Dork Age/Comic Books

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Other Examples

Spawn had a dork age after he killed his former boss Malebolgia. He teamed up with demons Ab and Zab and fought vampires and British cannibals. Fortunately, it ended after he returned to Hell and lost his status as king.
Zé Carioca, a Brazilian comic series based on the character Jose Carioca (from the Disney film Saludos Amigos) suffered from a Dork Age when they just took Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse stories that hadn't been released in Brazil and replaced the main characters with Jose. It didn't work very well.
- They did something similar in Europe after the American material was running out, with the European artists taking American stories and switching the characters around.
Parodied in an issue of Planetary, where a superhero who went through a Darker and Edgier Dork Age during The Dark Age of Comic Books blames the resident John Constantine Captain Ersatz for it. The caped character in that issue is an obvious expy of Alan Moore's famous Cerebus Retcon to the Miracleman/Marvelman franchise. (Perhaps not coincidentally, he also happens to look like Tom Strong, another Moore character, though the similarities end there.) The masked, caped man is rather clearly an example of The Cape (trope) whose origin turns out to be far seedier than originally presented -- precisely what Moore did to Miracleman in the 1980s.
Deconstructed by JLA-Avengers. The heroes have had their two earths and timelines fused, and the entire cosmos keeps warping as a result. When they finally meet the Gamemaster, a cosmic being who was nearly killed by the other organizer of the event that led to the universes fusing, Krona, he tells them to stop Krona, which would separate the worlds and put the timelines back to normal. The heroes ask him, basically, "What kind of worlds are we going back to?" The Gamemaster, with the last of his power, shows them the events of their lives. The Dork Ages end up sticking out more than anything else; about half the examples on this page are seen. The most notable becomes Hal Jordan -- at the time of the comic's writing, he had gone crazy, killed off all the other Lanterns, tried to destroy and remake the universe, died, and become the host for The Spectre. And yet, when they debate, he decides to restore the old time.
For many fans, the Aliens comic books were mostly this. While some were appropriately themed, the majority ignored the Lovecraftian elements of the source material in favour of macho muscles-and-guns action influenced by the second film entry in the series. The second film itself doesn't qualify as an example because it was a subversion of the high expectations placed on the combat unit involved, neatly allowing for heavy action elements without subverting the horror. Obviously, the writers of the comic books weren't mindful towards this distinction and neutered both the horrifying monster and the interesting, medium-tech, hypercapitalistic space exploration setting.
- This, arguably, may not count as Dork Age as it hasn't ended yet. While many fans of the films consider the comics horrendous, comic writers themselves are completely happy to continue the trends if the 2009 and 2010 entries into the series (of both Aliens and Aliens vs. Predator) are any indication. Being a cross-media franchise, however, makes the dorkageness difficult to measure, as some examples in some media may avert the trope and others may play it straight.
It depends on who you talk to, but the Sonic the Hedgehog comics are either still in or have left their Dork Age. It's easy to see when their Dork Age began -- post-issue 50, when Dr. Robotnik was killed off. For the next 100+ issues, fans watched as the writers made at least three attempts to disband the Freedom Fighters, end the Will They or Won't They? relationship of Sonic and Sally, only to cruelly subvert it not even a year later, cause a major Chickification towards said female member and render the replacement Robotnik (who now went by his game name of Dr. Eggman) utterly ineffectual. When former writer Ken Penders left and current writer Ian Flynn came in, Ian sought to fix up all of those Dork Age moments, with him finally focusing on the Sonic and Sally problem. Though time will tell if it works for the fans, for Ken Penders, he's gone on record saying that this is his Dork Age and that he'll do a complete Retcon if he ever gets back in. Sadly for Ian, while most of his stuff pre-issue #200 is hotly debated among fans as Love It or Hate It, even hardcore fans of the writer throw his "Iron Dominion" arc into the Dork Age bin, and it doesn't sound like many of his stories after that are gaining much favor, either.
The comic version of WITCH has either entered its Dork Age or, at the very least, turning into a very boring comic. After its New Power arc and gaining new powers, the girls were retooled from "super-powered guardians of the universe" to "super powered teachers" who are set to train other magic users around their town. It also doesn't help that a lot of the stories have devolved into uninteresting slice-of-life stories that rarely have the girls in action.

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