Talk:Publication history of Marvel Comics crossover events

moved

This list was moved from the Marvel Universe page because the article had gotten too long. Note it was originally in the form of a table but I changed the format to allow more detail to be added to the events. Also note this page will only cover events that happened after Fantastic Four #1 (the "Modern Era" of the Marvel Universe.) Other events should be added to the Timeline of the Marvel Universe instead. Wilfredo Martinez 02:57, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Working definition

We need a working definition of "major event", with regard to this article and Major events of the DC Universe. My definition is that a major event affects the continuity of more than one character, team, or series. "Planet Hulk" affects the Incredible Hulk, so it is not a major event. "Civil War" affects everyone on American soil, and "Annihilation" affects everyone, so they are. My defintion does not affect certain items on this list, such as "The Night Gwen Stacy Died", which has been shown to affect characters other than Spider-Man. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 18:52, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. A story(line) is major if it is a landmark in the company's publishing history or is the focus of significant marketing and/or press. -- StAkAr Karnak 19:28, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

You're correct as long as we're talking about the publishing history of a company; but here we're talking about the continuity of a fictional universe. Otherwise we would have to add things such as the publication of Epic Comics or the Marvel/DC crossovers; those belong in other articles. I suggest we open this to discussion in the Wikicomics Notice Board until the matter is settled. -Wilfredo Martinez 20:48, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

As I stated on WP:CMC's talk page, a story is only "major" for ourselves as editors if a reputable secondary source deems it so. Anything else is POV or original research. --Newt_ΨΦ 01:38, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Therefore I added the "Unreferenced"-Template to encourage authors to cite such sources. If no sources saying the event is "major", the event is to be removed from this article. --Martin de la Iglesia 07:28, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions?

How about including the Psi Wars? Although it was a battle between Psylocke and Shadow King only, it also affected all psi-sensitive characters throughout the Marvel universe. Just a thought...

Affected, how? Was it a permanent (which I had started to make changes on this page yesterday, adding other events and making the chronology more precise but everything was removed. So bad...

70's event

In the definition of event, I think that duration can be a factor. This can be seen in the events I include. They are not all famous and several of them happen behind the scenes for months before being resolved in a main storyline but they crossed over at least two series. Even though by Contest of Champions/Secret Wars standard, they don't seem like events in the modern sense they were at the time major crossovers and the forerunners of modern events.

The Kree-Skrull War goes from Avengers 89 to 97, so this is not just oct 71 to Feb 72. The Inhumans feature in Amazing Adventures crossovers with it.

A big omission is the Thanos War. This ran in Captain Marvel, Daredevil, Avengers, Marvel Feature 11 and 12, Iron Man in 1973-74.

Several of Steve Englehart storylines could qualify: Avengers/Defenders War; Celestial Madonna; Secret Empire (Captain America, X-Men, Beast in Amazing Adventures), There is the Avengers (154-156) story that crossed over with Super-Villain Team-Up 8-10.

There was also the Mister Kline storyline that involved Iron Man and Daredevil over many months (DD 78-84, IM 41-45, Sub-Mariner 42, 1971)

The Villains War in Iron Man involved many villains (not just Iron Man villains) and lasted more than one year (IM 69-81, 1974-75)

There was the Conspiration storyline (mostly in Captain America and Hulk from 1977 to 1979 but also Machine Man)

The death of Gwen Stacy is not a major event of the Marvel Universe. It is a major event of Spider-Man as well as a major event of the history of comics.

There was a sub-plot crossing over several Marvel titles involving three mysterious figures from 1974 to 1979, one of them was revealed to be Tyrannus in Incredible Hulk in the conclusion to the story. (this had to do with earthquakes) (MTU 15,19,20,26,28; Uncanny X-Men 119, Hulk 209, 238-243)

In the eighties, there was a huge crossover with winter time (casket of ancient winters) and Dire Wraiths (from Rom). There was snow in all Marvel Comics and the Dire Wraiths appeared in X-Men and Fantastic Four.

