Many comic book fans would argue today that the industry is suffering from event fatigue the overabundance of company-wide miniseries and crossovers that are marketed under the guise as being game-changers but are ultimately just sales-driven gimmicks. But without the success of Secret Wars, we would likely would have never gotten such popular and significant events like The Infinity Gauntlet, Civil War and Crisis on the Infinite Earths. Technically, Marvel released Contest of the Champions two years before Secret Wars, but that miniseries, which was only three issues and lacked the size and scope of Secret Wars. Because of that, 30 years later, Secret Wars is still considered the industry pioneer the template from which all other event comics were created. Sure, its exhausting when Marvel and DC pump out these huge, long-winded crossovers that promise major status quo upheavals only to undo these changes with a few months. But theres nothing better than a well-done comic book event. Secret Wars made that all possible.
Mark is a professional writer living in Brooklyn and is the founder of the Chasing Amazing Blog, which documents his quest to collect every issue of Amazing Spider-Man, and the Superior Spider-Talk podcast. He also pens the "Gimmick or Good?" column at Comics Should Be Good blog.
