Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities CROSSOVERS: Success or Failure?

This is my position on crossovers, too.

My two personal favorites both came from Marvel in the same year, 1992: "Operation Galactic Storm" and "X-Cutioner's Song." I think both had the strong plot, abundant action, and epic scope needed for a crossover to transcend its crass roots. I re-read both stories at least once a year.

Of a more recent vintage, I loved DC's "The Sinestro Corps War" at the time, although it's been a long time since my last re-read.

I have no interest in the current crossovers from either of the Big Two, but that has a lot to do with the characters spotlighted and the creators involved.

I wouldn't mind crossovers if there weren't so darned many of them. They are constantly there, sometimes multiple ones at the same time. And they are never self contained. They take over every title, so if you aren't reading the main event, the crossover in the title you do read is out of context. The Bat books are notorious for that.

It seems to me that the Legion gets the short end of the stick when it comes to company wide crossovers, mostly because being a 1000 years in the future makes their involvement somewhat forced.

Perhaps a crossover in which they are the main characters, say if the Legion of Super-Villians and Fatal Five go back in time to wipe out the Superman legacy or take over the 21st century.

I personally loved Identity Crisis. It was well-written and the author did his research. He may not have followed every issue DC printed, but he used material well.

I think Marvel is starting to realize that crossovers are annoying portions of the fandom and are cutting back. "Fear Itself" was ill-received and "A vs. X" was controversial. They are referring to things like Infinity/Inhumanity as "events" because they only effect certain titles.

I enjoyed some of the early ones, Crisis, Invasion (?) come to mind. Haven't even remotely enjoyed any recent (ten years) cross-overs. Doesn't seem as if they make any sense at all read in isolation of a bunch of other books (and annotations). Crisis and Invasion were both very self contained as I recall them.

"Crisis on Infinite Earths" 1985 The first and the best

"Legends" 1986 I enjoyed this and JL and Suicide Squad emerged.

"Millennium" 1988 Pants

Cosmic Odyssey 1988 Pants – and ruined John Stewart as he became a negligent world killer.

"Invasion!" 1988–1989 I liked some of the main story, but the crossovers were pretty dull.

"Janus Directive" 1989 Was this all Ostrander? So the writing was consistent. It wasn't great, but not quite pants.

"Armageddon 2001" 1991 A decent idea to show some Elseworlds. The ending was a mess obviously.

War of the Gods 1991 Utter pants – Even Perez thinks so.
"Eclipso: The Darkness Within" 1992 Missed all but a couple of crossovers. One where a number of solid characters were killed off.

"Trinity" 1993 Didn’t buy this

"Bloodlines" 1993 Didn’t buy this. Comics I’ve seen were pants.

"Worlds Collide" 1994 Didn’t buy this

Panic in the Sky 1994 Didn’t buy this

"Zero Hour" 1994 Utter pants.

The Way of the Warrior 1995 Didn’t buy this.

"Underworld Unleashed" 1995 Didn’t buy this.

"The Final Night" 1996 Mediocre at best.

DC vs Marvel 1996 Didn’t buy this.

"Genesis" 1997 Utter pants.

"DC One Million" 1998 Quite liked this one.

"Day of Judgment" 1999 Didn’t buy this.

Our Worlds at War 2001 Didn’t buy this.

Joker: Last Laugh 2001-2002 Didn’t buy this.

Identity Crisis 2004 Plot holes you could fly a Legion cruiser through. More cons than pros, by some margin.

Countdown to Infinite Crisis 2005 Pants

"Infinite Crisis" 2005 Nice art, but utter pants.

52 2006 Utter pants
"One Year Later" 2006 Pants

Amazons Attack 2007 Didn’t buy this.

Countdown (to Final Crisis) 2007 Didn’t buy this.

"Final Crisis" 2008 Too messy for it’s own good. Key issue sin other titles were particularly annoying.

"Blackest Night" 2009 Endless night.

"Brightest Day" 2010 Endless day.

"Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne" 2010 Didn’t buy this.

"Flashpoint" 2011 Didn’t buy most of this. Not very impressed. Still gave all of the relaunch titles a try though.

I've not picked up another DC crossover since. I'm not likely to at this moment either, due to dropping every one of those 52 post Flashpoint titles.