I loved Shiva, Cheshire, etc in BoP and when Oracle fought Spy Smasher....
Went back and read Amazons Attack and yes it is shit but it is fun shit. Cry For Justice is worse. In fact what storylines on DC Comic would you say are the absolute worst?
'80s DC Events.
Crisis on Infinite Earths- Really good big event. While Marvel can claim Secret Wars or Contest of Champions as the first big comics event, DC's Crisis is the first true big comics crossover event. Everything changed. The art is great, the story has high stakes, and it changed the industry. Also led to a fuckton of good books.
Millennium is so fucking weird and didn't have repercussions worth anything. It did eventually lead us to Snowflame. I guess it set up more Green Lantern stuff if you like that. The big twist was the idea of Manhunter infiltrators, but most of them weren't worth getting into. It also has a fuckton of tie-ins.
Invasion! was a fun premise that may not have been perfectly executed, but it established the metagene and we got to see a more "realistic" idea of a "global" superhero response to an alien invasion. Led to the JLE so that's fun too. The tie-ins exist, but they fit into the overall story and it's enjoyable slop at least.
Legends! was the event that popped up right after the first crisis. It was basically Darkseid using psyops to smear the idea of superheroes. It did lead to the introduction of the JLI and the modern Suicide Squad.
Cosmic Odyssey was the cosmically oriented event featuring The New Gods and a bunch of cosmic alien superheroes+ John Stewart and Batman. The story's by Jim Starlin and the art's by Mike Mignola. It's an underwhelming event that really should have been better executed than it was. It does establish John Stewart's major traumatic incident and Starlin turns the Anti-Life Equation from a vague jack kirby concept into a more concrete being. Overall, kinda stinky but the art does redeem it a big. Also, if you're a fan of the Z-list New God hero, Forager, this is his key comic.
'90s DC Events.
War of the Gods was kind of an event meant to highlight Perez's Wonder Woman. It's not the best. The art is great. My issue is that the concept could have been executed way better, because DC's more tied to magic and a wider variety of pantheons. Mid at best.
Armageddon 2001 is a fine concept that DC changed because they wanted the big bad to be a pure mystery and decided to do a last minute change as a knee-jerk reaction to the twist being leaked. TLDR: an oppressive big bad from the near future is a hero of today! Originally planned to be Captain Atom, but that got leaked and DC decided to swap it to be Hawk of Hawk and Dove. Which. . . didn't work out to have the needed gravitas. Cap was the leader of a Justice League team and had gone through enough suffering to justify a dark side, even if the JLI/JLE tended to focus on the lighter side of things. Hawk was. . . chaotic and brooding and increasingly violent without his brother (who died during Crisis). The series also introduced Waverider, a time travelling superhero with chronal powers. Honestly, the series was a big dud and it's just more known for having kinda sorta ruined Hawk & Dove as well as prove that you shouldn't make kneejerk reactions in response to leaks. A shitty event, but not the worst of the decade.
It's also at this point that I should point out that DC and Marvel were also doing Annuals crossovers, which were seperate events that mostly took place within annuals and the event books (IIRC).
A more important one in the '90s was the Eclipso event, which elevated the villainous protagonist from being a C-tier Silver Age holdover into a cosmically powerful being that Darkseid and Spectre had to handle with respect. Eclipso's entire deal is that he can corrupt and then possess beings. In this one, he takes control of almost all of Earth's major superheroes and a few villains. It's not all that great of a story, but it is a heroic sacrificial sendoff to the post-crisis late '80s Starman, Will Payton. Read it if you like DC's cosmic scene. It also sets up an Eclipso ongoing series that. . . I found to be a bit of a guilty pleasure. The premise was that Eclipso takes over a latin american country, while Amanda Waller organizes a team of C list heroes to infiltrate and take him out. (The highest profile hero was probably The Creeper. All of the characters died, aside from The Creeper. 30 years later, we're told that the Manhunter version that was sent to die here didn't really die here. Also, the OG Peacemaker was here, allegedly died, and then popped up alive later on in the Blue Beetle. Wild. The only permanent deaths that kinda suck are the Infinity Inc/All Star Squadron members that really shoulda not been thrown away like fodder. The 90s have a habit of killing Golden Age characters or those adjacent to them.)
