So Bad It's Horrible/Comic Books: Difference between revisions

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== DC Comics ==

* The miniseries ''[[Amazons Attack]]'' was thrown together last-minute to cover delays in ''[[Wonder Woman]]'', and was nothing more than [[Character Derailment]] for the entire Amazon people, turning them either into [[Straw Feminist|Straw Feminists]] or complete morons by way of [[Idiot Plot]]. The initial attack is because [[Wonder Woman]] was tortured; later, it's stated that they decided to do it because they hate men. The reason Wonder Woman was tortured was to learn the Amazon secret technology; later, the heroes figure out that the Amazons aren't behind a certain attack ''because'' it's high-tech. Please note that this is a miniseries which [[Plot Hole|isn't getting its facts straight]]. Wonder Woman herself is presented as [[Faux Action Girl|absolutely helpless throughout]]; she confronts her clearly-brainwashed mother at least ''thrice'' without thinking to use her lasso, which has previously been shown in-canon as ''able to break brainwashing''. The US Army is [[Rock Beats Laser|challenged by spears and bows and arrows]] — an arrow pierces a cockpit at one point; Air Force One is chased down by women on flying horses. Also, unless you read the tie-ins, the characters who are Amazons (Wonder Woman and Donna Troy) or affiliated with the Amazons (Wonder Girl and Super Girl) barely appear for the first half of the series. Icing on the cake? Those tie-ins, where most of the big plot points happen, got left out of the trade paperback collection. It's obvious that the creators didn't research the characters' past or the history of [[The DCU]] Amazons at all. Oh, and the Amazons' secret weapon is [[Bee Bee Gun|bees. My God.]] To make matters worse, the entire series was a lead-in to ''Countdown''...which is at least as reviled as ''Amazons Attack''.

* The miniseries ''[[Amazons Attack]]'' was thrown together last-minute to cover delays in ''[[Wonder Woman]]'', and was nothing more than [[Character Derailment]] for the entire Amazon people, turning them either into [[Straw Feminist|Straw Feminists]] or complete morons by way of [[Idiot Plot]]. The initial attack is because [[Wonder Woman]] was tortured; later, it's stated that they decided to do it because they hate men. The reason Wonder Woman was tortured was to learn the Amazon secret technology; later, the heroes figure out that the Amazons aren't behind a certain attack ''because'' it's high-tech. Please note that this is a miniseries which [[Plot Hole|isn't getting its facts straight]]. Wonder Woman herself is presented as [[Faux Action Girl|absolutely helpless throughout]]; she confronts her clearly-brainwashed mother at least ''thrice'' without thinking to use her lasso, which has previously been shown in-canon as ''able to break brainwashing''. The US Army is [[Rock Beats Laser|challenged by spears and bows and arrows]] — an arrow pierces a cockpit at one point; Air Force One is chased down by women on flying horses. Also, unless you read the tie-ins, the characters who are Amazons (Wonder Woman and Donna Troy) or affiliated with the Amazons (Wonder Girl and Super Girl) barely appear for the first half of the series. Icing on the cake? Those tie-ins, where most of the big plot points happen, got left out of the trade paperback collection. It's obvious that the creators didn't research the characters' past or the history of [[The DCU]] Amazons at all. Oh, and the Amazons' secret weapon is [[Bee-Bee Gun|bees. My God.]] To make matters worse, the entire series was a lead-in to ''Countdown''...which is at least as reviled as ''Amazons Attack''.

** [[Atop the Fourth Wall (Web Video)|Linkara]] has [http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/5273-amazons-attack-1-and-2 reviewed the] [http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/5425-amazons-attack-3-and-4 entire miniseries] [http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/5595-amazons-attack-5-and-6 as well.]

* Bruce Jones' run on the once-spectacular ''Checkmate''. He knew the title was going to be canned when he took it, so he felt free to go insane. How bad was this? He took a gritty, realistic spy thriller and made it about a morphing, amnesiac animal man fighting giant porcupines.

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* ''Marville'', written by Bill Jemas, was created on a bet between him and [[Peter David]] to see who could write a better selling comic. The problem here is that at the time he worked for Marvel, Jemas was an '''editor'''. And boy, does it show. The book is filled with terrible jokes that feel like they were stolen from a rejected [[Seltzer and Friedberg]] script, ham-fisted political commentary, characters from the mainline Marvel universe showing up just to act out of character and do unfunny things, and tons of mean-spirited digs at DC while Marvel got off Scott-free. Eventually, this fell in favor of what read like a [[Chick Tract]]... as adapted à la [[Shoggoth On the Roof]] by a schizophrenic primary-schooler.<ref> [[Wolverine]] evolved from an otter (because that's how that works) and, through some reason or another, either becomes immortal or gets a long line of [[Identical Grandson|Identical Grandsons]] (the comic can't pick one). In the same issue, Jesus Christ is called "the first superhero".</ref> The last two issues were a recap of the series and a guide on how to submit scripts to a now-defunct comic line. Bonus points for increasingly desperate cover art featuring a red-haired woman (who appeared nowhere in the comic) in various states of undress when Jemas was certain he'd lose. (He did.) Watch Linkara rip it apart [http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/2012/01/marville-1.html here].

** Let's not forget the issue that didn't have word balloons. Oh, it had dialog, just not word balloons. Apparently, the artist couldn't be bothered to actually ''put in the word balloons'', leaving them putting the terrible dialog (in script form) in a corner of the panel.

