2011 Event Face Off

I'm sure everyone knows how busy a summer this is for superheroes in the movies, but it's just as busy in the world of comics.  After Marvel and DC convinced themselves that we needed a break from big mega events, things were just too damn quiet without the Avengers confronting armies of genocidal ninja robots FROM SPACE!  We have three big storylines right on the horizon, and I'll break down which to be excited for.

War of the Green Lanterns
The jury is still out on whether or not the Green Lantern movie will be a success, but its hard to argue that Hal Jordan and Co. haven't been dominating comics these past few years.  In the aftermath of Blackest Night, Hal has joined forces with the rest of the Lantern Corps. to stop the renegade guardian Krona.  The rest of the Corps. isn't too happy with their star Lantern going all loose cannon, and we're going to see Guy Gardner and Hal try and kill each other, a story which refuses to get old.  And you won't have to worry about an endless storm of tie ins either.  The story is self contained within the trio of  GL books.  Green Lantern is a safe bet for good story telling these days, and even if it's not as iconic as the Sinestro Corps. War or Blackest Night, I can't imagine this War not being a fun one.

Fear Itself
I'm a sucker for the Thor mythos, and this storyline puts Marvel's best and brightest against the God of Fear itself.  The event has alot of players, ranging from the classic Avengers to the Juggernaut to Dracula.  Fear Itself certainly boasts a solid enough premise.  Ancient evil gods and a solid cast of heroes is always a good start.  The true deciding factor for this event will be Matt Fraction's writing.  The man can write pitch perfect dialogue and understands his characters incredibly well, but does decompress the hell out of his stories.  This doesn't bother me when he's writing Iron Man and explores the nature of Tony Stark's personal demons, but for an action packed event?  This could either be one of the smartest, most imaginative sagas yet or move at a snail's pace.  We'll just have to wait and see.  Still, early images look pretty cool, so check it out.

Flashpoint
While Green Lantern's event is very self contained (and all the better for it, IMO), Flashpoint will bring in the entire DCU.  And while Blackest Night dealt with the comic book trope of character deaths and resurrection, Flashpoint looks to deal with retcons.  The Flash does have a history of dealing with  time travel and such, and it looks like Earth's time line is going to radically change.  Out of all the events this summer, Flashpoint has me the least interested.  I gave the Flash a shot when Geoff Johns took on the new title and it let me down.  And the idea of exploring alternate reality versions of classic DC characters?  Not a bad one, but I'm not in the mood to pick up a ridiculous number of tie ins just to follow up on that.  And honestly, how many times have we seen alternate universes and time lines?  The event does have some promise, but if DC uses this as an excuse to retcon more storylines 


 So to sum things up, War of the Green Lanterns should be a solid, fun storyline, Fear Itself is both blessed and cursed a wildly imaginative, thoughtful writer, and I can live without entering the Flashpoint.  Regardless whether or not all of these events work out, I'm excited just to explore what they have to offer.  Say what you want about events, you can help but deny the sense of scale they bring to comics.