What Were They Thinking? Worst Comic Ideas.

[Villano]

First, thanks, everyone, for the feedback. I was afraid that I spent all that time writing my long list and no one would respond.

I'm actually surprised that no one mentioned "explain my continuity to me" Hawkman. Geez, he's been revamped a dozen time since Crisis.

In defense of "Peter Parker, son of James Bond", that story was first written by Stan Lee as a one-shot flashback in 1968's Amazing Spiderman Annual #5. The story actually wasn't that bad, and had no real impact on continuity as his folks were clearly dead. The mistake was when they decided to follow this up 25 years later with a multi-issue storyline with them now alive.

That was the story that made me stop collecting Spider-Man, which was the first comic series I ever bought. I was collecting it on autopilot for about a year by that point as none of the stories had really been grabbing me.

Honorable Mention:

You call these guys Avengers?"
I'm referring to the Avengers #291 to 300 run. this run featured the lamest Avengers team ever assembled. Doctor Druid, She Hulk, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau version), Sub-Mariner, Subby's wife Marrina (from Alpha Flight), and the Black Knight. And the run ends with bringing in Gilgamesh (a new-to-Marvel Hercules knockoff from Olympus) as well as Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman as members (and we knew they would not be staying long, as they continued to wear their FF costumes).

Thor hung around for a few issues, primarily just to be picked on by Dr. Druiid, and Captain America eventually showed up as "The Captain", the costume eventually worn by U.S. Agent. The storylines were awful, most having to do with the muti-racial Cross-time Council of Kangs (a Green Lantern Corps knock-off) and the evolution of Marrina into a sea monster. A dying Jarvis was the highlight.

Oh, I loved those issues as a kid! Gilgamesh has actually been around for awhile under the name "The Forgotten One". He fought Thor a bunch of times. They finally killed him off in a rather lame fashion. I think he was strapped to a table and offed by one of Kang's henchmen. I don't think the killer was even given a name.

Anyway, I liked the fact that they were like the B team of the Avengers. Of course, West Coast Avengers was my favorite Avengers title.

Nitpick: Mark Waid wrote Kingdom Come and the Kingdom, not Kurt Busiek.

Ah, you're right. I thought Busiek did both Kingdom Come and Marvels. It makes Waid's fumbling of Kingdom seem much worse.

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.

Two words for you: Superman Weekly. That was the term the DC editors used when they decided they were sick of some people buying only Superman or Adventures and not picking up Action or Man Of Steel and hooked the series together with one continuing story, forcing consumers to purchase all the books to know what's going on. I'm not joking about that, either. They actually said they wanted people to buy all the books, not just one or two, so this was their way of forcing them to.

I used to collect Superman and, occassionally Adventures, but I dropped it after a month or two of Superman Weekly since it was just too damn expensive.

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 liek 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.

As I said before, I haven't enjoyed JLA for a good while, but Kelly has been the worst writer of the bunch. I hate it when comic writers try to get political. First, you run the risk of turning off your readership, and, secondly, Alan Moore once said that he regretted some of the influence he had on current comics since he felt that he gave them a weight they weren't meant to carry. I think that applies here.

Whenever anyone tries to bring "realism" to comics, it fails. You may want to do a story about babies with AIDS, but the guy in the cape with his underwear on the outside of his pants greatly diminishes your message.

You also end up quickly becoming trite and dated. There's a movie website that had a little article about a comic character from when he was a kid in the 70s called "Hell Rider". The cover screamed, "The NOW Superhero!". When describing the book, everytime the comic had a moment when someone said something about "sticking to the man!", the author added a snide "Wow, how 'now' can you get?!".

 

[Mistwell]

A few comments:

Giffin's run on Legion: I thought it was great.

Ultimate line: Best sales Marvel has seen in decades. It was a brilliant idea.

Byrne: The man is an ass, plan and simple. He wasn't always this way. I've met him several times over the years. He's a total jerk now...but I still love my page of Fantastic Four 214 that is framed on my wall.

Savage Dragon: Meh. It was funny.

