For mainstream Marvel fans, big, universe-shattering events are becoming a dime a dozen. I remember my first experience with events, House of M, which ended with the Scarlet Witch wiping out most of the mutant population. Since then there has been a massive event seemingly every summer. Skrull infiltrators disguised themselves as famous heroes one year, while another year focused on the collision of the multiverse into a single world. Some gave single villains time to shine while others introduced brand new threats for the heroes. These events would shape the course of many comics for the rest of the year, leading up to the next event.
Star Wars, on the other hand, has not had the same type of events in its two-plus years with Marvel. Rather than building to an event storyline, the Star Wars series have kept to crossover arcs. These are de facto events, just not advertised as such. The first, Vader Down, took place at the intersection of Darth Vader (as Vader fought Cylo’s creations) and Star Wars (as Luke continued his Jedi training.) Stranded on Vrogas Vas, Darth Vader fought the Rebel Alliance as Luke and the murderbots explored a Jedi temple. Recently, Star Wars and Doctor Aphra met in The Screaming Citadel, a gothic-esque storyline where Aphra’s search to make bank on a Jedi artifact tempted Luke to join her quest.
These crossovers grew in scope from one to the next, and if they want to keep up their pace, I believe they should recalibrate a bit and make a few changes. Both Vader Down and The Screaming Citadel introduced a lot of concepts which were underdeveloped and left hanging. If a film left those threads open, we would expect a novel or comic to fill in those gaps. But, seeing as these events are comics, we don’t expect supplementary material – the event is generally all we get, so to speak. To allow for more breathing room and to further explore these crossovers, changes should be made. I think the Star Wars line should take two major points from mainstream Marvel. First, events should be set up much further in advance, while their consequences should be far more lasting. Second, they should be longer, allowing for a more in-depth event, in terms of both characters and plotting. Read More