On the other hand, Phoenix Saga concerns only the X-Men as well as Days of Future Past and even to a large degree Dark Phoenix Saga. The popularity of the X-Men tends to distort in importance what happens in their series and diminish what happens in other series. I don't see how Death of Captain Marvel, Kraven's last hunt and Clone Saga are majorevents of the fictional reality Marvel Universe--Leocomix 23:46, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Limit the number of events

Wouldn't this article be more helpful if much more helpful if (like Major events of the DC Universe) its list of "major events" was more limited to only the absolute biggest events of the Marvel U.--Darknus823 (talk) 05:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

That was my original intention, but, being part of a Wiki, it will ultimately contain what the general public wants to put in it, regardless of rules. The best we can do is keep an eye on its content as regularly as we can. I agree the article could use a good trimming. -Wilfredo Martinez (talk) 04:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Post-SI event

I took out the "Post Secret Invasion" listing, because there is currently no information about/for one. While it is highly likely that there will be something in regards to the fallout, it doesn't really need to be listed under "major events", just like "The Initiative" isn't listed as a post-Civil War "event". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.226.28.31 (talk) 08:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

New Events

I say we leave the "new events" off this page until they have enough information to get a page of their own. Then we just link to it like everything else here. MaxMillions (talk) 17:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

other universes

what about the major events in alternative universes, like Ultimat universe, and MC2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.25.252 (talk) 00:26, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Name

We categorise these under storylines and describe them as storylines as the actual "event" is in the story. So should this really be "Major storylines of the Marvel Universe"? It avoids any in-universe angle to it, as recommended by WP:WAF. Of course, the content also needs to be re-written in an out-of-universe style but it is a start. (Emperor (talk) 02:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC))

"Event" is not necessarily an in-universe term, since Marvel uses it in ads and press releases etc. It's simply the publisher's term for a major crossover storyline. Nevertheless, it may be true that the style of this article is too much in-universe and needs rewriting. --Martin de la Iglesia (talk) 22:47, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Huge presentist bias

As it stands, the 2000s, a decade which has seen comics sales slip to new lows and in which Marvel superheroes have become an increasingly niche interest, has almost twice as many "major events" as the 1960s, when the bulk of the Marvel Universe was established. This seems problematic. Is an event like Infinity Abyss or Cypher really a major event in the Marvel Universe? Does every single iteration of the Avengers over five years really deserve to be counted as a separate major event? Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Original research

Who is deciding what is a major event? What reliable third party sources are providing the criteria we are using here? --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:33, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

No sources are cited, so it's OK if you want to delete "events" that you don't consider "major".--Martin de la Iglesia (talk) 18:25, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect dates and Referencing

Some of the publication dates here are inaccurate - I'm trying to fix these as I do the referencing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sutekh666 (talk • contribs) 11:45, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I've finished referencing as far as I can for the moment - there's still some loose threads hanging here and there though. With events prior to 2008, if they're not listed in Marvel's own Chronicle, that would seem to call into question their status as "Major".comment added by Sutekh666

List getting bloated

It seems to me that the list is getting a bit bloated, especially in regards to recent material. It looks like there's a movement to include any storyline that has a TPB. I'd like to prune some of these back when I get a chance to include only the major story arcs that affect multiple characters, or are sufficiently notable in other ways. Any thoughts? Dayewalker (talk) 03:17, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I saw no objections here, so I pruned back some of the events that might not be classified as "major." I basically knocked out storylines that didn't have their own wikipedia articles. If anyone disagrees, feel free to revert, and we can talk it out on the talk page. Dayewalker (talk) 23:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Mention which ones you don't consider major. If you haven't read enough comics to understand their importance, and how many various comic book series were influenced by these actions, then you shouldn't be the one to prune. Dream Focus 00:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Dream Focus, I posted here on the talk page more than four days ago to ask for opinions (as other editors have done above). No one commented, so I was bold and removed some of what I considered lesser events. As I stated above, I removed mostly events not notable enough to have their own wikipedia page.

