What is you preferred X-Over format?

[Gene M.]

When the X-Men expanded from a single series into a multiple book franchise it became inevitable that crossovers between those books would happen. In early stories like Mutant Massacre and Fall of the Mutants, each book that participated in the event had its own self-contained story that was only directly tied to the other books through a common theme. Readers could pick and choose which stories to read and which tie-in issues they wanted to buy. As time went on, the crossovers adopted a format that forced readers to buy every issue of every comic that contained a part of the story. X-Cutioner's Song would be a good example of this.

Recently, Marvel has been publishing X-Men crossovers using both formats. Necrosha is an example of the former method, Messiah Complex the latter. As readers of the X-Books, which crossover format do you prefer and why?

[jarrod]

I liked Inferno, which felt like a bit of both. You had some direct threads between Uncanny/X-Factor, but not always directly following each other. Then you had New Mutants main arc, and even an Excalibur (and other non-X-books like like Captain America and Daredevil) tie-in for fun.

Watching the X-Frat trying to continually out crap X-Cutioner's Song is getting painful...

[Goshin]

I like Nercrosha, its the best x-over in years because they are using the Fall Of The Mutants format

[Brian M.]

I picked the 90's format.

I like the Messiah Complex/Second Coming format, with the one shot leading in, 3 months of every book, then ending one shot.

[Gene M.]

I think the 90s format can be effective in making a story seem like a huge event when used sparingly, but I tend to go for the 80s style of crossover. It kept things manageable and allowed more room to use the events to progress the stories of those individual books, instead of using the books to further a line wide status quo.

[Havok83]

I like the Buy Every Issue. I think the point of a crossover is to have the various teams interact. Get new sets of characters working together. You dont get that with several self contained stories. Id hardly call Fall of the Mutants a crossover. Mutant Massacre at least felt like one as the books did do some interacting and overlapping

[Hi-Fi]

Buy every issue. More suspense!

[Nevets F]

Messiah Complex, X-Tinction Agenda, X-Cutioner's Song were all the perfect way in my eyes. Phalanx Covenant was kinda cool, with the way it was like the above way...but three separate stories.

[NewMutant]

I like both. But at least with a crossover, rather than event, you can tell where it falls continuitywise

[Seresecros]

Common theme format, because that way decent creative teams can avoid being absorbed into rubbish stories - such as Mike Carey's Necrosha tie-ins, which conspicuously avoided as much of the main story as possible.

[Slant]

I liked the way Messiah Complex was. One story, continued every week. It works for the huge stories.

[Prodigy55]

I hate having to buy every issue. I liked X-Men Legacy's Necrosha story and I didn't like New Mutants or X-Force.

[cybrestrike]

I liked the way Inferno did it, sort of a hybrid. Then again, I sort of like both ways...no real preference whatsoever.

I liked how they did the crossover Annuals in the 90's...those were cool.

[darknessatnoon]

I like them to involve everything except for the new x-men characters and the x-factor ones.

[Havok83]

I liked the way Inferno did it, sort of a hybrid. Then again, I sort of like both ways...no real preference whatsoever.

I liked how they did the crossover Annuals in the 90's...those were cool.
too bad those stories sucked, the Annuals crossovers

[Washout]

I think the buy every issue is more fun, but I voted common theme because sometimes it is hard to buy every issue because the lesser titles sell out easily.

[Goshin]

I think the buy every issue is more fun, but I voted common theme because sometimes it is hard to buy every issue because the lesser titles sell out easily.

picking up New X-Men during Messiah Complex made me cringe...

[darknessatnoon]

picking up New X-Men during Messiah Complex made me cringe...

Yes, and they ended up being inessential (ugly looking) issues. It's the reason why I can't buy the TPB.

[Imraith Nimphais]

"common theme" format...because never in my 30-something odd years of collecting comics have I ever collected all the various x-titles simultaneously...even now, all i'm collecting is X-Force and New Mutants...so thank heavens X-Force is following the CT-F.

[blehbeh]

Every issue. Preferably with hologram covers and bagged with trading cards and/or pogs.

[Havok83]

What'd you guys think of Phalanx Covenant? It was a mixture of both of these. It was one story that consisted of 3 mini crossovers. Generation Next involved X-men and Uncanny X-men. Life Signs involved Excalibur, X-factor and X-force. Finally Final Sanction involved Wolverine and Cable