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

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{{quote|''"I '''hate''' this comic. I hate '''everything''' about this comic! I never want to see it ever again! I don't want to remember that it exists! [[Joe Quesada]]... '''[[Punctuated for Emphasis|You! Are! A! HACK!!!]]"'''''|'''[[Atop the Fourth Wall (Web Video)|Linkara]]''', explaining why he won't review ''[[One More Day]]''.}}

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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]]s 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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* DC Comics' weekly series ''[[Countdown to Final Crisis]]'', by most accounts. Bad Writing, bad art, bad characterization, three different names (it started as ''Countdown'', then ''Countdown to Final Crisis'', and the final issue was titled ''DC Universe Zero''), three alternate Earths destroyed to prop up villains fans don't like, tie-in mini-series that explain key plot points that are equally horrible, and an ending that completely contradicted the events that it was created to build up. Shortly after ''[[Fifty Two|52]]'' was finished, Dan Didio asked [[Grant Morrison]] to give some of his (work in progress) scripts of the first several issues of ''Final Crisis''; other than that, it was pretty much controlled by Didio. It also pulled away advertising from the infinitely better ''[[Sinestro Corps War]]'' story that was going on at the same time. The whole thing was declared [[Canon Dis Continuity]] the minute it was finished, but it still didn't erase the horrible taste it left in readers' mouths. It was so bad that the intended final issue, ''DC Universe #0'', written by Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns, essentially replaced ''Countdown'' as the real lead-up to ''[[Final Crisis]]'' (the only thing that was acknowledged from ''Countdown'' was Darkseid's death, fall, and reincarnation into a human body as seen in ''[[Seven Soldiers]]''). It was built up to be the spine of the DCU, but quickly became the ''colon''.

* ''DC Challenge'' was an interesting concept — a 12-issue miniseries in which teams of people who normally did not work together would take turns doing stories which could not prominently feature characters they normally worked on, each issue setting up a [[Cliff Hanger]] that the next team would have to solve in the next issue. Unfortunately, [[Round Robin]] stories are hard enough to manage as fanwork. Doing ''this'' professionally would've been difficult, so it wasn't. This quickly degenerated into a confusing mess. By the end, major plot threads had been dropped completely and nobody was ''quite'' sure what was going on — not even the editors at DC.

* Devin Grayson's run on ''[[Nightwing]]'', particularly her attempt to re-enact the plot of ''Born Again'' on the least suitable character in the entire DCU. The sheer amount of characters that would need to be retconned from the DCU (assuming they didn't detach Dick Grayson completely from it) should have kept this from passing the concept phase, but that's just one issue; other gems from this include the rape scene courtesy of [[Author Avatar|Tarantula]] ~~-- which~~ she tried to defend as being [[No Except Yes|"nonconsensual" rather than rape]] ~~-- and~~ Richard's inexplicable [[Face Heel Turn]] and poorly-explained alliance with Deathstroke, the result of a failed attempt to manufacture a "hero from the ashes" storyline (''[[Infinite Crisis]]'' got in the way) by pointlessly giving Nightwing hell.

* Devin Grayson's run on ''[[Nightwing]]'', particularly her attempt to re-enact the plot of ''Born Again'' on the least suitable character in the entire DCU. The sheer amount of characters that would need to be retconned from the DCU (assuming they didn't detach Dick Grayson completely from it) should have kept this from passing the concept phase, but that's just one issue; other gems from this include the rape scene courtesy of [[Author Avatar|Tarantula]]—which she tried to defend as being [[No Except Yes|"nonconsensual" rather than rape]]—and Richard's inexplicable [[Face Heel Turn]] and poorly-explained alliance with Deathstroke, the result of a failed attempt to manufacture a "hero from the ashes" storyline (''[[Infinite Crisis]]'' got in the way) by pointlessly giving Nightwing hell.

** Bruce Jones' run of ''Nightwing'', which followed Grayson's, made her run look like Shakespeare. Nightwing became a male model who slept with his boss, and she just happened to have superpowers. Then Jason Todd showed up and started fighting Dick on a model runway; and then Jason Todd was turned into a ''tentacle monster''.

* ''Rise Of Arsenal'' is the spiritual sequel to ''Cry for Justice'', which ought to warn readers off. The story is jarringly offensive and bad, attempts at gaining emotion from the reader feel forced and manipulative, Roy Harper is massively out of character (even after considering that he's a grieving father), and the art is often inconsistent. To sum up how bad this book can be: there's a moment where Roy beats up a bunch of thugs in an alley to protect a dead cat that he thinks is his dead daughter while strung out on heroin...yes, that ''does'' happen.

