War of Kings

Civil War #1 arrived in May 2006, and the Marvel Comics Event in Seven Parts took over the entire line for close to an entire year and was arguably Marvel’s biggest and most successful event to date. There had been events before, such as Infinity Gauntlet, Acts of Vengeance, and House of M, and line-specific events had been a staple of the X-Men since the mid-80s, but Civil War was a new level of huge. Peter Parker’s decision to unmask was national news, and now any time a hero is killed, or resurrected, or gets a new costume, it goes straight to USA Today. Civil War is just as culturally relevant in 2016 as it was ten years ago, with Captain America: Civil War arriving in theatres in a couple of months, and Civil War II by Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez due in May from Marvel. It still feels like it was just yesterday that Marvel asked us “Whose Side Are You On?”, rather than a whole decade, and Marvel has stuck hard to its event formula in those ten years. Now we have event comics twice a year, and each time we’re told everything will change forever. Let’s look back at the past ten years of Marvel Comics events.