As a comic book enthusiast one of the things I find interesting is the mega-event/crossover.  The funny thing is these events are supposed to tie up the reader so that they will purchase a bunch of books that they normally wouldn’t in hopes that they might gain an understanding as to how the fictional universe that they have invested so much time is going to change.  The first one I remember was “Secret War” in which all the Marvel comics characters got whisked away to another planet to fight each other… the biggest thing to come out of that was the villian “Venom.”

DC Comics countered with “Crisis on Infinite Earths” which was their way of hitting the “reset” button on their entire universe.  Kind of like needing to reboot your computer because it is running too slow.  Everyone was brought up to date and origin stories were tweeked to make sense in the “modern” 1980’s.

Both of these worked so well that it seems like every summer there was an “Epic event that will change the universe forever.”  This built up until most recently both Marvel & DC have basically been running their entire universe in “Crisis” mode.  Marvel had a Civil War, Secret Invasion… etc. leading up to their “Heroic Age.”  DC  started with “Identity Crisis” which lead into another crisis, which lead into “52” which then went to “Countdown” which lead to “Final Crisis” which carried over to “Blackest Night” and now “Brightest Day.”  All of these are either outside the normal comics or weaved into a bunch of titles so if you want to read the story you need to read everything- making money for the comic company.  The funny thing is the end result of all of this will be… nothing.

Yes, you heard it here first.  Civil War ended with the death of Captain America- he’s back!  Crisis on Infinite Earths ended with the deaths of numerous heroes including the Flash… guess what?  He’s back! (OK it took 25 years to finally bring him back, but still).  Batman was killed just so he can return. Superman’s death made the news (and DC Comics lots of money).

My mother watches soap operas… She, like many others, can’t miss “her shows”  living on the West coast she even has the East coast feed so she can get them earlier.  I have my comics- I can get frustrated (you should hear my mom go off on some of the crazy story lines in her soaps) but, I’m a geek and I will plunk down my thirty-five cents for each issue… huh?  When did comics go to $2.99?