The big summer event may have begun in earnest with Crisis Of Infinite Earths in the eighties, but crossovers will still happening in fits and starts on both sides of the comic industry. An early success for Marvel came in the seventies with the Kree-Skrull War, an Avengers story arc by Roy Thomas, Neal Adams and the Brothers Buscema. With a huge scope, big changes to the universe, a massive cast of characters and some real-world allegory to boot, the Kree-Skrull War set the template for all Marvel crossover events to come. Writing by the seat of pants throughout, Thomas stitched together a grand space opera that hits the ground running as Captain Marvel tumbles out of the mysterious Negative Zone with a lethal dose of radiation, and...actually, nothing that happens afterwards really comes out of this, and the events of the crossover are sort of random and without any logical narrative progression. But what events they are! Kree outlaw Ronan the Accuser plans to literally send Earth back into the Stone Age, all the better to use as a base to attack his alien race's mortal enemies - the shape-shifting Skrulls - with. The Avengers, meanwhile, try and defend the Kree-born Captain Marvel from a public increasingly frustrated with being caught in the middle of a galactic grudge match. The team also face Skrulls disguised as cows, are recruited by the Inhumans (because the Fantastic Four are nowhere to be found), regain their public standing and manage to free Captain Marvel from his Skrull captors whilst brokering peace between them and the Kree. Oh, yeah, and the political allegory comes in the form of sleeper agents on both the Skrull and Kree sides who infiltrate the Avengers and have a McCarthy-esque branch of government questioning the Un-Americanness of the country's mightiest heroes. Big, brash, ridiculous comic book storytelling with some truly gorgeous art, this is a bonafide classic.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
