Marvel Comics is the place that fans go (or don’t go in some cases) for their event comics. The House of Ideas took the idea of the event comic from the old JLA/JSA crossovers, the original “Crisis” comics, and put them into their own miniseries’. Eventually, they’d add tie-in comics to the whole thing (Marvel Super Hero Secret Wars had one – can you imagine an event with one tie-in comic in 2026?) and the modern event comic was born. Marvel has put out some of the greatest event comics of all time, and a lot of stinkers (plenty would argue all events are stinkers). Many of their events are some of the most read comics of recent years and had major repercussions for the Marvel Universe.
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Event comics can be something of a chore when you’re reading monthly, but they are awesome to go back and re-read. In fact, sometimes a re-read will make readers appreciate events that they hated for years. You need to read these seven Marvel events again, some because they’re amazing and some because you’ll appreciate them more.
7) Infinity
Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run is fantastic and its midway point is Infinity, by Hickman, Jerome Opena, Dustin Weaver, and Jim Cheung. This story saw the Avengers join the interstellar empires of the Marvel Universe against the Builders, an ancient race that decided to destroy everything to stop the Incursions. Meanwhile, the Illuminati on Earth have to deal with Thanos and the Black Order. This story is fantastic, a sci-fi war/superhero epic that will knock your socks off. Get the collected edition; it collects the Avengers and New Avengers tie-in issues and expands on the story perfectly.
6) AXIS
AXIS, by Rick Remender, Adam Kubert, Leinil Yu, Terry Dodson, and Jim Cheung, has a terrible reputation, but it’s honestly not bad on its own, divorced from its time. Red Skull has become Red Onslaught, forcing the Avengers and X-Men to team up against him, with even the villains jumping into the fray. However, their plan for victory makes everything worse, as Marvel’s greatest heroes and villains switch moral alignments and begin a war that tear the world apart. This is the story that revealed that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver weren’t Magneto’s kids, which is bad, but the story itself is honestly kind of fun. Remender is in rare form and one gets the feeling that he was pushing the envelope with this story because he was about to leave Marvel – you can kind of tell he doesn’t really care and it just throwing stuff at the wall. It’s kind of a really good troll job and I’ve come to like more than I thought I would. Go in without any preconceptions and you’ll get a fun superhero romp.
5) Original Sin
The ’10s were all about the Avengers, mostly because of the MCU. 2015 had three Avengers event comics (between 2012 and 2015, there were seven in total) and two of them aren’t exactly beloved. One of those is AXIS and the other is Original Sin, by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato. The heroes are pulled into a murder mystery when the Watcher is found dead with his eyes missing, their worst secrets revealed as the heroes do their best to figure out what’s going on. This story didn’t live up to the hype with the revealed sins of the heroes and I genuinely hate the ending and villain reveal because of what it wrought for my favorite Marvel character with the last name Fury, but the main series is a cool superhero murder mystery comic that deserves more credit than it gets.
4) Age of Ultron
Age of Ultron, by Brian Michael Bendis, Bryan Hitch, Carlos Pacheco, and Brandon Peterson, is usually numbered among the worst Marvel events of all time, but I don’t think it deserves that. The story takes place in a future conquered by the Ultron with the last heroes hatching a crazy time travel plan to stop him. However, two other heroes have another idea, creating a doomed alternate Earth when they go back in time and kill Hank Pym. I didn’t like this story the first time I read it, but the more I read, the more I liked it. It’s one of the few Bendis written events that’s not boring and the art is fantastic. It’s just a big dumb time travel story and it’s cooler than most people remember.
3) Secret War
Speaking of Bendis events, let’s talk about Secret War. This five-issue event book, with gorgeous painted art from Gabrielle dell’Otto, sees the tech-themed villains of the world getting upgrades from a mysterious source, attacking a group of heroes who are all linked by a war they don’t remember, used by a man they all trusted. This is Bendis’s first event comic and it’s honestly one of his best. It’s not an action-packed banger – it’s an ’00s Bendis comic so you’re lucky to get a page or two of action an issue and it’s painted, so the action is very static – but it’s such a cool story. Everyone praises bad Bendis events like House of M and Secret Invasion, but they should be praising this one.
2) Infinity War
Infinity War is an underrated gem. This Infinity Gauntlet sequel from Jim Starlin and Ron Lim sees the return of evil alternate future Adam Warlock the Magus, who has hatched the perfect plan to gain the ultimate power. Sending out his doppelgangers to replace his most dangerous enemies and playing everyone against everyone else, the only thing that can stop him is an alliance by two of Marvel’s greatest foes: Warlock and Thanos. This story takes everything cool about its predecessor and dials it up to 11. It’s a better story, it’s more exciting, and it’s much better paced. You probably haven’t read this one (it’s 34 years old – a lot of you weren’t born yet and it’s not popular), but you should immediately.
1) Siege
Bendis events in the ’00s were, by and large, hit or miss despite their sterling reputation. The problem was that the stories were so decompressed that they got boring, their terrible pacing making four issues of story into eight. That’s what makes Siege, with art by Olivier Coipel, so great. The story of Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers attack on Asgard and the heroes’ response is only four issues long. Bendis didn’t have the page real estate to stretch the story out and it made it so much better. The action is still kind of lame – Bendis still couldn’t write compelling action back then, despite years in the industry – but it’s pretty great and the best Bendis event comic at Marvel.
What are your comfort Marvel events? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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