Crossover events, if done correctly, can be an incredibly satisfying way to tell and consume
a story.
It’s a method of storytelling and marketing that comic book publishers have made use of
for years now.
And while some have been majorly successful both commercially and critically in the past,
others, well, just didn’t have what it takes to cut it.
So today, we’re taking a look at some of those, from marvel in particular, with our
list of the top 10 worst marvel crossovers.
10 Civil War 2 While the first Civil War may have been liked
by some but disliked by others, most people can agree – Civil War 2 was not a solid
follow up to its predecessor.
The crossover was initiated not to continue a civil war storyline, but rather, to act
as a cross promotion for the MCU’s Captain America Civil War feature film, which was
arguably significantly better than this comic story arc.
This time around, the beef is between Iron Man and a different captain – Captain Marvel.
An inhuman with precognitive powers is discovered – Carol Danvers thinks the heroes of earth
should use his powers to predict crimes and prevent them from happening.
Tony Stark argues against that, believing they shouldn’t.
It’s a whole debate between free will and determinism.
And it gets messy.
A lot of people were bummed that Civil War 2 basically turned Carol Danvers’ Captain
Marvel into a fascist like character, with her even having Ms Marvel Kamala Khan run
around with a youth militia of sorts.
Overall, it was a story arc that was executed poorly, despite conceptually having some solid
potential.
9 Original Sin Original Sin is a cross over that has gotten
mixed reviews – some fans really loved it, while others were pretty disappointed.
This is primarily because of how the cross over was marketed – readers thought we were
going to get an awesome cosmic murder mystery.
The premise of the event is that Uatu the Watcher has been found murdered, and our favourite
heroes end up investigating the crime, with Black Panther having a lead over in Wakanda,
and the Avengers heading on over the Watcher’s base on the moon.
It was also predictable – many readers figured out the story’s twist long before it even
occurred, making for an anti-climatic conclusion.
Some loved it for how weird the whole thing was, and that it did things like explore unlikely
pairings, like Doctor Strange and the Punisher working together.
Throughout the story, some major secrets pertaining to Marvel heroes’ lives are revealed, including
Tony Stark being involved in Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk while he was drunk, the
Human Torch had an opportunity to turn the Thing back to normal, Cindy Moon’s existence,
that Daredevil’s mother suffered from paranoia from her postpartum depression and tried to
abuse him as a baby, etc, etc.
Other secrets weren’t as bad, like Lockjaw finding out the location of where he hid a
bone.
8 DC Versus Marvel DV versus Marvel is exactly what it sounds
like.
It’s generally a cross over that many have nostalgic feelings for, being a popular one
that came out in the 90s.
But really, its just a giant mashup of DC and Marvel characters duking it out, with
battle pair ups that some readers didn’t agree with – sorry, but there’s no way
that wolverine could have beaten Lobo.
Anywho, the story threading it altogether was lack luster, making the crossover feel
more like a fantasy fan service attempt rather than something substantial.
But one good thing did come out of DC Versus Marvel, and that’s the amalgam universe
– an alternate reality in which DC and Marvel characters were amalgamated together – like
Wolverine and Batman becoming Dark Claw.
Their origin stories would be a combination of both characters, along with their storylines.
Silver linings, people, silver linings.
7 Age of Ultron Age of Ultron is a 2013 cross over event,
which is very different than the Avengers Age of Ultron MCU film.
This story arc takes place across two earths – 26111 and 61112, the former being an earth
where Morgan le Fay took over half the world, the latter being an earth in which Ultron
had annihilated all of humanity.
The biggest criticism of this crossover was the fact that it felt more like it belonged
as a What If title rather than an event of its own.
Many readers felt that the heroes featured on these alternate earths, who were trying
to survive in Ultron’s harsh reality, made flat out bad or uncharacteristic decisions.
And, the worst part?
Ultron wasn’t even really in the series all that much – for an event to be named
after a specific character, you’d like they’d be one of the main individuals we’d follow
throughout the story, but nope, not the case with this one.
6 AXIS The AXIS crossover was essentially a massive
inversion of all Marvel’s characters which hit stands in 2014.
Long story short, Red Onslaught – who is basically a psychically OP Red Skull - ends
up inverting all of the heroes and villains, making the heroes into the baddies, and the
villains into the good guys.
While that’s a pretty dope premise, it floundered – all of the characters fell into some hard-core
trope territory, feeling super two dimensional rather than actually exploring complex storylines.
Doctor Doom in particular got a lot of outrage, becoming a hollowed version of a character
that was ripe with potential under a concept like this.
5 Secret Empire Ah the famous Captain America is a secret
nazi story arcs.