When I finished, I came back here to the talk page for discussion. Everything I've done, I've done in good faith here in hopes of pruning down a list that is both too long, and has too much emphasis on recent events. There's absolutely no need for you to tell me not to prune the article, or that I don't understand. I'm very well up on comics, thank you, and I was making a good faith attempt to improve the article.

Now that I've been bold and reverted, I'd like to hear what some of the other editors have to think. This list still seems very bloated to me. Dayewalker (talk) 00:33, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Try the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Comics perhaps to get more notice. No one is able to constantly keep track of every single article that interest them, their watchlist just overflowing each day so its hard to spot things. Dream Focus 01:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

My own problem is that you didn't cut enough still too much cruft here - many of those "notable" sources were never mentioned again. I have read the comics but that's the wrong measure - if reliable secondary sources don't mention those events, neither do we. We are interested in real world cultural importance, not that Thor dropped his cockring in issue 37 of Journeys up my anus. --Cameron Scott (talk) 07:00, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, no offense, but I'm not going to read that one. If I have it, I'm just going to keep it sealed in the bag with the collectible glow-in-the-dark rectal card from 1991.

As for the trimming, I figured I'd start small and try and get a discussion going here on what kind of criteria defines "major" event. All of these were events, really every storyline is an event. We need to discuss and define what makes an event worthy of making the list. I'm all for that. Dayewalker (talk) 07:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• How about this: The incident led to a massive crossover, that lasted months, in a dozen or so different comic book titles. Or it showed the creation or reappearance of a notable character which has been around now for decades. Or the character spent decades in the comics trying to become king of their land, and finally accomplished that goal. The Annihilation Wave was featured in many comics, and the resulting events were used as a reason for other massive changes in the comic book world. Such as the Kree getting wiped out so badly, that then the Phalanx was able to take over for a time, and the group gathered to fight them later became the Guardians of the Galaxy, getting their own comic book series. Also, they were beaten so badly, that the Inhumans, a long established group in the Marvel Universe, moved their city from the moon to the Kree homeworld, to become its rulers. This and other factors make the Annihilation Wave important to mention. Discuss any parts you don't think notable here, before making any chances, and we'll discuss it. Dream Focus 11:19, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not what happens in the comics that are important, it's that people talk about them in reliable sources. Bloodlines was a major storyline in the comics - nobody talked about it, Systembytes was a major storyline in the comics - nobody talks about it. We don't care about the internal impact on the marvel universe, we care about the real world impact. The death of Gwen Stacy is notable because it's been covered in multiple reliable sources. We could fill this up with cruft but it get sent on it's way to AFD if that's what we are going to do.--Cameron Scott (talk) 11:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

And half of the blue links this article links to should be deleted or merged, they are simply run of the mill storylines. --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• News coverage of notable events and crossovers is quite easy to find. I added one reference. You should read the article. Dream Focus 11:33, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The article list things that have gotten mentioned in legitimate news sites and other media, proving they were notable events. They got significant coverage. Dream Focus 11:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

No it's proves they got published, on that basis we could add every comic published in the last twenty years to this list. --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree here, just finding coverage of the event doesn't necessarily make it "major." We know these things happened, they were written about in the trades, the ads and promos piled up, the issues came out, and TPB collections followed. However, that doesn't make them major events.

This might be something that has to be taken on a case-by-case basis until we get some ground rules. Let me try and use a couple of examples to help show my point. The Kree-Skrull War of the 70's was a major event, even though it wasn't a crossover (which didn't regularly occur at the time, anyway). The event affected the comics of the time, was reprinted in several different formats, and went on to have continuing influence all the way to Operation: Galactic Storm and the Secret Invasion. It's a major Marvel event that characters still refer to, and is still relevant.