My contribution to this thread: Jim Shooter's second attempt at making his own company. The name escapes me now, but I recall Plasm was one of it's core titles. Every title they put out was well-written and fairly original, and yet the entire idea that he would make yet another company without proper financial backing and reasonably written stock documents resulting in the company going backrupt in the first year is just astonishing.

And, in that same vein, Crossgen is another company with some good ideas bad horrible behind-the-scenes stuff. Mark Aliessi is an ass, and his company is going to go down in flames.

 

[Piratecat]

...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.

Too bad, buddy! It loves ME best, and no amount of two-bit romancing on your part is going to part me from the comic I love. Loooove. I agree; Ultimate Spiderman is astonishing.

 

[Villano]

Just as a side note to something I mentioned earlier during my complaints about "Evil Green Lantern", I did a search to find out more the Larsen and Dooley (GL editor) feud, and I found this press release by Larsen:

AQUAMAN #62 will be my final issue of Aquaman. There were great many things that I had hoped to accomplish in this book but month after month,
this became a wrestling match between the editor and me. "Creative
differences" is the phrase Peter David used when he left the title and it
certainly applies in my case as well. I found the process working on this
book to be extremely frustrating. Most of my best work ended up on the
cutting room floor and I kept setting up things that wouldn't get resolved
because they would get shut down in mid-stream.

I know that some Aquaman readers will respond to this with a collective,
"Thank god, he's leaving" and I've got to say that I certainly share
this sentiment. It was an extremely difficult book to write-- on the one
hand, the editor wanted me to make Aquaman more cheerful and positive while
at the same time he had Aquaman's wife leave him. The "just do it"
directive that to me contradicted any logic or reason lead to some very
tense exchanges. In addition to this, there were several instances where I
was requested to basically rip-off stories from other people and I could
not, in good conscience do this.

Ultimately, these are not my characters and not my decisions and when it
came right down to it--it was clear who had to stay and who would go. My
big regret is that nobody ever got to read an issue of Aquaman the way I
wanted to write one and that nobody ever gets to see how these things read
before they were altered to the point where I couldn't stomach reading
them.

I'll do the best that I'm capable of to resolve some of the stories that
I've set in motion but as always, I can't guarantee what will actually make
it to the printed page. I hope that a writer can be found that can see
eye-to-eye with the editor and that in the future there will be Aquaman
stories we can all enjoy.

Dooley seems like the worst type of editor (I've heard similar horror stories about Marvel's X line of books) and it certainly explains the GL situation.

 

[Silver Moon]

Ultimate Spiderman is astonishing.

Yeah, I've read and enjoyed my sister's copies of the book. And for her to pick up and rave about a book from Marvel really takes some doing, as she dropped the brand well over a decade ago, sticking to just D.C. Vertigo and a select few independent titles.

And I agree about weeklys being a bad idea overall, it can't be sustained with any continuity without limiting the authors too much.

Also agree with the prior comment about Batman/Predator having been great, but they went back to the well way too many times with that concept.

Now a few more "bad ideas" that have come to mind:

6) Secret Wars II (is an explanation even needed?)
7) Comic Book adpatation of the "Howard the Duck" movie.
8) Having a new "Bucky" and making him a black man, without any thought that the derogatory term "Buck".
9) Rom #50 - "Let's do an issue where we brutally kill off every single supporting cast member we've put in this book for the past four years! I'm sure that people will continue to buy it only for the emotionless main character based on a toy."
10) Sachs & Violens - a "mature" comic from Marvel a decade before the MAX line came into being. Peter David & George Perez do great work, but who really enjoys reading stories about snuff flim victims and pedophiles?

 

[Viking Bastard]

The day has finally come when I've disagreed with you.

Well, we both knew it had to happen eventually, right? At least, now,
it's out of the way and we can keep on doin' the agreeing thing.

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.

I don't consider him to be the greatest storyteller ever, either, but he
always keeps me interested. His New X-Men is the 3e of the X-Universe,
brought me back after many years of absence and he got what the JLA
was all about (something the DCU editorial just didn't seem to get), the
Big Seven kickin' interstellar butt and having cosmic adventures. His
writing is like a strange mix of 70s and 80s New Age ideas mixed with
Silver Age DC storytelling, focusing on the pure power of imagination
rather than the Marvel style of over characterization.

