Villano
First Post
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?
John Byrne's Wonder Woman
It certainly sounded like a good idea. Bryne's a talented writer and artist (although, I prefer when others ink him), and I enjoyed his revamping of Superman and his comedic turn on She-Hulk. However, something happened to Byrne in recent years. He devolped the need to rewrite continuity. Sure, his Superman reworking was excellent, but he's gotten the idea that other heroes needed their own origins tweaked, including Spider-Man and Wonder Woman. I've never read the Spider-Man stuff, but have heard it was awful, and, from what I saw in Wonder Woman, I wouldn't doubt it.
Byrne decided that people really wanted the old, Silver Age WW back. To that end, he had her discover an ancient alien race living under the arctic. This race was so wonderous, the Egyptian gods worshipped them and they are the ones that really built the pyramids.
Firstly, how many hidden races are there beneath the arctic in DC? Seriously, this isn't the first time a hidden civilization was under the ice. Frankly, Marvel handles this sort of thing much better. You can point to a spot on the map and know what's exactly there. You don't have to worry about writers stepping on each other's toes (I won't even get into how many different aliens, time travelers, etc., "actually" built the pyramids in DC Comics).
Truthfully, I wouldn't have minded the aliens at all except for the fact that these aliens were the most ragged, lame excuses for aliens I've ever seen. They supposedly had the gods in awe, but they were just scruffy, animal-headed guys with ray guns. They wouldn't have been out of place on the Wendy & Marvin years of Superfriends.
Anyway, the aliens gave WW a glob of clear plastic. This object could take any shape, including an invisible plane. Wow, an invisible plane! Too bad the modern WW can fly.
But, you see, the plane really wasn't for her! Bryne decided that folks really wanted the Golden Age WW back as well. How could he do that, you ask? Simple, Hippolyta, WW's mom and queen of the amazons, goes back in time to World War 2. How? Well, I bet you didn't know that Paradise Island, the amazons' home, could travel through time!
Yes, that's right, it's a time traveling island.
Hippo becomes a sword-weilding, mini-skirt wearing, Nazi smasher! We are also treated to the sight of the original Flash suddenly "remembering" her. See, her time travel altered reality and now everyone on Earth can recall a previous WW! Isn't that wonderful?!
The stories dragged on and the modern WW eventually was transfigured into a goddess. No joke, she became the Greek Goddess Of Truth.
After that, Byrne left, the Goddess thing was forgotten, and the following writers spent all their time trying to undo what Byrne had wrought. They turned the invisible glob into a floating palace, then into an embassy, and finally destroyed it or sent it into space or something. Paradise Isle and the queen weren't so lucky. The Island was blown up and poor, old Hippo was killed off.
I stopped collecting after that. The writers were a talented bunch, but I don't want to read a comic that's basically damage control.
Martian Fire
Okay, after that long rant, this next one is short and sweet. Martian Manhunter is vulnerable to fire. No, he isn't. Yes, he is! NO, he isn't! YES, HE IS!
He's been "cured" about a dozen times already and reverts back by his next appearance with no explanation. How many time do I have to read this? I've been displeased by the monotony of JLA for awhile (how many reality altering villains can you fight?), but the "we're curing Martian Manhunter again" was the last straw, so I dropped the book.
Monarch
Way back in the early '90s, DC got an idea for a series-wide crossover in their annuals. They decided that a time traveler would come from the future to determine which hero would turn evil, adopt the identity of "Monarch", and conquer the world of his time.
Interesting idea. I'm not a big fan of "rogue heroes" nowadays (more on that in a moment), but I was a kid at the time and it sounded cool. We were treated to different future visions of every DC hero. I couldn't wait to see who Monarch would turn out to be.
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!
I have no idea who discovered the Capt. Atom finale, but I certainly never heard it. I'm reminded of a story of a wrestling promoter who found out that a dozen people heard who was going to win the title in an upcoming televised show. This was at a time when wrestling was "real", so, in order to fool 12 people, he changed things at the last minute, thereby destroying the wrestling storylines for the next year.
So, to fool a handful of people, DC slaps something together and we get football jock and college drop-out Hawk as DC's armored, Superman killing, world conquering Dr. Doom. Needless to say, as a villain, he wasn't taken seriously and, after a short run under the new name "Extant", he's pretty much been swept under the rug.
Peter Parker, son of James Bond
Spider-Man has always been the quintessential everyman hero. He's an orphan taking care of his sick aunt and struggling to pay the rent. He's the superMAN amongst SUPERmen.
