What Were They Thinking? Worst Comic Ideas.
- Thread starter Villano
- Start date
Viking Bastard
Adventurer
You don't like Savage Dragon?
But... it's FUN!
But... it's FUN!
Villano said:
Just want to defend KC here for a second. In it, Batman's efforts at keeping the peace in Gotham and other towns he's now associated with is strongly shown as over the top.
Now, as to contribute to this topic. The thing I find the most ridiculous and disgusting thing:
Multiple solo titles for one hero. Batman has how many? Superman? Spiderman? The writer of The Flash has some freedom to do things. The writers of the first three I mentioned has none, cause if they want to do any type of shake up they've gotta run it through several other people instead of just the editors.
Then you get crazy continuity problems also, like in one Spiderman book MJ and Peter are living together, and in another they're not (or so I've heard, I don't read Spiderman). Of course it's been explained that one takes place before the other, but it is sort of headachey.
Kahuna Burger
First Post
X-Factor. let me count the ways that this peice of tripe was wrong.
1) bringing back the original X Men... uh, guys, the original xmen were a failed series, and probably for good reason.
2) let the woman who missed it all make the moral judgements. Jean Grey comes back from the dead and has missed everything that lead up to the changes she sees before her. Rather than trying to explain what's happened, everyone just decides that her uninformed outrage is right and starts playing along with her.
3) Scott summers, adulterer, deadbeat dad and hero. This guy gets a call that his old girlfriend has returned from the dead, and walks out on his wife and son without a word of explaination. His behavior is never truely questioned, and the writers do a horrible retcon to make Maddy "always evil" as though that makes everything acceptable. This wouldn't be quite as bad if he hadn't pulled this stunt once already with (2?) other women when he thought jean was dead and lied about it afterwards.
4) good stuff = jean, bad stuff = phoenix. The dark phoenix saga was one of the coolest "power corrupts" stories marvel has ever done, and X factor managed to completely destroy any meaning from it by assigning every bad thing done to "the destructive nature of the phoenix" and every good thing to "jean's personality fighting through". Oh and since maddy was her clone, anything good maddy did was really jean too... and nathan is Jean's kid, we'll just look at maddy as a surrogate.
5) amazingly powerful washed up superheroes. Iceman will always be lame. Always. He can be overpowered, underpowered, insane, good, evil, he's just LAME, ok? And that goes double for angel.
There's probably more, but I think thats enough to explain why I consider X Factor to be the worst X title ever concieved....
Kahuna burger
1) bringing back the original X Men... uh, guys, the original xmen were a failed series, and probably for good reason.
2) let the woman who missed it all make the moral judgements. Jean Grey comes back from the dead and has missed everything that lead up to the changes she sees before her. Rather than trying to explain what's happened, everyone just decides that her uninformed outrage is right and starts playing along with her.
3) Scott summers, adulterer, deadbeat dad and hero. This guy gets a call that his old girlfriend has returned from the dead, and walks out on his wife and son without a word of explaination. His behavior is never truely questioned, and the writers do a horrible retcon to make Maddy "always evil" as though that makes everything acceptable. This wouldn't be quite as bad if he hadn't pulled this stunt once already with (2?) other women when he thought jean was dead and lied about it afterwards.
4) good stuff = jean, bad stuff = phoenix. The dark phoenix saga was one of the coolest "power corrupts" stories marvel has ever done, and X factor managed to completely destroy any meaning from it by assigning every bad thing done to "the destructive nature of the phoenix" and every good thing to "jean's personality fighting through". Oh and since maddy was her clone, anything good maddy did was really jean too... and nathan is Jean's kid, we'll just look at maddy as a surrogate.
5) amazingly powerful washed up superheroes. Iceman will always be lame. Always. He can be overpowered, underpowered, insane, good, evil, he's just LAME, ok? And that goes double for angel.
There's probably more, but I think thats enough to explain why I consider X Factor to be the worst X title ever concieved....
Kahuna burger
Silver Moon
Adventurer
Seems a bit extreme to me. If you don't like a book just don't buy it. Yes, Eric Larson's book was an acquired taste, as the book had a very different feel to it due in part to his notion of 1 year reader time = 1 year book time.Maraxle said:
Personally, I really enjoyed the first 75 issues, then didn't care for the change of direction and then dropped the title. I picked it up again for a short run (issues 98-104) but then decided to drop it again.
