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Everyone used to talk about how crappy it was to invest in a crossover event because you have to buy the mini-series and tie-in issues.

Well is it just me, or would you love to return that? I mean crossover events nowadays not only have the mini-series and tie-in issues, but now there are other mini-series that you have to buy with the main-mini-series, there's tie-issues, and now they even want to throw "point" (0.1, 2.1, etc.) issues at us!

You have to spend like $100 to get the complete story. And it's not like comic sales are doing any better. So why are the comic companies trying to drive people away from buying this stuff by making it too expensive and incredibly inaccessible?!

Because they think it will boost sales. They have no idea that it drives customers away because they simply refuse to believe it.
Like most modern businesses that provide a product or service, they would prefer to tell you what you want instead of asking you what you'd like.

It used to be one event a year that ran for 3 or 4 months. Now it seems that that the event is all year.

Contrary to what all of us old timers on the boards want to believe, these crossovers do boost sales. That's why they keep doing it. It's the same reason why they start new books over at #1. While all of us disgruntled types tire of it and opt out, the newer collectors eat it up.

Maybe a short spike in sales, yeah. But in the long run? In the 80s and 90s comics were selling close to and sometimes into millions of copies. Nowadays comics are lucky to get into the 100s of thousands.

The comic companies are no longer content to have sales that are just sufficient. To you and me, it doesn't make sense to have these events if it only causes a short spike in sales. But if they have these events going on year-long, then the sales spikes become the month to month standard.

I just wish that they could provide a coherent reading order for all of these events. If you're gonna put out 100 issues tying into one story, then tell me the right order to read them.

They're so busy covering their butts with the crowd that doesn't want to get the whole thing that they keep forgetting about those that do want the whole thing. Or even just the partial event, but still wants that part to make sense.

Used to be one event a year that lasted 4-5 weeks.

this is the reason I quit reading new 52 green lantern.

I'm okay with an "event" when it seems like its got some meaning or gonna matter. This is the reason I quit Marvel after Seige. I had finally had enough. It was just another pointless event which has been followed by other pointless events. I just want entertaining stories at this point. I don't need the whole "nothing will be the same after this" tagline that has lost all meaning in comics.

I don't read Marvel, so I can't speak to that, but in the last 30 years DC has used that tagline somewhere around 5,000,000 times and only Crisis On Infinite Earths and Flashpoint actually "did" anything.
I though CoIE was a great storyline and really did help clean up countless messes, but I wasn't into superhero comics at the time so for me it actually did help achieve what it was intended to (make DC less daunting/confusing for new readers who were overwhelmed by the multiple universes and bazillion different versions of each character). Unfortunately, it also did a fantastic job of alienating a large portion of their existing fan-base. Something I couldn't understand at the time.
Flashpoint, on its own, is a decent story (I suppose). I don't know how much good it has done in regard to drawing in new customers... but it has definitely changed everything (except when His Royal Majesty Geoff Johns decides it hasn't *cough* Blackest Night *cough*). There was no gigantic confusing continuity mess to "fix", so I now better understand the viewpoint of those who hated what CoIE did as I can relate a bit.
My biggest gripes with Flashpoint at this time is that it was supposed to go so far back that it would have kept even CoIE from ever having happened - "everything" we knew about DC was supposed to be gone, but then they immediately decide that it's actually "everything" except this one Batman arc that they thought was particularly cool (but absolutely cannot IN ANY WAY be shoe-horned into the new origins) or this one particular GL arc that they think was super sweet (but also absolutely cannot IN ANY WAY be shoe-horned into the new origins).
I'm also pretty p!ssed about what they did to Booster Gold...

Never expect consistency.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the first big crossover event was Marvel's Secret Wars? That's the first one I remember anyway. At the time it seemed like a bigger, more complex Contest of Champions.

I liked it for several reasons.

There were major changes. Ben Grimm/Thing stayed behind on Battleworld and She-Hulk joined the FF in his stead. Spider-Man got his black costume which incidentally turned into one of his greatest foes, Venom. (Not to mention Carnage, Toxin, et al.) New, lasting characters were introduced: Spider Woman, Titania, Beyonder. A villain, Magneto, became more sympathetic. The heroes who knew that Tony Stark was Iron Man learned that someone else (Jim Rhodes) was taking his place. More stuff that I can't remember.

