Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

Maximum Security had the dubious honour of being Marvel’s first big crossover following Onslaught and Heroes Reborn, at a time when crossovers were considered one of the industry’s most deadly poisons. It was masterminded by Kurt Busiek, who was the writer of Avengers at the time, and unusually for Marvel, the crossover didn’t wind from issue to issue of existing series, but rather took place in a single “parent” series.

This was a remarkably DC-like approach which has become commonplace, but for the time it was a decidedly different matter, and a deliberate attempt at making crossovers viable again after much negative feedback over how they operated in the 90s. While Marvel’s other titles did tie in – often for just one issue – the main story played out entirely in the miniseries, which itself was only 3 issues long, and released over 2 months. Clearly, Marvel were being cautious.

The story saw Marvel’s various alien races clubbing together to decide that Earth was too much of a threat, and deciding to dump all of its criminals on the planet to keep them busy. Not a bad concept in theory, but it was unfortunate that it relied on some of Marvel’s niche-appeal cosmic properties to retain interest. Most of the tie-ins simply involved the title character fighting a loosely-affiliated alien from the backwaters of Marvel continuity. It’s fair to say that the crossover, while not hated, is at best barely remembered.

The first issue may have telegraphed the eventual reception. It featured a radically re-designed US Agent, who resembled Judge Dredd, and the main villains were revealed as Ronan the Accuser and Ego, the Living Planet. None of these characters are especially A-List, and while the idea of earth being transformed into the new host for Ego is a nice threat, there was never any serious suggestion it would succeed – and indeed, ultimately only succeeded in causing grief for, er, Quasar.

Between Jerry Ordway’s art and Busiek’s writing, the issue does have quite an old-school superheroics feel to it, and Busiek’s Avengers run always had the benefit of feeling quite timeless. This series didn’t really bring out the best in either, though, and they both seem to struggle with such a massive cast. USAgent is a poor lead, too, for someone like Busiek whose slightly wistful, nostalgic style can’t really portray brutalist nutcases very well.

It’s worth remembering that all of this cosmic stuff was happening at a time when cosmic titles were the least popular they’ve ever been. Perhaps it was an attempt to revive them, but in retrospect, it was a failed one – the Annihilation crossover was far more successful.