Death of Superman
Read it. It's worth the time. It's handled well.
Return of Superman
Worth a shot. Kinda funny how it just fucking decides to break Hal Jordan in one go too. Honestly, Hal's characterization from the Crisis up to this point had seriously been putting him in a shitty spot repeatedly, so it's easy to imagine him already being mentally stressed out even before Coast City's nuking. Anyways, it's a fine revival and the introduction of the 4 Supermen is also fairly fun.
Batman: Knightfall
Read it. It's basically Bruce being put to the end of his rope before Bane breaks him. Bane has never ever been able to recapture how threatening he was when he appeared here.
I don't know if I'd recommend reading the all of the resulting stuff with Azrael, but it's worth seeing Bruce come back and Dick wearing the cowl for the first time.
Bloodlines-
A series of violent and edgy annuals centered around dangerous spinal fluid sucking alien parasites that have a 1% chance to give a human superpowers. Kind of a shit event that tried to create new ongoing characters. The only notable thing to come out of this is the excellently enjoyable Hitman book by Garth Ennis. But you can just read that without this. It might be the worst event in DC's history.
Worlds Collide- The Milestone/DC collab crossover. It's like 2-3 issues and worth checking out.
Emerald Twilight isn't an event per se, but it's pretty well known for being the death of the GL Corps and Hal Jordan's turning point. I'd count it as an event. It's a little rough. If made a few years earlier, or a decade later, then it'd be sufficiently bittersweet as all the recruits that Hal spent his time recruit post-crisis to rebuild the Corps get fucked up trying to stop him. Hal fucking kills Sinestro AND Kilowog. The entire thing is just bitter. Then Ganthet fucks off and gives the last ring to some artist in an Alley instead of giving it to John Stewart or sth.
Zero Hour-
It was sort of the crisis event of the '90s, meant to fix and repair continuity in regards to stories set in the future or distant past. It's a fairly quick read but the quality ain't that good. It's notable for the following
- Ending the original Legion of Superheroes timeline/book.
- Killing 3 of the original JSA, including the original atom.
- Causing a weird fucking merging of The Golden Age Hawkman+Hawkgirl and the Thanagarian Katar Hol Hawkman. This results in a weird schizoid "hawk" god and that all becomes one of many reasons for why editorial would consider the Hawkman brand to be too radioactive until the Robinson/Johns JSA.
- Hawk (Hank Hall) is treated as the big bad here, having gone from being Monarch to being called Extant. Now? Hal Jordan as Parallax pops up and ices him, then tries to restart the universe in his image. Oliver Queen "kills" him.
- Ah, I remember that the Titans spinoff team "Team Titans" were revealed to be Extant/Parallax sleeper agents, except for their version of Terra. . . and Mirage (Who's best known for raping Nightwing).
- Anyways there's a few shakeups, but they're kinda "meh". New Legion of Superheroes series pops up. The big hit that pops up in the wake of this is the James Robinson Starman series. Which is a pretty fun read.
- Yeah the start of the series fakes people out by making you think Wally West's Flash died.
Zero Hour is very mediocre and ended the original Legion of Superheroes AND kinda just essentially killed off 5 JSA members. There's even a bit in the event where the original GL and Flash just get sick of it all and walk off, with Alan tossing his ring and Jay ripping his lightning bolt off. It's intended to be bittersweet, but the entire event's just kind of a mess. It doesn't hit that well.