* The ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' storyline ''[[One More Day]]'' is perhaps the most hated case of [[Executive Meddling]] since [[Doctor Who ~~(TV)~~|the Sixth Doctor.]] ''Decades'' of continuity and characterization were [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]'d out of existence because [[Joe Quesada|some guy]] said so. The [[J Michael Straczynski|writer]] hated every minute of it and tried hard to get himself disassociated with it. It goes like this--Spider Man's aunt May takes a bullet and is about to die. [[Reed Richards Is Useless|Somehow, nobody in the Marvel Universe can do anything to change that.]] So, in a move wholly detached from reality and maturity, he makes a [[Deal With the Devil]] to save Aunt May's life (against her wishes, by the way)... in exchange for his marriage. It was contrived to the point of stupidity, worse in that Quesada claimed having them just plain divorce would piss people off and made only the flimsiest attempts to justify his actions (he was even accused of [[Didn't Think This Through|wholly disregarding any impact]] [[They Just Didn't Care|this would have on anything]]). It essentially created its own [[Continuity Snarl]] by re-introducing elements that were never relevant in the first place, was full of [[Voodoo Shark|Voodoo Sharks]], retcons (the biggest of all being Spidey's ''public unmasking,'' which they expressly stated would ''not'' be undone) and overall stupidity on the part of all involved.

* The ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' storyline ''[[One More Day]]'' is perhaps the most hated case of [[Executive Meddling]] since [[Doctor Who|the Sixth Doctor.]] ''Decades'' of continuity and characterization were [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]'d out of existence because [[Joe Quesada|some guy]] said so. The [[J Michael Straczynski|writer]] hated every minute of it and tried hard to get himself disassociated with it. It goes like this--Spider Man's aunt May takes a bullet and is about to die. [[Reed Richards Is Useless|Somehow, nobody in the Marvel Universe can do anything to change that.]] So, in a move wholly detached from reality and maturity, he makes a [[Deal With the Devil]] to save Aunt May's life (against her wishes, by the way)... in exchange for his marriage. It was contrived to the point of stupidity, worse in that Quesada claimed having them just plain divorce would piss people off and made only the flimsiest attempts to justify his actions (he was even accused of [[Didn't Think This Through|wholly disregarding any impact]] [[They Just Didn't Care|this would have on anything]]). It essentially created its own [[Continuity Snarl]] by re-introducing elements that were never relevant in the first place, was full of [[Voodoo Shark|Voodoo Sharks]], retcons (the biggest of all being Spidey's ''public unmasking,'' which they expressly stated would ''not'' be undone) and overall stupidity on the part of all involved.

** It should probably be noted that the reason Straczynski objected to the story to the degree that he did was not actually due to the story's quality and more to do with the fact that his original proposal for it had been turned down, a proposal that would've jettisoned ''three and a half'' decades of continuity (as opposed to the two that that final product did away with). Whether this would've been better or worse than what we got is [[Broken Base|debatable]], at that three and a half decades would've included nearly every infamously-awful ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' story ever told, such as the [[Clone Saga]] and ''[[Character Derailment|Sins]] [[Squick|Past]]'', which remained in-continuity in the story that ended up being told.

* [[Jeph Loeb]]'s ''[[The Ultimates]] 3'' is accused of having exceptionally-poor writing and [[Flanderization]] ''en masse''. Many critics argue that Loeb [[Did Not Do the Research|doesn't seem to have bothered reading any of the other books]] in the [[Ultimate Universe]] or familiarizing himself with their characters, and has merely made the characters caricatures of their counterparts in Earth-616 regardless of whether this is appropriate. It was loaded with [[Plot Hole|Plot Holes]], [[Wall Banger (Darth Wiki)|WallBangers]], and stupid, ''stupid'' writing mistakes.

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== Artists, Writers, Editors, etc ==

* Just about any writer for Marvel or DC has ''some'' fans, but you'll have a ''very'' hard time finding any for Chuck Austen during his runs on ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|Uncanny X-Men]]'' and ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]''. He was responsible for the infamous "fake Rapture via disintegrating communion wafers" plot. He also wrote a "tribute to ''Romeo & Juliet''" that ended with "Juliet" dying but "Romeo" living, included rednecks in robot suits, and included [[Mile High Club|a midair public sex scene]]. You ''might'', however, be able to get away with saying he made Polaris more interesting, so at least that's something.

* Just about any writer for Marvel or DC has ''some'' fans, but you'll have a ''very'' hard time finding any for Chuck Austen during his runs on ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|Uncanny X-Men]]'' and ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]''. He was responsible for the infamous "fake Rapture via disintegrating communion wafers" plot. He also wrote a "tribute to ''Romeo & Juliet''" that ended with "Juliet" dying but "Romeo" living, included rednecks in robot suits, and included [[Mile-High Club|a midair public sex scene]]. You ''might'', however, be able to get away with saying he made Polaris more interesting, so at least that's something.

** Upon being inexplicably hired by DC immediately thereafter (presumably dodging villagers armed with [[Torches and Pitchforks]] on the way across Manhattan), Austen gave an interview where he made ''very'' unflattering comments about Lois Lane. His opinions of her influenced the Superman books he wrote, too. This didn't win him any fans; he didn't last long, and the changes he made were ignored or retconned.

** His work in ''Avengers'' depicted Wasp having an affair with Hawkeye due to the time Hank Pym slapped his wife. This actually contradicted a few decades worth of stories involving the mental trauma causing Hank to lash out, the implication that Hank was always abusive (something other writers have been guilty of as well), the fact that Hawkeye has always been good friends with Hank and even refused to date Wasp while they were divorced, and that Hank and Wasp has reconciled in recent years and were happily remarried.