Prior to Secret Empire, Marvel released a series titled Captain America Steve Rogers
which revealed that the patriotic hero was actually a sleeper agent for HYDRA all along.
You can see why that pissed people off.
Anywho, Secret Empire was the story of HYDRA using this fascist Cap to attempt to take
over the world – something that had been set up for a long time in the Marvel universe.
It all crumbles though when its revealed that HYDRA Cap is actually an alternate reality
Cap and the real 616 Cap was never a nazi.
It felt like a major cop out to just get sales and media attention, especially being released
in 2017, hot off of some major political drama over in the US concerning the rise of neo-nazis
after Trump’s election.
I mean, comics are historically inspired by the socio-political context of the times,
ever since newspaper comics were first introduced in the late 1890s, so hey, makes sense.
Still pissed off a lot of people though.
4 Heroes Reborn Heroes Reborn is disliked for two major reasons.
First off, it was a pretty bad attempt at relaunching some of the titles at Marvel that
weren’t doing so hot in the sales department, and some of the stories just weren’t well
written.
The second reason, and perhaps the one that most really felt passionate about, is the
fact that the art work is complete garbage.
You’re probably familiar with this notorious image of Captain America, whose chest is basically
a whole shelf.
You could put a TV on that thing.
It’s ridiculous.
Criticized for being incorrectly proportioned and just flat out ugly, the plot line was
frustrating at best.
After everyone was killed off by Onslaught in the 616 universe, it was explained that
everyone was reborn by being transported to a pocket universe by Franklin Richards, in
which character’s origins and histories were revised and updated for ‘modern audiences’.
Sales were low, and a lot of the changes that were made were unfavourable amongst fans.
3 Avengers The Crossing The Crossing is the crossover that threatened
to ruin Iron Man completely.
It essentially takes his character, makes him into something that no one recognizes
and everyone hated, then basically undoes all of the damage by introducing a younger
Tony Stark, killing off the bad Tony Stark, replacing him with young Tony Stark, all to
only be retconned out of existence years later.
It was dumb.
So essentially, Tony Stark goes on a rampage after he falls under the influence of Kang
the Conqueror, which brings forth an even worse revelation – that Tony Stark has ALWAYS
been under the influence of Kang the Conqueror.
Wait a second, where does this sound familiar?
Secret Empire, is that you??
Anywho, the Avengers pull teenage Tony Stark out of another reality and use him to defeat
Kang Stark.
Also, Janet Van Dyne is turned into an actual wasp and that was weird AF.
2 Secret Wars 2 The Secret Wars crossover event was considered
a huge success, and many readers feel it’s one of Marvel’s best crossovers to date.
Even if it was a crossover whose initial purpose was to solely sell toys to kids.
That success can’t be said of it’s follow up cross over though, Secret Wars 2.
It came out shortly after the first Secret Wars, the following year, written by Jim Shooter,
and plopped our favourite Marvel characters back into conflict with the Beyonder, whose
having a whole existential crisis about the meaning of life.
The Beyonder ends up popping over to Earth, and is incredibly childlike, learning about
human life.
There’s even a part where Peter Parker teaches him how to use a bathroom.
This child like Beyonder ends up deciding he wants Earth for himself, the product of
a massive ego trip, and he ends up getting killed by Molecule Man after he tries to destroy
the entire multiverse after he fails to find enlightenment.
Really, it’s the Beyonder’s story rather than a story about Marvel’s beloved heroes.
And a lot of whining ensued, too.
No thanks.
1 Ultimatum Ultimatum is often considered the cross over
event that destroyed the Ultimate universe.
Both metaphorically and literally.
Taking place on Earth 1610, the Ultimate Marvel universe provided fans with re-imagined and
modernized versions of the Marvel character roster, which including new origin stories
and even some quite unsettling characterizations.
It was really neat.
But in 2004, a lot of the creatives spearheading the Ultimate universe line of comics departed
from it, leaving Marvel believing that the only way to keep interest in it and ensure
its survival was the do a massive crossover event.
In the stories leading up to ultimatium, there was a whole lot of gratuitous violence and
deaths, along with a whole lot of shock value, and pretty much ditched everything tonally
that made the ultimate comics great to begin with.
The miniseries was panned by critics everywhere, and Ultimatum itself was not only a commercial
failure, but is also considered by many to be one of the worst comic books of all time.
The story killed off thirty four characters, and because of it’s failure, ultimate x-men
and ultimate fantastic four were cancelled.
So what’s some of the weird crap that goes on it in?
The Blob eats the wasp, cannibal style.
Hank Pym returns the favour by growing in size and then biting the blob’s head off.
Doctor Strange’s head explodes thanks to him being strangled by his cape.
Yeah, it gets nasty.
There we have it friends!