When did cross over events take control of the Marvel U? I collected Spider-Man up to the point of Clone B.S. I got every title. I don't seem to recall his books being interupted by anything. Secret Wars came and went with the Symboite thrown in. Dark Pheonix didn't seem to phase him. Iron Man went on his Armor War and didn't seem to generate any Armored X-Men titles. I got back into Marvel with the news that Spider-Man was going to be an Avenger. Quite frankly I'm thinking of dropping all the Earth bound Marvel titles because of all the cross books. I'm reading Dark Avengers but the news of continueing the story in a Dark Avengers/Dark X-men cross thingy has me madd. I realy think it's time for the Void to return and erase EVERYTHING.

So basically we should have every character with his/her/their own title stay in different parts of the world (usually just different parts of New York) and never interact with each other or acknowledge that other heroes exist?

I'm not sure he's calling for that, but the sheer amount of crossovers in Civil War, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, War of Kings, and the upcoming Blackest Night all seem to be a marked elevation of inter-title connectedness.

I don't think Norb was necessarily suggesting intercontinuity be scrapped altogether, but instead maybe turned down a notch or two.

Personally, I could do with a little less of every title fighting the exact same enemy from a different angle. Marvel's been especially bad about that the last few years. It sure seems as if in any given month, half of the titles all have the heroes going against the exact same enemy, whether it be the Pro-Reg forces, Tony Stark (director of SHIELD), Skrulls, or Norman Osborn.

While I see what they are getting at here, I kind of feel like it is being overdone a bit. I suppose if I were buying more of the titles being impacted, it might bug me even more.

I've noticed moon knight's not crossing over into anyone else's business.

perhaps you should start reading moon knight.

Reading it and collecting it and enjoying it's Darkness freeness.

No I love continuity. I think it is something Marvel has given up on; so they can include more titles in their big cross over events. Perhaps it started with Infinity Gauntlet? When was the last year that X-men had their big story line and Avengers had theirs and they didn't run into each other BECAUSE they were fighting the same thing. I remember stories where Spider-Man asked for help and everyone was doing something ELSE. I also recall Spidey helping the Avengers out on some big problem but it never took away from his book. Was Civil War the breaking point? It seems to me there was a time when you could count the number of titles INVOLVED in a big event. Now it seems the other way around. How many titles are not part of the event? Moon Knight = 1 Cosmic Stuff seems to be it's own entity but how long before we have Cosmic Avengers or Heros Bendis likes in Space?

Agreed. Remember when the Cask of Ancient Winters was opened in a Thor book? The other books all referenced it ("A blizzard in July?!") but they weren't suddenly drawn into fighting the Dark Elves or other Asgardian menaces. Continuity can be linked without requiring every book to be drawn into the storyline.

The biggest problem i've got with cross overs is what's gone from costing me like $30/mo for comics goes to $100+ when I have to (compulsively have to) pick up every stupid tie in.

Disassembled -> Civil war -> Secret Invasion -> dark reign.

Toss in Annhilation (better than CW), and my funds drop significantly


Oh yeah.. and King Breaker/war of Kings.

I too thought about dropping the earth bound marvel people.. However.. Even the space bound are being tied into the same crazy tie ins..

He had a few things with CI if I recall right. It was only like 2 issues or so.

But yeah moon knight is pretty great lately.

At least the Space books are all generally pretty good (and smaller in number).

Marvel's biggest bragging point is that they created the Marvel Universe, a world where all their superheroes are interconnected and can run into each other. It was only a matter of time before they said, "If the X-men don't help out with big threats to the Avengers, that kinda makes them jerks..." and from there, crossovers became all but required for big events.

I think it got out of hand with Amazing Fantasy 15.

Seriously, though, it has really been one long crossover from Civil War to Dark Reign. I would be absolutely be loving it if it weren't for Spider-Man getting retconned in the middle.

If you are not a fan of where these stories have been going, then I can see where this would be very annoying.