The Best DC Crossover Event?

shaneb

I started a thread about Marvel crossovers a while back, but I've been more of a DC person(though not that much of a superhero person in general), and am interested in what people's thoughts on the best DC crossover event. I know a lot of folks are going to come right off the cuff with Crisis on Infinite Earths, but I'm really curious about some newer ones.

I am just about to get info Final Crisis, any thoughts? What about the Batman centered ones?

CageNarleigh

I know it's going to sound super generic but I REALLY like 'Blackest Night'. There were a few duds in there but overall I enjoyed it.

hauberk

Hard to not throw Crisis in there though I'm also partial to Invasion.

Chuck_Melville

Far and away, the Crisis On Infinite Earths was the best.

Matt

The 2 I've enjoyed the most are Millennium & Armageddon 2001. As long as you skip the last part of each, they were both great reads.

M

bats00

Matt said:

The 2 I've enjoyed the most are Millennium & Armageddon 2001. As long as you skip the last part of each, they were both great reads.

M

I never really read Millennium (other than a few random crossover issues) but completely agree on Armageddon 2001. I would throw Infinite Crisis as my second and Invasion as my third.

Brack

This is a lot easier than finding even one fully satisfying Marvel event. The best DC Event is DC One Million.

hauberk

Brack said:

This is a lot easier than finding even one fully satisfying Marvel event. The best DC Event is DC One Million.

I found most of a set of DC One Million at a shop last year and picked it up during their holiday sale. Unfortunately, its missing all of the Superman issues, which I understand are really some of the best tie-in issues.

It came out at a time that I was not reading, or collecting anything so I completely missed it and everything else that was coming out at that point so it gave me a nice cross section of books to read through. Overall, it gave me and interest in the Hourman series (haven't tracked them down yet, but they're on my list) and Chase (picked up the trade).

I was a little cool on some of the other titles (Young Heroes in Love, for instance, was not in any manner a book to my taste, but overall enjoyed the main story.

JaxUr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KxIHVGch8I

mwhitt80

Brack said:

This is a lot easier than finding even one fully satisfying Marvel event. The best DC Event is DC One Million.

I kind of agree that it is easier to think of good DC events.
DC One Million is great; it is one of my favorites.

While I don't think it is as good as One Million I really enjoyed most of Legends.

SolitaireRose

I LOVED Crisis on Infinite Earths, and think it sets an incredibly high bar. Blackest Night was well done, and any of the Grant Morrison driven crossovers are top notch in my book. I haven't re-read it in a long time, but I remember really liking Final Night.

CageNarleigh

SolitaireRose said:

I LOVED Crisis on Infinite Earths, and think it sets an incredibly high bar. Blackest Night was well done, and any of the Grant Morrison driven crossovers are top notch in my book. I haven't re-read it in a long time, but I remember really liking Final Night.

Can Final Night be called an event though? I mean, I guess it was for the time. A single issue tie in for major DC titles and a 4 issue mini-series.

IDK, I suppose the modern definition of event has lessened those "event's" that were defined by the old definition.

Chuck_Melville

CageNarleigh said:

SolitaireRose said:

I LOVED Crisis on Infinite Earths, and think it sets an incredibly high bar. Blackest Night was well done, and any of the Grant Morrison driven crossovers are top notch in my book. I haven't re-read it in a long time, but I remember really liking Final Night.

Can Final Night be called an event though? I mean, I guess it was for the time. A single issue tie in for major DC titles and a 4 issue mini-series.

IDK, I suppose the modern definition of event has lessened those "event's" that were defined by the old definition.

Final Night had several tie-in issues among the regular DC issues -- oh, wait, I see what you were saying: a single tie-in issue per series. Never mind; I misread the sentence. :/

Move along, nothing to see here!

Chuck_Melville

Pretty much all of the DC crossover events throughout the years (until the arrival of the New52 where such things seem to breed like rabbits) were pretty good to one degree or another. Some, like Genesis, were a bit weaker; some, like Millennium, were fun but seemed to fall down at the resolution. The only truly awful one I can recall (apart from those of the New52) was Worlds At War, a Superman-centric extravaganza that was just bloated and ponderous, and, to me at least, ultimately unsatisfying and not worth the expense. It completely put me off of the Superman books, which I had been reading solidly for the previous fifteen years or so, for good… well, at least until Infinite Crisis.

