DC Comics is the world’s first superhero publisher, having created many of the things that fans associate with superhero comics. However, there is something they didn’t invent, something that has become very important to the comic industry of today: the event comic. While DC certainly had event comics (one could argue that the yearly JLA/JSA crossovers were some of the first event comics), Marvel was the first company to create the event comic as we know it. Despite not inventing it, DC has excelled at them. In fact, there are many out there who would say that the publisher puts out the best events in comics, year in and year out.
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While Marvel invented the modern event comic, DC perfected it. Look at the current blockbuster DC K.O. This book has captivated readers, with its tie-ins selling quite well, and has more buzz than any Marvel event in years. The publisher just gets how to make an event book sing, and these ten DC events are the cream of that illustrious crop.
10) Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths
Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Joshua Williamson and Daniel Sampere’s event series has a bad reputation — fans felt it was too derivative of past DC events, and that’s definitely on display. However, for just pure event comic fun, Dark Crisis is a great story, especially if you invest the time and money into the tie-ins series and one-shots. This story is one hundred percent a collection of DC cliches and tropes, and that’s what makes it so great. This is cheese of the highest order, and if you enjoy DC events, you’ll love this one. The art is brilliant; Sampere belongs in the lineage of greats like Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, George Perez, and Phil Jimenez. He can make every character look sensational, and the action in this book is hard-hitting. I get the complaints about the book, but I embrace them, and it makes it that much better.
9) Dark Knights: Metal
Dark Knights: Metal, by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, is madness, and that’s what has made it so beloved by its fans. The heroes of the DC Multiverse battle the dark god Barbatos and his Dark Knights, twisted multiversal Batmen, over the fate of the very multiverse itself. This book is huge, insane action that grabs your brain by the lobes and never lets go. Snyder and Capullo give readers everything they could want from a DC event, with extra Batman glazing because it’s Snyder. The more I read the book, the more I love its cheesy metal album vibe. Pages from this book should be airbrushed on box vans. If superhero fun was a comic, it would be this one.
8) Dark Knights: Death Metal
Dark Knights: Death Metal, by the Metal team of Snyder and Capullo, has much the same vibe as its predecessor but is a better story. Spinning out of Snyder’s Justice League, the multiverse has been taken over by Perpetua and the Batman Who Laughs, with Wonder Woman working from within to save the day. This is a rare A-list DC event where Wonder Woman is the main character, and for that alone, it deserves all the praise in the world. Add in the fact that the story is way better and more engaging, the ending is more exciting and hits harder, and everything is dialed up to 11 from the previous installment, and you get an all-time great event.
7) Cosmic Odyssey
Cosmic Odyssey, by Jim Starlin and Mike Mignola, is a classic that doesn’t get nearly enough credit for how great it is. While it’s not a traditional multi-book crossover with an event miniseries at its epicenter, it fits the event formula to a tee, giving readers massive action from the greatest heroes and villains in comics. Darkseid warns the universe of the greatest threat he’s ever encountered, forcing the heroes of Earth and New Genesis to work with Apokolips to save existence from the living Anti-Life Equation. Basically, this is the writer of Infinity Gauntlet writing a Darkseid story with the guy who created Hellboy. If that’s not enough to explain why this book is peak, then I don’t know how else to sell it. This is cosmic post-Crisis DC weirdness, and it will put a smile on your face.
6) Absolute Power
Absolute Power was the push that DC needed, as all of the publisher’s current success comes from it. Mark Waid and Dan Mora, the amazing team behind Batman/Superman: World’s Finest, gave readers an amazing story that the publisher had built up over 2023 and 2024. Amanda Waller, with the help of Failsafe and Lady Brainiac, has made the ultimate attack against the heroes, using Amazo tech to take away their powers and turn the public against it. From there, things get insane as the world’s greatest heroes have to figure out how to beat an enemy that has taken everything from them. Waid is in rare form for this one, but the real highlight of the book of Mora’s art. He’s always the best of the best, but it feels like his work with colorist Alejandro Sanchez in this book is especially impressive. This event is DC at its finest.
5) DC One Million
DC One Million is the best event of the ’90s, a mostly forgotten classic that will knock your socks off. Spinning out of Grant Morrison’s JLA, the four-issue series, by Morrison and Val Semeiks, sees the League taken to the 853rd for a celebration of the Prime Superman and all hell breaking loose. The heroes are stranded in the future as an attack by Vandal Savage and future Superman arch enemy Solaris the Tyrant Sun threatens to destroy the team in the past and future. This is a near-perfect event, with some of the best tie-ins ever. There’s a reason why most collected editions of the story include them; the #1,000,000 issues are almost uniformly outstanding and add a lot to an already fantastic story. This event is the total package and always has been.
4) Blackest Night
The ’00s were a great time to be a DC fan. The publisher was firing creatively on all cylinders and was putting out the best events comics of those ten amazing years. The publisher ended the decade with a bang with Blackest Night, by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis. Built up over two years in Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, two of the bestselling books of the decade (’00s DC was wild, y’all), Blackest Night saw Black Hand and the Black Lantern Corps resurrect the dead of the universe to devour the living. Readers got some outstanding, brutal action, and the perfect pay-off to several years’ worth of stories. This is an amazing event; it didn’t change the history of the multiverse or reboot continuity, it was just a plain old-fashioned good event comic.
3) Infinite Crisis
For my money, there is no finer event in the ’00s than Infinite Crisis, by Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez, George Perez, Ivan Reis, and Jerry Ordway. DC built this event up over several years of stories and gave fans a comic that was worthy of being a sequel to the legendary Crisis on Infinite Earths. The heroes are beaten down, the villains are ascendant, and then a group from the past returns, heroes who have their own plans for the Earth. This is yet another story that redefined what an “epic” could be. This story had it all. It did everything you’d want an event book to do, filled with killer actions, huge moments, and a perfect ending. This is a nearly flawless comic, and an example of what happens when a publisher gets serious about putting out an event comic.
2) Final Crisis
Final Crisis is a perfect event story, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise just doesn’t understand it. The series, by Grant Morrison, J.G. Jones, Carlos Pacheco, and Doug Mahnke, took readers to the day that evil won, when Darkseid and his minions use the Anti-Life Equation to take over the Earth. What follows is one of the greatest wars in comics, as the most powerful heroes of the universe face off against the worst of the worst. This is a complicated series, with numerous moving parts, that goes in every direction you can possibly imagine. Sometimes, it seems like it’s gibberish, but it’s a much deeper story than all of that, one about creating, creations, and the chains we place on them. This is big, splashy Morrison-style insanity that you can read a million times and find new things to love (also amazing tie-ins; Final Crisis: Superman Beyond 3-D is essential to the story, The Last Will and Testament of the DC Universe is gorgeous, and Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds is perfect).
1) Crisis on Infinite Earths
Crisis on Infinite Earths is the GOAT. It followed in the footsteps of Marvel Super Heroes Contest of Champions and Marvel Super Heroes Secret War, but Marv Wolfman, George Perez, and Jerry Ordway masterpiece went much further than any other event in the nascent event scene. The heroes of five Earths have to battle against the ultimate force of destruction, the Anti-Monitor, with all of existence at stake. Worlds lived, worlds died, and nothing was ever the same (well, until it was). This is everything an event comic should be, a massive epic the likes of which no one had seen that still hasn’t been topped. On top of all of that, there’s the fact that the story had a lasting effect on the publisher. For 20 years, it changed DC Comics, a change that gave readers amazing stories. This event and its reputation are immaculate, and that’s really all there is to it.
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