What Were They Thinking? Worst Comic Ideas.

[Mog Elffoe]

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.

I fully agree with you on Grant Morrison. Some of his high concept ideas are pretty darned cool, but the execution is nearly ALWAYS lacking in the stuff that I've read. Flex Mentallo is probably the best example of this to my thinking--tones of high-concept, potentially great ideas, but a story that just cannot be followed. Also, when I read his New X-Men it seemed to me that he just didn't LIKE the X-Men characters and was bent on making them unlikable to everyone else as well.

Garth Ennis is really hit or miss with me. I'm a big, big fan of Preacher, Hitman, and about 60% of his stuff on Punisher, but his other stuff tends to simply feel gratuitous and writen solely for shock value.

Speaking of Hypertime, the best representation of Hypertime, I think, is right in Warren Ellis' Planetary books. The big glowy crystal computer thing in issue number one that the alternate Justice League pops out of to fight Doc Brass and company? That represents Hypertime. A bunch of the themes and concepts in Planetary follow the whole Hypertime concept and philosophy, especially, IMO, the Planetary/Batman. I personally dig the idea of Hypertime quite a bit.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Marvel's "Ultimate" line of comics:

The Ultimate line is GREAT. Some of the best of Marvel's characters are just getting VERY old...the best thing to do is to revitalize them by telling thier story in the world WE live in. Why should younger comic readers have to read stuff that's supposed to be in the year 2003, but LOOK like the late 70s?

 

[Mog Elffoe]

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.

Oh, man... I couldn't disagree with you more there. I'm sorry you didn't like that period of LSH, but I personally LOVED it. Loved the stories, loved the artwork (especially the nine panel per page layouts), loved being introduced to Jason Pearson's art later on, loved everything... Those were the comics that got me interested in Legion of SuperHeroes in the first place. Went back and bought the Great Darkness saga, and a bunch of great LSH back issues because of these. I can understand why anyone might not have liked that particular run, because it was VERY different, but I really dug it. Don't blame Giffen for the whole Time Trapper thing, though. He had to change his own storyline radically due to editorial decisions concerning DC Post-Crisis continuity. I'm not saying that you would've liked what he really did have planned any better, but that particular bit wasn't exactly his fault.

 

[WayneLigon]

NOT HAVING TIME PASS!

You do realize that having time pass at anything resembling a normal rate just isn't going to work in a monthly magazine format? If a multi-part story takes place over seven or eight issues, maybe only a week of time has passed maximum. Characters would get old much too quickly and be phased out. And for the most part, characters do age; they just do so slowly. It's a lot better than it used to be, at least; In general the 'rule of thumb' is that times passes roughly at one year in the comics for every 5-7 years real time. Robin started out at about 14; now, ten+ years later, he's just celebrated his 16th birthday.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

The Ultimate line is GREAT. Some of the best of Marvel's characters are just getting VERY old...the best thing to do is to revitalize them by telling thier story in the world WE live in. Why should younger comic readers have to read stuff that's supposed to be in the year 2003, but LOOK like the late 70s?

I can understand some folks' gripes concerning Marvel's Ultimate line, but when all is said and done, if they hadn't started the Ultimate line I wouldn't be able to read Ultimate Spider-Man each month, and that would be a crying shame. I *like* Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates, but Ultimate Spidey is THE best superhero book on the market today as far as I'm concerned. I am totally in love with that book.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

You do realize that having time pass at anything resembling a normal rate just isn't going to work in a monthly magazine format? If a multi-part story takes place over seven or eight issues, maybe only a week of time has passed maximum. Characters would get old much too quickly and be phased out. And for the most part, characters do age; they just do so slowly. It's a lot better than it used to be, at least; In general the 'rule of thumb' is that times passes roughly at one year in the comics for every 5-7 years real time. Robin started out at about 14; now, ten+ years later, he's just celebrated his 16th birthday.

