Somewhere in the murky area between concepts like creative storytelling continuity and marketing ploy lies the ever divisive "comic book publishing event". While often just seen as a marketing device to sell more books at an inflated cost, comic book events often readers some of the most interesting and memorable moments. The first time Spider-Man wore what would become the symbiote suit was in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 [1985], from there the symbiote would eventually come into its own as a character after it later merged with Eddie Brock creating Venom.
All of those key moments near and dear to readers were completely fueled by a collaboration between Marvel and Mattel so the toy company could stay ahead of its competitor, Kenner, who had just been licensed by DC. With this complicated foxtrot between creativity and consumerism, we look back at some of the best and worst comic book events of the past decade:
10 Civil War II - WORST
How do you follow up one of the most successful and influential Marvel events of all time that spawned one of the best comic book films of the past decade? The truth is that you don't, but lord knows that didn't stop Marvel. They decided to double down and give us a knock off Minority Report with tights. They introduced a new Inhuman character named Ulysses (whose superpowers are precognition and being completely forgettable), only to have him ascend to cosmic Watcher status; and we all know exactly how many titles those guys get.
9 Cartoon Network: Super Secret Crisis War - BEST
One of the low-key best crossovers everyone wanted whether they knew it or not. Samurai Jack, Dexter, The Powerpuff Girls, and other Cartoon Network classics team up in the Secret Wars/Crisis on Infinite Earths homage to defeat Aku, Mandark, and Mojo Jojo before they can complete their evil plans. Its all pretty stand fare, but the real magic is in the dialog and action sequences. Any 90's kids will get a kick out of watching these characters interact and gel as a team.
8 DC Rebirth - WORST
Lots of fans weren't stoked about a lot of what was happening in the new 52, so in 2015 around the same time Marvel is launching Secret Wars, DC launches their multiverse reboot effort Rebirth in an attempt to revitalize their titles by folding Watchmen characters into the main universe.
While it began strong the event soon lost momentum as it was spread out over too many titles over too long a period of time. In fact, DC is just now wrapping up the second act of Rebirth, Doomsday Clock. (We're not even going to touch on everything wrong with Watchmen being brought into main DC continuity because that's just shooting fish in a barrel.)
7 House of X/Powers of X - BEST
Marvel learned back in 2015 if you want a property completely rebooted but left entirely intact that Jonathan Hickman is the guy to call. Pulling from some of the best X-Men storylines, this event features bold yet reverent new takes on existing characters and ideas to create an X-Men experience that stands up to any Hugo award-winning high-fantasy science fiction story. One of the most notable moments of features human geneticist Moira McTaggert revealing herself to Xavier as one of the most powerful mutants alive.
6 Original Sin - WORST
Retroactive continuity (retcon) is kind of like the double edge sword of storytelling mechanics. If done well, it can reframe and refresh a whole narrative. if not executed well, it removes the gravity of the narrative. So, the brain trust Marvel decides to do an entire event around dropping a literal truth-bomb and retconning pretty much the backstory of most A-list avengers and by extension entire history of Earth-616. The best thing about this event was learning some back story about the Watchers and the introduction of The Man on the Wall.
5 The Court of Owls/Night of the Owls - BEST
This story from Scott Snyder introduces the evil organization The Court of Owls, which has been quietly running Gotham for centuries. Not only do you learn that they have been pulling the strings around the Wayne family for quite some time, but you also learn a lot about the early history of Gotham and that The Flying Graysons were more than they appeared to be. Now, THIS is how to do a retcon.
4 Inhumans vs. X-Men - WORST
In the dark times, before Disney had acquired the rights to 20th Century Fox and it seemed there was no hope for an MCU X-men franchise. So, in probably one of the smartest/petty moves ever, Marvel attempts to essentially kill and shelve both the X-Men and Fantastic Four characters. But how to do it? Well, Civil Was popular, so was Avengers vs. X-Men...and thus begins Inhumans vs. X-Men. In a very on-the-nose turn of events, Terrigen mists, which empowers Inhumans, actually kills mutants.
3 DC Meets Hanna-Barbera - BEST
One of the things that DC is low-key amazing at is conceptual crossovers with unlikely properties that only seem incompatible. Time-traveling Booster Gold encounters the Flintstones; Green Lantern and Space Ghost team up; and Suicide Squad gets mixed up with the Banana Splits.
DC even created a Hanna-Barbera super-team title Future Quest, featuring Johnny Quest, The Herculoids, and Birdman, who seems to have returned to adventuring after a stint as an attorney.
2 Death of X - WORST
Once again, in previously mentioned dark times, Marvel tried to kill off the mutants (again), this time once and for all (again). In this story, the mutants are literally killed off by the very thing that gives the Inhumans their powers: Terrigen mists, which gives mutants M-Pox (again). The plan, as it seemed, was to have the X-Men titles canceled and replaced with the Inhumans, which was at the time on the slate as an MCU film (which didn't pan out) but later turned into a TV series (which also didn't pan out). Aside from the obvious effort to kill an IP, the twist was a little cliche and it felt like everything about this was just a little off-key.
1 Secret Wars [2015] - BEST
What is widely considered to be one of the best events ever for Marvel, let alone the past decade. Jonathan Hickman reset the new gold standard established by other events like Infinity Gauntlet and the original Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars by legendary Jim's, Starlin and Shooter, respectively. This event not only rebooted the Marvel multiverse, but it also tied together decades of comic book storylines and served as the third act to the original Secret Wars event.