Stop Inviting Me to Your Parties: Why I'm Tired of Event Comics

There’s no worse feeling than going through a series and finding out that guess what? The next few issues will be a tie-in to yet another massive EVENT that will probably just put the original story’s development on hold for a bit. (I’m looking at you Captain Marvel Civil War 2 tie-ins) I haven’t forgotten and I sure as hell haven’t forgiven.

From Marvel, in the past few years, we’ve had Infinity Countdown, Infinity Wars, Secret Wars, Civil War 2, and now, War of the Realms. DC is also guilty of multiple EVENTS in a short period, having rebooted the entire universe with Rebirth recently, and now there’s the Doomsday Clock EVENT. I’m exhausted. Marvel, DC, please, I’m begging you to let me breathe. My wallet and my sanity can’t take it.

Deadpool spilling the tea about EVENT comics. Image Credit: Spider-Man/Deadpool #50

My biggest issue with EVENT comics is how every current title has to connect to every EVENT. Even if you want to, you can’t avoid the current EVENT.

I gave War of the Realms a try, but it’s just not my thing, and I really don’t want to (or have the budget to) keep up with all of the tie-in issues. Outside of the main War of the Realms title, there’s War of the Realms: Strikeforce, War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas, War of the Realms: Journey into Mystery, and countless tie-ins from other ongoing series. When I realized Captain Marvel would be crossing into the War of the Realms EVENT in the next issue, a part of my soul died.

At least now I’m one step closer to the Infinity Gauntlet. Image credit: marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com

Another issue I have with EVENT comics is the time commitment. Once again I’m going to use the War of the Realms EVENT as an example because its current, and I have a lot of feelings about it. If I want to stay up-to-date with the entire story, there’s about 10 comics each month I’ve got to read to stay afloat. I don’t have infinite time, and I would really rather use it to read a story I enjoy. Despite all of this I feel obligated to read War of the Realms because I’m sure it will have repercussions for stories going forward.

Me after realizing how many comics I’ve got to read to keep up with Marvel’s current EVENT, War of the Realms. Image Credit: War of the Realms Strikeforce: The Dark Elf Realm #1

I’ve got EVENT fatigue. All I want now is self-contained stories, or at least stories that don’t connect to some massive universe-wide EVENT. At least for a while. Maybe after a long break, I’ll be happy to see an EVENT again, but not for a very, long time.