Underworld Unleashed was an event that introduced Neron, a major devil type villain that grants wishes in exchange for something. The event's just an excuse to have a lot of chaos and a bunch of fight scenes. A lot of villains gain new powers after giving Neron their souls. Like Black Manta and Killer Moth. Anyways, the only mildly notable things here are the fact that Blue Devil makes a bad wish and gets his close friend killed on top of being turned into a real demon. It's a "whatever" event, honestly.
Legends of the Dead Earth Annuals, Pulp Heroes Annuals, and Year One Annuals are all variably "YMMV". Check out what you may like.
Final Night is a good short-ish event. A Sun Eater is approaching and the heroes must stop it. It plays the stakes reasonable straightforward. Superman gets to zero power. The Sun Eater is too powerful. Hal Jordan redeems himself by sacrificing his life to beat it, ignite the sun, and then gets a memoriam issue that sees Swamp Thing and John Constantine show up in DC for the first time in a while. (They were Vertigo locked at this point, sort of.) It's all a fine event with good stakes.
Jla/Titans- A quick event/crossover book that has the titans and jla at odds. It's fairly enjoyable. Notable for the return of Cyborg.
Genesis- a New Gods event by John Byrne. Look, it's a mini event and it's kinda forgettable unless you're a Byrne fan. It's also responsible, iirc, for the Superman in that blue outfit with electrical energy powers. It's a middlingly okay read.
DC One Million is a fun event with fun tie-ins. Go read it.
Day of Judgment- Mystic event around Spectre/Etrigan. Hal Jordan becomes The Spectre to turn it into a spirit of redemption. It's an alright read.
JLApe- Funny annuals event. Worth reading because it's funny goofy shit.
2000s-
Silver Age- Mark Waid gets to make a retroactively applied Silver Age event. It's decent and is a love letter to the Silver Age.
Planet DC- Annuals themed around adding more "international" heroes. YMMV. I don't think anyone remotely relevant pops up here.
Our Worlds at War- A big event featuring a massive invasion by a cosmically powerful entity. Everyone comes together to fight Imperiex. It's a big spectacle. A bunch of characters die. The series takes a sorta "resilient" tone in the face of a seemingly unwinnable fight against an ancient cosmic entity and its drones. In the end, it's clearly written to show that the event's taken its toll on the world. Hippolyta, Aquaman, Guy Gardner, and Sam Lane all die. (Don't worry, they all got better. In fact, Guy crawls out of hell within a year. Lmfao.) Worth checking out for being a big spectacle. The tie-ins are fine enough too.
Joker: Last Laugh- Joker thinks he's about to die and orchestrates prison breaks of jokerized supervillains. It's a spectacle. Not amazing, but goofy comics fun and whatnot.
Late 90s-to early 00s Batman "events" are all varying in quality. No Man's Land is notable for shaking things up. The early 00s Bat-events are all kinda meh.
Identity Crisis- A piece of shit event that makes things unnecessarily darker. It's meant to be a murder mystery. But it feels a little too mean-spirited.
Countdown to Infinite Crisis miniseries- They're all readable and enjoyable enough. Each sets up the stakes of Infinite Crisis and builds to how fucked some things are.
Infinite Crisis- Enjoyable spectacle. I think they could have fleshed out the antagonists a bit better. Recommend at least checking it out. Uh. Ted Kord and Conner Kent are the most notable deaths. Other than that, you get a LOT of bottom tier character deaths. Pantha, Wildebeast, Bushido, Judomaster (rip, he was supposed to actually
do something after L.A.W.), Peacemaker (the one from L.A.W.), Shazam, Earth 2 Superman/Lois, Earth 2 Wondy, etc.
52 and Trinity were events that ran as weeklies for 52 weeks. Both are very well worth reading and set up a fuckton of stuff. There's also World War III, aka everyone tries to stop Black Adam's grief driven rampage. Everything related to 52/Trinity is fun.
Green Lantern Rebirth isn't really an "event", but it revives Hal, establishes the Parallax as a fear entity, and ignites the return of the Corps.
