Creator's Pet/Comic Books: Difference between revisions

=== DC ===

* Superboy-Prime is a funny case in that the authors hate him personally, but like using him. He's their concentrated embodiment of the [[Straw Fan]] arguing that [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks]], and is every bit as overpowered and irritating as a [[Fix Fic]] protagonist who destroys everyone's lives to [[Esoteric Happy Ending|make things go the way they "should]]." Those who see the insult and fit it are, of course, pissed. Those who see the insult and don't fit it are ''really'' pissed. Those who don't see or care about the insult [[Plot Tumor|wish he would stop interrupting the plot]] or at least [[Superpower Lottery|lose a little power]].

* Danny Chase from [[The DCU|DC Comics]]' ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|New Titans]]'' was universally loathed by fans within a few issues of his first appearance. He was a [[Cousin Oliver]] (he even ''looked'' like the original Cousin Oliver) introduced to make the team seem younger, as he was only in his early teens while everyone else was pushing 20. Despite his age, he constantly argued with the other members of the team, criticized them, was supposed to be a genius superspy teenager with telekinetic powers, but then totally went crazy with fear whenever an actual fight took place. The only person who didn't seem to grasp how loathed this character was was writer Marv Wolfman who, to this day, still insists it was the readers' fault for not "getting the character".

** As a tip, in a series about costumed superheroes with codenames, whose fans presumably enjoy reading about costumed superheroes with codenames, having a character who continually goes on about how lame costumes and codenames are and how he's too cool for a costume or codename probably isn't going to go down too well.

** It also hurt that Marv Wolfman had no idea how to write a telekinetic to complement the Titans' diverse power set. Chase's powers were mainly shown to be (at best) extremely limited: at best he could levitate himself (but only while sitting Indian style) and throw small objects around at bad guys to annoy them. Jean Grey he wasn't; this combined with his wussy behavior during combat, made him practically useless in battle. As bad as Cypher was power-wise, at least he had training in hand-to-hand combat and was willing to take a bullet for his teammates when necessary.

* When [[Armed with Canon|written by his fanboys]], [[Batman]] becomes this in spades. [[Frank Miller]] and Doug Moench are especially guilty of this, having him being perfect in every way, capable of easily defeat all other superheroes like Superman or Spawn just by virtue of being Batman, other characters gushing about how awesome he is and him easily thwarting every danger just because he is Batman. Thankfully, DC has tried to balance out this by establishing Hal Jordan as Batman's better; granted, Bruce has been shown to be able to steal Hal's ring off his hand, but Hal has had the pleasure of punching Batman in the face and generally speaking, shown as the only person in the DC Universe that Batman can't bully or intimidate or outright threaten into subservience. And then Batman punched him right back in a later issue.

** ''[[JLA: Act of God]]'' gets this particularly bad, with all the heroes becoming utterly useless except those who opt to train like Batman. Those that do practically worship him and he insults them and denigrates their previous contributions. Because the superpowered heroes were never at risk. Even when they were fighting demigod-level threats like Darkseid and Doomsday who could splatter Batman with an errant breath.

*** Part of what went wrong with Logan is simply that he has been so overused that he has no character core anymore. So many writers have used him, and played mainly on his appeal to the fantasies of young teen males who think the caricature version is kewl, and his [[Healing Factor]] and other powers so used and misused, that there's nothing much left.

** However, thanks to the skilled pen of [[Jason Aaron]], it's apparently become cool to admit you like Wolverine again; he won the Comic Book Resources X-Books forum's "Best Hero of 2011" award.

*** Her role in ''New X-Men'' in particular, once her creators Craig Kyle and Chris Yost took over the title, you could be forgiven for thinking was written by a thirteen-year-old girl. She's portrayed as having [[New Powers as the Plot Demands]], usually something related to animalistic senses, that enable her to figure things out before anyone else, as well as ten times the competence of the other kids with none of their charm coming with the territory of being inexperienced teenage superheroes. As the final punch to the gut, she hooks up with the [[Draco in Leather Pants|hot bad boy character]] after his original love interest is [[Put on a Bus|clumsily written out]].