Most importantly, the impact on the regular titles was minimal. You didn't have to read 8 issues of the X-Men (or whatever) if you weren't currently getting it. For instance, Spidey jumped on board the Beyonder's construct at the end of Amazing Spider-Man #251 - after a crucial battle with the Hobgoblin. Next time we see him (ASM #252) he's wearing a black costume that reacts to his thoughts, but we don't know why. And that was it basically, there were no other crossovers and the series (ASM) didn't reveal what the costume was until Secret Wars #8 came out. All of the other titles that were affected showed the same aspects.

The difference between Secret Wars 1 and SW2 is drastic. There were what, 30 crossovers between ongoing series? A lot of those seemed shoehorned in or completely deus ex machina. Think the Avengers where the Beyonder just pops in and teleports Nebula to parts unknown, or the Hulk/Alpha Flight switchover where Marvel just needed an excuse to swap creative teams, or the totally obvious ploy to boost sales of a flagging title by crossing over into Micronauts. And more.

Furthermore, you didn't have to read all of the titles participating in the crossover, but you did have to read some of them to know what was going on. DC's Legends event was similar to that. You need to read Cosmic Boy to know what's going on but you can totally skip Warlord if you don't normally get it. But how do you know what to get?

My favorite crossover events were the ones that they used to do with Annuals. I think Marvel was the first out of the gate with this as well. The Evolutionary War went through every Annual that summer. You didn't have to buy the regular series plus they were jam packed with a ton of extra material - back-up stories, pin-ups, bio pages and even an ongoing background storyline. Atlantis Attacks was the same way. DC eventually did the same thing with Eclipso: The Darkness Within and JLApe.

Another good idea I thought was the "Theme" Annuals. DC did that with Year One, Pulp Heroes, Elseworlds and Marvel had an event where every Annual came poly-bagged with a trading card featuring a new hero debuting in that issue. Marvel also did a number of mini-series type stuff in Annuals like Assault on Armor City, The Korvac Quest, Days of Future Present, Spidey's Totally Tiny Adventure, Terminus Factor and a ton more.

The reason I liked these more was that you really didn't have to get them all, but you might want to. I hated buying a comic that tied into a big storyline only to find out that it didn't have anything to do with the big picture and furthermore the writing and art was bad.

The original Crisis on Infinite Earths was the reason why I started buying DC comics. Well, super hero comics anyway. I had already been into Sgt. Rock, Weird War Tales, House of Secrets, and a few others, but the super hero stuff eluded me. It was a little confusing, Earth 1, Earth 2, Earth Z - I could never figure out who belonged where. I liked Marvel because it seemed like a more cohesive universe so I liked what Crisis did even though I didn't really understand it at the time.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that every crossover event doesn't have to be a "Huge Giant Shift Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again" type thing. Those are nice but just do them every couple years or so and intersperse some other fun stuff along the way.

I've said it before and I'll say it again--when you read the previews/solicits for these comics/events, it really comes across that they're desperate for you to buy them.

That's why I don't buy 'em... they reek of desperation and cheap perfume.

I liked Flash Point but I'm confused about what it really done. Was it the lead in to the New 52? Did it cause the New 52? Or was it just some random "event" of DC's that was poorly planned to take place before New 52 therefore making it completely pointless?

It's the set-up to the New 52 Universe. The changes in time that Reverse-Flash, and then Flash changed (in an attempt to fix what Reverse-Flash changed) caused New 52 to happen.

Marvel did sometimes number their crossovers with "parts". Can't remember off hand what event it was, but I think Midnight Sons were numbered and there was something with the X-Titles. Can't remember much I'm tired.

Ok, decided to look it up. X-Tinction Agenda was numbered in parts. Fall of the Mutants wasn't. Infinity War had tie ins not numbered. Just can't remember what that giant 18 part crossover was. Someone will know.

Phil

Operation: Galactic Storm. Each part was numbered.

It would make it easier if they were numbered like that. Part 1 of 12, or whatever, just like a mini-series.

That would assume the 5,469 different writers on the project are communicating with each other and all working together with consistent editorial oversight - which is no longer ever the case.
This in turn means that you can't number them that way because then too many customers would be turned off by the fact that part 6 has things happening that clearly occur AFTER the events of part 8 and the stuff that just happened in part 9 is completely contradictory to parts 8, 6, and 5(!).