The Eternal Debate - Conclusion

And by eternal, I mean for the past 12 or so months. You could not go anywhere in the Internet (well, at least the sites I frequent) without finding a conversation about either Final Crisis or Secret Invasion. Or both. This year's events from the Big Two felt incredibly long, by design or by circumstances, but they are now officially over (Legion of 3 Worlds notwithstanding), which allows us to look at both events objectively, or at least as objectively as comic book readers can get.

That is where I come in. I want to look at the different aspects of both events, measure them up against each other and see who comes up on top. To do so, I have chosen several categories (or rounds) which will allow me to compare both sides of the 2008 Special Edition Event Coin. If you have not yet read both series in their entirety, there will be spoilers ahead. Oh, yeah, and the point system may or may not be arbitrary or what most people consider fair. You have been warned.

The Conclusion

The Eternal Debate, at least for this humble blogger, is officially over with the final score being Secret Invasion 4 - Final Crisis 3. I feel this represents my feelings about the events quite nicely. Secret Invasion worked better as an event: it was reader friendly and it will probably be a huge commercial success once the final sale numbers are posted, the repercussions of it were felt all across the Marvel Universe garnering interest from readers and creating new opportunities for writers, and presented an uniform look that came out in a timely and organized fashion. Final Crisis was the better story, rewarding and entertaining in it's own way, but I feel it would have worked better as a stand alone story, rather than a huge summer event.

In case you have missed it, here are the links for all six parts of The Eternal Debate:

Part I - The Death
Part II - The Return
Part III - The Spin-Offs
Part IV - The Tie-Ins
Part V - The Art
Part VI - The Story