10 Most Harmful Trends In Comics Today
2. Massive Crossover Events (Every 5 Minutes)...
Crossovers are cool, at least in theory. Major events can be thoroughly rewarding to read and are a great way to make major changes to a comic book universe.
Every couple of years, that is.
These days, major crossovers happen on an almost monthly basis. In fact, there are entire comic book lines that are regularly obliterated by events that take place in their related books.
Fans of displaced 90s Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, to cite one recent example, can follow the characters adventures in DCs Post reboot book Green Lantern: New Guardians, this was a really fun book that initially pitted Kyle as the awkward leader of a group of Lanterns from different corps, from the blissed out hippy Blue Lantern Saint Walker, to the monstrous fear mongering of Yellow Lantern Arkillo.
...Except that every three issues or so, there was a massive event that happened elsewhere in the main Green Lantern book. This meant that, unless you were reading the entire Green Lantern line, there was no point to reading New Guardians, Red Lanterns or Green Lantern Corps. Single issues made no sense without the others. It was, therefore, impossible for fans of Kyle Rayner to follow his adventures without buying four times as many books as they needed to.
Crossovers like Blackest Night, (which affect the entire universe) are great, they re-energize the fans and introduce them to new books that they might not have read yet. But having a crossover every five minutes simply turns the reader away. It is too strong a financial commitment to ask of them.
Throwing too many books their way just deters new readers (far more than a triple figure issue number ever would) and stops old readers coming back to the party.
A crossover should be reserved for something special, the rest of the time, just let us enjoy the one book we actually wanted to read in the first place!