An Event Without the Avengers?

[WolfCypher]

Civil War. Secret Invasion. Seige. Fear Itself. AvX. Marvel is very timely with these yearly "blockbuster" events, and they aren't going to stop. And at the center of all these events (World War Hulk debatable), are the Avengers. Its been bugging me that every year, we get that big epic crossover event, and Marvel never takes the opportunity to give any other big leaguers their chances to take that yearly event's center stage.

Where Marvel always ****es their premier superhero dream-team, DC has been doing the opposite with some of their last events. Blackest Night was truly a Green Lantern-centric event, Flashpoint was pretty much a Flash story, and now, the closests we have to a DC event with Night of the Owls, is all Batman. Marvel has done "franchise-specific" events before, like the Spider-Man's Spider Island, Daredevil's Shadowland, and plenty of X-Men stories that could have been events, but none of these stories were penned as Marvel's "Big Push" for that year's event. What they all had in common? Lack of Avengers, or the Avengers weren't the focus. The Justice League haven't been carrying these DC events for a while now, yet Marvel doesn't have the same faith with there events. If they DO give us a X-Men event, it better have the Avengers sharing the spotlight. If not, that X-Men event becomes a 2nd-tier, 3rd-tier story.

Do you guys wonder if Marvel can ever give us a "Big Event" that does NOT focus on or star the Avengers or ANY kind? Can we have an event (and one that is treated as the BIG event that year) featuring/focusing on any other character or characters? The Fantastic Four could easily bring a big world-scale adventure to the readers, same with the X-Men. Don't even forget the Cosmic Marvel side, where for a while events from THAT corner was getting more praise than the "bigger" stuff being pushed down our throats. Annihilation is never considered as pivital as Civil War as far as Marvel goes. I can hope for something new involving the Guardians of the Galaxy later down the line, yet unfortunately still see Marvel treating theirs like the secondary "status quo" especially if they already have another "War" or "crossover" planned where Cap, IM, & Thor show up.

Something I've been wanting to bring up.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Blackest Night and Flashpoint both featured plenty of other Justice Leaguers, as I recall.

 

[THANOSRULES]

I just don't really agree with you and there's been some crossover with avenger stories but not necessarily avengers events. , including the japanese god squad featuring hercules or hulk what about annihilation or
war of kings I just don't see it. Not to mention in annihilation the avengers were not really a factor

 

[TheCorpulent1]

True, Chaos War was pretty light on Avengers. At least as much as Blackest Night or Flashpoint were on the JLA.

 

[runawayboulder]

Marvel has done events in the past like what you described: Inferno and Fall of the Mutants were both X-Men events.

 

[bored]

The Avengers are the Marvel all-star team, something which has been played up since Bendis took over and added Spidey and Wolverine. Their characters are, by nature of the team, going to be center-stage in major events, because that's the role they're supposed to fill.

Now, if you want more individual character-centered stories in the vain of "Blackest Night" and "Flashpoint" (which still starred core members of the JLA), they do those all the time, too. "Spider-Island", "Chaos War", "Shadowland", Greg Pak's Hulk events all filled this role.

 

[WolfCypher]

The events like Age of X, Messiah Complex, Spider-Island, etc., are never treated in the same vein as stuff like Fear Itself, AvX...the events that usually have long-lasting, status quo changing effects. I know Marvel has done Avenger-less events before, but their never "marketed" or treated in the same way the Avenger-ish events have.

I know Flashpoint and BN had core members of the JLA involved, but (is it just me?) they did not feel like JLA-centric stories. The JL didin't really exists in Flashpoint, and the story really did center around mostly Flash and FP Batman.

 

[bored]

The basic premise hinged around how the members of the JLA were different, though.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The events like Age of X, Messiah Complex, Spider-Island, etc., are never treated in the same vein as stuff like Fear Itself, AvX...the events that usually have long-lasting, status quo changing effects. I know Marvel has done Avenger-less events before, but their never "marketed" or treated in the same way the Avenger-ish events have.

I know Flashpoint and BN had core members of the JLA involved, but (is it just me?) they did not feel like JLA-centric stories. The JL didin't really exists in Flashpoint, and the story really did center around mostly Flash and FP Batman.

They still featured multiple JL members as the linchpins of the whole event. Flash, Wonder Woman, and all the other deputized Lantern heroes in Blackest Night; Aquaman, Batdad, and Wonder Woman in Flashpoint. I'm really not seeing a difference between those and, say, Fear Itself, which was clearly a Thor/Cap event that featured the other Avengers pitching in because it makes sense for them to do so.

 

[WolfCypher]

To me, the difference is that while various JLers were in Flaspoint and BN, they didn't feel like much of a collective. The JLers in FP were scattered and weren't a team, so while you had Superman, a Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, etc. present in the story, they were all doing their own thing. There was no "all-star team" dynamic there, like in any other JL story. With BN, most of the JL were out of commission, leaving it up to Hal and Barry to do the heavy lifting.

I'm saying that while the JLers were there, these stories didn't feel like JL events per se. I was wondering why Marvel can't go that route with their events. And not stuff like Shadowland or Spider-Island, but the events that Marvel "****es down our throats", their big blockbuster-level event.

This isn't an anti-Avengers post or anything, just a curious thought about how big stories that center on other teams/heroes like the F4, or X-Men, are never given the chance to be that year's status quo/Marvel Universe spanning epic that AvX and Fear Itself are.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I think you're kind of splitting hairs. When Wonder Woman, the Atom, and the Flash were among the characters deputized as Lanterns in Blackest Night, I got a very "all-star team" feel from them. There were a few oddballs like Luthor and the Scarecrow, sure, but the deputized Lanterns were, by and large, an incarnation of the JLA to a large extent.

I just don't see the clear separation between BN, Flashpoint, and "those normal, JL-centric events" you do. I also don't see why the Avengers shouldn't be involved in big events. They're Earth's first, best line of defense against pretty much everything. They should be front and center when the s*** hits the fan.