Comic books talk a lot about change. In my humble opinion it’s what most comic book people (fans and talent alike) are afraid of. How many times have we listened to a guy or gal talk about how so and so messed up their favorite character? How many times have you read posts like these that lamented companies for one reason or another? Change is the driving force behind all our complaints, things concerning our characters aren’t the same as they once were and for a lot of us that flat out sucks. But it has to happen.

Recently Marvel has taken some heat for their event series Secret Invasion and how it ended. I won’t spoil it here because the book can still be picked up and should be. Why you ask? Because the one thing the series accomplished (and this is important) was that it continued moving the Marvel Universe in a concerted direction. Some of you out there might feel like Marvel always has moved in a concerted direction and I say thee nay!

When I was a kid there were three major areas of the Marvel Universe, The X-Men Universe, Spider-Man and his family of books, and the Marvel U proper (Cap, The Avengers, Fantastic Four etc.). The X-Men did their X-Thing and didn’t bother with the rest of the Marvel U for the most part. You could easily be a X-Men fan and never read an issue of The Avengers your whole life and not miss out on much. The characters in the Marvel U were isolated in a way that made them more manageable editorially (at least that’s how I figured it).

I know what you’re thinking, but what about team ups and guest appearances. Well Marvel Team-Up eventually became an exclusive Spider-Man title, and guest appearances don’t exactly spell cohesion. After all, they’re just guest spots, not typically ongoing arcs that effect numerous characters. Spider-Man was always portrayed as a loner so you hardly saw him hanging with the Avengers in any kind of meaningful way, nor the X-Men for that matter.

In recent years Marvel has made a concerted effort for their characters to ‘fit’ together. It all started for me with Avengers Disassembled, that story paved the way for Marvel to come together. The first thing it did was remind us all exactly how many Avengers were out there, which is a lot. The second thing it did was test the waters with killing prominent characters without much build up (Hawkeye just kinda died suddenly). Thirdly, it set the stage for Civil War.

A lot had to happen for Civil War to work, and breaking up the Avengers was a huge part of that. The story had its rough spots mostly because the plot wasn’t completely original (Civil War wasn’t the first time Marvel flirted with a superhero registration act) and some of the character behaviors were forced, especially in the cases of both Iron Man and Captain America. But that was necessary to get the story out. What was most important about Civil War was how it ended, and the other purpose it served, to redefine the roles of their characters, worked as well.

Civil War ended in a way that forced Marvel to address what it had done in almost every book they published dealing with Earth 616. From issues of Iron Fist to the Annihilation series, everyone had to pay tribute to the events of Civil War. For the first time (maybe ever) Marvel changed their entire universe with one story. This created considerable momentum in my eyes and Marvel didn’t let off of the gas.

Putting Spider-Man and Wolverine (arguably their two biggest characters) together on the Avengers was further proof that lasting change had befallen Marvel comics. Suddenly the worlds of the X-Men and The Avengers weren’t that far off as we saw during House of M when the relationship between Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, The X-Men and The Avengers was revisited. Putting Wolverine on both teams bridged the families in regular continuity instead of relegating their meetings to event comics and special series. Just recently Wolverine guest starred in a couple issues of Spider-Man which was an extension of their time together with the Avengers. That’s what I’m talking about, cohesion, not just some chance team up that happened out of nowhere.

I’m not saying that you should expect to see a bunch of Spider-Man cameo’s in the X-Men books, or Thor hanging with the new Cap every week, but that less work has to be done to bring those characters together because there is an overarching issue that affects them all that readers can understand and relate to. Secret Invasion was just one of those issues that helped to bring various groups together like the New Warriors book. My feeling is that Dark Reign will continue this new tradition by providing another backdrop for the various books to work from. Even the books dealing with outer space like Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy are affected by stories like Civil War and Secret Invasion without completely commandeering them.

If you can’t tell by now this new all inclusive style is a good thing in my book. I love the fact that the entire Marvel Universe has a direction to go in. So much is forgiven because they have decided to be more cohesive. The only thing that really bugs me is that the guys at Marvel haven’t owned up to making the change and have instead acted like that’s always been the status quo and that’s BS.

How impactful to the Marvel Universe was Secret Wars 1 &2? How about the Kree Skrull War? What lasting impression has the Infinity Gauntlet or War made? Hell, even Onslaught and those events have a shelf life. In the final analysis most of Marvels ‘Events’ haven’t changed squat with a few minor exceptions here and there (the Black Costume and the regrettable creation of Venom come to mind… thanks Secret Wars), even the recent World War Hulk had absolutely no real impact on the Marvel Universe. While those major events were cool for their time, they always lack a little something because of their lack of meaningful impact.

The modern Marvel, the new Marvel Universe is a richer, deeper world thanks to the recent event comics that have come their way. And while they haven’t exactly hit everything out of the park their batting average is more than respectable. Going forward I hope that Marvel continues to strive against the one thing that all of us comic book geeks are afraid of, change.