However, someone at Marvel decided that Spidey's parents weren't just ordinary folks who were killed in an accident. No, they were superspies and were murdered by...the Red Skull!
Dad, can I borrow the flying car and freeze ray tonight? I've got a hot date with Mary Jane.
The Amazing Spider-Clone
Speaking of Spidey...
Okay, back in the 60s or 70s, Spidey fought a villain called The Jackal. Jackal was scientist who had perfected cloning. He made a duplicate Spidey and Gwen (Peter's girlfriend who was killed by Green Goblin). Spidey killed his double and Gwen wandered off.
Not too great an idea, but easily forgotten. Except, someone at Marvel realized that Jackal was just a high school teacher in his real identity. How could a high school teacher make clones?, they asked. In order to "correct" this, they revealed that the teacher didn't make clones, but altered the DNA of people to make duplicates. Spidey "discovers" this, tracks down "clone" Gwen and restores her to normal.
Okay, but what about the Spider-Clone? I mean, if he was just some poor schmuck, then didn't Spidey kill an innocent man?
Unfortunately, we never found out because the original clone wasn't dead. In fact, forget about the DNA rewritting thing, they really were clones. And, here's the kicker, the Peter Parker we know and love and have been reading about for the past 30yrs was that clone! Dun-dun-dun!
Marvel, in its infinite wisdom, was planning to retire the original, er, not really original, er, Spidey we've been reading and replace him with the clone, er, original. And that guy is now a blonde named "Ben Reilly".
Thankfully, the howls of the fans could be heard loud and clear and Marvel backtracked on this big time. Spidey was Spidey, the clone was a clone, and that was that.
But, still to this day, in comic shops around the country, you can say "Spider-Clone Saga" and send everyone within earshot into convulsions.
Kingdom
Back in the mid-80s, DC decided to streamline it's universe. They had a multiverse, actually, with Earth 1, 2, X, Z, etc, etc, etc.. You couldn't turn around without tripping on one Superman or another. From this chaos, DC compressed it all into one world in a series called Crisis On Infinite Earths.
Skip ahead. DC decided to let Kurt Busiek and painter Alex Ross take their crack at a prestige format book detailing a world with heroes run amock. It was titled Kingdom Come, and, while I was not overly impressed, the rest of the comic reading world was in love.
But, being a corporation, DC decided that this horse wasn't quite dead enough, so they proceeded to flog every last remaining dime out of it, in a process called Kingdom.
First, they hired Busiek and Ross to work on the book. It was going to be an ongoing series, which would cover the events leading up to Kingdom Come. We would see the new heroes introduced in the original mini-series and we would follow the rise of the original's villain, Gog. However, DC had a falling out with Busiek and Ross, and the book was shelved. Or, at least, it should have been...
Instead, we were given Kingdom, a mini-series which begins with Gog casually killing the Superman of Kingdom Come (we don't want the people who liked the original series to like this one) and progressively got worse, finally culminating in the introduction of "Hypertime".
What's hypertime?, you ask. Well, remember that multiverse stuff I talked about? Well, it's back! Screw Crisis On Infinite Earths and say "hello" to Superman from Earth 2, 3, 4, 5, A, Z, X, M, Prime, $, R, *, #, 96....
Who needs continuity when we can have Super Rabbit?
Batman = Good, Superman = Evil
Speaking of Kingdom Come, when did the world decide that, if any hero would go bad and become a Nazi, it would be Superman? Well, I suppose we can blame that on Frank Miller and Dark Knight Returns.
Seriously, though, why is it that there are so many stories of Superman turning into a facist and Batman being the only one who can take him down? I can imagine Batman going down that road long before Supes. I mean, part of Bat's appeal is that he's psychotic. He's an emotionally crippled, unbalanced guy who lives to terrify criminals. The guy has issues.
I think it's all part of the need to justify Batman. Every writer of Justice League has said that Batman is the only guy who could take down all the other Leaguers. He could beat Green Lantern? Really? The Flash? Don't even get me started on how he'd beat invisible, intangible, telepathic Martian Manhunter!
Hell, Bats has kryptonite to protect himself from Supes, but let's see what good it does him when Supes scoops up a battleship and tosses it on Wayne Manor from orbit.
Is it some form of human defense mechanism? Do we need to have the "normal" guy be more powerful than the aliens and metahumans?
