There’s not a real reason to group these together other than that I have Infinity Crusade fatigue.
There were some good comics in 1993, but IC and its tie ins were none of them.
These issues all expand on the title characters’ adventures during the event, adding detail that nobody was looking for because Infinity Crusade stands in history as an example of how to take a great event (Infinity Gauntlet) spin it off into a cash-grab that, while not terrible, was certainly inferior (Infinity War), and then taking the fumes off that second series and trying to turn it into a 25-30 comic book crossover event.
And honestly? Spider-Man shouldn’t even be part of this event.
Ugh.
Infinity Crusade could have been a fun hero-vs-hero thing, but it’s the almost-mid ’90s and…Nothing at Marvel is fun. (OK, not NOTHING–but close to nothing. Peter David’s Hulk is still good. And Generation X is coming in a couple years.)
Let’s look at some of the issues in this group post, starting with the best of the lot.
Warlock Chronicles: The sole purpose of the entire Warlock Chronicles series is to tie in with two events: First, Infinity Crusade. Second, Blood and Thunder—the Thor “event” that was postponed so that he could join up with Infinity Crusade. But there’s not much meat. The issues retells a lot of his history, with no retconning but some added details about his adventures within the soul gem—including conversations with guys like Thanos and Eternity–and wrestling with his good/bad selves/sides.
And speaking of conversations, issue #4 is a deep dive into Warlock and Magus fighting inside the Soul Gem, which is not shown in the Infinity Crusade event—we just know that it happened. So if you were curious about what happened between the panels, this is your comic. It’s done pretty well, but like most tie-ins to all the Infinity Events, it’s not necessary. So, overall uneven, but if you’re going to seek out a tie-in, Warlock Chronicles is one of the better ones.
In Warlock’s other book, Warlock and Infinity Watch, two important things happen. This:
And this:
OK, not important. But funny.
Let’s talk about West Coast Avengers:
In a loose tie-in with Infinity Crusade, the team fights each other, then finds their gardener unconscious.
Turns out, he’s been lying there for two days, after having been wounded by Living Lightning who was being mind controlled. So, they go beat up Living Lightning.
I swear this Infinity Crusade event manages to make low-quality, irrelevant comics even worse.
For Iron Man:
In his tie-ins, Tony Stark is still recovering from “dying” so he’s using remote control armor. He fights The Controller, who is also bedridden and who fights by controlling other peoples’ minds. He also fights a new alien species called Technovores.
He uses a giant gun because, you know, the 1990s. The technovores never appear again (thankfully).
All this, and Omega Red is trying to take over AIM.
There’s some pointless meet-ups with The Goddess, just so this comic can get a participation trophy for the Infinity Crusade event.
Even Deathlok can’t escape the Infinity Crusade tie-in rule. After fighting Siege in Australia, Deathlok “dies” and has all kinds of dreams triggered by invading future-people. Watcher appears to preview the next story arc.
It seems that rather than being dead, Deathlok has been snatched forward in time. So, this actually matters for his series. Or for the next few issues of it at least.
Other Notes:
Another Doc Strange issue–a pretty good one–is here.
Moon Knight is here.
I haven’t tagged all the creators and, frankly, they should be grateful.
These are all D to F graded books.
I agree with everything put forth here. ‘The Infinity Crusade’ was an infinite bore. Marvel seems to believe that Jim Starlin space-opera automatically equates into big bucks, and big, positive fan-response. I understand that the business of business is the bottom line, and all, but Marvel’s history has proven that their best critical work is not in multi-issue storylines, but little classics that rarely require more than an issue or two to tell. ‘Daredevil’#47’s “Brother, Take My Hand”, ‘The Fantastic Four’#51’s “This Man, This Monster”, ‘The Silver Surfer’s issues 2-5 ( individually ) and ‘X-Men’#65’s “Before I’d Be Slave…..” are all great examples of how terrific stories can be told in just a single issue! ‘Marvel Team-Up’#3-4, and ‘Uncanny X-Men’#’s141-142 are great examples of two-issue stories. A saga requiring 35-40 issues to tell, and a month’s salary to purchase and read, is sadly unnecessary. This epic was also long on visual imagery. “The Goddess” looked like a glam-rock version of Joan of Arc, and how about those outfits Adam Warlock was rocking???!! He looks like David Bowie dressed by Bill Fosse!! Does all this sartorial excess really contribute to or move the storyline along in any way-??? Or is this just “La Cage Au Folles” in outer space-??!! I suspect the latter!! El passo!!!
Cage Au Folles in Outer Space. Now THAT’S a reboot worth creating!