Line-wide crossovers have gone hugely out of fashion in recent years. Marvel haven't done one since MAXIMUM SECURITY, and that was five years ago. Off the top of my head, I can't even remember the last DC effort. It's hard to say that we've missed the things. And even the dumbest publishers seemed to at least recognise that they caused an awful problem with trade paperbacks. So what changed? Why go back to them?
Three main reasons, I suspect.
Number one, Marvel and DC have always had a firm motto of, 'Never waste time coming up with a new idea when you can recycle an old one'. Both companies have a little cupboard of concepts and strategies that never really work, but that keep getting wheeled out every few years on the grounds that they've had a rest, and it might work this time. It's been a while since we've had major crossovers. If you work from the assumption that they were never a bad idea in the first place, merely overexposed and badly done, then you might take the view that we've had a rest from them, the audience has detoxified, and the time is ripe to give this excellent device another shot.
