What Were They Thinking? Worst Comic Ideas.

[Silver Moon]

Mystique having some prior knowlege of Kurt was indicated on their first meeting ever. And he was known to be adopted from his introduction. So her "actually" being his biological mother qualifies to my mind as one of the only cases of the Xmen tying up a dangling plot line in the fashion it had always been aluded to, and thus a very good thing...she'd been faking government clearance for some time when first introduced

One of my co-workers is a Nightcrawler fan, and we've talked about this at length. I fully agree with you on both counts. From that first Uncanny X-Men annual it was already implied that there was some type of relation. And Mystique's very first appearance in the Ms. Marvel series (written by Claremont) had her working for the Government.

Back to the subject of "What were they thinking?" Hank McCoy now looking like a blue cowardly lion I'll file under the category of Bad Idea.

 

[Aaron L]

Mystique being Nightcrawlers mother isn't a problem for me... as has been said, it's been hinted at for a while. What IS a problem is the whole mutant demon/angel thing. The X-books aren't in a vacuum, but recent writers seem to think they are. How many different beings have been presented as being the origin of demons and angels? This is a tired old plot that has been done to death.

The tinkering of the celestials has been established as the reason for the superpowered mutancy in humanity, and also as somewhat of an origin for angel legends. Not to mention the Deviants and Inhumans and whatnot. And where does this mutant demon vs mutant angel war fit into Marvel history? I'm sure that the Asgardians and Olympians would have been involved. And would have said something upon seeing either Angel OR Nightcrawler. How many times has Thor fought alongside of Angel? The New Mutants spent quite a while in Asgard itself for crying out loud! It's just poor and ill advised writing, and a severe lack of editorial oversight.

This Azazel character better hope that Mephisto doesn't find out that he's stealing his thunder, of there will be a big pile of dead mutant demon wannabes. The idea that Mephisto is trying to impersonate a human mutant is ludicrous.

 

[Richards]

Nth Man: the Ultimate Ninja ends as follows:

Spoiler

The Nth Man (I've completely forgotten his name, other than his dentist ninja trainer always called him "Peachy") and Alfie O'Meaghan end up devolved back to babies and thrown back in time to when they were first left on the doorstep of an orphanage. In fact, there's this lady - a friend of the adult Nth Man who was also sent back in time - who knows what each one will become, but who has no idea which one is which as they both look pretty much the same as babies. So she delivers them to the orphanage with the warning that "one of these babies is very, very good, and one is very, very bad" - which was one of the "opening scenes" at the beginning of the comic. So basically, the Nth Man and Alfie O'Meaghan are living in a time loop, destined to repeat the same actions over and over again.

I'm not sure if the spoiler space was necessary for a book that's been out of print for well over a decade, but you never know.

Johnathan

 

[Turgenev]

IIRC, mystique having some prior knowlege of Kurt was indicated on their first meeting ever. And he was known to be adopted from his introduction. So her "actually" being his biological mother qualifies to my mind as one of the only cases of the Xmen tying up a dangling plot line in the fashion it had always been aluded to, and thus a very good thing...

It was my understanding that Claremont's original plan was to reveal that Mystique was Nightcrawler's father, not his mother (after all, she is a shapeshifter). Can't remember where I read this though... either online or in one of the X-Men Companion books from the earlier 80s.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[blackrazor49]

I have to say I loved the old X-Men and New Mutants (especially X-Men annual #9 and NM Special Ed #1 where they are all on Asgard). It's basically when I started collecting and I ended up getting all the back issues of New Mutants. Sure they had some dumb moments (what title doesn't) but then they do two things that just killed me...
1. Who the hell came up with Birdboy?
2. And after not being able to keep a decent artist on the New Mutants they have Bret Blevins draw it for over 2 years...AARRRRGG!!!! (His stuff was ok on Ghost Rider but he was AWFUL on the New Mutants. After looking at his stuff for over 2 years straight I quit collecting comics until like 2 months ago LOL!

Oh and one more thing... Magik with that dark attitude rocked!

(Sorry about the artist comments but I've had repressed anger on that for like 10 years now.)

Mike

 

[Dr. Harry]

I know that there are more than a few comic readers (or former readers) out there. I'm sure that, like me, more than once you've read a comic and wondered if the writers and editors were on crack when they came up with the story. I have my list of "worst ideas", what's your's?

First off, thank you. This is one of the most cathartic threads I've read in a long time. It's nice to know I'm not alone. Plus, I'm learing the goofy outcome of plotlines that I bailed on long, long ago.

Monarch

It could have been interesting, except for one thing: News leaked out to some people that Captain Atom was Monarch. In order to keep the conclusion a surprise, they scrapped the year long story and cobbled together a last minute alternative; Hawk of Hawk and Dove was now the bad guy!

Well, I liked Captain Atom, so I think this would have been in the "stupid" list in any event, but the writing on the Armageddon (or some such name) miniseries that brought Captain Atom & "Monarch" back was terrible. Forget DC continuity, the real world continuity was blown as well. According to the series, the age of dinosaurs was a thousand years before the Roman Empire, and it just got worse from there.

