10. Crisis On Infinite Earths Heralds The Crossover Event
The summer crossover event in comic books have become as much as certainty as their blockbuster cinema brethren. Every year, the Big Two - Marvel and DC - and sometimes their smaller competitors link all of their major titles together to tell one huge, sweeping story where the stakes are so high that a whole universe of superheroes/action figure properties/old TV show characters have to pool their resources to defeat it. And fans have to pool their resources to be able to afford to read all of these comics. Crossovers themselves were nothing new, but the universe-wide crossover that was self-consciously a major event began with 1985's Crisis On Infinite Earths, a 12-issue DC miniseries that had serious repercussions across all of their comics, as they tried to tidy up decades of confusing continuity. Not only did Crisis spawn the annual comics events since then but also set the template for DC's repeated use of said crossovers to try and pare down their sprawling universe(s) a little. Were it not for Crisis On Infinite Earths we would never have had the likes Civil War, Final Crisis, Secret Invasion, 52, or Age of Ultron, so it's safe to say that it was a particularly big landmark in comic book history. And if you hate those or any other crossover events, now you know who to blame for them.
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/
