Once upon a time, Marvel Comics released an event miniseries called Secret Wars. This brought almost every major hero and villain together for a crossover series that changed everything fans knew about the world. At that time, it was unique and special. However, in the current comic book landscape, it is just another year.
Instead of event series that brings everyone together and changes the status quo being unique, Marvel and DC seem to do it every single year. By this point, not every event series means as much as the rest. With these becoming less and less special, here is a look at the five most and five least influential event comics in Marvel's history.
10 SECRET WARS - MOST
Marvel's Secret Wars was the comic event series that started it all. At the time, it was groundbreaking, and the format was unusual. The individual comics ended with the heroes disappearing. The next issues had them back, with some pretty significant changes. Then, the miniseries explained how these changes happened.
It was revolutionary at the time. Spider-Man had a black costume, and Secret Wars is what introduced Venom to the Marvel Universe. She-Hulk joined the Fantastic Four, and Thing remained off-planet. More happened, but this was significant because it showed Marvel that event comics sold big.
9 AXIS - LEAST
Axis brought back Red Skull as a major villain as the former Nazi madman took over the abilities of Professor X and spread fear throughout the world. This led to the fractured teams of the X-Men and Avengers having to scramble to stop him.
The most exciting part of this was the Inversion, where heroes became villains, and villains became heroes, although a heroic Carnage is still too strange to accept. By the end, nothing had changed outside of Thor losing his worthiness of holding Mjolnir and Tony Stark becoming the Superior Iron Man.
8 CIVIL WAR - MOST
Civil War was arguably the most influential Marvel events comic of the last two decades. This changed everything in Marvel, as it set heroes against each other when it came to the reason they fight. Iron Man, while believing he was doing the right thing, created a hard line in the sand. Captain America crossed it.
The series ended with Captain America dead, heroes no longer trusting each other, and longstanding relationships fractured and destroyed. This was the series that changed Marvel the most and was influential enough to get the big-screen treatment.
7 AGE OF ULTRON - LEAST
Yes, Civil War got the big-screen treatment, showing how influential that the event comic book series was. However, when it comes to Age of Ultron, which was the event series that hit the big-screen first, it was the opposite. The comic book event series only existed because the movie story was coming.
Age of Ultron came out in 2013, two years before Avengers: Age of Ultron hit theaters. The two have nothing in common outside of Ultron being the bad guy. This is an alternate world comic, and outside of Hank Pym getting his mojo back, it had no real, lasting effect that matters in Marvel Comics.
6 HOUSE OF M - MOST
If House of M did anything, it proved how powerful and dangerous Scarlet Witch is. This series followed the Avengers series Avengers Disassembled, where Scarlet Witch had a mental breakdown and caused the deaths of Hawkeye, Ant-Man, and Vision.
In House of M, she continues to fall and recreates reality, making mutants the dominant species. However, by the end of the Marvel event series, Wanda realizes her errors and creates an even bigger mistake — she depowers over 91 percent of all mutants.
5 FEAR ITSELF - LEAST
The idea behind Fear Itself was an interesting one. Following Siege, Red Skull's daughter Sin found the Hammer of Skadi and used it to raise Odin's brother Cul, bringing The Serpent's War, which threatened to destroy everything and capture the throne of Asgard. Odin and the Asgardians fled Earth, and the war began.
The series ended with a huge moment, as Thor died. However, as with anything in Marvel Comics, this was short-lived, and when Thor returned, it pretty much made that sacrifice meaningless.
4 SECRET INVASION- MOST
Secret Invasion allowed Marvel to achieve a goal while also bringing back one of its most interesting villains — the Skrulls. The Secret Invasion had several superheroes return from the dead. However, many of them were just Skrulls posing as the former heroes.
It also allowed Marvel to bring some heroes back from the dead, as this was a longrunning plan by the Skrulls, who kidnapped many heroes to build their needed forces. A slight retelling of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this was a fun series that brought heroes back and had Norman Osborn use the events to take over and start the Dark Reign storyline.
3 CIVIL WAR II - LEAST
The first Civil War changed the entire Marvel Universe. It made sense that the company would go back to the well one more time to try to recapture that success and make even more money. The problem is that the second series was nowhere near as great as the first.
This time, Iron Man changed sides, no longer supporting the government's ideas of policing superheroes. At the same time, Captain Marvel decided she wanted to punish people who never did anything wrong because a precog claimed they would. It was just a retelling of the Philip K. Dick story Minority Report, but with superheroes.
2 THE INFINITY GAUNTLET - MOST
The entire world knows about the Infinity Gauntlet thanks to the MCU. However, before Thanos snapped out half of existence in Avengers: Infinity War, he did it in the pages of The Infinity Gauntlet Marvel event series. While there have been many different Thanos event series, this is still the pinnacle of quality.
This had differences from the movies, such as the appearance of Mephisto, Death, The Silver Surfer, and Adam Warlock — all in pivotal roles. When it comes to the Marvel Cosmic Universe, this might be the most influential event series of them all.
1 INHUMANS VS X-MEN - LEAST
As mentioned earlier, Marvel loves to repeat their successes, hoping to recreate that lightning in a bottle that came the first time around. It didn't work in Civil War, and it didn't work in the X-Men war comics either. Avengers vs. X-Men was a giant event series that brought about wholesale changes in Marvel, including the death of Professor X.
However, while Cyclops died in Inhumans vs. X-Men, nothing about this series holds strong in the end. The Inhumans wanted to release the terrigen mists over the Earth, but the X-Men know it will kill mutants. Instead of working with each other, they fought because Emma Frost decided to go bad again. That is about the extent of this Marvel event series.