Compare that to say, The Rise of the Midnight Sons crossover of 90's Ghost Rider. It was a big deal at the time and started several other series, all supernatural spinoffs of the Danny Ketch Ghost Rider book, which was a big hit for Marvel at the time. The crossover happened with all due hype and advertising, a TPB came out, and it seemed like a big deal at the time. However, it had no impact long-term. None of the new books lasted long, the TPB fell out of print, and it was never really referred to again. It was an event, but not a major event by any stretch of the imagination.

I think each event needs to be considered. House of M and Decimation are major events that make an effect. Phalanx Covenant, I'm not sure about. Necrosha, I don't think we can say is major yet, it doesn't even have it's own article.

Any thoughts? Dayewalker (talk) 03:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• If there is enough significant coverage, we could easily make an article for these events. Lack of an article doesn't make it less valid. I'm thinking we could find some sites that actually said these were major events, but COMMON SENSE allows us to form a consensus on what should be kept without needing them at all. There are some who wanted to delete the article entirely, but fortunately wiser heads prevailed. If it had a significant crossover which also had lasting impact, launching new series that were sustained, or reshaping the world in ways mentioned in most other Marvel comics for quite some time, then it should count. And the Phalanx are relevant, since they were refused on several occasions, by different groups, and actually conquered all of Kree space, wiping out most of them, and built a mostly impenetrable force field all around it. Dream Focus 20:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

"but COMMON SENSE allows us to form a consensus on what should be kept without needing them at all." em.. no.. that's the wrong idea - common sense varies and that's why we use reliable sources. I mean.. Contest of Champions 2? please... It's not what happens in the in-universe storytelling that's important, it's the discussion in scholarly and other sources. Let me give you an example, within DC comics, the original vigilante killing himself is a minor story but it's an important event in the publication history because it's one of the first examples of a hero killing themselves and says something about the changes to the intended audience for comics during the 1980s. --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:02, 18 September 2009 (UTC) --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:02, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• Spider-man getting a new custom, got massive media coverage. Did it change the Marvel world though? It introduced the venom symbiote, of course, which is still around today, and had its own series now and again. And they used those creatures as an enemy against others at times, Dr. Doom even hitting all of New York city with some in an attack. But I don't think it had any lasting effect. Spider-man breaking the comic book code by having a friend die from a drug overdose got plenty of coverage, and changed things, people no longer mindlessly following the idiotic code, but instead thinking for themselves over what was appropriate and what was not. Dream Focus 21:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

the ones I added back in and why

• Mystique's attempted assassination wasn't just a major point in the comic book, but also in the high rated X-men cartoon as well. Days of Future Past was a high selling often reviewed and rather notable story about this. The senator later was featured through the X comics, remembering the X-men had saved him. First time we were shown the nightmare future with mutant survivors kept in camps, and most dead.

My mistake. That is something else, a different entry already on the list. In this one long running support characters died, plus an X-men who has been dead too many times for any to take seriously. Dream Focus 21:22, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• Annihilation Conquest is important as it launched many successful ongoing comics. Guardians of the Galaxy came out of it, Nova got a new series, plus other things came into play. Read the article about it to learn more.
• Thor becoming king, getting the Odin force, and the king of the Norse gods dying, is important, those stories not just in the very long running Thor series, but also involving the Avenger books.
• X-Men: Messiah Complex is a notable crossover, since it didn't just include all of the X-books, but also launched Cable's new comic book series(going well for a year and a half now), and had affects elsewhere. Showed how Bishop created the nightmare future he was trying to prevent, different X-men going through time to help fight him. Dream Focus 21:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Daredevil and the Kingpin

The Kingpin's obsession with Daredevil caused many notable stories to take place in that one comic book. The Kingpin has also featured heavily throughout the Marvel universe. But this isn't the first time he appeared. I don't read Daredevil, so can't comment on how important the first meeting was. Was the obsession he had for defeating Daredevil, felt in other comic books? Anyone know? I know the obsession was mentioned in Spider-man comics, that explained for his ruin at one point. Just bringing it up so something isn't eliminated by mistake. Dream Focus 21:26, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Much much later - post "born again". --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)