Every year the big names in comics churn out a summer event that is akin to a sumemr blockbuster. DC either kills someone off (Superman, Batman, The Flash) or brings someone back (The Flash, Batman, SUperman).
Marvel has Brian Bendis, 5 time winner of the Eisner Award (think comic Oscars) famous for his online rants at fans and profanity fuelled blogs who is frankly a genius and has been quietly controlling the events in Marvel for the past 5-6 years.
Little hints and clues have been building up with their final reveal this summer with Secret Invasion
WHICH. ROCKS.
Great pacing, amazing art, fantastic payoff for comic book fans that have been reading this stuff for the past half decade.
Anyway - the story - progressively things have been getting worse in the 616 universe that is Marvel. Scarlet Witch has a mental breakdown over losing her unborn children and abuses her reality altering powers to bring them into existence. Her subsequent breakdown results in the death of three heroes and the Avengers breaking up.
The loss of all mutants means they’ve become an endangered species. Hulk returns from his banishment to get revenge on the Earth. Then there's a civil war where heroes are required by law to register under the Superhero Registration Act which results in Iron Man and Cap America going head to head.
Cap gets shot and killed. Spiderman reveals his true identity to the public and every year things just get worse and worse.
Almost as if someone had planned it all.
Well, they have.
Some heros have been replaced, as long as 5 years ago with infiltrators who have the same powers and are undetectable. Marvel has been really slow in revealing who is a double agent and who isn’t, all the time playing with readers expectations. There have been some 'WOW' moments, and great storytelling devises like LOST's flashbacks, showing how a character has been replaced and how they've tuned events to their plan.
If you’ve been missing LOST and its twists and turns, this is one of th best jumping on points for a slick story, fantastically presented, with genuine surprises.
Just amazing stuff which kicks DC's ass.
Anyway, some covers for ya...
EDIT: I should have said, there are heroes that don't even know they're fakes. Sleeper agents!
Sadly, DC has just run out of steam. Infinite Crisis was a work of art until the ending, then everything just kind of ran out of steam. About the only good post InfCr series was 52, the entire One Year later idea was completely misused except with perhaps Teen Titans and the initial superman /batman stories. Countdown was excruciatingly painful, and Final Crisis so far has not been great. Meh.
I can't be bothered to move to marvel , I think I just wont bother reading any.
why cant you be bothered to move to Marvel? You understand that you don't have to actually, physically move? All it means is you type dcp in a torrent box now and then! And this is the best jumping on time to do it!
You understand that you don't have to actually, physically move?
c'mon, join the dark side!
LOL! I mean, catching up with all the characters' storylines. You can't deny that a lot of the geeky enjoyment you get from it is built upon knowing the previous storylines. For example in this case, they are retconning that a lot of storylines occured because of actions of infiltrators making sure Earth was destabilised in preparation for invasion - but I won't be familiar with those storylines so the whole "wow" factor will be missing for me.