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== Marvel ==

* ''The Crossing'', an insane [[The Avengers|Avengers]] [[Bat Family Crossover]] supposedly about Kang trying to take over the world. The plot makes no sense and is so convoluted that it's hard to tell where it begins. It also features the [[Face Heel Turn]] and death of [[Iron Man|Tony Stark]] and his replacement by his alternate dimension younger counterpart, "Teen Tony". Eventually, in ''Avengers Forever'', Kurt Busiek said that pretty much everyone involved was a Space Phantom and it was a plot by Immortus, pretending to be Kang ([[Timey-Wimey Ball|his younger self]]), to troll the Avengers so that they didn't leave Earth for a while.

* ''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].

* ''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]]s (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|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]]s, 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.

* [[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]]s, [[Wall Banger (Darth Wiki)|WallBangers]], and stupid, ''stupid'' writing mistakes.

** And then there's ''Ultimatum'', a [[Crisis Crossover]] which is filled to the brim with [[Dropped a Bridge On Him|meaningless and cruel deaths]], [[Contemplate Our Navels|pretentious dialogue]], the same characterization flaws as ''Ultimates 3'', [[Artistic License Physics]], and all kinds of [[Bloodier and Gorier|violent, gory]] deaths that served no purpose other than to apparently "wipe the slate clean." Once again, watch Linkara rip it to shreds, [http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/2011/05/ultimatum-1-2.html here], [http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/2011/05/ultimatum-3-4.html here], and [http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/2011/05/ultimatum-5.html here].

* Kirkman's run on ''[[Ultimate X Men]]'' ended with him retconning almost every major change he had made. Still, sadly, not enough to wipe the long, dragging "Magician" arc from readers' memories. Kurt Wagner going batshit from his time in the Weapon X program could've been done as [[Character Development]]; coupled with his sudden off-the-wall homophobia and super-creepy [[Misery|Annie Wilkes-like]] behavior towards Dazzler, it just wound up being the [[Character Derailment|final]] [[Wall Banger (Darth Wiki)|Wall Banger]].

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* The artist of ''Minimum Security'' (see below) collaborated with another author to make ''As the World Burns'', a graphic novel starring the characters from ''Minimum Security'', who rant about how terrible modern society is. The graphic novel ends with a speech about how [[Ludd Was Right|humans should destroy everything and go back to being hunter-gatherers]].

* ''[[Transformers (Franchise)|Transformers]]'' fans [[Broken Base|disagree on just about everything]], [[Fan Dumb|often violently]]. But nobody has managed to find a fan who would dispute listing these works:

** ''[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Beast_Within The Beast Within]'' is poorly drawn, incoherent, badly written, and completely independent of any known canon. Not even Hasbro acknowledges it. Special mention goes to the Beast, a Dinobots combiner. Fans had been pondering what one would look like for ~~years--the~~ fact that [http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070710211127/transformers/images/thumb/1/10/Butwhy.gif/413px-Butwhy.gif this] was its canon appearance came off as a slap in the face.

** ''[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Beast_Within The Beast Within]'' is poorly drawn, incoherent, badly written, and completely independent of any known canon. Not even Hasbro acknowledges it. Special mention goes to the Beast, a Dinobots combiner. Fans had been pondering what one would look like for years—the fact that [http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070710211127/transformers/images/thumb/1/10/Butwhy.gif/413px-Butwhy.gif this] was its canon appearance came off as a slap in the face.

** [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Transformers_Continuum:_The_Definitive_Chronology Continuum], a typo-riddled, poorly-organized "definitive chronology" of IDW's ''[[Transformers]]'' stories up to the present, is jam-packed with erroneous facts, skipped-over plotlines, and events out of chronological order...and it gets even more sickening when you realize it was written by one of IDW's two ''Transformers'' editors. It was meant to let people know their official stand on ''TF'' continuity, but it was absolutely useless as a resource. Its writer, Andy Schmidt, while he [[Old Shame|regrets the book]], was [[Never Live It Down|never allowed to forget it]].

** The [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Beast_Wars_Sourcebook Beast Wars Sourcebook] is also pretty infamous. Terrible layout and ordering, wildly varying art quality (with Frank Milkovich's [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:Silverboltbeastwarssourcebook.jpg take on Silverbolt] being especially infamous), boring writing that reads more like a plot summary of the ''[[Beast Wars (Animation)|Beast Wars]]'' cartoon than a description of the character and purge any non-[[The Chew Toy|Waspinator]] related humor, strange and arbitrary change to the personality of the Japanese characters, and a whole lot of typos and other editing errors. Even more disappointing, considering that the ''[[Transformers Generation One|Generation 1]]'' and ''[[Transformers Armada|Armada]]'' sourcebooks from the otherwise reviled Dreamwave era are generally considered to be excellent.

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[[Category:So Bad Its Horrible (Darth Wiki)]]

[[Category:Comics]]

[[Category:Horrible]]

[[Category:So Bad It's Horrible]]