In 1984 Marvel upended their comic book universe with the first-ever company-wide crossover event, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars.  A year later, on their 50th anniversary, DC Comics was determined to one-up them by rebooting their entire universe with the Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover event.  Who did a better job?

Secret Wars & The Beyonder

Marvel Super Heroes Contest of Champions actually pre-dates Secret Wars by two years with a similar plot but only three issues.  However, this series had little to no impact on the regular monthly titles of the heroes involved.    Two years later Marvel went all in.  Lead characters were absent from their titular issues.  Supporting characters were thrust to the forefront to fill in while the heroes were whisked away to Battleworld by the mysterious Beyonder.

The X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, and the Hulk all disappeared from their monthly titles.  The Beyonder transported them away to face off with some of their most powerful foes.  The series was fast-paced and just plain fun.  The heroes and villains forged alliances and battled one another on a strange planet.

Mike Zeck (with an assist from Bob Layton) was an ideal artist to visualize the largest group of heroes ever assembled.  Jim Shooter's writing gave us plenty of heroic moments (like Hulk holding an entire mountain to save the fallen heroes).  However, he was clearly challenged to get much individual depth from such a large roster of characters.

Clearly, the biggest take away from the series was Spider-Man's new black costume.  Eventually morphing into the creature known as Venom, it is still quite significant today.  The series introduced a couple of minor new villains.  The Fantastic Four's and X-Men's rosters were shaken up a bit.  However, no heroes perished, and after a short layover, most monthly titles returned to normal.

Crisis on Infinite Earths & The Anti-Monitor

The month before Secret Wars wrapped up, DC launched its attempt at a company-wide event.  Whereas Secret Wars was designed to sell toys, Crisis On Infinite Earths was DC's attempt to reboot its entire comic line.  Crisis was to be their vehicle to combine their different realities into one seamless timeline.   Decades of stories were unceremoniously tossed aside.  Icons like Superman and Wonder Woman completely rebooted.  In addition, characters who originated in other companies (like Captain Marvel/Shazam, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, and more) found a home in this single universe.

In the months preceding Crisis, a shadowy figure had a brief cameo monitoring the heroes in many of the titles.  This Monitor's plan was to gather heroes from the various universes to combat his nemesis, the Anti-Monitor.  The scope of this series was overwhelming.  Fortunately for us readers, DC put its biggest talents to work on the story.

Writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez were the perfect team to create this epic tale.  The story captivated this casual DC reader, as worlds and characters fell victim to the anti-matter wave.  And not just villains and minor heroes.  Flash?   Supergirl?  They led us to believe that no one was untouchable.  At the conclusion of the series, many DC titles rebooted to reflect the new timeline established in Crisis.

The Series' Legacies

These two events changed the comic world.  But how have they withstood the test of time?

Secret Wars' legacy is the infamous black Spidey suit.  It started as a drastic costume change to Marvel's most iconic hero.  Over time the suit itself became the villain/hero Venom who spawned his own movie as well as a current major crossover event.

Despite the much grander scale of Crisis, DC's ongoing tendency to ignore its own history has come to make it the less valuable of the two series.  A few years after Crisis, DC reimagined its universe again, lessening the impact of the series.  Now, most of the deaths and rebooted characters are forgotten or retconned.

Value-wise, the twelve 9.6 graded issues of Crisis currently list for a respectable $883 in the GoCollect database.  In comparison, twelve 9.6 issues of Secret Wars are over twice that value at $1835.

I loved both series and they will always be a treasured part of my collection.  I believe a comparison of the two is really a comparison of how their companies deal with character legacy more than a comparison of the two stories.  However, to my surprise, Secret Wars and the Beyonder seem to have aged well.  In comparison, Crisis on Infinite Earths and the Anti-Monitor fall into our "Almost Infamous" category.