Summer Events

I’m a little disappointed I can’t be a dwarf mage in Dragon Age.  So far it’s the only real problem I have with the game.

So, I’ve mentioned before, although apparently not on this site, that I love Dark Avengers and I will buy all of the trades when I get the money to do so.  That might be several months, but it’ll be worth it.  By extension, I’m a pretty big fan of the entire Dark Reign saga, since it does a surprisingly good job of turning the entire Marvel universe on its head, and does it without making the heroes look like morons (House of M and Avengers Disassembled) or like complete dicks (Civil War).  Considering it’s helmed by the guy who wrote two-thirds of the series in those lists, it’s a pretty big surprise.

I’m not opposed to the big events in theory.  Hell, I don’t mind them year after year.  Considering these stories have existed for upwards to sixty years, something needs to shake them up every so often, why not put change up continuity every 18 months or so?  After all, it does a decent job of distracting the readers from the giant continuity snarls damn near every character is involved in (no it doesn’t).

Of course, this is all theoretical.  It’s nice to have huge, epic events all the time, where Superman devastates whatever powerful anti-god he’s fighting with Dethklok blaring while he’s kicking ass.  Unfortunately, this leads to severe amounts of fatigue, and the epic events start to feel like old hat.  Sure, alien invaders, crazy mixed up realities or Darkseid punking every fucker on the planet seems cool the first time, but by the time we get to the fifth one in a row, it’s starting to get old.

I guess that’s why I’m so surprised at how much I enjoy Dark Reign.  It’s…different, I guess.  Instead of a huge epic event, it’s a bit more subtle.  Sure, shit gets blowed up good and all, but the change was different than it was before.  Instead of something exploding, the good guys come back home to find the bad guys in charge.  I guess it’s not different, just a nice change of pace.

It’s also fun to see the heroes legitimately working towards a real threat too.  This is different than, say, Secret Invasion or Final Crisis.  In those, it was a forgone conclusion that the heroes would win.  Oh yeah, there would be losses, sure, but we all knew the bad guys were going to get their asses kicked hardcore.  Now, it’s not so sure.  The villains are the good guys and the heroes are outlaws, and it’s done with a lot more subtlety than Civil War (granted a brick to the face is more subtle than Civil War).  The heroes are desperate, looking for any edge to win, and even though they know Norman Osborne is crazy as shit and likely to melt down soon, that doesn’t mean they can get their world back.  I like it.  It’s fun.

Speaking of summer events and giant crossovers, my buddy Matt found this:

Bad ass, huh?