Comics events are sort of old hat and formulaic by now. Readers know exactly what to expect- the status quo will be shattered (for about a year until the next status quo shattering), there will be some kind of major character to change or death, et cetera. This formula can work with the right creative team, but it also can lead to reader fatigue if it's used too much (looking at you, Marvel).

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The granddaddy of this formula is Crisis On Infinite Earths and it's still the one that did it best. Like the tag line said- "Worlds died. Worlds lived. And nothing was ever the same." The argument can be made that CoIE is the greatest event book ever. However, the same argument can be made for Marvel's most famous event, Infinity Gauntlet. This list is going to lay out the reasoning behind both of these suppositions.

10 Infinity Gauntlet: Spotlighting The Cosmic Side Of Things

One can argue about what things each of the Big Two do better than the other, but one place where Marvel definitively wins is on the cosmic side of things. DC has the Fourth World and the Green Lantern Corps stuff, but other than that, it's slim pickings.

Marvel's cosmic stuff is just so much more expansive than DC's. There's an entire pantheon of cosmic beings, great characters like Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, and Pip the Troll, and it's just more fun in general than Marvel. Add in the fact that Jim Starlin, one of the primary architects of the best parts of Marvel's cosmic universe, is the writer of Infinity Gauntlet and quality was guaranteed.

9 Crisis On Infinite Earths: The Art

George Perez will go down in history as one of the greatest artists in the history of the comic book medium. He combined an insane eye for detail (he draws the best backgrounds in comics) with amazing figure work and the ability to cram an excessive amount of characters onto a page without any of them looking sketchy and some of the best action penciling ever.

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All of this was on display in CoIE. It all looks so gorgeous. No other artist could capture the scale and scope of the events of CoIE like George Perez. He would also draw about half of Infinity Gauntlet, but as good as his work there is, it still pales in comparison to what did in CoIE.

8 Infinity Gauntlet: It's Way More Character Focused Than It Seems Like It Would Be

While it's full of bombast, great set pieces, and action, Infinity Gauntlet is very much a character-focused book. While it involves the entire Marvel Universe, the book's narrative is split between two poles- Thanos and Adam Warlock.

Thanos wants the power of the Gauntlet so he can get Death to love him. The story acts as a reintroduction of Adam Warlock to the Marvel Universe, laying out who he is and why he fights for a whole new generation of fans who weren't around in the 70s.

7 Crisis On Infinite Earths: A Love Letter To The History Of The DC Universe

Crisis would prove to be the end of many beloved concepts that had been a huge part of DC Comics since the Silver Age. Vast swathes of the stories would be invalidated, the history of everything changed forever. Characters like the Earth-2 version of Dick Grayson were going to go away forever.

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As such, writer Marv Wolfman and Perez made sure to treat the whole thing lovingly. Reading CoIE today, many years removed from the continuity it was referencing, readers still get a sense of the history that it was spotlighting and how vast and amazing the whole thing was.  Even without ever having read, say, All-Star Squadron, the Earth-2 centric book, readers get a sense of why these characters were so important and develop an affection for them and their universes.

6 Infinity Gauntlet: Infinity Gauntlet #4

The first three issues of Infinity Gauntlet set things up expertly, laying out the threat of Thanos with the Gauntlet, showing the after-effects of The Snap, and Adam Warlock marshaling the remaining heroes. But with Infinity Gauntlet #4, creators had the intrepid heroes finally take on the threat known as Thanos.

For anyone that hasn't already read the comics or watched the film adaptation--spoiler alert: they all die. Thanos destroys them in inventive and interesting ways. The issue is a highlight of the book.

5 Crisis On Infinite Earths: The Deaths

Barry Allen's Death in Crisis on Infinite Earths

Beyond most of the Multiverse dying, Crisis On Infinite Earths has some of the most affecting death scenes in comics. The book opens with the Crime Syndicate of Earth-3 dying and while they have always been villains, their deaths are treated with poignancy and respect that makes them really hit the reader.

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Elsewhere in the book, the deaths of Supergirl and Barry Allen are expertly done, hard-hitting moments that really underline the stakes of the story. Their deaths were almost like metaphors for the ending of so many Silver Age concepts that CoIE was putting pastures and they would have repercussions that would echo through the DC Universe for years.

4 Infinity Gauntlet: The Making Of Thanos

Thanos-Infinity-Gauntlet-4-Come-and-Get-Me-Header

Before Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos was a powerful villain, but he wasn't a big deal. Before this story, he had been sparingly used outside of Starlin's other work. This book would solidify him as one of the biggest bads of the Marvel Universe.

While he's not Marvel's best villain, Infinity Gauntlet would build him into a threat that the whole Marvel Universe would be afraid of. Thanos became the one intergalactic everyone feared and very few (or, out of necessity, very many) can defeat.

3 Crisis On Infinite Earths: Character Matters

In a big event book like this one, it would be easy to focus on the huge happenings going on and losing sight of the characters that the events are happening to, but Wolfman never does this. While there's so much going on that he can't really put a lot of focus on any one character for a significant amount of time, all of the characters feel like themselves and their reactions to the events of the story are genuine.

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There are so many great little character moments in this book, ones that underline the events taking place and give them more weight.

2 Infinity Gauntlet: Inspiration For The Biggest Movie Franchise Ever

The legacy of Infinity Gauntlet is the MCU. Throughout the course of Phase One, the filmmakers give little hints and set up what would be thrown into 2012's Avengers before really got the ball rolling for the whole thing. This inspiration became the backdrop for so much of the MCU, one of the connective tissues that enthralled audiences.

It would all come to fruition with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, two movies that would cement the MCU's place in cinema history.

1 Crisis On Infinite Earths: Embracing Change

Crisis On Infinite Earths was an audacious undertaking. It's entire purpose was to destroy the DC Multiverse that fans had spent years reading about and replacing it with something completely new. No one was sure if it would work or if fans would embrace it.

It set the bar for event comics forever after it. It had it all- action, drama, death, and huge stakes. It changed everything about DC Comics for years to come and its frankly surprising that DC embraced the changes of the story in the way it did. Changes like the ones in this story were unprecedented at the time and, with some exceptions, still are. No other story will ever be as big as Crisis On Infinite Earths.

NEXT: Crisis On Infinite Earths: 5 Things From The Comics We're Glad The Show Kept (& 5 We're Sad Got Left Out)