Yeah, I think the first one, Crisis On Infinite Earths, really did set the bar pretty high; few have come close since.

SolitaireRose

I was working in comics retail when Millenium came out, and it sold REALLY well, and we couldn't get enough copies of the lower selling books that tied into it. Too bad The New Guardians series that spun out of it was SO bad, I think it soured everyone's memories of the story.

Perception is strange...I remember people complaining about DC One Million when it came out, saying it didn't make any sense, that the tie ins were weird, and yet it is now considered one of the best stories of the late 90's at DC.

kgforce

I think ONE MILLION is the only crossover I haven't read... need to check it out. In other news I'm re-reading Final Crisis (thx to the DC Comixology sale). Some of it's great... some of it is maddeningly incomprehensible.

David_D

It's tough to argue that it is the "best", since I think Crisis on Infinite Earths had the bigger impact on the characters, was the bigger and more influential thing in the medium, etc. So even though I haven't read it yet (I know), I would guess that COIE is the best crossover that DC has done.

However, for the one that I enjoyed the most, I would go with Infinite Crisis. I know not everybody dug it, or how it ended, but it worked for me. Great art, big moments, solid cliffhangers, fun to read and discuss month to month. And as far as being a crossover, the group of miniseries that connected to it were all pretty strong, too. Instead of the tie-ins being try out books and simple cash-ins, they were instead generally really solid and experienced creative teams, and made the whole thing feel bigger.

mwhitt80

SolitaireRose said:

Perception is strange...I remember people complaining about DC One Million when it came out, saying it didn't make any sense, that the tie ins were weird, and yet it is now considered one of the best stories of the late 90's at DC.

I read DC One Million for the first time 4 years ago so I missed the negative surrounding it. One Million is weird, but I don't understand how people could say it was confusing. It's a pretty straight forward story.

Final Crisis on the otherhand was a bit all over the place, but I also enjoyed it. I've just decided I like Grant Morrison writing superheroes. Maybe one day I will read his Batman.

Chuck_Melville

SolitaireRose said:

I was working in comics retail when Millenium came out, and it sold REALLY well, and we couldn't get enough copies of the lower selling books that tied into it. Too bad The New Guardians series that spun out of it was SO bad, I think it soured everyone's memories of the story.

I recall reading an interview with Steve Englehart where he said that he was also disappointed with how New Guardians turned out – that the editor wouldn't let him take the series where he had planned to go with it, addressing more mature topics like sexuality and AIDS, but had him turn it into just another superhero team.

SolitaireRose

Chuck_Melville said:

SolitaireRose said:

I was working in comics retail when Millenium came out, and it sold REALLY well, and we couldn't get enough copies of the lower selling books that tied into it. Too bad The New Guardians series that spun out of it was SO bad, I think it soured everyone's memories of the story.

I recall reading an interview with Steve Englehart where he said that he was also disappointed with how New Guardians turned out – that the editor wouldn't let him take the series where he had planned to go with it, addressing more mature topics like sexuality and AIDS, but had him turn it into just another superhero team.

I love Steve, but he should still be apologizing for Extrano in every interview he does. It was cringeworthy back then, it's painful now.

shaneb

I just got the Final Crisis trade and a few of the one shot tie ins, am I going to be completely lost if I didn't read the Countdown to Final Crisis. I read almost all of Grant Morrison's Batman run, but I just don't want to have to do painful homework just to enjoy his one crossover.

hauberk

Was that the weekly follow-up to 52? I read it, but can't remember much about it. I think that you're probably safe. Hopefully, you've got the Resist one-shot included. In my mind, that was one of the better Final Crisis related offerings (I refuse to include Legion of Three Worlds in Final Crisis, regardless of how trade dress or banners).

SolitaireRose

shaneb said:

I just got the Final Crisis trade and a few of the one shot tie ins, am I going to be completely lost if I didn't read the Countdown to Final Crisis. I read almost all of Grant Morrison's Batman run, but I just don't want to have to do painful homework just to enjoy his one crossover.