Personally, I'm sick of it because it leads to my #1 choice for dumb comics idea:
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. In order to make sure that the readers would have to accept the new GL, the editor approached writer Ron Marz and told him that they wanted the Hal Jordan GL gone from the series. Not only that, but they wanted him dead and killed off in such a way that there would be no way to bring him back. And they wanted the Green Lantern Corps gone, as well.
Oh, and he had 3 issues in which to do it.
What followed was Hal Jordan freaking out over the destruction of the city he used to live in, murdering all his former Green Lantern Corps friends, killing the Guardians Of The Universe, and absorbing the power of the Oan Power Battery (the source of the GLs power).
An emotional breakdown and mass murder all in 3 issues. I think that's a record.
What we got in exchange was Kyle Rayner, picked at random to wield the last remaining power ring as the new GL.
The fans hated it! Over the course of 3 issues, the bravest, most honest superhero became a murdering nut. Even the most rabid Kyle supporters thought the end of Hal Jordan was stupid.
DC then made the next logical step; they brought back Hal Jordan. Well, they brought him back even crazier and now calling himself "Parallax". Hal now had a god complex and decided that killing hundreds of people wasn't good enough. No, now he was going to destroy the universe.
Needless to say, people thought this was even stupidier.
DC finally decided to "redeem" Hal by having him give his life to relight the sun after it was destroyed by an alien entity. Of course, he had the power to destroy the universe previously, but now can't light a star, but we won't dwell on that because it's, well, stupid (I'm using that word alot in this description).
Not willing to leave well enough alone, they brought back Hal as the new Spectre.
Bear in mind what the purpose was in turning Hal into a psycho; to kill him off in a way that they would never have to bring him back. Well, that worked.
Oh, and they brought back the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians, for a net gain of zero versus the alienation of their fanbase.
Ironically, there's a moral to this story. Shortly after this, the editor had some kind of public falling out with Erik Larson who was doing Aquaman at the time. I don't know the details, but the editor apparently came across badly and alienated more fans. He quit DC and left the entire comics industry due to this and the GL backwash.
The moral is that if you try to tell the audience what it wants instead of listening to them, you only end up hurting yourself. If the audience isn't screaming for a hip, edgier GL, don't force one down their throats.
So, there you have it. This was my "comics dumbests moments list", what's your's? Seriously, you'll feel better after you vent.
John Byrne's Wonder Woman
It certainly sounded like a good idea. Bryne's a talented writer and artist (although, I prefer when others ink him), and I enjoyed his revamping of Superman and his comedic turn on She-Hulk. However, something happened to Byrne in recent years. He devolped the need to rewrite continuity. Sure, his Superman reworking was excellent, but he's gotten the idea that other heroes needed their own origins tweaked, including Spider-Man and Wonder Woman. I've never read the Spider-Man stuff, but have heard it was awful, and, from what I saw in Wonder Woman, I wouldn't doubt it.
Byrne decided that people really wanted the old, Silver Age WW back. To that end, he had her discover an ancient alien race living under the arctic. This race was so wonderous, the Egyptian gods worshipped them and they are the ones that really built the pyramids.
Firstly, how many hidden races are there beneath the arctic in DC? Seriously, this isn't the first time a hidden civilization was under the ice. Frankly, Marvel handles this sort of thing much better. You can point to a spot on the map and know what's exactly there. You don't have to worry about writers stepping on each other's toes (I won't even get into how many different aliens, time travelers, etc., "actually" built the pyramids in DC Comics).
Truthfully, I wouldn't have minded the aliens at all except for the fact that these aliens were the most ragged, lame excuses for aliens I've ever seen. They supposedly had the gods in awe, but they were just scruffy, animal-headed guys with ray guns. They wouldn't have been out of place on the Wendy & Marvin years of Superfriends.
Anyway, the aliens gave WW a glob of clear plastic. This object could take any shape, including an invisible plane. Wow, an invisible plane! Too bad the modern WW can fly.
But, you see, the plane really wasn't for her! Bryne decided that folks really wanted the Golden Age WW back as well. How could he do that, you ask? Simple, Hippolyta, WW's mom and queen of the amazons, goes back in time to World War 2. How? Well, I bet you didn't know that Paradise Island, the amazons' home, could travel through time!
Yes, that's right, it's a time traveling island.
Hippo becomes a sword-weilding, mini-skirt wearing, Nazi smasher! We are also treated to the sight of the original Flash suddenly "remembering" her. See, her time travel altered reality and now everyone on Earth can recall a previous WW! Isn't that wonderful?!