I personally don't see a need for time to pass for ANY ongoing fictional characters. Why should they? Spider-Man should be older just because *I'm* older? That's not right. The Spider-Man I love is a young guy either still in school or still in his twenties, and there's no reason to change that. I'm all for stories like Dark Knight Returns, Days of Future Past, and Kingdom Come and whatever else that show where these characters may end up, but in their own ongoing books no aging is required. Peanuts never aged, Simpsons never aged, and by the same token comic book characters don't age. Simple as that.

 

[Particle_Man]

A recent one: Superman/Thundercats crossover.
An old one: Spiderman/Transformers crossover.

When we see the Justice League/Smurfs crossover, the apocolyse will have arrived.

 

[Silver Moon]

avengers 291-298 was supposed to be the downfall of the Avengers.

Er, think I'll have to disagree with you on this one. When has taking something loved by the fans and intentionally making it awful and then totally destroying it been a good idea?

A few other bad comic concepts off the top of my head:

1) Having Daredevil take on Hypnotist Uri Geller;
2) Putting Bruce Wayne in a wheelchair;
3) Killing off Aunt May, and then bringing her back three issues later;
4) Having Spiderman and Sandman join the Avengers;
5) X-Men/Star Trek the Next Generation crossover comic & novel

 

[Mog Elffoe]

Here's my list of comics' worst ideas:

Wonder Woman by Byrne--gotta agree with everyone here. There are a few moments when he hits the right chord, but mostly it's missteps. I actually DID like have Hippolyta become the Golden Age Wonder Woman. I had no problem with that at all, but the way he reworked the Demon's origin in that--Geez! I can't even begin to explain that. Mostly, I didn't like how *weak* Wonder Woman appeared spiritually in Byrne's run. She breaks down and openly cries on the shoulder of a MAN that she had met only days before in the first story arc. THAT bugged me. Sure, she had good reason to cry at the time, but how much more effective would it have been if she had stood strong and proud with a look of steely resolve on her face along with those tears? To me, that could've totally DEFINED the Wonder Woman character. I do like SOME of the stuff that Byrne does nowadays. I've greatly enjoyed each of his Generations series, and I am looking forward to seeing what he and Claremont do with JLA. I just saw that Jerry Ordway is going to be inking over Byrne's pencils. That ought to be a definite improvement. Their styles should blend nicely.

Spider-Man Clone Saga--I think everyone already knows why this didn't work.

Aliens and Predator crossovers with Superheroes--Okay, I *did* like the three Batman vs Predator and both of the Aliens vs Superman books, but the Superman/Predator, JLA/Predator, Batman/Aliens 1&2, Green Lantern/Aliens, and whatever else is out there just don't do it for me. I didn't buy the second Batman/Aliens or Green Lantern/Aliens, but man did the Superman/Predator and JLA/Predator and Batman/Aliens books stink. Painful reads for me.

Obsidian Age in JLA--This storyline made me drop JLA from my monthly reading list. I actually picked up many issues afterwards, but this is where I started actively disliking JLA. When Joe Kelly started getting political it was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back with me. Not that I disagree with his politics or anything like that (even though I DO) but that those stories were just really, really bad. The Fantastic Four has just recently become a 'political' book and I'm extremely interested to see where it goes. From interviews I've read with Mark Waid, the writer on FF, I don't really agree with him politically, but he's writing a very effective story that I'm extremely interested in following. Joe Kelly's JLA stuff just grates on me in a BIG way.

Taking away Wolverine's adamantium, and then giving him BONE claws--What were they thinking here? This stunned me. STUNNED. It's like taking Superman's flight, invulnerabilty, and super strength away from him, and not just for a single story or story arc--but for YEARS. Crazy.

I'm sure there's more, but overall, I'm pretty forgiving. I may drop a book sometimes but I usually give it LOTS of second chances before I do.

 

[Kesh]

Madelyne Pryor. 'nuff said.