I love big comic book events. I don't even mind event tie-ins if they're done well. I don't mind having multiple titles for one team or character. But there is such a thing as overdoing it and I think that's the case with Marvel. One great example of that is X-Men. You have X-Men, Legacy, Uncanny, and now Schism (and that's not counting books like X-Factor, Uncanny X-Force, etc).  Each have their own storylines which can sometimes be explained as different members going in different directions to do different things. But eventually the entire continuity of the team is blown out of the water. 

It's hard to really buy into the gravity of events like Schism when in Uncanny X-Men you have the same team members fighting an entirely different threat completely unrelated to the other stories. The common argument is "just don't think about it" or "you have to overlook it". That works for a while but eventually I would like for an event to feel genuinely important. Schism AND Fear Itself are supposed to be huge game changers yet both are going on at the same time and neither are developing the sense of importance that they should. 

Marvel has Fear Itself, Spider Island, and Schism - all "events" and all going on right now. For me, it's flooding the market with too many books and short-changing the events by stealing the spotlight and gravity from each other. The timeline would look so much better if Marvel would reign in the money ambitions a little and take things one event at a time. It may just be me and my preference, but I think comics are much more fun with a tighter knit continuity and a good consistent flow. Marvel certainly doesn't have that right now.

Yeah, agree with this! Reading issues from these titles monthly is a pain when you try to work out what's going on when.  I think they do largely tie up together nicely continuity-wise, but only after you've read all the simultaneous stories, sorted them out into a timeline in your own head and then re-read them all in the right order. Pain in the @ss!  Reading things various arcs all at the same time when they actually happen at different times can really distract you and detract from the stories. As if that wasn't bad enough, you've still got to try and avoid all the teasers and spoilers for future stories. Lost count of the amount of storylines that have been spoiled for me due to me inadvertently seeing some crappy promo! Currently avoiding all the Regenesis and post Schism ones like the plague! 

I might consider these valid responses, if it weren't for the fact that there are just as many Batman titles as X-titles, and these seem to go on for months without overlap or pause. 
 
Marvel's Secret-Invasion-esque tie-ins, actually, do a pretty good job of "while t his event was happening, other stuff happened off camera... here's some of it!" 
 
And don't give me "But there's 2 Batmans and Batman Inc and 3 robins and some of them are elseworld stories, like 4/5ths of Superman/Batman..." - Marvel has to explain to you which came first Fear Itself Uncanny or Schism. It's Fear Itself-Uncanny, FYi. 
 
DC has to explain which of its books are canon and which aren't... oh, and then there's the whole optional semi-reboot next month... guess they don't need to explain ANYTHING, since nothing counts anymore!

not everything is happening at the same time..there are 365 days in a year...most comics take place over minutes....it took Blackest Night 9 months to finish but in the actual book it only took place on one evening....so there's 364 more days left for stories to take place on....so there you go...stop believing that everything is taking place at the same time and you're fine

I can't agree. At least not with my preference (well actually in super ideal perfect world, I suppose this would be my preference lol, all books perfectly executed so all things flow well timing wise and all books are free and there are gabillions of them... all for free...) timeline? Continuity? Consistency? Yeah... I am sure forcing and insisting such things onto comic writers won't bother them at all lol... for the sake of a small percentage of fans who usually buy the books anyway? Fun is relative and subjective. Marvel will fix the timeline when fixing the timeline to that extent means more money overall, instead of more or less money from an individual. Would you be willing to pay more for Marvel to have tighter continuity? Comics is a hobby. We don't need any comics. That's simply not the reason they exist. I am happy with a few events spread out across different corners. More choice. Different creative teams. The only people I would feel sorry for are those who feel they have to buy everything to keep up, in which cause I'd say that don't actually need to.  
 
I can empathize though all the same.