To make my life easier, I'm reprinting (and updating) some of my comic book industry essays from my now-defunct Opinion Page (which, seriously, was an early attempt at a blog). I still agree with the opinions expressed in this particular essay.
True crossovers, as I define them in this essay, are actually pretty rare, and have (I think) gotten rarer in the last few years. The last one in the DCU that directly affected my reading was a Young Justice one. The tie-ins still happen, but DC seems to have cut back even on those, so things have gotten a little better.
One item I find amusing in this essay, that I could update but won't, is the price of comics. When this essay was written most superhero comics were still under $2. Now just about all of them are over.
I HATE CROSSOVERS
a stupid little rant by Laura Gjovaag
Before getting started, let's define a crossover, shall we? As it stands, I can bet that over half the people who read the title of this essay assumed that I was slamming a different type of crossover than what I'm actually referring to. I get this all the time, actually. I mention casually how much I hate crossovers, and somebody will defend their favorite crossover, which happens to be a guest appearance or something like it that I have no problem with. Without further ado, these are the things most people think of when they hear the word "crossover":
- GUEST APPEARANCES - When a character that normally is seen in a different title appears in the one you are reading. For instance: Green Lantern makes an appearance in Aquaman. He shows up, does his shtick, then is gone. It's a guest appearance. The only title you had to buy to get the whole fun adventure was Aquaman. Guest appearances can be spread out over multiple issues, but as long as they remain in only one title, they are guest appearances.
- MINI-SERIES - When a group of characters that normally don't appear in the same title get together for a mini-series. This would be a special series that happens just for the purpose of getting the folks together. The most obvious examples of this would be the big DC Summer crossovers. DC has done other books with this same effect, including the PLUS one-shots.
- TIE-INs - When the normal titles of your favorite characters are linked, closely or loosely, to a MINI-SERIES crossover. These books aren't absolutely necessary to understand the mini-series (if the mini-series is written by a competent writer), but they support the plot and add aspects to the story. When well written, they also stand alone without the mini-series, as a regular issue of the title.
- CROSSOVER - When a story is divided between several titles. For instance, part one may be in Aquaman and part two in Superman. In order to understand the story, you need to read all the different parts of the story, which means reading books from several titles.
The first two types of crossovers don't bother me. In fact, I enjoy guest appearances. They expose me to characters I normally don't read, but might possibly enjoy. They strengthen the continuity within a universe, and remind us that our favorite characters are part of a universe, and not in a vacuum.
The same holds true for mini-series, in general. I don't mind getting my favorite character in four or five titles a month, including a few crossover minis. The key to these is that if I don't want to get the minis, I don't really miss anything in my regular book.
And that's the key. If I can read my regular book and only my regular book each month, getting no other comic book at all, and still follow the story, then a true crossover hasn't happened.
So, you may be asking, what do I think of tie-ins? Well, it depends entirely upon the writer. Some can easily do a tie-in issue that doesn't distract from the regular plotline of the book. Some writers can explain the whole mess and not leave you wondering what the story was about. Some can't. And that gets annoying. It's like buying your regular lunch at the deli everyday, and one day there are suddenly extra pickles in your sandwich that you never asked for, and no tomatoes like usual. I generally consider tie-ins a flaming nuisance, and ignore them.
Then there are crossovers. Real crossovers. Stories that are split up so you can't just read one part and get a complete story. To extend my analogy of lunch at the deli, it's like going in to buy your lunch and being told that they have a special this month. If you buy just your regular, you'll only get one slice of bread and some cheese. In order to get a full sandwich, you have to also buy this other special they have. It's only twice the cost! You'll get more in the sandwich! But the problem, the annoyance, the reason I hate it: you don't get a whole sandwich if you just buy your regular lunch.
And as far as I'm concerned, that's cheating the consumer.
In order to get a whole story, the reader has to spend twice as much. So they get cheated out of either (take your pick): half the story or another $2 of their hard-earned money. Either way the consumer loses. Loyalty to a character, to a company, is spit upon. The reader wants a story, commits their money to a title once a month, and is told that's not enough.
Of course, I can always change delis. I can always stop buying comics from DC. In fact, that's what a lot of folks do. They get so fed up with the crossover gimmick, they either quit comics altogether or go off and find a company that doesn't do gimmicks. There's lots of great independent comics out there, and once somebody fully switches over, DC doesn't stand a chance of ever getting them back. Especially when they know that if they come back, they're just going to get cheated again.
The money-grubbers at DC argue that crossovers bring in lots of money. Well, short-term they do. A lot of fans aren't to the point where they're so fed up with the nonsense that they'll quit, and those fans will usually fork over the extra money to buy the rest of the sandwich... er, story. Some of them will never stop doing this. They're fans. A lot of them, however, will eventually get tired of being yanked around. The adults will look for more interesting comic books, the kids will decide they've outgrown comics, and the industry will continue its long downward spiral with crossovers being one of many contributing factors.
Now, some people aren't convinced by these arguments. How about this, then? What about those people that have difficulty just getting the extra issue? For instance, you live in the Philippines, and your comics are shipped to you by subscription from DC. Green Lantern crosses over with Superboy, part two being in Superboy. You're only subscribed to Green Lantern. Will DC send you the Superboy issue at no extra charge so you can read the whole story? I doubt it. Will they even bother to inform you that there's a crossover? Ha. You can't get Superboy easily, so you're out of luck. You'll never get the remainder of the story without expending a lot of energy and wasting a lot of time.
And then there are the books that are very popular. When Superman crosses over with Lameman, and your shop only orders one copy of Lameman every month, if you're a Lameman fan looking to buy your book, you're out of luck. Some Superman fan has snapped it up. And there's twenty more Superman fans upset that they aren't going to be reading the whole story either.
So, you guessed it, I hate crossovers. And I've gotten to the point in my monthly planning that I've stopped buying crossovers, even in titles I like. They are almost never worth the effort, anyway. It's only a matter of time before I get so fed up with the crossovers in super-hero comics that I drop them completely and start reading independents exclusively. The comic companies complain and worry about the industry, but have yet to figure out what to do to fix it. And when the fans tell them about one aspect that is a serious problem, the big companies ignore them and look only at their short-term bottom line.
This column is copyright 1998 by Laura Gjovaag. Summer 1998