Countdown to Final Crisis is to be avoided at all costs. It's a mess, and they didn't connect up with Final Crisis properly...it messed things up so bad Final Crisis had to have a few rewrites and rumors are the DeDio had to meet with Morrison to apologize for how they dropped the ball. Read Batman RIP and whatever you need to get a good idea of Kirby's New Gods and you'll be ready for it.

JasonAiken

shaneb said:

I just got the Final Crisis trade and a few of the one shot tie ins, am I going to be completely lost if I didn't read the Countdown to Final Crisis. I read almost all of Grant Morrison's Batman run, but I just don't want to have to do painful homework just to enjoy his one crossover.

What SolitaireRose said, avoid this piece of garbage like the plague.

For Final Crisis, just read everything with Morrison's name on it: Final Crisis, Final Crisis: Superman Beyond, and his Batman tie-in issues.

If you like Geoff Johns, George Perez, and the original Crisis, then Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds is a must read. I felt it was the true Final Crisis at the time, and still do. Final Crisis isn't bad, but it wasn't really a Crisis book the same way the others were (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, and Infinite Crisis). Final Crisis is more of a big Morrison-verse magnum opus than anything, which isn't a bad thing. Final Crisis is still being referenced and tied into in his latest Multiversity series.

WetRats

David_D said:

It's tough to argue that it is the "best", since I think Crisis on Infinite Earths had the bigger impact on the characters, was the bigger and more influential thing in the medium, etc. So even though I haven't read it yet (I know), I would guess that COIE is the best crossover that DC has done.

However, for the one that I enjoyed the most, I would go with Infinite Crisis. I know not everybody dug it, or how it ended, but it worked for me. Great art, big moments, solid cliffhangers, fun to read and discuss month to month. And as far as being a crossover, the group of miniseries that connected to it were all pretty strong, too. Instead of the tie-ins being try out books and simple cash-ins, they were instead generally really solid and experienced creative teams, and made the whole thing feel bigger.

And it spawned 52, which only avoids the title because it's not really a crossover.

Chuck_Melville

JasonAiken said:

shaneb said:

I just got the Final Crisis trade and a few of the one shot tie ins, am I going to be completely lost if I didn't read the Countdown to Final Crisis. I read almost all of Grant Morrison's Batman run, but I just don't want to have to do painful homework just to enjoy his one crossover.

What SolitaireRose said, avoid this piece of garbage like the plague.

For Final Crisis, just read everything with Morrison's name on it: Final Crisis, Final Crisis: Superman Beyond, and his Batman tie-in issues.

If you like Geoff Johns, George Perez, and the original Crisis, then Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds is a must read. I felt it was the true Final Crisis at the time, and still do. Final Crisis isn't bad, but it wasn't really a Crisis book the same way the others were (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, and Infinite Crisis). Final Crisis is more of a big Morrison-verse magnum opus than anything, which isn't a bad thing. Final Crisis is still being referenced and tied into in his latest Multiversity series.

I dunno... I didn't think it was all that terrible. There were parts of it I really enjoyed, other parts that I thought were promising... I certainly liked a lot of the set-up and premise. One thing I did dislike was how it split a lot of story threads off into other books and mini-series, some of which were arguably better than Countdown; it felt like a lack of focus and only served to force readers to spend more money if they wanted to keep up with the storylines. I'll certainly agree that it fumbled the ball when it came to linking up with Final Crisis.

kgforce

JasonAiken said:

If you like Geoff Johns, George Perez, and the original Crisis, then Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds is a must read. I felt it was the true Final Crisis at the time, and still do.

True!

hauberk

kgforce said:

JasonAiken said:

If you like Geoff Johns, George Perez, and the original Crisis, then Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds is a must read. I felt it was the true Final Crisis at the time, and still do.

True!

Second.

JaceTheComicSource

I keep trying to think of something I liked as well as Crisis on Infinite Earths so my answer won't be such an obvious one, but for me nothing else comes close. I will give an honorable mention to Night of the Owls from Scott Snyder's batman run.

shaneb

Why does Crisis stand out so much still?

mwhitt80

shaneb said:

Why does Crisis stand out so much still?

Worlds will Live and Worlds will Die.

First it is an amazing story about the end of 30 years or so of DC Continuity. Then it had great art, and huge moments on every other page. It also helped that DC came out of the gate with some great titles.