Plus, he doesn't work well with all artists, which has been somewhat of a
problem with his New X-Men

I've always preferred Silver Age DC to Silver Age Marvel myself. I like to
read old Green Lantern and JLA stories, but I just can't get into the SA
Spidey and Co. (with the exceptions of the Kirby Hulk and the post Stan
Lee Avengers).

But I disgress, The Invisibles is one of those rare bodies of work I seem to
be able to read again and again without gettin' bored (others include Hitman
Transmetropolitan, DKR, Groo and more).

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.

Well, lately, he's been loosing punch for me. Post-Hitman/Preacher, his
stuff has been a bit *too* aimless for me. He's recycling his jokes. His
Punisher rawks (mostly) but his Nick Fury (and more) leaves a lot to be
desired.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Dooley seems like the worst type of editor (I've heard similar horror stories about Marvel's X line of books) and it certainly explains the GL situation.

Do you know if he's still with DC? I know he lost favour with Paul Levitz
some time ago and was having trouble at the company.

Anyway, it seems like Hal Jordan will be coming back nexy year. Being back
by none other than Grant Morrison himself, although it hasn't been officially
announced yet. Only that HJ fans will be happy with the new GL revamp.

.

I'm actually having a hard time finding stuff to vent about in this thread,
simply because usually when I don't like something, I just don't read it.

 

[Villano]

Do you know if he's still with DC? I know he lost favour with Paul Levitz
some time ago and was having trouble at the company.

Anyway, it seems like Hal Jordan will be coming back nexy year. Being back
by none other than Grant Morrison himself, although it hasn't been officially
announced yet. Only that HJ fans will be happy with the new GL revamp.

He's back again? LOL! Are they bringing him back as a GL or the Spectre?

And Dooley quit DC after the Aquaman thing (I think his last issue was the same one as Larsen's), and then left the entire comics industry. I don't know what he's doing now.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

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.

problem is that there's no continuity... The rue of thumb doesn't work across the board, and you can't explain everything away by how long it takes the books to come out. The continuity gap exists without reference to outside time, even within a single book or group of books.

take a random example from X men. Kitty Pryde turned 14 in space during the brood saga. They came back. Scott gets married. His wife has a child. He leaves his wife. The mutant massacre takes place at the same time across comics. Various other stuff happens. A reference is made to it being a yaer since the mutant massacre. The fall of the mutants happens across comics. Its summer. Everyone has a chrismas episode (within the continuity of their stories). Inferno happens across comics. Its summer. Kitty Pryde turns 15 and scott's baby apears about 6 months.... I know that one cause I liked the character, but there are plenty more where that came from.

Time is what stops everything from happening at once. Comics to not have to age at the same rate we do (though they should really stop making current political remarks) but when time passes, let it pass.

Personlly, I LIKE stories where folks age and even get phased out. I've seen it done well in good, story based comic strips (neither penuts nor the simpsons actually had a STORY, and wanting comics to be like that is relegating them to a less mature form of writing, IMHO) where the characters do age, evolve, change and even die. I might still be reading comics now if the characters had actually grown isntead of just getting new costumes, different team affilations and progressively dumber backstories.

Kahuna burger

 

[Silver Moon]

Kitty Pryde turned 14....Scott gets married. His wife has a child....Its summer. Kitty Pryde turns 15 and scott's baby apears about 6 months

What? You don't buy the fact that the mutant child is just growing at a faster rate? Heck, that baby (Cable) is now about about 30 years older than its father! \

Seriously though, aging in the Marvel Universe has never been consistent. Franklin Richards has gone from 6 to 10 and then back to 6 more times than I can count. And time references change too, Ben Grimm once fought in WWII and Ironman was originally created during the Vietnam War. You just have to suspend disbelief some.

Now for a few more bad ideas:

11) The Champions! Lets put two former Avengers, two former X-Men, and a supernatural demon hero together. They'll work well!
12) Hey, now that we've gone to the work of establishing a new Robin let's kill him.