The Evolution of the Annual
by Mike McDermott

In today's turbulent market, virtually all aspects of the comic medium have been going through changes. But, of all comics, nothing has gone through more changes than the annual.

This year, Marvel is making a concentrated effort to make annuals "count"; in other words, have them be interconnected to the events and continuity of the main book.

When the annuals started out, they were basically just giant sized extra features. Once a year you would get an extra dose of your favourite heroes in a giant-sized extravaganza. They were usually packed with more action and adventure, but were not required reading. If you missed the annual, you didn't lose any of the main story.

Then, about ten years back, Marvel started the rather bold experiment of the summer annual epic crossovers. A massive storyline that would weave its way through EVERY annual in the Marvel universe. This lasted for two years, with the Evolutionary War and Atlantis Attacks. The problem was, it was just too big. Even though the stories were great, and fans loved the epic adventures, most readers didn't want to have to buy dozens of annuals for series that they never read, just to be able to get the whole story.

So then, Marvel scaled it down. Instead of one massive crossover, there were now several smaller crossovers and each story only covered three or four (or sometimes five) books. Readers found this much easier to handle than the 25 parters of the previous years. This approach lasted for a number of years, and then the annuals started to revert back to their earlier standalone status, until they actually disappeared for a year or two.

When the annuals returned a few years back, Marvel had given them a new twist. We now had double feature annuals, such as Avengers/Squardon Supreme or Iron Man/Captain America, etc. Since then, the annuals have returned to their original format, and Marvel is putting in every effort to make them an essential part of the comic experience. The storylines are being melded with the main books, the regular creative teams are now doing the annuals as well, etc.

While I like the idea of having the annuals tie in to the ongoing series, I do feel that they've lost a sense of fun along the way.

One thing that I used to love about the annuals were the back-up features; short stories, special features or little comedy sketches. The added that little something to the annual that made it special.

I remember a feature in the Avengers West Coast Annual 4, with Wasp and She Hulk playing "Rate The Hunks". They went through the list of all male Avengers, and rated how sexy they were. Or one where the West Coast team were searching for a deadly weapon that Hank had shrunk and accidentally lost. These are the types of fun and lighthearted things that you just won't find in the regular monthly series, but that the annuals had the freedom to give us.

The back-up features also gave us insight into characters that the regular series didn't get a chance to. We learned far more about Living Lightning's family and personal life in two back-up stories than we EVER did in the main book.

The back-up stories in the New Warriors annuals were nothing short of spectacular. Even though they were no more than a few pages, they had a profound impact on the characters lives, ie Speedball's parents announcing their divorce, Nova meeting his new girlfriend, Firestar's best friend getting raped, etc.

Despite all the enhancements and improvements that have been made to the annual in recent years, I still miss the back-up features. They may have been small, but they had substance.

Mike