Countdown to Final Crisis and Amazons Attack were shit. Don't bother. Bart Allen dies somewhere here, I think. Both tie for the absolute worst events for this decade.
Final Crisis is massive and very much a Grant Morrison event. YMMV. It's enjoyable and has a lot of the shit Morrison's built up in his DC work. You know the stakes are through the roof when they kill The Martian Manhunter just to show how fucked the situation is. Batman also dies. Barry Allen comes back! It's all fine. The spinoffs are good too. Recommend checking everything out. The Legion of Superheroes FInal Crisis Side Story brings all 3 of the Legion Timelines to ally together in order to fight Superboy Prime's gathering of Legion Villains. Conner Kent and Bart Allen are back now too!
Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night- Fun Events. Recommend checking it out. High stakes, big fights, establishes a bunch of shit. Fun stuff. Brightest Day isn't as good. In fact, I'd say it's not good at all.
Cry For Justice- garbage.
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Flashpoint- A fine premise and fun event that's a little edgy. The N52 was shite though.
Trinity War- A Spectacle. Kinda okay to read.
Future's End- A fine enough weekly? book featuring Batman Beyond. An okay event, but suffers from n52 being half baked.
Convergence/Multiversity- A big celebration of DC's past. Multiversal Brainiac Cities in a battle royale. Fun event and a billion tie ins.
Forever Evil- Earth 3 pops up to invaaade! Fun schlock.
Darkseid War- JLA fights Darkseid. Schlock, but fun. Geoff Johns makes a mistake by dropping the three jokers shit.
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Rebirth Era
JLA v Suicide Squad- Fun, tight, self-contained. Brings back Eclipso, the original Lobo, and a bunch of villains that are closely tied to the JSA/LoSH.
Dark Metal- Fun but has flaws. Batman Who Laughs was creepy and then they ruined him.
Doomsday Clock- Geoff Johns tries to show that he's an artsy and serious comics writer, but the event only winds up explaining why the JSA/LoSH weren't around and why the n52 was so weird. Establishes the Watchmen cast as living in one of the DCU's multiversal worlds. Establishes a lot of stuff that could be fun to explore, but noone's taken advantage of this.
Dark Knights Metal/The Infected- Sorta fun ideas taken to bad executions at times. At least it's all meant to be taken as schlock. The JLA run up to this event established a lot of stuff and gave us yet another Robin, the first non-human one! Jarro! Son of Starro! Son of Batman!
Dark Crisis- The last holdover character from the Original Crisis that hadn't become a villain becomes a villain. The event starts off with the JLA assumed dead. Fun event, don't think too hard. Just accept the spectacle. At least it doesn't deal with trying to push politics or gay shit. Nightwing gets built up to finally become the leader of the world's hero community in the epilogue.
Knight Terrors and etc from 2023- Fine concept. Solid overall.
Lazurus Planet- 2023 event. Fun stuff. DC's building of chinese cast has some use here too.
Heroes in Crisis- Superheroes have an anonymous sanctuary that they use for therapy. Wally West's returned, goes to this service, and inadvertently kills a dozen people. It's a shitty event. I sure hope noone's a Lagoon Boy fan.
The JLA/LoSH book circa Rebirth- Fun event, Vandal Savage goes back in time and wants to kill the rise of superheroes.
Event Leviathan- Bendis ruins a decent concept because he's not a good thriller writer.
Bendis also fucked up and didn't even get to do anything with the LoSH.
Generations- DC's time travel "celebration" of DC heroes. They recruit variations of heroes from different publication eras, including the original gun wielding Batman with purple gloves.
The New Golden Age- Revival of the JSA via miniseries and whatnot.
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Honestly, DC's events tanked during the '90s. I still hate Identity Crisis. I know there's more events since Rebirth, but they're title/family centric and I don't always keep up with them . I'd wager that the Wondy ones aren't good.
