WORST Comics Storyline

[Greg K]

Lots of examples already mentioned sound terrible to me. For myself:
Marvel: Inferno, Onslaught, Heroes Reborn, Clone Saga, Civil War. Hell, pretty much most (if not all) of the major Marvel cross-over events that followed the Mutant Massacre sounded bad to me.
For DC, both the Green Lantern Parallax storyline and all of the reboots following the original Crisis on Infinite Earths.

 

[James Gasik]

Crisis on Infinite Earths broke comics to the point that we now have endless company wide crossover events every year (sometimes more than one!) which spawn scores of tie-in issues that don't really tie-in to anything.

But I think even that pales to when DC broke death in comics forever with Superman.

 

[Greg K]

Crisis on Infinite Earths broke comics to the point that we now have endless company wide crossover events every year (sometimes more than one!) which spawn scores of tie-in issues that don't really tie-in to anything.

But I think even that pales to when DC broke death in comics forever with Superman.

Marvel's Secret Wars came out a year prior and Secret Wars II was released the same year as Crisis on Infinite Earths

 

[James Gasik]

Marvel's Secret Wars came out a year prior and Secret Wars II was released the same year as Crisis on Infinite Earths

That is true, but I remember reading that Marvel made Secret Wars because they knew about Crisis and wanted to get the jump on them. Though the old mental hard drive isn't what it used to be, so I could be wrong.

 

[deganawida]

That is true, but I remember reading that Marvel made Secret Wars because they knew about Crisis and wanted to get the jump on them. Though the old mental hard drive isn't what it used to be, so I could be wrong.

I remember the same, but it could have been an urban legend that Shooter learned of it and wanted to beat DC to the punch.

 

[Rabulias]

That is true, but I remember reading that Marvel made Secret Wars because they knew about Crisis and wanted to get the jump on them. Though the old mental hard drive isn't what it used to be, so I could be wrong.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was intended by DC to make them "more like Marvel." Marvel had a smaller pool of heroes from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and they had found ways to use them that did not involve multiple Earths to keep track of. Sub-Mariner was still around due to his Atlantean lifespan. Captain America was frozen in ice and revived in the modern era. The Human Torch they just duplicated his powers in a new character. Marvel could keep telling WWII stories (see The Invaders) and modern stories because WWII Marvel universe was the Marvel universe's history. I remember my young self being confused by DC and all the various Earths. DC had 25+ more years of backstory on many more characters than Marvel. They wanted that same clean timeline.

Now, multiverses are all the rage.

Foornote: As time went on, Marvel, too, eventually encountered problems with some elements of stories too closely tied to real events, like Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and Nick Fury serving in WWII, Iron Man's origin being tied to Vietnam, etc.

 

[Greg K]

I want to add some of the early Iron Fist stuff (I cant recall if it was in Marvel Premiere and/or Iron Fist vol 1) to my prior list. I liked the basic premise of the story, but things like the deathtrap building and the robot were lazy garbage writing and seemed entirely out of place to me. The Netflix Iron Fist improved the story only to have it undermined by the lead actor.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The death of Superman with subsequent "inheritors" characters, followed by his resurrection. It cheapened everything that followed. It's not the first time that he came back from the dead. I can clearly remember that in the 100 page "DC Super Specials" they killed him in Kandor and then the moment that his body was removed from the city he came back to life, because he couldn't be dead in the world where he was invulnerable or some such weak hand-wave, but it was all over in one story and didn't string everyone along as "he's really gone forever."

Superman was also killed in an Etrigan story. IIRC, Morgana Le Fey had created a magical "bomb" in a small sculpture. When someone opens the sculpture, the spell turns them into a weird spikey tower. Each tower tried to spear other people, making an instant city made of people. I believe if enough were created, Morgana would be resurrected/released.

Superman smashes a tower, leaving a bloody hole. Etrigan stops him and then sends him back in time. Superman can't defeat or survive Morgan's magic, but he dives into the spell, causing a paradox so he never goes back in time and is therfore fine in the future and the trap doesn't exist.

 

[MoonSong]

The death of Superman with subsequent "inheritors" characters, followed by his resurrection. It cheapened everything that followed. It's not the first time that he came back from the dead. I can clearly remember that in the 100 page "DC Super Specials" they killed him in Kandor and then the moment that his body was removed from the city he came back to life, because he couldn't be dead in the world where he was invulnerable or some such weak hand-wave, but it was all over in one story and didn't string everyone along as "he's really gone forever."

That storyline is partially responsible for my country having a geeky industry. The news coverage allowed comicbook fans to be aware of each other. Thanks to this, they began to make conventions and eventually led to them opening comicbook shops (and now we have our "little Akihabara" which is a touristic spot in its own right), and it spurred the creation of a lot of local indie comics that even got to be on and off in the newstands for as late as 2012 -when New 52 crowded them out- . In that environment comic artists that later made the jump to maimstream American comics like Humberto Ramos had their beginnings.

 

[Ryujin]

That storyline is partially responsible for my country having a geeky industry. The news coverage allowed comicbook fans to be aware of each other. Thanks to this, they began to make conventions and eventually led to them opening comicbook shops (and now we have our "little Akihabara" which is a touristic spot in its own right), and it spurred the creation of a lot of local indie comics that even got to be on and off in the newstands for as late as 2012 -when New 52 crowded them out- . In that environment comic artists that later made the jump to maimstream American comics like Humberto Ramos had their beginnings.

Then at least something good came out of the elimination of any consequences in the DC comic book world.