They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot/Comic Books: Difference between revisions

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* Lets just get it out of the way and say every single running story arc ever derailed by a [[Crisis Crossover]]...

* "Here Comes Tomorrow" is the [[Distant Finale]] to [[Grant Morrison]]'s ''[[New X-Men]]'' run, touted as a throwback to the classic ''Days of Future Past''. Sounds promising...until it devolves into four issues of typical disjointed, [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|Morrison-esque weirdness]] that never goes anywhere. Eighty years after Jean Grey's death, Earth is an apocalyptic wasteland where the continents have been renamed for some reason, a [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] Beast has taken over the Earth (we never learn how he pulled this off), the X-Men are led by a [[Heel Face Turn|not-evil]] Cassandra Nova (never explained), and Jean turns up alive in a giant egg on the moon (also never explained). Instead of tapping X-Men's rich mythology for possible [[Future Badass]] characters, we're treated to a nonsensical slugfest between Beast's army and a slough of newly-introduced characters who we, on average, only get to know for about ten pages before they're unceremoniously killed off. They include a psychic Scottish whale, some British kid with a pet Sentinel, and a kingdom of giant termites. It all culminates with the sky spontaneously raining blood, Jean muttering something about the universe "dying" (for some reason), and somehow fixing it all by traveling back in time to the day after she died and convincing Cyclops to make out with Emma Frost...in front of her tombstone. It's one of the most ridiculously convoluted [[Die for Our Ship]] moments ever conceived.

** Another plot point that was completely disregarded in Threeboot? In the last story to feature the post-Zero-Hour Legion, one of that team's characters, Shikari, was separated from her teammates and wound up trapped in the Threeboot timeline. Never gets any follow-up whatsoever.

* ''Broken Trinity'' had a rather disappointing moment. A brand new female character was briefly introduced which had stylish design and appearance as well as cool charisma and was overall quite promising and interesting. But very soon it was revealed to be just another of Angelus shells... Duh.

* ''[[Alpha Flight|Omega Flight]]''. Ooooooh boy. We had the opportunity to see the effects of [[Civil War]] on an international scale, what with its premise of the Canadian Government having to assemble a new metahuman team for fighting all the supervillains that were fleeing to Canada after the passing of the Registration Act. Which would have given us a few interesting reflections about the effects of American politics on its neighbors. What we got in the end was a generic "let's fight the Wrecking Crew and some interdimensional demons !" plot, and also the official Canadian superteam being mostly composed of American characters. At least it showed us [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Beta Ray Bill]] in action...

* The ''[[X Wing Series]]'' was pretty good, really, particularly towards the end. At the end of the arc ''Mandatory Retirement'', [[Big Bad]] [[Manipulative Bastard|Ysanne Isard]] had just finished toppling opposition and become Empress in everything but name. Quarren pilot Nrin Vakil had fallen in love with the Mon Calamari pilot Ibitsam, a species traditionally opposed to his, only to have her killed by Imperial pilots. Plourr Illo was having to juggle life in a squadron of X-Wings with life as the leader of a struggling world, and the attentions of her [[Kissing Cousins|cousin and husband]] with those of a commando. Isard-hating ex-Imperial Soontir Fel, who had joined Rogue Squadron after extracting the promise from them that they would help him find and save [[Happily Married|his wife]], had still not seen her, but was going over the ramifications of switching sides and working with the pilots he had trained before they defected, his previously-unmet brother in law, and the friends and colleagues of people he had killed. Some subplots wrapped up then and there, others -- like the maimed and now heavily cybernetic pilot Fel had shot down, who told him she would be happy to work with him to destroy the Empire -- had just started.

** And... it ended right there. There was [[No Ending]]. The novels are set a year and a half after the comics, by which point most of the Rogues from the comics are no longer in the squadron. A few questions get answered, there and in the ''[[Hand of Thrawn]]'' duology, but many more are [[Left Hanging]]. It's like arcs were missing from the end. When six years after the comics ended someone put together a short new arc, it was set before any of these comics, [[Decompressed Comic|decompressed heavily]], and was about the Rogues and Luke Skywalker fighting a painfully generic torture-happy villain unrelated to any of the comics arcs. There wasn't even any interesting character interaction. Argh!

