So, what's your favorite stories that spun out of one of the numerous company-wide cross-overs that DC, Marvel, and other companies have tossed at us over the years.

Two of my favorites:
INVASION! -- the second Animal Man cross-over where Buddy gets involved with a suicidal former super-villain who pulled the old robots out of storage for one last blow-out before he took a dive off a building. Just a great little digression in the middle of DC's fairly one-note company wide cross-over.

Final Night -- the Hitman cross-over, where Tommy and the gang sit around Noonan's Sleazy Bar swapping stories about their brushes with death. I never even read the main cross-over, but I loved this one story, giving me "KILL THE CHICKENS AND KILL THE CHICKENS AND KILL THE CHICKENS!!!" to make me smile forever.

Armageddon 2001 -- I believe it was the Action cross-over, which turned the whole dystopian future thing on its head by delivering a honest-to-goodness happy future, with Superman becoming President and bringing about peace on Earth. Probably not the bestest written story of all time, but I have found memories of the cross-over that went against the grain. The JLA and JLE cross-overs were amusing as well, but they were mostly more of the same from the Giffen-Era JL books.

I probably read all the Secret Wars Crossovers.

Secret Wars was the only one I ever really cared about... and that was probably just because it was rather unique for the time. But, it didn't cause me to go out and buy all of the crossover titles.

The only other two that I can recall weren't really "company wide", but affected most of the titles I was reading at the time. The X-Factor/Return of Jean Grey "event" and the Mutant Massacre stuff. I don't remember when the Mutant Massacre thing ended, but I don't think I caught the end of it before I quit the comics scene in '87.

Hmm. Some of the not-so company wide crossovers were my faves, but within the guidelines, I'd say Crisis; it propelled Man of Steel, a new Wonder Woman (by Perez and co. which is really terrific) and Batman: Year One. Besides that, it had EVERYBODY. Flaws, yes, it had those, too. It also gave us History of the DC Universe, and the DDDCU.

I was talking about individual cross-over stories, not the central cross-over.

Like, was there a War Of The Gods cross-over story that you thought was just plain cool, even if you hated the main mini-series. Was their a Secret Wars II cross-over issue that just stood head-and-shoulders above all the others.

Another example: Hitman 1,000,000. Didn't think much of the main mini-series by Grant Morrison, but that was an entertaining story on its own merit. A group of kids in the future who idolize Hitman bring him to the future, and he mercilessly mocks the stupid fuckers. Eventually Gunfire 1,000,000 shows up and turns his own ass into a hand grenade and blows himself up.

I love crossovers and have enjoyed nearly all of them. The main exception is DC's Our World At War which I found to be astonishingly confusingly told and difficult to follow.

Aparently so is my thread, since no one answers it correctly

I can't recall too many crossover related issues that stand out for me. The main exception is the FF issue featuring the Beyonder from Secret Wars II ('Hero').

One, unmarketed crossover that I enjoyed was the Dire Wraith (from the pages of ROM) invasion that spilled over to the pages of FF and X-Men.

Steven - I also liked those Hitman and Animal man issues.

Claremont used to be good at incorporating crappy crossovers into the main Xmen book...his Dire Wriath issues were cool, he even had a cool issue where the afro toting Beyonder brought back the sentinels to fight phoenix (issue 202 I think).

Chuck Dixon even gave us some entertaining Nightwing and BOP issues that revolved around the interminable Bruce Wayne murder/fugitive crossover.

INVASION! and ARMAGEDDON 2001 were my favorites. One thing I liked about both of them is that they had simple premises, so if you just read your regular titles without following the whole crossover, you didn't get confused. In the case of 2001, you actually got a decent self-contained story.

Generally, company-wide crossovers just plain suck.

I liked CRISIS when it came out...the 12-issue mini, not all the lame intrusions into other books.

The original SECRET WARS wasn't really a crossover. SECRET WARS II was and it was an abomination.

I liked LEGENDS...the six-issue mini, not all the lame intrusions into other books.

Pretty much all of the other "big summer event" company-wide crossover stroies just blow.

the Claremont/Jim Lee 3 part ACTS OF VENGEANCE crossover with the Mandarin vs Wolvie and the new Psylocke was excellent as well...that was one of the only Acts of Vengeance crossover books that was well done aside from the main storyline.

I think all of us skip the first sentence, where you actually (!) say what yer saying. I like the Beyonder story about Doom and that lady, who has her husband absconded with by Doom from the FF run. Beyond that....nothing.

I liked the "Justice League" issue that followed "Invasion" were they hold a membership drive while a small, left over alien battle group prepares an attack.

"The Incredible Hulk" tye in to "Infinity Gauntlet". Tiny Hulk councils the Abomination.

The Swamp Thing tie-ins to Crisis entertained me. Though I only read the final issue of that tie-in during the time. The rest of the issues I caught in TPB form 15 years or so later.

Apologies. Stephen. I barely remember last month's issues even when I start this month's - I have a lot of trouble remembering individual spinoffs. I only remember the crossovers because they were such big stories.

So I can't play this game.

Neil Welch: half his brain tied behind his back, just so the rest of us can keep up!

Let's see...

I really liked the Young Justice issue of 'Our Worlds At War'..but that is mostly because I was working on the book, and came up with a particularily cool special effect (I'm shallow, I admit it )

um...I don't remember which, if it was Amazing Spider-Man or Spectacular, but the Secret Wars II crossover issue after the Beyonder had already turned that office building into solid gold, and Spidey agonizes over whether to steal some of the solid-gold trash to pay some bills...then he sees the government paying off the Kingpin in solid-gold typewriters to help hide the entire building (and thereby stopping a worldwide financial crisis)...yeah, that was pretty cool (and about the only real stand-out of SWII - I didn't even like the FF issue all that much).

The Crisis issue of Supergirl where you find, after her death, that she had been secretly married...that one was pretty cool

....um, that is all I can think of. Unless you want to count all the other crossover bits (Superman 1 000 000 and such) that I worked on....but I don't need to keep doing this self-promotion thing, do I

Ian - never heard of that Supergirl story - who did she marry? Where did it appear?

...makin' me go through the comic collection...

Okay, my bad, it was Superman - Superman #415 'Supergirl: Bride of - - X?'

This is where we find out she married some alien guy named Salkor during a period of amnesia...she got her memory back at one point, but thereby forgot her marriage, apparently up until just before her death so she could leave a 'good-bye' message to both Salkor and Supes.

Gosh, I'm getting all choked up...*sniff*...

Anyway.Written by Cary Bates, pencils by The Man, Curt Swan, inks by Al Williamson, colours by Gene D'angelo, lettered by John Costanza, and, of course, edited by Julius Schwartz. One of the more curious backstories in an era of curious backstories...

The JSA: Our Worlds at War issue was excellent. They rounded up about 15-20 more "legacy heroes" for a mission to destroy a massive warship. Worth it for the last page alone, where President Luthor is shocked to learn that not only did they succeed, but they did it with no casualties.

Not a big company-wide crossover fan (to say the least), but there have been a few that I've enjoyed:

1. UNITY (Valiant Comics).

2. FINAL NIGHT (DC)

3. MAXIMUM SECURITY (MARVEL)


I think that that's about it.

I'm not fan of either SECRET WARS or CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. I think that both were kind of a mess. They came when company-wide crossovers were still new and still big events, though, so I can understand why some people are nostaligic about them.