The comic book industry has always had a way of rising from down periods like a defiant superhero once thought dead or defeated storming back against incredible odds. And this decade has been a prime example of the industry's ability to attract new talent, reinvent itself and raise the bar. Now is an extraordinary time for the comic book medium.

Of course, comic book readers always think that. I've never heard one say, "Man, now is a terrible time to read comics." Even in the dark days of the 1990s when the speculation market went out of control with Superman #75 ("The Death of Superman"), and the industry went into a tailspin, I'm sure people were thinking that it was a fantastic time to be reading comics. After all, as comic readers we're just looking for great stories accompanied by great art. In hindsight, some of those stories from the 90s didn't end up being as earthshaking as we remember. The whole death of Superman arc was, as we feared, nothing more than a publicity stunt to keep the newly formed Image Comics at bay, and it's always distasteful when business decisions can affect popular culture in such a huge way.

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Regardless of all that, I stand by my statement. I think the stories being told in today's comics are some of the best in a decade. It pleases me when the important characters are put through the ringer, and currently we have plenty of this to go around: Spider-Man's identity is exposed, Wonder Woman murders an unarmed man, Captain America is a fugitive, Wolverine remembers everything, Batman has an evil son, and there's even a "Clone Saga" that doesn't completely suck going on in "Ultimate Spider-Man." This is good stuff.

One of the recent trends among Marvel and DC Comics is the event story: a set of comic issues that deal with an event of enormous impact or importance that affects all the characters in the universe (examples are "Identity Crisis," "Infinite Crisis," "House of M," and "Civil War"). Both companies have made sweeping changes to their respective universes through these events. However it always feels like we're either ramping up or coming down from one of these events. First you have the announcement of the event where promises are made that nothing will ever be the same again. Then all the books start building to the event and putting the characters in position. Once the event is underway, the tie-in titles start coming out of the woodwork ("Spider-Man: House of M," "Civil War: Frontlines") where tangent characters deal with the event, but never really affect the main story in any real way. Usually the event ends with a lacklustre climax, and then we are treated to the aftermath of the event.

This whole process can take over a year to get through, and just as it's winding down a new event is announced and you're right back in it again. I enjoy the event stories because, in my opinion, they are the $200 million summer movie blockbusters of comics. They feature all the top tier characters, and while I usually end up disappointed by the third act, the second acts typically have some good drama. Who can blame Marvel and DC for this approach?

Crisis's And Civil Wars

If you look at the sales figures for 2005 and 2006 there is an obvious pattern. When "Infinite Crisis #1" was released in October of 2005 it sold approximately 249,100 issues, the highest selling comic of the month. A DC Comics event series, "Infinite Crisis" is a sequel of sorts to the popular "Crisis on Infinite Earths" series published some twenty years ago. The classic "Infinite Earths" series, written by Marv Wolfman, was designed to integrate and consolidate more than five decades worth of DC history by destroying alternate earths in the DC "Multiverse" during an epic battle that saw the death of such characters as The Flash (Barry Allen) and the original Supergirl. "Infinite Crisis" picks up the Multiverse storyline by focusing on a feud between Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman and revisiting alternate earth characters such as, Kal-L or "Earth Two" Superman.

The number two selling comic book with a distant 134,300 issues was the finale of the "House of M," the Marvel series that once again deals with alternate timelines and features the Avengers and X-Men teaming up against the Scarlet Witch. During its run, "Infinite Crisis" was the highest selling book for each month it came out all the way to May of 2006. What happened in May that prevented the finale of Infinite Crisis from claiming the top spot? Marvel released "Civil War #1," which sold approximately 260,700 issues ("Infinite Crisis #7" was second with 198,400). "Civil War," the current Marvel event series, pits hero against hero on either side of a mandatory Super-human Registration Act passed by Congress after 600 innocent people are killed during a superhero fight. The intriguing premise, which invokes 9/11 and government responses like the U.S. Patriot Act, pits such characters as Iron Man, who supports the Super-human Registration Act, against Captain America, who helps form an underground resistance.

The "Civil War" story is still ongoing, but every month it has come out it's been the number one comic with over 250,000 issues sold. Like the movie industry, the comics industry has multiple windows to launch their stories. There is the initial release of the story when the monthly issues come out, but once it's over a collected hard cover or paperback comes out and scores high sales numbers in the trade paperback market. So after the individual issues of "Infinite Crisis" dominated the sales charts for months, the collected hard cover came out in October and sold around 11,700 copies, the second best-selling trade paperback for the month. If you're Marvel and DC, these figures cannot be ignored.

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