** Not to mention the enormous logical problems with the premise.

* Mark Millar's run on [[The Authority]] included a battle against an evil version of The Doctor (not [[Doctor Who|that one]]) who turned the planet itself against humanity before even getting his powers back. He was a threat demanding the evacuation of all human beings from ''the dimension''. Once powered up, he survived decapitation and being dropped in the sun, and he could cause anything he imagined to happen, explicitly including traveling back in time to kill his opponents as they were born or going so far as to undo the Big Bang. Before an [[The Power of Love|admittedly]] [[Villainous BSOD|solid]] [[Violence Really Is the Answer|ending]], he {{spoiler|accomplished ''absolutely nothing'' outside of the opening salvo of natural disasters--which killed no team characters.}}

* DC Comics [[Infinite Crisis]] crossover. While what we got was entertaining in its own right, what was promised by the lead-in minis - a bunch of unrelated, but large scale, threats piling on top of the heroes at the same time - had a lot of potential that was ignored when the main story started.

* ''[[Countdown to Final Crisis]]'' IS this trope: [[Weirdness Magnet|Jimmy Olsen]] gets all his [[Silver Age]] [[Superpower Silly Putty|powers]] back! There's actually fifty-two freakin' Monitors! Brother Eye merges with Apokolips! [[Shazam|Mary Marvel]], "deserted" by Captain Marvel turns to Black Adam! [[Batman|Harley Quinn]] and [[Catwoman (film)|Holly Robinson]] vs. Granny Goodness! A crazy, universe-hopping adventure searching for a character missing for (relative to the reader) years! A kajillion fascinating [[Alternate Universe]] counterparts! Paul Dini writing! A lead-up to the biggest Crisis of all! A followup to the beloved 52! A look at the seedy underbelly of the DC universe from the perspective of two repentant Flash villains! A heroic version of the Joker! [[Shout-Out|Jimmy Olsen]] vs. [[David vs. Goliath|Darkseid!]] A shocking murder mystery involving the death of an [[New Gods|entire race of gods!]] [[Evil Versus Evil]]! The genesis of the Kamandi-verse! [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?]]??! Short answer: '''EVERYTHING.'''

** Speaking of perfectly good plots, ''[[Kingdom Come]]'' dealt with a lot of the same issues and plot points as Civil War did, except DC's version was ''awesome''. Of course, having Superman on the Lawful side helps. So does hiring Alex Ross.

* Andy Diggle's run on ''[[Daredevil]]'' started off with Daredevil being the leader of the Hand (an evil ninja cult), a plot point which started at the end of Ed Brubaker's run. After a fairly decent initial arc (titled The Devil's Hand) showing Daredevil setting some things up with the Hand and trying to teach the ninjas not to kill, it suddenly leapt into the Shadowland event, which turned Daredevil completely evil. It was partially justified, but the event turned out to be incredibly anticlimatic, and would have been much better had Daredevil's descent to evil been more gradual, and more potential for Daredevil as the leader of the Hand utilised beforehand.

** Even then, ''[[All Star Batman and Robin]]'' again seemed the kind of thing Miller couldn't screw up. ''Dark Knight Returns'' had established Dick Grayson and Batman hadn't spoken for years, and that Batman had given crimefighting away out of a promise he made to Tim Drake. You also had ''Batman Year One'' which establishes the character so firmly it influenced movies, and provides a solid foundation for anything you could write from then on. Fans rejoiced when they heard ASBAR was basically going to be a prequel to ''Dark Knight Returns.'' And then what happens? '''I'm the goddamn Batman.''' Yellow-painted rooms, "here's some freshly-squeezed lemonade", Green Lantern as a dunce, and Batman ''performing a fucking tracheotomy on GL after Robin gets too enthusiastic and crushes his windpipe''.

* After ''[[Blackest Night]]'' gave us "the unprecedented scenario of [[The Flash|all four Flashes]] still alive", fans were [[Tempting Fate|"hoping the writers could take advantage of that"]]. Cue ''[[Flashpoint]]'', thanks to which the ''New52'' universe has now gone through a [[Cosmic Retcon]] with effects including, you guessed it, having only one Flash. That was... [[Incredibly Lame Pun|fast.]]