Infinity War feels like an Event Comic

I like Event Comics, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and Superman Our Worlds At War are among my favorite Comic Book stories.  I don't like how they've become overused, how it feels like there are no breaks between them now.  But they are a concept I can get behind and at least a few have been executed really well.  I want to read more of the ones I haven't gotten to yet, from Final Crisis to the ones the 90s had.

They are one aspect of what I love about Comics I figured would never get translated to film, not even in Animation.  And it amazes me that the world of Live Action Superhero films tried it and succeeded at it before any Animated project did.

I was never really buying that what The Avengers film was doing was so difficult.  In terms of the kind of narrative it is, it had absolutely been done before, we'd had movies about Superhero teams before, and X-Men was just as star studded.  And we'd seen them plenty in Animation.  The Avengers was only different in that they were a team of characters from prior movies, but we'd also had crossover films before.

I scoffed and still scoff at the idea that Civil War proved you needed the emotional investment of the prior movies to make a Versus film work.  I remain of the opposite mindset, a Verses story is only acceptable to me when it's how they meet.  And so for all my issues with Batman V Superman I still maintain it to be a better Verses movie.

But the unique feeling of an Event Comic, especially one that felt built up to for years as Infinite Crisis did in 2005, is what you truly can't do without a Shared Universe.

Cause you see I've never read a Justice League or Teen Titans comic truly caring if the continuity between the team and solo stories lined up, it's nice when they do and some such references exist.  But all you need to do is look at is Dick Grayson's love life to see that those respective writings teams weren't actually on the same page.  And so that's why the animated ones worked just fine as stand alone films.

It's the event Comics that when handled well feel like everything in many prior comic story-lines were building up to it in some way or another.  Both the solos and the team ups.  Bringing together events from different corners of the universe, and in a sense different genres.  And that is where Infinity War has truly justified the MCU.  I don't agree with everything in today's Mother's Basement video, but it's still a good break down.  Thanos Is the Protagonist - How Infinity War Works.

It juggles it's cast well, has interactions between established characters I never would have thought of, like Bucky and Rocket.  And while the story was scattered for much of it, everything was basically brought together by the end.

The good Event comics are ones where the basic story absolutely does work with only the actual limited series.  But reading the tie-in comics can still feel like they add to it in meaningful yet not required ways and isn't just an excuse to put the event's name on the cover.  And that is the one aspect Infinity War can't really have an equivalent for.  Some might compare what's going on in the TV shows that I don't watch anymore, but at the end of the day even they will be events set before or after it, not another angle on during it like Teen Titans Life and Death is for Infinite Crisis.

But that's the only factor really missing, yes it's scale is still smaller compared to any true Crisis, but the other DC events I've read are on the same scale as Infinity War or below it.

That's the weird thing, in terms of Comics I'm mainly a DC fan, but am loving this MCU film for evoking similar feelings in me as some of my favorite DC Comics.

What is similar to that is the lead in story-lines.  Of the many that lead into Infinite Crisis, I feel only Identity Crisis and OMAC Project even come close to being required reading, they make a good trilogy.  But others add it, like Villains United, the entire Geoff Johns Teen Titans run, the Powergirl and Supergirl story-lines (the latter spinning out of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies), JLA Crisis of Conscience, Superman: Sacrifice.  And that's just stuff I took an interest in, fans of other DC comics from 2003-2005 could list many more.  (I left out a lot of Batverse stuff that also comes out of War Games which is it's own can of worms I have complicated feelings on.)

The other thing I like about having a proper shared universe are what I call not the small things but the medium things.  Things that are less then a full team up but more then a mere throw away reference or brief cameo.  These things are why Spiderman Homecoming worked, the one aspect of Spiderman as a teenage Superhero missing from the pre MCU films was him a teenage Superhero in a world with adult Superheroes.  That's the role Tony Stark plays in it.  And the one reason something like a Tim Drake Robin solo film I figured could never be made was that his comics rarely have Batman gone eternity, they are solo adventures but still of an active sidekick.  And I assumed you can't have a movie with Batman that isn't going to be Batman.  But Spiderman Homecoming tells me that maybe they can make a Robin movie work some day, with Ben Affleck having the same amount of screen time as RDJr did here.

The true sign of the MCU's victory over DC is that certain DC fans like myself feel like what I want from DC is being provided by Marvel.