10 Comic Book Events That Changed Everything
Things were never the same again.
Comic book events; either you love them, or you avoid them like the plague... Still, love em or hate em, comic book events are a mainstay of graphic storytelling. They generate money, open doors for readers to jump on to new books and also give creators an opportunity to shuffle the deck, as it were. Besides, even the most jaded comic book reader has to admit that some comic book events are very worth reading and also that they have, in fact, served as vehicles for nearly every major change in modern comics. From early prototypes like The Coming of Galactus, to slick, high concept modern efforts like 52 and Blackest Night, events are a powerful force for change in comic books. OK, so before we go any further, lets address the elephant in the room. The definition of an event is a tricky one and kind of hard to pin down. For the purposes of this piece, were choosing to define an event via three specific rules... The story premise has to be fairly major (e.g. two super-aggressive alien species are going to war and earth is about to be caught in the crossfire). Tie-in books, whilst not essential to our definition, definitely help to identify the story as an event. Therefore, if you ever read an issue that discussed what Batgirl or Catwoman was up to whilst Batman was engaged in something heroic, then the chances are you can define it as an event (or, at least, a crossover) with relatively few arguments. A book series unto itself (e.g. Final Crisis). If the story is fairly recent, then the chances are it will take place within its own limited series, which may (or may not) tie-in to related monthly titles. Here, then, are 10 comic book events that had massive (in some cases, galaxy smashing) consequences...