be until the 1980s when crossover events would become the order of the day, often spinning out of the event books that became the newest event story delivery system. Over the years, there have been lots of crossovers; some of them are amazing and have earned the love of fans in the years since they dropped. The best events from Marvel and DC Comics have become legendary stories in the pantheon of superhero comics, with generations of fans sharing them with new readers. However, crossovers can also have a lot of problems, and disappoint readers in a variety of ways.
Crossovers can have a variety of problems for lots of fans. They force fans to buy comics that they don’t really want in order to get a full story, and can derail the stories that monthly readers were invested in. This has made crossovers a problem for a lot of fans, and they’ve become the bane of many fans. Some of them come from event series and others of them are crossovers between separate titles, but these seven are the worst of the worst.
House of M is a story with a certain legacy, and part of it is a lackluster crossover event. House of M was sold as a crossover between Astonishing X-Men and New Avengers, the two hottest books of mid ’00s Marvel, and picked up on ideas that were begun in “Avengers Disassembled: Chaos”, continuing the story of Scarlet Witch that fans had desperately wanted more out of. However, House of M quickly became a huge crossover event, taking in the whole Marvel Universe as Scarlet Witch recreated the world with mutants on top. The problem with House of M isn’t so much that the tie-in issues are bad — some of them are actually pretty great, but Marvel had a murderer’s row of creators at the time — it’s that the main series is a boring slog that kills any interest in this universe completely. Seriously, go read it again. It’s worse than you remember, an excruciatingly slow-paced story with very little action payoffs, and an ending that basically destroyed the X-Men side of the Marvel Universe for years to come.
Infinity Gauntlet is an amazing comic, a book that made Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet into legends that would eventually take over the movie world. However, it was the only first part of the story. Infinity War was the next chapter, as readers learned that Adam Warlock had ejected his good and evil sides while he had the Infinity Gauntlet, and that his evil side became the Magus, his evil future self. Infinity War is excellent, as well, but that brings us to Infinity Crusade. This chapter in the “Infinity Trilogy” pit the heroes of the universe against a being called the Goddess, who was able to take mental control of certain heroes and villains in the Marvel Universe. It’s such a disappointment compared to the previous two parts. The Goddess is the opposite of compelling, all of the interesting things had already happened to Adam Warlock and Thanos earlier in the saga. The tie-in issues were just as aimless as the main series, giving readers a terrible summer event for the first time since Infinity Gauntlet.
The weekly series 52 was a massive hit and DC immediately started planning their next weekly series, deciding to use it to hype up to the next major DC event comic, Final Crisis. Countdown to Final Crisis, first titled just Countdown. Countdown to Final Crisis was planned to crossover through every major event in DC Comics in 2007 and 2008. On top of that, DC started to put out tie-in issues to Countdown to Final Crisis. It was basically where every crossover went to hang out together over the course of a year, all while telling its own story. Most of the stories that crossed over with it weren’t great either. For example, Amazon Attacks! crosses over into this book, The Death of the New Gods crosses over into the book. While there are some good DC crossover that get story coverage in Countdown to Final Crisis, most of it is very bad, and that’s before you even get to the stinker of a story that its main plot is.
Armageddon 2001 isn’t a terrible idea, but it fell apart unfortunately. Armageddon 2001 followed the Waverider, a time traveler from the future who wanted to try to make sure his terrible future, ruled by the mysterious Monarch, from happening. He decided that the best thing to do was to go back to 1991 and show the heroes their future, all so they’ll know how to stop the Monarch from taking power. It’s honestly not a terrible story, right? Pretty standard, but nothing special. The problem comes in that the book’s twist — that the Monarch was the future version of Captain Atom — was leaked before it ended. DC didn’t want to do the story that was leaked, and quickly changed the identity of the Monarch to Hawk of Hawk and Dove fame. The whole thing was something of a disaster, and it ruined a lot of the pretty decent stories that made up the crossover. It would have been an average book otherwise, but the last minute changes, after building in all of the clues that it was Captain Atom, make it a terrible story.
The New 52 was a terrible time for DC Comics fans. There are a lot of reasons for this. DC spent the ’00s rebuilding their continuity into a more Silver/Bronze Age direction, and then immediately switched lanes with the New 52. Two of the biggest rehabilitations of the ’00s were with the Teen Titans and the Legion of Superheroes, as DC did everything they could to make their teen teams famous again. They were much more successful with the Teen Titans than the Legion of Superheroes, but the Legion was on its way before the New 52 wiped everything. The Teen Titans and the Legion got their own New 52 books — Teen Titans, Legion of Superheroes, and Legion Lost — and they were all kind of terrible. So, for some reason, DC decided to cross over Teen Titans, Legion Lost, and Superboy. These three books were not even close to being popular, and “The Culling” was the terrible sandwich that DC made from these three books. The plot saw the organization N.O.W.H.E.R.E. capturing the Teen Titans, the Legion Lost (members of the team trapped in the present), and Superboy, forcing them to battle against one another. They eventually team up and one of them has to make a sacrifice for the rest, leading to a new version of the Ravagers, a team that was usually related to the Legion in the future, in the present. It’s one of the lowest points of the New 52.
Secret Wars II is legendary for just how bad it is. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars was a hit, and so Marvel wanted to make a sequel. They took the One from Beyond, the being who was the catalyst for the original crossover, took a human form and came to Earth. He had to deal with feelings for the first time, his godlike power making him extremely dangerous to everyone Earth, especially when he decides that he wants the most powerful bride possible. Secret Wars II is both a very lackluster event book, with the heroes dealing with the Beyonder while the Molecule Man psyches himself up to fight the Beyonder, and multiple tie-in issues across the Marvel line. Basically everything about this story is completely terrible, and it’s definitely not worth hunting down. If there are any good parts of the story, they come from the Uncanny X-Men crossover issues, when the Beyonder sets his sights on Phoenix II, and that’s only because its written by Chris Claremont at the height of his powers. There will definitely be some Marvel Cinematic Universe fans who accidentally read this story at some point, and that’s honestly kind of hilarious.
Ultimatum is the ultimate bad crossover. The Ultimate Universe started out as the bestselling comic imprint in the comic industry in the year 2000, and went strong throughout the first five years of the decade. However, as the A-lists creators who started it rotated out of the line, things got less and less popular. Marvel decided to give the line a shot in the arm with the ultra-violent Ultimatum. Ultimatum is crossover based in en event book with tie-in issues in every Ultimate comic. Ultimatum is the height of grim dark. Magneto decides to destroy everything when he believes that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch have been killed, and every chapter of the story is a dark slog. So many character die in the most terrible ways imaginable, and there’s a mean-spiritedness to the entire story that comes across on every page. Ultimatum is terrible, the worst superhero story ever.
What do you think is the worst crossover? Sound off in the comments below.
Crossover events have become big business of Marvel and DC Comics over the decades. Events were always a big part of the comic industry, with Marvel telling amazing stories like “The Galactus Trilogy” and “The Kree-Skrull War”. It wouldn’t be until the 1980s when crossover events would become the order of the day, often spinning Read More