Now, back to "really bad concepts", a few more worth mentioning:
Black Goliath - Trying to capitalize on the hip black-power theme, Marvel created this awful book in the mid-70's. It wasn't planned as a mini-series, yet it only lasted for 5 issues.
Crimson Plague - The name says it all. Although beautifully drawn by the great George Perez, this concept was a bad idea from day one. A sci-fi saga that mixes the Aliens film idea with a lethal plague carrying person, the disease causing everyone to instantly bleed to death.
Moonknight - Fists of Konshu - Moonknight was never meant to be more than a Marvel version of Batman, so why anybody thought that they should play up the Egpytian God aspect of his origin as the main thrust of the character is hard to imagine.
NFL Superhero Marvel mixes professional football with comics for very dubious results. I don't know if anyone ever bought this two-issue mess, as I see tons of copies in the bargain bins at comic shows.
Crisis Knock-offs Crisis on Infinate Earths was classic. D.C. should have just let it be at that, but instead they tried to duplicate its success with one poorly conceived cross-continuity "Epic" maxi-series after another. I don't remember the names of all of these off the top of my head, but there were at least six of them in the decade after Crisis.
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Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Viking Bastard said:
The day has finally come when I've disagreed with you. I think Grant Morrison is a lousy storyteller. He may have interesting ideas, but he can't communicate them in any way I find compelling or fun. For me, The Invisibles was a big waste of money and time.
Garth Ennis, though? If I could, I'd chain Ennis in my attic and make him write me more Preacher/Hitman in exchange for smelly fish heads once a day. He's great.
stevelabny
Explorer
take into acccount that my current financial situation has left me new comicbook less for the past year. previously, i would buy just about everything.
from the original list:
the evil green lantern story made sense to me.
hal jordan was always crazy (almost as much so as batman)
seeing him snap and go on a rampage was cool and logical.
saying all the fans hated it is just wrong.
the only fans who hated it were those who considered hal jordan their favorite character. the rest of us were just fine with it. and LIKED it even.
john byrne hasnt written anything of value since his Next Men series flopped. He is bitter at the fans and is purposely trying to sabotage the marvel and dc universes. The man is an idiot. When i was stating my displeasure with the concept of the ultimate line before it debuted,and some other retcons around the marvel and dc universe (including his own slop) he called me the "worst kind of comic book fan". i told him if every fan that spends 200-300 a month on comics is the worst kind of fan and we all stopped buying, he'd be unemployed. I then offered to send him back every comic I own that he wrote for a refund. He declined my offer. He deserves every evil thing that can happen to a person to happen to him three times.
from the later additions:
avengers 291-298 was supposed to be the downfall of the Avengers.
the story of them all dying/leaving was done very well.
(especially loved namor using black knight's cursed sword to kill marinna, causing black kngiht to turn to stone)
Unfortunately, the "new team" in 300 was brutal and the avengers never recovered until the current series #1.
my own additions:
LETTING DRUG-ADDLED BRITISH WRITERS OUT OF THE VERTIGO IMPRINT AND INTO THE MAINSTREAM MARVEL AND DC UNIVERSE, I'M LOOKING AT YOU GRANT MORRISON:
This guy completely ignored DC continuity and any semblance of story that could be understood in JLA, so MArvel asked hiim to write X-Men. GAH!
I only read the very beginning of his X-Men run, but I don't need to see the rest to know how brutal it is. I say again GAH!
Not Renumbering Legion after the re-boot following Zero Hour:
And DC wonders why the Legion fanbase never grows.
a continuity reboot is the only good time to renumber a series...AND THEY DIDNT DO IT. GAH!
(as a side note, they randomly renumbered it later)
X-Man Nate Grey:
GAH! As if all the timeline-crossing X-Men like Phoenix, Bishop, and Cable werent enough, Now we're gonna take an alternate version of a Cable from another timeline and try to make him a character too? GAH!!!!!
Marvel's "Ultimate" line of comics:
Marvel Executive #1: "I've been told some of our books suck. My son can't read good but he told me the problem is he can't figure out the past of our characters because theres so many back issues"
Marvel Executive #2: "Should we release a new Marvel Universe Handbook? OR a mini-series to explain Marvel's history so far?"
MArvel Executive #1 "I was thinking we trash everything and hire good writers and artists to make a NEW universe with modern versions of the characters."
Marvel Executive #2 "Why not just use the good writers and artists on the books in the orgiinal universe?"
