Showing posts with label The (Almost) Complete Marvel Crossover Guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The (Almost) Complete Marvel Crossover Guide. Show all posts

Thursday, 29 January 2015

Inferno - the crossovers

Time for a quick guide to a significant crossover event that isn't fully collected in the Essentials. It has, however, appeared in two collected hardcover editions that are Omnibuses in all but name.

Inferno was published in the autumn of 1988 and was focused on the X-family of titles, including the limited series X-Terminators, but spread out into almost every other Marvel title based in and around New York as demons ran rampant in the city which was steadily magically transformed into a nightmare.

The collected editions are structured around the core and extended parts of the storyline so I've once again turned to The (Almost) Complete Marvel Crossover Guide for an order. Note that not every issue carries the "Inferno" banner and I've included some of the build-up as well:
X-Factor Annual #4 includes a back-up strip where two government agents investigate what happened; it is reprinted in Essential X-Factor volume 4.

As you'll see this is a lot of issues. After three years of ever larger crossovers growing out of the X-Men titles someone realised this couldn't go on indefinitely.

So the following year instead saw an even larger crossover growing out of the Avengers titles.
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Monday, 27 May 2013

Acts of Vengeance - the crossovers

Another quick guide to a significant crossover event that isn't (yet) fully collected in the Essentials.

Acts of Vengeance appeared in late 1989 (coinciding with a period when Marvel took steps to bring their cover dates closer to actual publication) and was one of the biggest ever Marvel crossovers with the two Marvel Omnibus editions devoted to it reprinting material from no less than sixty-eight different comics.

Although the core focus was on the various Avengers books, the story reached out into almost every single Marvel title. The basic premise is of super-villains working together, under the guidance of six leading villains and their mysterious lackey, and switching heroes in the hope of defeating them. In practice this led to many heroes fighting villains for the first time, such as the Punisher facing off against Doctor Doom.

An exact order for the story is hard to come by, not least because the main collected editions are structured around the "core" and "extended" parts of the crossover. However the (Almost) Complete Marvel Crossover Guide has had a go, noting problems due to long-running storylines in both New Mutants and X-Factor, and offers the following order, including some issues that didn't actually carry the "Acts of Vengeance" banner:
Avengers Annual #19 carries a back-up strip where the Avengers review and summarise the key events of the crossover. Another follow-up appeared in Web of Spider-Man #64-65 and that was also included in the Omnibus edition. And although it's not in any collected edition, Silver Surfer #33 parodied the concept with "Acts of Idiocy", featuring the Surfer's first encounter with the Impossible Man (one of the more enduring relationships to come out of the whole thing).
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