In the past two months, I've addressed two of the three main
problems that I see with the comics industry today. This month,
in the final part of this article, I'll be addressing the crossovers,
and why they're totally unnecessary and even detrimental to the
comics industry. I know those of us that collect comics have been
at our local comic shop and have seen a character whom we follow
on the cover of another comic. It may be a one shot, a mini series,
or simply another ongoing title, but whatever the case, it's just
not in the best interest of the industry. Why is that? Well,
there are several reasons.
First of all, if the character that you follow appears in a
crossover, often times that appearance will tie into the character's
continuity. What does this mean? It means that if you want to
have the whole story, and you want to be current on the goings
on of that character, you pretty much have to buy the comic, or
rely on someone else's second hand account of what took place in
that issue or issues, assuming you can even find someone to give
you an account. This is a real hassle. Most people would rather
get the issue or issues instead of going through the hassle of
prodding someone they know to give them the lowdown.
Secondly, there's the issue of money. A lot of comic readers
may not be strapped for cash, but many of them also wouldn't like
to have to buy some crossover that they're not interested in just
to get the whole story on the character or characters that they
follow. If the character you like is crossing over with some
other character you couldn't care less about, and the story in
that crossover is tying into the continuity for the character
you follow, you're probably going to reluctantly buy the comic,
because you want the whole story. In my opinion, this just isn't
fair to us, the readers. I understand the various comic
companies want to make money, after all, it is a business,
but to have these frivolous crossovers tie into continuity
is absurd. Fortunately, many crossovers nowadays are self
contained, but too many still tie into continuity, and that
is a travesty.
And finally, you've got the writer, and subsequently, continuity
conflict that arises from crossovers. If the writer of said
character's ongoing series doesn't write the crossover for that
character, the possibility that continuity glitches will occur is
very probable. The writer of the crossover may not have the total
story on the characters he or she is writing about, and that can
cause problems if the crossover effects the characters continuity.
For the aforementioned reasons, crossovers are a bad gimmick, and
one that the industry should do away with pronto. However, since
people keep buying them, we're going to keep getting them, and
that's just very unfortunate. The bottom line is, if the industry
wants to ensure long term success, it's time to get back to basics.