The stories dragged on and the modern WW eventually was transfigured into a goddess. No joke, she became the Greek Goddess Of Truth.
After that, Byrne left, the Goddess thing was forgotten, and the following writers spent all their time trying to undo what Byrne had wrought. They turned the invisible glob into a floating palace, then into an embassy, and finally destroyed it or sent it into space or something. Paradise Isle and the queen weren't so lucky. The Island was blown up and poor, old Hippo was killed off.
I stopped collecting after that. The writers were a talented bunch, but I don't want to read a comic that's basically damage control.
Martian Fire
Okay, after that long rant, this next one is short and sweet. Martian Manhunter is vulnerable to fire. No, he isn't. Yes, he is! NO, he isn't! YES, HE IS!
He's been "cured" about a dozen times already and reverts back by his next appearance with no explanation. How many time do I have to read this? I've been displeased by the monotony of JLA for awhile (how many reality altering villains can you fight?), but the "we're curing Martian Manhunter again" was the last straw, so I dropped the book.
Monarch
Way back in the early '90s, DC got an idea for a series-wide crossover in their annuals. They decided that a time traveler would come from the future to determine which hero would turn evil, adopt the identity of "Monarch", and conquer the world of his time.
Interesting idea. I'm not a big fan of "rogue heroes" nowadays (more on that in a moment), but I was a kid at the time and it sounded cool. We were treated to different future visions of every DC hero. I couldn't wait to see who Monarch would turn out to be.
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!
I have no idea who discovered the Capt. Atom finale, but I certainly never heard it. I'm reminded of a story of a wrestling promoter who found out that a dozen people heard who was going to win the title in an upcoming televised show. This was at a time when wrestling was "real", so, in order to fool 12 people, he changed things at the last minute, thereby destroying the wrestling storylines for the next year.
So, to fool a handful of people, DC slaps something together and we get football jock and college drop-out Hawk as DC's armored, Superman killing, world conquering Dr. Doom. Needless to say, as a villain, he wasn't taken seriously and, after a short run under the new name "Extant", he's pretty much been swept under the rug.
Peter Parker, son of James Bond
Spider-Man has always been the quintessential everyman hero. He's an orphan taking care of his sick aunt and struggling to pay the rent. He's the superMAN amongst SUPERmen.
However, someone at Marvel decided that Spidey's parents weren't just ordinary folks who were killed in an accident. No, they were superspies and were murdered by...the Red Skull!
Dad, can I borrow the flying car and freeze ray tonight? I've got a hot date with Mary Jane.
The Amazing Spider-Clone
Speaking of Spidey...
Okay, back in the 60s or 70s, Spidey fought a villain called The Jackal. Jackal was scientist who had perfected cloning. He made a duplicate Spidey and Gwen (Peter's girlfriend who was killed by Green Goblin). Spidey killed his double and Gwen wandered off.
Not too great an idea, but easily forgotten. Except, someone at Marvel realized that Jackal was just a high school teacher in his real identity. How could a high school teacher make clones?, they asked. In order to "correct" this, they revealed that the teacher didn't make clones, but altered the DNA of people to make duplicates. Spidey "discovers" this, tracks down "clone" Gwen and restores her to normal.
Okay, but what about the Spider-Clone? I mean, if he was just some poor schmuck, then didn't Spidey kill an innocent man?
Unfortunately, we never found out because the original clone wasn't dead. In fact, forget about the DNA rewritting thing, they really were clones. And, here's the kicker, the Peter Parker we know and love and have been reading about for the past 30yrs was that clone! Dun-dun-dun!
Marvel, in its infinite wisdom, was planning to retire the original, er, not really original, er, Spidey we've been reading and replace him with the clone, er, original. And that guy is now a blonde named "Ben Reilly".
Thankfully, the howls of the fans could be heard loud and clear and Marvel backtracked on this big time. Spidey was Spidey, the clone was a clone, and that was that.
But, still to this day, in comic shops around the country, you can say "Spider-Clone Saga" and send everyone within earshot into convulsions.
Kingdom
Back in the mid-80s, DC decided to streamline it's universe. They had a multiverse, actually, with Earth 1, 2, X, Z, etc, etc, etc.. You couldn't turn around without tripping on one Superman or another. From this chaos, DC compressed it all into one world in a series called Crisis On Infinite Earths.
Skip ahead. DC decided to let Kurt Busiek and painter Alex Ross take their crack at a prestige format book detailing a world with heroes run amock. It was titled Kingdom Come, and, while I was not overly impressed, the rest of the comic reading world was in love.