Marvel Executive #1: "That would NEVER work.We still have all the old continuity, a new universe wouldnt have any, so EVERYONE could understand it. Even me. I wont have to remember the characters pasts or powers"
Marvel Executive #2: "But won't the new universe get its OWN ridiculous convoluted comic book continuity thats just as hard to understand?"
Marvel Executive #1: "Shut up! You confuse me and make my head hurt! You're fired, and I'm gonna make the ULTIMATE marvel universe.BWAHAHAHHA"
GAH!!!!!!!!!!
I'm sure I'm forgetting oodles and oodles of bad decisions and terrible stories, but for now I'll just jump ahead to the absolute worst things in comics.
NOT HAVING TIME PASS!
there is absolutely NO good reason to not have time pass in the Marvel and DC universes. There is no good reason for the "icons" to not get old and die, and pass on their mantles. There is no good reason for characters not aging, but celebrating christmas regularly. There is no good reason for Dick Grayson (and other teen heroes) to have grown up, graduated college, graduated police academy, and aged about 15 years while the adults havent aged a day. The idea that fans are against their favorite characters growing and evolving and changing is ridiculous. It happens in real life, and in every live-action television show and movie series. These "icons" are now "out of touch" with both the next generation of kids, and their original fans. This is the #2 reason why comic books are the bastard child of pop-culture instead of favorite son.
The Valiant universe tried having a strict timeline and was sucessful. Unfortunately, its unexpected sucess led to the evil "speculators" destroying the Valiant universe and comic book industry as a whole. When the dust settled, the first thing to go at Valiant was the time-keeping, and the door closed on the whole company soon after.
Wait, thats only #2? Whats #1?
NOT ADVERTISING.
The comic book industry is the only industry on the planet that doesnt advertise outside of itself. Nothing. Not television ads, print ads, radio ads, NOTHING!
the ridiculousness of this one speaks for itself, so I'm gonna go play D&D.
from the original list:
the evil green lantern story made sense to me.
hal jordan was always crazy (almost as much so as batman)
seeing him snap and go on a rampage was cool and logical.
saying all the fans hated it is just wrong.
the only fans who hated it were those who considered hal jordan their favorite character. the rest of us were just fine with it. and LIKED it even.
john byrne hasnt written anything of value since his Next Men series flopped. He is bitter at the fans and is purposely trying to sabotage the marvel and dc universes. The man is an idiot. When i was stating my displeasure with the concept of the ultimate line before it debuted,and some other retcons around the marvel and dc universe (including his own slop) he called me the "worst kind of comic book fan". i told him if every fan that spends 200-300 a month on comics is the worst kind of fan and we all stopped buying, he'd be unemployed. I then offered to send him back every comic I own that he wrote for a refund. He declined my offer. He deserves every evil thing that can happen to a person to happen to him three times.
from the later additions:
avengers 291-298 was supposed to be the downfall of the Avengers.
the story of them all dying/leaving was done very well.
(especially loved namor using black knight's cursed sword to kill marinna, causing black kngiht to turn to stone)
Unfortunately, the "new team" in 300 was brutal and the avengers never recovered until the current series #1.
my own additions:
LETTING DRUG-ADDLED BRITISH WRITERS OUT OF THE VERTIGO IMPRINT AND INTO THE MAINSTREAM MARVEL AND DC UNIVERSE, I'M LOOKING AT YOU GRANT MORRISON:
This guy completely ignored DC continuity and any semblance of story that could be understood in JLA, so MArvel asked hiim to write X-Men. GAH!
I only read the very beginning of his X-Men run, but I don't need to see the rest to know how brutal it is. I say again GAH!
Not Renumbering Legion after the re-boot following Zero Hour:
And DC wonders why the Legion fanbase never grows.
a continuity reboot is the only good time to renumber a series...AND THEY DIDNT DO IT. GAH!
(as a side note, they randomly renumbered it later)
X-Man Nate Grey:
GAH! As if all the timeline-crossing X-Men like Phoenix, Bishop, and Cable werent enough, Now we're gonna take an alternate version of a Cable from another timeline and try to make him a character too? GAH!!!!!
Marvel's "Ultimate" line of comics:
Marvel Executive #1: "I've been told some of our books suck. My son can't read good but he told me the problem is he can't figure out the past of our characters because theres so many back issues"
Marvel Executive #2: "Should we release a new Marvel Universe Handbook? OR a mini-series to explain Marvel's history so far?"
