What a crossover should be...

It seems when Marvel first started doing these big crossover events, they would span across various titles...think Mutant Massacre, Gang War, and the Avengers vs Defenders War. I loved all these stories, and it was a great way for Marvel to get readers to buy titles they may not have otherwise because they wanted to follow the story. To Marvels credit, you could just stick to the titles you liked and still not miss a beat for the most part, but collecting all the titles allowed you to follow what was happening from various perspectives.

The model Marvel uses today is more a miniseries format that may or may not spill over into the monthly titles. The most recent examples are Civil War, Dark Reign, World War Hulk, and now Age of Ultron. Sure, there were also stories like Secret Wars and the Infinity Gauntlet back in the day that had a miniseries with tie ins to the monthly titles but the tie ins were usually pretty weak and werent crucial to the main plot.

Spoiler Alert for anyone that hasnt read Uncanny Avengers yet...

On a completely unrelated note, just because its on my mind, I want to say that I am not a fan of the first story arc in Uncanny Avengers where the Red Skull puts Prof Xs brain in his head. First off, thats nasty, not to mention unrealistic. It also completely tarnishes the memory of such a great character. That would be like killing Peter Parker, taking the mind of Doc Ock and putting in Spidermans brain...oh wait. Seriously, is no one editing these storylines? Cmon Joe!

Ok, sorry for the tangent. Now back to our regularly scheduled journal...

I really miss the crossover events that did NOT include a miniseries. In fact I cant even think of the last time Marvel has done that in the past 10 years. Anyone? One of my favorite examples of this was the Xmen series, Fall of the Mutants. When it first came out I didnt collect every issue because I didnt want to spend money on titles that featured characters I didnt really care about so I passed on them. Now, years later, Ive gone back and collected them ALL, in addition to the aforementioned Mutant Massacre. Sure, I could have saved a bunch of money by buying the TPBs but I find it a lot more fun to open up each issue and read the stories as they were originally presented...old comic book smell and all. Its been a long time since I read these series, and there are some issues Ive never owned, so its going to be like reading them again for the first time and Im super stoked about that. What great series...creators like Marc Silvestri, Chris Claremont, and Walter Simonson. Villains like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Apocalypse, and the Shadow King. As far as crossover events, it doesn't get much better as far as Im concerned.

Lastly, thank you to Ronnylama and Tnerb for creating a registry set for Fall of the Mutants...might be a good idea to create one for Mutant Massacre, hint, hint. It was a big help in collecting the raw issues...though Im not sure how Hulk 340 relates, but I guess I will find out when I reread that classic issue again. Who knows, after I reread all the issues I may decide I want to get high grade slabbed issues of both sets, and get them all signed even. For anyone thats a fan of these characters and creators, I highly recommend collecting these sets for yourself...

Mutant Massacre

Uncanny Xmen 210

Uncanny Xmen 211

Uncanny Xmen 212

Uncanny Xmen 213

Uncanny Xmen 214

X-Factor 9

X-Factor 10

X-Factor 11

New Mutants 46

Thor 373

Thor 374

Power Pack 27

Daredevil 238

Fall of the Mutants

Uncanny Xmen 225

Uncanny Xmen 226

Uncanny Xmen 227

New Mutants 59

New Mutants 60

New Mutants 61

X-Factor 24

X-Factor 25

X-Factor 26

X-Factor 27

Captain America 339

Daredevil 252

Power Pack 35

Fantastic Four 312

Incredible Hulk 340

Til next time...

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