But, being a corporation, DC decided that this horse wasn't quite dead enough, so they proceeded to flog every last remaining dime out of it, in a process called Kingdom.
First, they hired Busiek and Ross to work on the book. It was going to be an ongoing series, which would cover the events leading up to Kingdom Come. We would see the new heroes introduced in the original mini-series and we would follow the rise of the original's villain, Gog. However, DC had a falling out with Busiek and Ross, and the book was shelved. Or, at least, it should have been...
Instead, we were given Kingdom, a mini-series which begins with Gog casually killing the Superman of Kingdom Come (we don't want the people who liked the original series to like this one) and progressively got worse, finally culminating in the introduction of "Hypertime".
What's hypertime?, you ask. Well, remember that multiverse stuff I talked about? Well, it's back! Screw Crisis On Infinite Earths and say "hello" to Superman from Earth 2, 3, 4, 5, A, Z, X, M, Prime, $, R, *, #, 96....
Who needs continuity when we can have Super Rabbit?
Batman = Good, Superman = Evil
Speaking of Kingdom Come, when did the world decide that, if any hero would go bad and become a Nazi, it would be Superman? Well, I suppose we can blame that on Frank Miller and Dark Knight Returns.
Seriously, though, why is it that there are so many stories of Superman turning into a facist and Batman being the only one who can take him down? I can imagine Batman going down that road long before Supes. I mean, part of Bat's appeal is that he's psychotic. He's an emotionally crippled, unbalanced guy who lives to terrify criminals. The guy has issues.
I think it's all part of the need to justify Batman. Every writer of Justice League has said that Batman is the only guy who could take down all the other Leaguers. He could beat Green Lantern? Really? The Flash? Don't even get me started on how he'd beat invisible, intangible, telepathic Martian Manhunter!
Hell, Bats has kryptonite to protect himself from Supes, but let's see what good it does him when Supes scoops up a battleship and tosses it on Wayne Manor from orbit.
Is it some form of human defense mechanism? Do we need to have the "normal" guy be more powerful than the aliens and metahumans?
Personally, I'm sick of it because it leads to my #1 choice for dumb comics idea:
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. In order to make sure that the readers would have to accept the new GL, the editor approached writer Ron Marz and told him that they wanted the Hal Jordan GL gone from the series. Not only that, but they wanted him dead and killed off in such a way that there would be no way to bring him back. And they wanted the Green Lantern Corps gone, as well.
Oh, and he had 3 issues in which to do it.
What followed was Hal Jordan freaking out over the destruction of the city he used to live in, murdering all his former Green Lantern Corps friends, killing the Guardians Of The Universe, and absorbing the power of the Oan Power Battery (the source of the GLs power).
An emotional breakdown and mass murder all in 3 issues. I think that's a record.
What we got in exchange was Kyle Rayner, picked at random to wield the last remaining power ring as the new GL.
The fans hated it! Over the course of 3 issues, the bravest, most honest superhero became a murdering nut. Even the most rabid Kyle supporters thought the end of Hal Jordan was stupid.
DC then made the next logical step; they brought back Hal Jordan. Well, they brought him back even crazier and now calling himself "Parallax". Hal now had a god complex and decided that killing hundreds of people wasn't good enough. No, now he was going to destroy the universe.
Needless to say, people thought this was even stupidier.
DC finally decided to "redeem" Hal by having him give his life to relight the sun after it was destroyed by an alien entity. Of course, he had the power to destroy the universe previously, but now can't light a star, but we won't dwell on that because it's, well, stupid (I'm using that word alot in this description).
Not willing to leave well enough alone, they brought back Hal as the new Spectre.
Bear in mind what the purpose was in turning Hal into a psycho; to kill him off in a way that they would never have to bring him back. Well, that worked.
Oh, and they brought back the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians, for a net gain of zero versus the alienation of their fanbase.
Ironically, there's a moral to this story. Shortly after this, the editor had some kind of public falling out with Erik Larson who was doing Aquaman at the time. I don't know the details, but the editor apparently came across badly and alienated more fans. He quit DC and left the entire comics industry due to this and the GL backwash.
The moral is that if you try to tell the audience what it wants instead of listening to them, you only end up hurting yourself. If the audience isn't screaming for a hip, edgier GL, don't force one down their throats.
So, there you have it. This was my "comics dumbests moments list", what's your's? Seriously, you'll feel better after you vent.
