War of The Realms (2019) - Team Up's Comic Corner

War of The Realms (2019) Line Wide Crossover

Welcome back to the comic corner! Since this week is the first week of fall I figured it would be a great time to look back on a summer staple in comics: The Line Wide Crossovers! The big two companies, DC and Marvel, have been doing this for years. The most famous being DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986) and Marvels Super Heroes Secret Wars (1984-1985). Since then these major events have been a constant summer spectacle for comic readers. Originally something that was created to sell toys and books during the slow months of the summer these events have taken on a whole new meaning, often times shaking up the status quo and making lasting changes to continuity and cannon through out the publishers entire line.

The crossover event that I want to highlight this week comes from Marvel called The War Of The Realms. Obviously this is a Thor centric crossover where many of the supporting players from the Thor books take on much larger roles. The premise of this cross over is that Malekith the Accursed, ruler of the dark elves from Svartalfheim, plans to take over all ten realms of Norse mythology and the last one on his list is Midgard, AKA Earth, but the heroes band together to fight off the invasion of dark forces. This is one of those crossovers that really takes over all the books and involves almost all of the characters that Marvel has at its disposal. All the major players are there from Captain America to the X-men and everyone in between, this event really impacts all corners of the universe.

Another major part of these crossovers are the tie in issues, Like how Fantastic Four #10 is part of the story but #9 and #11 are not, and the tie in series, these are usually 3-6 issues strung together to tell a side story that may lead into the climax like War of the Realms: War Scrolls. War of the Realms is not lacking in either of these types of tie ins and they are all good with some featuring new characters and other using old characters out of there natural elements. My favorite of these is the War Scroll’s tie in series which features Daredevil becoming the God Without Fear as he takes up Heimdall’s post and watches over all ten realms. This story within the story is so perfect and its one of the better daredevil stories as it makes him question his relationship with his own God as he now is a god himself.

While the tie ins of this story are all great the real shining issues of this story is the main feature. War of The Realms 1-6 is amazing and so well done. It does a great job of balancing the enormous cast while still keeping the conflict central to Thor and the Asgardians. The art work really goes off the walls and the colors of these magical beats are second to none. Each issue had me yearning for the next part so I could attempt to get off the edge of my seat.

Earlier I spoke of how these events really change the status quo of the cannon and this is no exception, if anything this is a great example of that. The characters of Thor, Loki, Jane Foster, The Punisher, and Venom are the ones who changed most though. Thor becomes the All-father, Jane a Valkyrie (after becoming The Mighty Thor once again), Loki The King of Jotunheim, and for Punisher and Venom this is a jumping off point for great stories of their own in the aftermath. I for one am loving the Punisher Kill Krew limited series that is spinning out of this event. Each character getting their own new title in the aftermath really brings home that this is something that will not be forgotten about as time passes.

While this 40 something issues event can feel like a real giant to get through, reading it feels so easy that you would never realize how much you are actually taking in. I highly suggest you go out and try to read some of these stories yourself and test the waters of a major crossover. Remember, each summer brings at least one giant crossover event so if Thor isn’t something you are in to, maybe next time it will focus on characters you do really enjoy.

That’s all for today, leave your thoughts in the comments and any other comics that you think deserve the spotlight in the coming weeks! See you next week and don’t be afraid to crease the corners on a good panel!