MArvel Executive #1 "I was thinking we trash everything and hire good writers and artists to make a NEW universe with modern versions of the characters."
Marvel Executive #2 "Why not just use the good writers and artists on the books in the orgiinal universe?"
Marvel Executive #1: "That would NEVER work.We still have all the old continuity, a new universe wouldnt have any, so EVERYONE could understand it. Even me. I wont have to remember the characters pasts or powers"
Marvel Executive #2: "But won't the new universe get its OWN ridiculous convoluted comic book continuity thats just as hard to understand?"
Marvel Executive #1: "Shut up! You confuse me and make my head hurt! You're fired, and I'm gonna make the ULTIMATE marvel universe.BWAHAHAHHA"
GAH!!!!!!!!!!
I'm sure I'm forgetting oodles and oodles of bad decisions and terrible stories, but for now I'll just jump ahead to the absolute worst things in comics.
NOT HAVING TIME PASS!
there is absolutely NO good reason to not have time pass in the Marvel and DC universes. There is no good reason for the "icons" to not get old and die, and pass on their mantles. There is no good reason for characters not aging, but celebrating christmas regularly. There is no good reason for Dick Grayson (and other teen heroes) to have grown up, graduated college, graduated police academy, and aged about 15 years while the adults havent aged a day. The idea that fans are against their favorite characters growing and evolving and changing is ridiculous. It happens in real life, and in every live-action television show and movie series. These "icons" are now "out of touch" with both the next generation of kids, and their original fans. This is the #2 reason why comic books are the bastard child of pop-culture instead of favorite son.
The Valiant universe tried having a strict timeline and was sucessful. Unfortunately, its unexpected sucess led to the evil "speculators" destroying the Valiant universe and comic book industry as a whole. When the dust settled, the first thing to go at Valiant was the time-keeping, and the door closed on the whole company soon after.
Wait, thats only #2? Whats #1?
NOT ADVERTISING.
The comic book industry is the only industry on the planet that doesnt advertise outside of itself. Nothing. Not television ads, print ads, radio ads, NOTHING!
the ridiculousness of this one speaks for itself, so I'm gonna go play D&D.
Mog Elffoe
Explorer
Maraxle said:
I'm sorry, but that's got to be the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time. So if you watched a couple bad movies, like say 'Leonard Part Six', or 'Freddy Got Fingered', you'd swear off all movies for the rest of your life? Huh? Or how about this one--"The smell coming from this one particular rotten thing made me wretch, so now I've decided to quit breathing altogether." Pretty extreme, but it's the same kind of logic.
WayneLigon
Adventurer
One of the #1 worst ideas anyone ever had was letting Giffen anywhere near the Legion of Super-Heroes. In an effort to give us 'darker, more adult' stories they deconstructed the Legion to the point where it was almost unrecognizable. Add to that the entire confusing time travel/Time Trapper/Glorinth Realilty mess along with terribly bad blocky art. I was never go glad for a total reboot of everything in my life.
#2. Well, I guess this isn't as bad an idea as I think it is; at least, I can only suppose this because it's been done this way three or four times and apparently I'm the only one that hates it. Peeve #2 are the second-generation Who's Who and Secret Files books, and Marvel's second and third generations of their Marvel Universe books. I guess I'm the only guy in the universe that loved the idea of a 12+ issue maxi-series filled with text describing history, back story, appearances, lists of powers and weaknesses, etc. They each did that ONCE, then decided to go the other way. DC now will have normal comics stories, plus one page entries (75% illustration) on a character; never on an HQ, a city, a bit of equipment or anything else. Marvel had this horrible MU series with one illustration and a list of appearances on the back, then followed it up with this 'Encyclopedia' series. Bleah, bleah, bleah.
#2. Well, I guess this isn't as bad an idea as I think it is; at least, I can only suppose this because it's been done this way three or four times and apparently I'm the only one that hates it. Peeve #2 are the second-generation Who's Who and Secret Files books, and Marvel's second and third generations of their Marvel Universe books. I guess I'm the only guy in the universe that loved the idea of a 12+ issue maxi-series filled with text describing history, back story, appearances, lists of powers and weaknesses, etc. They each did that ONCE, then decided to go the other way. DC now will have normal comics stories, plus one page entries (75% illustration) on a character; never on an HQ, a city, a bit of equipment or anything else. Marvel had this horrible MU series with one illustration and a list of appearances on the back, then followed it up with this 'Encyclopedia' series. Bleah, bleah, bleah.
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