Have Any Big Event Comics Improved With Time?

Is there a Marvel Big Event series of the last decade you feel looks better with age? You hated it at the time, but looking back, it's grown on you? Let's say this is running from House of M up to now.

I'd been thinking about this off and on for a week or so, maybe because of a discussion on Trouble with Comics. They were discussing creators whose work they didn't like at one point, but had reevaluated later (and all of them picked Jack Kirby). So maybe that was what got me thinking about that, in a somewhat different direction.

Also, I read an article on i09 last weekend talking about how bad the original Civil War mini-series was, and someone in the comments tried to argue the dislike for the series was revisionist and that it was universally liked back in the day. Which, uh, no (and they did walk back the "universally" quickly). That is some massive revisionist history itself right there. I know some people liked it, because it did sell (unfortunately), but I also know a ton of people who hated it completely back in the day, myself included, along with basically everyone on my blogroll there on the right. That said, that person's obvious disconnect from reality did make me wonder if any of the other events had been improved by looking back.

The fact I avoided most of them like the plague doesn't help. The ones I like now - Annihilation, most of the other Cosmic Marvel stuff of that era to varying degrees - I liked then. I feel World War Hulk was generally well-received at the time, but nobody much mentions it now. Infinity has its supporters, but I think they also liked it when it came out (it's been almost three years since that one, and four since Avengers vs X-Men. Where does the time go?) Secret Invasion had the possibility of a good idea in it - mostly the Skrulls trying to move in, but co-exist with Earthlings, remember those "Embrace Change" ads the comics had? - but it never materialized in the main mini-series. I frequently forget Fear Itself even existed, and can't even begin to keep track of all the X-Events (I think Messiah CompleX was the last one I bought any tie-in issues of, and that was not a fun experience). Again though, I'm probably not the one to ask. Which is why I'm asking you all, even though I think most of my audience is people who also are not fans of Big Event books.

I wonder if the fact Marvel is constantly throwing another event at us, often even before the last one has finished, keeps people from going back. Or makes it seem like it isn't worth the effort. The "events" are so clearly entirely disposable that we don't see any point in revisiting them. Or I'm approaching this the wrong way, because I should be thinking about what particular creators did with the status quo created by the events. But even there, the next event is changing the status quo again, and creators get what, one, maybe two stories in before the next shift?