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The first question to ask, the most important question, when it comes to an event is simple:

“What’s at stake here?”

Back in the day, specifically Marvel under Stan Lee’s tenure, a perpetual state of danger existed and surrounded characters on nearly every adventure underwent.  Brought about with Lee’s dynamic storytelling style and relative youth of the Marvel catalog, any moment seemed as though it could be someone’s last.

But today, characters seem too…safe.

Not because editorial departments fear making unpopular decisions (One More Day, anyone?), but because the comic medium itself embraces ret-cons and soap opera style twists.

Perhaps not since 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths has there been an event, a story, even, which placed well-known characters in the throes of such inescapable dangers that fans worried about the, if any, future of their favorite heroes.

And since no one believes that characters like Superman or Batman or Spider-Man or Captain America will ever die and stay dead, even when we’re promised Barry Allen will never return because he death meant something (liars), a new device must be invented to create character conflict and long-term storytelling direction.

The subject matter of Civil War, superhuman legislation, logically affected the broad cast of the Marvel U forcing all the costumed do-gooders to make decision and choose a side is exactly why Civil War and its incalculable specials, tie-ins, miniseries, and spin-offs worked.  The way the entire hero population operated was at stake, and subsequently had to take stand, because, like I said, it was logical.

But just as ideological debate and continuity resetting disasters remain absent, I don’t see a meaningful threat anywhere between Final Crisis and Secret Invasion to their respective superhero communities.  I don’t feel like the Marvel or DC universes will never been the same again because the Skrulls have replaced a few low-tier heroes (and butlers) and the New Gods are being reborn.

Entertaining stories they may be, I fail to see the need to tie the entire company (Marvel, more so as nearly every title will sport the Secret Invasion trade-dress at one point or another) and its direction to one, singular story.

Unless, like I said…it’s logical.

L-O-G-I-C-A-L.

It seems like a lot of tie-ins coming out are forced, tie-ins for the sake of tie-ins, with no clear (again, looking at Marvel and Secret Invasion) indication of when exactly they come into play.

The elements that make branching the central story out into monthlies and specials like Crisis on Infinite Earth’s red skies, Civil War’s choosing sides themed issues, or even (dare I say) Zero Hour’s #0 issues re-examing the origins of the DCU, seem terribly lacking.  Yet, it appears that the successes from yesterday’s events (Yes, Zero Hour – I can hear you snickering) have turned the tie-in from something extra crafted to expand a particular aspect of the event into something expected.  For this summer, the tie-in is not logical means to expand the scope of the story, but simply another method to move more units.  

Yet, I fear modern comic storytelling itself facilitates the event and tie-in market.  As more and more stories fall away from a long-term structure to “writing for the trade”, normal monthlies have taken on an event-centric quality, being written in four-to-twelve part complete story arcs.  As on-goings themselves turn into character-focused continuing “mini-events”, it appears the tie-in exists as a means to “one-up” everything else to scream “I’m important” in a hype-building market.

Even worse, as more and more writers script out one or two arcs on a book and then move on, replaced quickly by another with their own thoughts (often different) on where the title should be going, the status quo has melted and become too fluid for any change to have a chance to hold for an extended period of time.

These subjects, the absence of any real “stakes”, a lack of “logical” unification, and just knowing it’s more likely than not that the next writer on a particular book will most likely pay no attention to what’s happened just six issues earlier, makes me ho-hum at this week’s comic rack.