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

** To very briefly sum up the suitability issue for non-readers -- the plot of ''Born Again'' (one of the most famous ''[[Daredevil]]'' arcs ever written) requires the hero to have so few allies that they could potentially turn to in a time of crisis that they could successfully be prevented from reaching them, or simply despair at contacting, that they are forced to struggle through the entire arc alone. Nightwing's list of close allies includes the entire Bat-Family (of which he is a founding member), Superman, and the entire lineup of every incarnation of the [[Teen Titans]] or the Titans (which is ''dozens'' of people). And that's just his ''close'' allies, the ones who are like family. At the time of Devin Grayson's run, Dick Grayson's list of ''friends'' encompassed literally 95% of every superhero then published by DC, excepting only ones in alternate continuities/time zones such as [[Vertigo Comics|Vertigo]] or the [[Legion of Super-Heroes]]. Entire plot arcs have been based on the premise that Dick Grayson is the single most well-networked superhero in comics. It would be easier to make ''[[Captain America]]'' into a friendless abandoned loner than Nightwing, and yet, they tried to make us believe it could happen. To this day, despite now being [[Canon Discontinuity]], it is still one of the most infamous stinkburgers in Bat-Comics.

* 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''.

** [http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/3252-superman-at-earths-end At least two good things came out of it]: "[[Atop the Fourth Wall|I AM]] [[Catch Phrase|A MAN!]]" and "[[Memetic Mutation|Of course! Don't you know anything about science?]]"

 

* ''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 in] [http://atopthefourthwall.com/marville-2/ six] [http://atopthefourthwall.com/marville-3/ very], ''[http://atopthefourthwall.com/marville-4/ very]'' [http://atopthefourthwall.com/marville-5/ funny] [http://atopthefourthwall.com/marville-6-7/ parts].

** 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]] didn't like the direction the character was having. 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.

** Linkara really didn't want to review this because of the utter hate he had for this storyline (as quoted above), but eventually relented and reviewed it for his [http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/2012/07/200th-episode.html 200th episode].