Eras vs Events

There are two different types of big stories that occur in comic books, events and eras.  You might have heard the saying "A square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square". Essentially it means that two things can go together in one direction but not in the other. For example here, you have as many events taking place in an era, but you won't see eras taking place in events. 

In short, an era is a space of time in which a certain grand overarching story exists, and an event refers to the smaller, one-off, things that happen throughout that era. Now I'll go into a little more detail to try and to clear a few things up with some examples.

Photo Credit Marvel Comics

An era, sometimes called an age, can refer to the age that the comic falls into such as Golden, Silver, and Bronze (you can read more about what those ages mean in a post I made here). But far more often when people use the word in everyday comic conversation, they're referring to storyline eras. One well-known example of an era that is currently running is the Krakoan Era, occasionally referred to as the Krakoan Age. Jonathan Hickman's X-Men has been a colossal project since 2019 that has given us the Krakoan Era as we know it today. This era includes hundreds of comics from dozens of series. It falls within the main continuity, but it has completely engrossed the entire X-Men world and those close to it in the universe. 

As for an event, it's far easier to explain. An event is a smaller story that only lasts a handful of comics. It may stretch to encompass numerous different characters and runs, but in the end, an event usually only lasts a few months at most. Events that happened during the Krakoa Era are things like Judgement Day, Sins of Sinister, and Fall of X. You don't need to know these storylines, I'm just giving you examples of event names within that era. Events happen all the time though. Outside of any era you have events like Dark Web, Devil's Reign, Cold War, and many others. Events only run for a little while, but sometimes they can have lasting consequences for the characters within them.

If you're interested in seeing more Marvel events, this blog called Comic Book Reading Orders has listed them in one big timeline. You can check it out here.

If you're more interested in seeing some DC events, fear not, because Comic Book Reading Orders has a big timeline for DC too. You can see the DC timeline here.