*** This is ironic, given that she was initially an [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] when she originated on ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]''. Perhaps it's the fact she has poor characterisation these days whilst being a ''regular'' (always a failure of a combination for any character).

* [[The Sentry]] from ''Mighty Avengers'', ''Dark Avengers'', ''Age of the Sentry'', ''[[World War Hulk]]'', ''Secret Invasion'', ''Dark Reign'', ''Siege'', ''Fall of the Hulks'', ''New Avengers'', and ''The Sentry'' mini series. Writers love using him, fans hate seeing him. If they wanted to see Superman with mental problems, they would've just gone to [[Super Dickery]].

*** Also she's coming off as a [[Composite Character]] to many. Tries hard to invoke the [[Nerds Are Sexy]] trope, presumably so that she's "on the same intellectual level" as Peter or some such nonsense? '''Deb Whitman'''. Has a tragic past involving her father (really, couldn't even make it the mother? Or another authority figure?), that really doesn't come off as being as bad as '''MJ's''' was. Tuted as being the "perfect girl" for Peter, being idolized (this time by people in-universe, as opposed to in fans' memories). '''Gwen Stacy''' (Fans hope she will complete this set by dying) ''Falling in love with "plain ol' Peter Parker?'' '''Mary-Jane again'''.

*** However, there's a light at the end of the tunnel: the recent ''[[Spider Island]]'' storyline ends with Carlie breaking up with Peter precisely '''because''' he didn't tell her he was Spider-Man, while Mary Jane gets closer to Peter. The comic also focuses on Carlie's negative traits and MJ's positive ones: when people in New York start developing Spidey's powers, Carlie uses hers to play around while MJ helps Peter and the Avengers fight the [[Big Bad]].

* Nurse Annie in ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|Uncanny X-Men]]''. Universally maligned "writer" Chuck Austen introduced the single mother/apparent expert in mutant physiology shortly into his equally despised run on ''X-Men''. [[Word of God]] stated she was based on Austen's real-life wife, never a good start. He quickly made her the inane central character in many of his story lines. This usually included:

** Vapidly gossiping about sexy men with once-intelligent characters Husk and Northstar.

** One of the biggest problems with Drift is that he's not only writer Shane McCarthy's totally awesome fancharacter, he's also become editor-in-chief Chris Ryall and editor Denton J. [[Meaningful Name|"Doubledealer"]] Tipton's pet character. Hence his inclusion in the children's book "I Am Optimus Prime" (ensuring kids reading the book would remember the totally awesome character that IDW totally invented) and under Tipton's penmanship, ended up having his horrible advice taken by Perceptor over the veteran, experienced Kup's more sensible advice, abandoning science in favor of becoming a dull-as-hell "sniperer".

** You know Drift's bad when [[Complete Monster|Flatline]] (from the movie spin off comics and another writer's personal creation) is more likable than he is.

*** Well, considering how Roberts is playing up [[The Fundamentalist]] aspects of Drift and including entertaining little tidbits like him being Rodimus' speechwriter (which is even funnier when you remember the core of his personality aside from swords was "delivers a lot of pseudo-philosophical rousing speeches)... It seems Drift is ascending from the Scrappy Heap as we speak.

* The ''[[Silent Hill (comics)|Silent Hill]]'' comics had more than their fair share of problems, but worst of all was the addition of Christabella, a [[Creepy Child]] who commands an army of monsters and constantly [[Bratty Half-Pint|spouts off curse words and wisecracks]] in a manner befitting Freddy Krueger. Not only does her inclusion [[Did Not Do the Research|run completely contrary to the plot and mood of Silent Hill,]] but {{spoiler|''Dead/Alive'' ends with her give complete control over the town,}} when most readers would have preferred to see her fed to the Slurper.

 

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