Acts of (Re)Vengence

I recently discovered that an upcoming Marvel event is something called Axis which will involve the Avengers and X-men fighting against an alliance of several Marvel supervillains.



Which sounds a lot like the plot to an event from the 90's: Acts of Vengence


What is most meh raising about this newest event is that Marvel already had a bit of a Acts of Vengence rehash with their Dark Reign storyline several years ago:


So, yeah, as events go, this latest one definitely seems like it's running on fumes.
Though it did cause me to consider the nature of events. In doing so, I grouped them into 3 categories:

Continuity Conversions - those events that threaten to change everything about a given comics universe (or actually do so)

Some examples would include:

• Crisis on Infinite Earths
• Civil War
• Avengers Vs X-men
• Infinite Crisis
• Age of Ultron

Morbid Mysteries - this is an event storyline that revolves around the unsolved murder of a some character.

Examples would include:

• Identity Crisis
• Original Sin

I actually like this type of storyline simply because so often, mysteries in comics are simply "Who is this mystery character?!" rather than a true mystery. When you consider how popular mysteries are on prime time television, their absence from superhero storylines is a bit surprising.

Toyetic Teamups - this is an event where some gimmicky grouping of characters is the hook.

Examples of this type are:

• Blackest Night
• Fear Itself
• Sinestro War
• Forever Evil

Looking at these, you can sort of see how an overdose of the Continuity Conversions has led to those getting devalued over time. One too many such events have suggested the storyline was going to change everything we ever knew only to leave us with nothing more than, I don't know...a momentarily dead Hercules.

Looking ahead, I suspect Grant Morrison's upcoming Multiversity storyline will be a bit Toyetic, but I'm going to check it out. He's usually got a good ear for what to keep and what to ditch when he's pulling items out of his fanboy closet.


As to this latest Acts of Vengence rehash Marvel is gearing up for, I suspect it will be a bit of wild ride - and not necessarily like fans would like. Remender can be a loose cannon with characters. (This is the guy who gave us Frankencastle)


While I find such wild abandon amusing, I suspect most Marvel fans want something a bit more conservative in nature.

It should be interesting to see how that pans out.

- Jim