If there is one thing that comic publishers like to do it is hold mega-crossovers. Why? Money. People buy lots of comics to get the whole story. This can cost almost $100. Why are we spending this much? Is it worth it? No.
DC Crossovers. The half-stories.
Let me explain that subtitle to you. DC advertises that all of these books tie into Death of the Family, yet when one reads them they only get 2 or 3 pages of story about Joker. DC sucks us into a trap of thinking that we need to read these, don't let them! One thing that is especially hard for me is dropping subscriptions. Shortening my Pull-List isn't easy because every time I read a lousy issue I just think "Maybe next issue will be better." Spoiler alert. It isn't. No matter what title, if the first tie-in is bad the second will be complete crap too. This takes $2.5 dollars out of future comic buying endeavors. We should no longer submit to this torment, here is my advice. Stick to 2 or 3 tie-ins that you think will be great. If they don't meet your expectations, drop it. Now I just have to try that...
Marvel Crossovers. The core driven events.
Marvel has one thing that DC will never catch onto, core-issues. In AvX the were the Avenger Vs. X-Men issues, in Civil War there were Civil War issues, now in Age of Ultron there are Age of Ultron issues. Why does Marvel do this? For readers who weren't planning on reading the storyline to go "Hey I might wanna just read the core-issues and no tie-ins." Now the reader is sucked in. Enter ads for tie-ins. Now the reader wants to know everything about the storyline because the core-issues are just so good. The reader is now caught in a web different from DC's but equally as deadly.
I hope you have learned a little about the buying habits of us comic readers when faced with a succulent looking crossover. I hope I have inspired you to be less willing to purchase a whole event, be it Marvel or DC. I also hope that I can practice what I preach and not buy everything that has the words "Age of Ultron" on it...But they just look so good.
This is 100% dead on. You are absolutely right about the DC crossovers (I can't speak to Marvel, since I don't read Marvel comics anymore). This is why I do not, and will not, ever buy any issue of a series I normally don't collect "just to get the tie-in." I got the Superman and Supergirl H'el x-over stories because I was collecting those, but I never touched Superboy, because I have no interest in that character. I missed nothing of any import, as far as I can tell, and the x-over was so bad, it made me drop Superman off the pull list entirely. For Death of the Family, all I got was Batgirl, because that's all I was collecting.
ReplyDeleteLike many young collectors, years ago I did what you say can cost $100 (though comics were less expensive then, of course). I bought everything to have the whole crossover. Like you, I learned that 90% of the time, it was not worth it.
My advice, as someone who has collected comics on and off since 1975, is this: read the series you like, about the characters you like. Do not read any issue of a comic for the hype. The hype is always a lie, and the inside of the book will never satisfy the promise of the cover.