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By Jason Bourgeois
For anyone who has been reading comics long enough, especially those on message boards, chat rooms, or just a large enough group of friends, they will eventually encounter a certain phrase, at one time or another in their comic reading career. That phrase is event fatigue. On the off-chance that this is someone's eventual first encounter with the phrase, allow me to elaborate; event fatigue is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. That point a person reaches, and this is a different point for everyone, when they are just plain sick of big events in their comics.
Event-driven storylines come around every so often, and the first one in a cycle almost always does well, due to the nature of events. The nature being that they are large storylines, promising big changes across the line, or at least the books involved, and it tends to sprawl across a number of books, to cross-promote titles that need a little extra spotlight shone upon them. After that successful first event, everyone takes notice. Everyone looks at the sale and remember that these things sell like hotcakes! From there, it is nothing but event after event, getting bigger and bigger, sprawling across more and more titles, until the entire line is devoured by the beast known as the event of the year, trying to get everyone to buy everything.
Sooner or later, even with high sales, the companies get the message, and back off from events for awhile, or focus on smaller events, across a few books, that aren't quite as momentous. I believe that right now we have to be nearing this tipping point, because it's hard to find a book from either Marvel or DC that isn't sucked into some event or another in some way.
Ever since DC's Identity Crisis, at least to the best of my recollection, we have been exactly in that situation. Admittedly, it was a fair enough position to be in, since it was the 20th anniversary of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. What better way to celebrate such a milestone for a landmark event, with a new event? Identity Crisis laid the groundwork, and that lead into Countdown to Infinite Crisis, which lead into Infinite Crisis, which lead into 52, which lead into Countdown, which will lead into...well, no one knows for sure yet. I've heard rumours, but that's all they are right now. I don't deal in rumour, I deal in opinion! Each of those events had mini-events within them, and around them, spreading across DC's comics.
However, Marvel is just as guilty. It started small as well, with the Avengers Disassembled event, which lead into House of M, which lead to Decimation, which lead into Endangered Species, Civil War, Son of M...there was also Annihilation which has been mostly contained in it's own little world...er, worlds. Along with those was Planet Hulk, which spawned the World War Hulk event, which ties back into the events of Civil War and the Initiative. One could easily argue that Marvel is worse, since they have an event that splinters into many events, which then feed back into each other like an inbred family.
On top of all those, I'm surely missing some. A few more or less contained events in the Spider-Man titles have also been spinning around these various major events as well.
For the most part, I love the interconnectedness of it all. I love continuity. Continuity is good, it allows stories to be told. Without it, nothing would matter. Although, when you need to buy so many books to get the whole story, it starts to become a bit much. It's one thing to have a cohesive universe, it's another thing entirely to make it all required reading. Granted, being a company with a bottom line to watch out for, it is understandable from a business point of view to want everyone reading every book, but sometimes you just have to take your victories where you can. A better route than making every book have to be read to understand every other book, but to make each book the best it can be, on its own merits.
These past two weeks have had some of the largest number of books I've had in a very long time, and it's almost all due to event driven storylines. Yes, I am aware this makes me a part of a problem, and arguably dumb, or at least a sucker. Just this week alone, there's Amazons Attack!, Countdown, the Initiative non-event, the Sinestro War kicked off, World War Hulk, Endangered Species, the end of Silent War, and several books related to all those. Now, I'm not buying every book tying into these things, but I am getting many. The upside and downside is that many of these stories are actually good, and even worth reading. Sinestro Corps Special #1 was one of the most cosmically action packed stories I've read in awhile, with multiple holy crap moments on many pages. World War Hulk is simply amazing, and very cathartic after the bastardry of some of the Marvel Universe's so-called heroics in shooting Bruce Banner into space.
Even with all this goodness, the sticker shock when everything got rung up still balled up a wad of choking bile in my stomach. I find myself at the same time loving much of what's going on, and want to read it, and eagerly await the next issue, but my wallet wants to crawl off and cry. The events aren't done yet, even. In my gut, the end simply has to be near. Even the writers and other creators have to be beginning to experience a fatigue of their own at this point. Yet next year, we'll have whatever Countdown leads into, and the impending Skrull invasion storyline that Brian Michael Bendis just dropped the bombshell on in recent issues of Avengers.
I can't complain too much as long as they're good, but while right now there is the brilliant World War Hulk, the memories of House of M and Civil War still have their bitter aftertaste fresh in my mind.
Sadly, I will continue to be a sucker for as long as these events continue, until this current cycle ends, and another period of smaller stories takes its turn to shine. These books continue to be made because we buy them, but through communication, the people at both Marvel and DC are receiving the message that folks need a breather, so hopefully after the next wave of events crash upon our shelves, we can take that much needed break, and get back to just strong storytelling to sell comics for a time, because in the end, when the events go away, that is truly what moves comics off the shelves, as the sales show. Once an event ends, the books that have strong creative teams are the ones that hold onto any sales boost they may have received from the flavour of the month, and that's the way it always will be.
Quality eventually beats quantity, every time.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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