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Battle of the Atom
Spinning out of All-New X-Men, the synopsis for Battle of the Atom is fairly straightforward: armed with the hindsight of what their continued presence in the present of the Marvel Universe means, a team of X-Men from the future come to the present to coerce/force the original 5 X-Men to return to their time of 1960's Marvel (okay, okay, whatever passes in Marvel continuity for what was originally the 60's when the early X-Men comics were originally published). With two Battle of the X-Men bookends, the story runs through All-New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, and X-Men. I believe it is 18 parts in all, and it is somewhere around part 9.
While not as "epic" as the other two events, this is currently my favorite. I've posted a large post here about my love of All-New X-Men, and I feel like with this event, I'm getting a new installment every week. If you aren't reading All-New X-Men, start right now, and get this in the trades at the very least. A very strong 4.5 out of 5 for me.
Forever Evil
Continuing in a lot of ways continuing from Trinity War which was not an event so much as a preamble, Forever Evil chronicles the defeat of the Justice League by the Crime Syndicate of Earth-3 (Pandora's box was a portal to Earth-3) and the rise of the villains who stand in their way.
While this did have a long preamble, in many ways I have a hard time judging this event yet. It is a 10 part series with at least 3 6-issue mini-series crossovers. So far only issues 1-2 and the first issue of Arkham War have come out. So far, I give it a 3.5 out of 5 with it showing a lot of potential. While I knew I was right about the Outsider being the head of the Secret Society, it was a clever twist and a wink to the silver age to have him be the Earth-3 evil Alfred, and hearing Luthor saddle up while secretly pining for a Superman to save the day is comics-gold.
The cost of this is a worry point if you want to follow the tie-ins because you're talking about 30+ issues, but the tie-ins sound so damn intriguing. The Rogues from Flash refusing to follow the Secret Society's orders and destroy Central City, but rather stand to protect it because of one of their own being in a Central City hospital in Forever Evil: Rogue's Rebellion. Or Bane trying to conquer a Gotham City that's been divided into fiefdoms by the escapees from Arkham in Forever Evil: Arkham War. Those two at least, I think I'm going to have to get.
Infinity is a 6 part mini-series that crosses over with Avengers Assemble, New Avengers, Avengers, Mighty Avengers, and Thunderbolts, with New Avengers and Avengers being the most important to following the through-line with Infinity. Infinity reminds me a lot of Infinite Crisis in that Infinite Crisis was the culmination of several bad things happening at once. In Infinity, the majority of the Avengers are in space fighting the builder's armada which is intent on razing Earth and the Illuminati are distracted by both incursions from alternate earth's destroying planets as well as the infighting between Black Panther and Namor. Thanos picks this moment when most of the heroes are away to invade Earth as a cover for searching for and killing his heretofore unknown about son, Thane.
Infinity, just the 4 issues do-date on its own gets a 4 out of 5 for me. There's a lot happening at a brisk pace with some big ideas. I was worried about the rumors of everyone becoming an Inhuman coming out of this, but I like that the Terrigen bomb only effected those who are partially Inhuman in their ancestry. It's the build-up and ancillary series that are let down. Avenger in particular, which has been building to this cross-over for some 15 or so issues has been horrible, so I have include that preamble and the tie-ins, it would fall to a 3 out of 5 (most of the Avengers issues have been around a 2 or 2.5 out of 5 for me since Hickman took over).
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