The Amazing Spider-Clone

Yeah, this knocked me clean out of comics for while.

Evil Green Lantern

From what I understand, even though the new batch of writers were doing a good job on the series and sales were up, DC decided that they needed a hip, edgier, Gen-X version of GL... [?QUOTE]

Geez, I had at least hoped that sales were down. You know, I was going to comment on the DC attitude "Hal Jordan's a decent guy, so that makes him boring. We need a superhero with a psychoses or at least a dark, terrible instance in his past." Which they got by killing off Kyle's girlfriend straight off the bat, but as she was mentioned maybe twice after that, it didn't really have an efffect. I didn't have the stomach to get any deeper into this ... stupidity.

 

[Phasmus]

I'd never been much of a comic reader, but I used to pick up an occasional issue of Spiderman if the plot looked interesting.

...

Then the bat-snitches killed Dr. Octopus, one of my favorite Marvel villains. As a result, as childish as it may sound, I no longer buy Marvel comics.

...

It wasn't a dignified death. I could have tolerated that. But he was a casualty of 'We need to kill someone off to show how bad this -new- villain is!' syndrome. So they had 'Kain' (who turned out to be some irksome tangent of the clone saga, as I recall being told) kak the doctor.

Misery.

Then later, I am made to understand, they brought Doc-Ock back to life via a lame plot device of some sort.

Misery and woe.

 

[Nellisir]

...my least favourite comic book moment was the ill-fated 'New Universe' ... a dozen titles were launched simutaneously and some many of them were complete crap. Only 2 ever stood out to me as somewhat impressive;

Star Brand (a man is given a powerful weapon in the form of a tattoo from a dying alien - the weapon gives him super strength, flight but now other aliens want it for a great war - actually better than I'm making is sound here)

DP-7 (Stands for Displaced Paranormals - 7) a group of average people suddenly find themselves developing strange abilites after a 'White Event' in which the entire earth is bathed in a white light for a brief moment. The powers were interesting in that they all had real drawbacks. The 'speedster' of the group had to eat constantly as his accelerated metobolism put a tremendous drain on his body. The 'muscle' guy was occasionally wracked by pain as new muscles suddenly grew in. I liked it and it lasted the longest at 36 or so issues.

Some of the crap included;

Kickers Inc
Marc Hazzerd - Merc
Spitfire & the Troubleshooters

It should be a consolation that Marvel apparently felt something like you did -- Kickers Inc; Marc Hazzard, Merc; and Spitfire were 3 of the 4 titles that were cancelled after 12 issues. Marc Hazzard was, IIRC, killed in his finale. The other cancelled series was Nightmask -- a series I enjoyed.

StarBrand was not cancelled, but went bi-monthly or something. Lasted 19 issues.

3 series went 32 issues: Justice, Psi-Force (the best series, IMO, and the closest to standard superhero stuff -- penned by Fabian Nicieza), and DP7.

This site has a pretty good rundown of New Universe history, including Quasar http://www.geocities.com/tensen2099/New_Universe/new_universe_history_1.html

Cheers
Nell.

 

[Nellisir]

Strikeforce: Moruturi (or something like that...the tagline was "We who are about to die

Strikeforce: Morituri...I still think that was one of the coolest concepts. I wonder why I stopped buying it?

It wasnt' either a NU or Marvel universe comic, though it came out around the same time. In a slightly advanced future, aliens known as the Horde were invading earth, and the only hope was a process that created superhumans -- and guaranteed they'd die within 12 months.

A cure was discovered by the end of the series, and a 4(?) issue miniseries set a few years later featured the last members of the Morituri.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[Skade]

My comic purchases are sporadic at the moment, only the prospect of a new New Mutants series brought be back, and though that series has been fine, it is involved in this Higher Learning crossover, which includes the Emma Frost title, so I pick it up.

First off the covers are painted and gorgeous, if a little oversexed (Emma actually wears less clothes as a good guy, which is impressive considering her original White Queen outfit).

Anyway, it turns out that the series is basically her past, showing what it was like for a society brat to discover her mutant powers and develop from the only half-adjusted person in her dysfunctional family to the evil witch we all know and love. Its a good idea, I think, and a surprising turn.

Then it just annoyed me. There are little references to things like Melrose Place and other contemporary events. This is supposed to be Emma as a teen, and since she is currently a teacher at Xavier's, and very recently headmistress for both that school and the Hellions, why on earth would her teen self be watching Melrose Place? At the very least she would have been watching Cheers or something from the 80's.

I realize the character was actually developed in the first Claremont period, but I'm willing to accept not having 30 year old characters who have been around for 20 years not talking about watching petticoat Junction. Still, its a little silly to make her a mature adult in one title, and barely an adult by the information presented in another.

I know the Ultimates line does this also, but they can almost get away with it since they have thrown continuity out for their own timeline. This is not an ultimate title. I really don't think such references should be made when at all possible. Why date the book more than you have to?