For the Love of Comics, Please – It’s Time to Tone Down All the ‘Epic’ Crossover Events

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Every fan of DC Comics loves seeing heroes work together in the face of a common enemy, but line-wide crossovers that bring all other stories to a standstill can only take place so often before they start to grate on the audience. DC – in addition to Marvel – has developed a notorious reputation for churning out events with no regard for repercussions, so the publisher should take a step back and slow down to avoid alienating readers further.

Absolute Superman writer Jason Aaron chatted with CBR about the hit series, and he touched on the possibility of a crossover between the Absolute Universe’s heroes. As exciting as the idea of these characters meeting is on paper, his words shed light on why the Absolute line is holding off on crossing over for the time being.

I think we’re trying to be very thoughtful and considerate about how we don’t want to drive past any cool moments that, once you go past them, you can’t go back and do them over again. So I think we want to be careful about how we start to cross the threads together between the different books to build a cohesive universe.

Rushing into crossovers between superheroes can be to a story’s detriment, as it could prove to be a mistake in the long run by wasting a moment that could have been better executed with more suspense built up around it. Both DC and Marvel are guilty of this mistake, and a break from the onslaught of events is long overdue.

DC and Marvel Comics Need to Tone Down the Crossover Events

From Absolute Power to Blood Hunt, The Events Have Become Excessive

One of the best parts of reading comics is seeing fan-favorite heroes band together against villains, especially when characters get involved who wouldn’t normally take part in a team-up. However, in today’s market, these crossovers have become so recurring that they hardly make an impression anymore. Scarcity increases demand, so when events run rampant, that demand all but vanishes as readers become more and more jaded. Aaron mentions the current state of events in his conversation with CBR, reflecting on how they have become more commonplace in comics:

Until we got Crisis and Secret Wars, you didn’t have these massive fights with all of the heroes that we now get, like, three, four times a year. But I love those old days, and I love that idea of those team ups that would happen just in the pages of one book. It doesn’t always need to be a big crossover.

In 2023 alone, DC Comics bombarded its audience with Lazarus Planet, Knight Terrors, and Beast World. 2024 continued the trend with House of Brainiac and Absolute Power. Meanwhile, Marvel Comics hasn’t been much better in this department. The publisher is about to kick off One World Under Doom around the same time as the X-Manhunt event, both of which are taking place not long after 2024’s Blood Hunt. Superheroes used to cross over into each other’s stories sparingly as a means of promoting excitement, but over the years these events have grown more frequent and, to many, less meaningful.

DC Comics’ Oversaturation of Events Makes Them Less Impactful

Modern Events Don’t Compare to the Classics Because They’re So Frequent

With so many events taking place across the DC Universe, it seems that the reason the biggest crossover worked so well has been lost to time. 1985’s iconic Crisis on Infinite Earths by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez laid the groundwork for what a comic event should be in terms of scale, story, and overall impact. It received proper build-up and let a variety of characters shine, but most importantly, it mattered in the grand scheme of things. This first Crisis rewrote DC’s entire continuity, with Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis now being widespread terms used to distinguish eras.

Nowadays, crossovers don’t make as big of a splash as Crisis did. What made it so special was the fact that it was an ambitious explosion of comic storytelling that stood out amidst a sea of solo narratives. Today, though, so many crossovers occur that it isn’t particularly noteworthy when one does take place. All the heroes in the DC Universe standing together to take on a threat that could vanquish the multiverse should be a massive deal, but because that’s started to happen every few months, it doesn’t catch fans’ attention the way it did before.

Crossover Events Interrupt DC Heroes’ Solo Adventures, Frustrating Readers

Comic Fans Aren’t Always Thrilled About Events Derailing Their Favorite Stories

With crossovers occurring regularly within the DC Universe, another flaw in them begins to take shape. There are plenty of readers who don’t pick up the entirety of a publisher’s output, so the casual fan wouldn’t be knowledgeable about overarching event comics that will have the whole Justice League tied up. As a result, an event taking place mid-series that derails the narrative can be jarring for the unsuspecting reader. This problem with events has persisted for decades, yet it’s only worsened with their modern over-saturation across the world of comics.

Not every event is guilty of throwing stories off course. Beast World, for instance, incorporated non-Titans in separate one-shots that spanned different cities in the DC Universe. With that being said, other events impose upon heroes’ solo series and can therefore confuse readers who aren’t familiar with the goings-on of the extended canon. Absolute Power was guilty of this, with Wonder Woman’s battle against the Sovereign skidding to a halt for three months. By the time her story resumed, it felt jarring to pick up with the death of Steve Trevor, as the past issues hadn’t been building up to it the way the rest had.

By Limiting Crossovers, DC Can Finally Make Them Truly Matter

Superheroes Joining Forces Needs to Become a True “Event” Again

Comics readers’ event fatigue can be fixed with a simple solution: let these crossovers be treated as proper “events” again. One should be scheduled per year at most, with a build-up happening within various stories so that it doesn’t interrupt an existing narrative unexpectedly. Absolute Power followed that blueprint to an extent as Amanda Waller operated in the shadows for months in advance, but was hindered by the numerous events preceding it. If that story had taken place after the heroes hadn’t united in some time, then it might have been received with open arms the way DC’s events were back in the day.

The creatives behind the Absolute line have made the right call by refraining from integrating the heroes into each other’s worlds so early into its existence. While it would be fun to see an Absolute Justice League take shape as soon as possible, bringing these characters together right away would lessen the impact of that first encounter. Jason Aaron’s cautious attitude towards events is for the best, as the anticipation for the team-up will build over time rather than being rushed past. Crossovers should be a rarity, and when one eventually does come to fruition in DC Comics‘ Absolute Universe, it will be worth the wait.

Source: CBR

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