Wall Banger/Comic Books: Difference between revisions

 

'''No Real Life examples including [[Executive Meddling]] and [[Fan Dumb]]. Those belong on their own pages.'''

* In ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]: Frontline #11'', reporter Sally Floyd accuses [[Captain America (comics)|Captain America]] of being out of touch with the "real America" because he's focused on moral values such as truth, justice, and freedom, as opposed to the pop-cultural shallowness that she and all the "average Americans" she knows focus on, such as ''[[American Idol]]'', [[Myspace]], and [[YouTube]]. That concentrated essence of outspoken stupidity instantly cemented Sally Floyd's status as the [[Too Dumb to Live|Stupidest Person In Comics]].

** It's not just that Sally Floyd is an incredible jackass. It's clear from the writing, particularly from the way that a man famous for speeches about doing the right thing no matter what ''bows his head and accepts this,'' that ''we're supposed to be on her side''. According to the writers, [[Myspace]], [[YouTube]] and [[American Idol]] ''are'' more important to Americans than truth, justice, freedom, and democracy. Even if they're right, it feels wrong.

** To add insult to injury, Peter's reaction to learning this was ridiculous. He cried a bit, broke some furniture... and that's it. His only thoughts about kids are "They are all that's left of Gwen." Never mind that their father is his archenemy [[Complete Monster|who murdered his brother and his own child]]. And [[Brand New Day|later]] he keeps her photo in his room. So Peter still views Gwen as some kind of a saint when revelation like THIS should have shattered that image forever. That's a major [[Moral Dissonance]]. And, even though MJ hid this truth from him during their whole relationship, this never caused any problems later... If it had, we could've been spared that [[Deal with the Devil]] and its attendant baggage.

* After his Aunt May's wedding, Parker gets hammered and sleeps with his roommate Michelle (also drunk). Later they "reveal" that Michelle slipped Parker cider when he wasn't looking, so HIS inebriation was due to his own lack of experience being drunk.

* As if ''[[One More Day]]'' wasn't bad enough, Quesada has introduced Carlie Cooper, a new woman being pushed as Peter Parker's soul-mate, to the point where even MJ is telling him to be with her. Aside from being such a blatant [[Creator's Pet]] who looks more like [[King of the Hill|Peggy Hill]] than anyone you'd want to date, there's two major problems with this: Carlie is supposed to be a stand-in for Joe Quesada's daughter to the point of being named after her...and Joe is using Peter as a stand-in for himself to the point of his looking like Joe in recent issues. It may not be intentional, but it's still [[Squick]].

** The amount of [[Creator's Pet]] shilling going on with Carlie Cooper is bad enough, but the fact that their main strategies for trying to get fans to accept her as Peter's new girlfriend consist of that, and [[Derailing Love Interests|derailing every other]] [[Character Derailment|character]] to do so. And of course, like all of Quesada's finest work, most of it is targeted at Mary-Jane. Although they've really taken the cake as of recent when they even went so far as to suggest [http://i53.tinypic.com/a10b47.jpg Mary-Jane only loved Peter because he was Spider-Man], from ''PETER'S OWN MOUTH''... Yeah, no she didn't. Otherwise she wouldn't have rejected Peter's marriage proposals twice, or refused dating him seriously for so long, when canonically she knew he was Spider-Man since the night Uncle Ben was killed. And in the retconned history presented in ''One Moment in Time'' she even refuses to marry him outright ''because he was Spider-Man''. It doesn't even make sense in the newer continuity presented! Linkara went through a pretty damn big rant when ''JLA: Act of God'' suggested Lois only loved and married Clark for Superman. Can anyone ''imagine'' the rant he would go through if he ever reviewed the storyline where ''this'' was brought up?

*** "Here's the title deeds to the White House. Congratulations, T'Chaka, you are now the President of the United States of America." That's about it.

*** It is possible that T'Chaka took this stand because of how Western governments tend to treat non-Western civilizations—Wakanda no doubt had noticed what happened to nations in Darkest Africa that traded with white men. But if Wakanda is ''ahead'' of them... well, there's still a risk, but it's considerably lower than usual....

*** At one point in the storyline one of T'Challa's ministers suggests releasing the cure for cancer to the world in exchange for the US' cooperation in extraditing T'Chaka's murderer, which is at least a reasonable if not very charitable position. His idea is argued down on the grounds that "They would just weaponize it, as they weaponize everything." First off, the mind boggles at how a cure for cancer could be weaponized into anything comparable to or worse than the WMDs the US government already has. Second off, that is not an argument against agreeing to at the minimum let cancer patients untreatable by any other means be allowed to see Wakandan doctors under Wakandan supervision. The sheer lack of empathy here is astounding; every single living soul in the 'Western' (read: non-Wakandan) world is treated as a black box to be either placated or threatened in return for receiving what rewards Wakanda might want to receive from them, and otherwise ignored. At no point does even the most charitable Wakandan minister in the council discussion act like they might be talking about ''other people'' who actually have feelings and suffer and die and could be helped.

** Elevating Wakanda, which was previously on par with the rest of the world technologically until T'Challa took the throne, into a [[Mary Suetopia]] that has been light-years ahead of the rest of the world, including that cure for cancer that they won't share.

** Rulk will now be joining the Avengers...

* ''[[Daredevil]] #502'': Two protest leaders (of the same group that Bullseye blew up in ''Daredevil: The List'' #1) are acquitted of any wrong doing in the explosion. The presiding judge - portrayed as either corrupted by or emboldened by Norman Osborn - threw out the verdict and sent the men to prison.

{{quote|"I like how one guy becoming a vaguely-powerful government figure has resulted in IMMEDIATE TOTAL WIDESPREAD CORRUPTION."}}

* [[J. Michael Straczynski]]'s run on ''[[Spider-Man]]'' had a couple of notorious Wall Bangers in its first story arc with [[Villain Sue]] Morlun, not the least of which was Spidey's assertion that Morlun was the first villain who really "ticked him off". Now remember, the Green Goblin (one of Spidey's oldest enemies) has murdered his first true love, kidnapped his infant daughter, ruined the lives of some of his closest friends, threatened his family, and made him doubt his existence by manipulating him into thinking he was a clone—in short, he's made Peter Parker's life a living hell. But Morlun made Spider-Man angrier than the Green Goblin ever did?

**** Apparently the plot twist is 'the Red Skull used the Cosmic Cube to travel into the past and alter Steve's life from an early age, thus leading him to the Dark Side via his mother's recruitment into HYDRA'. While that does provide an adequate in-story explanation for this bullshit, the creation of 'Captain Nazi: Marvel Universe Version'<ref>DC has had a Captain Nazi since the Silver Age. He is, not surprisingly, a Nazi supervillain.</ref>, its still regarded as staggeringly tasteless.

 

* Everything Adam Beechen has done with Batgirl Cassandra Cain since ''[[Infinite Crisis]]''. Before then, she was a near-mute hero who didn't kill because her ability to read people was so strong that she practically saw people's death from their own eyes, causing her to be more anti-killing than pretty much anyone. He made her a villainess who [[Character Filibuster|ranted at length]] about killing and who was extremely pissed at her father for something she already knew about for a long time and was okay with - and in a weird way, they both love each other. And she's gone from being a better martial artist than [[Batman]] to no longer able to beat Robin. One hasty [[Retcon]] later, and it's explained as drugs and Deathstroke's fault. Except Beechen's still doing the next Batgirl miniseries, 'Redemption Road,' in which she... is planning on going kill-vengeance on Deathstroke and her father. Despite it being the drugs that made her want to kill in the first place now, and despite [[Technical Pacifist|Batman]] taking Cassandra back in. And despite her emotion-reading returning - not only should she be totally unwilling to kill like she had before, but the whole "seeing death" thing would also be a problem. And her father is apparently sending assassins after her despite his caring about Cassandra more than anything else on Earth. Most work ever to deal with three issues of [[Character Derailment|character assassination?]] Quite possibly! And she's being handed back to the character assassin to boot.

** ''Nightwing,'' the world-class nice guy who believes in second chances so much that he recruited bleedin' ''Ravager'' for the Titans, was screaming that Cassandra couldn't be trusted and should never be allowed back in the Batcave. ''Batman,'' [[The DCU]]'s most legendary paranoid misanthrope, was giving the "trust and family" speech. Did the artist draw the speech balloons on the wrong characters?

* The revelation of Catwoman's baby daughter Helena's father. In Ed Brubaker's run, Selina had a lot of romantic buildup with Bruce Wayne. They'd even consummated their relationship at one point...later, she has a daughter. That Bruce Wayne takes a strong interest in... Selina hints that her baby's father had an incident of violence in his past...that he used to be out during the night. And the baby's name is Helena, the same name as Bruce and Selina's daughter from the alternate continuity Earth...surely this is what we've been waiting for? No, sorry, it's Sam Bradley Jr! Let's discuss why this is stupid: All their romantic buildup happened offscreen and is totally stupid (the flashbacks basically have Selina decide she likes him and decides to sleep with him once because of events unfolding...despite this making little sense.) Selina had just come off a relationship with Sam's FATHER, Slam Bradley...Sam is an annoying little twerp of a character who never gave a reason why we should care about him at all, let alone the stupidity in throwing Selina at him after Bruce and Selina's buildup as a couple to that point. The day this is retconned out and Bruce is revealed as Helena's father will be a good one.

* If you ask someone who voted for Jason Todd to die why they voted that way, they'll usually cite his actions in Jim Starlin's "The Diplomat's Son" from Batman #424. Problem is, that story is a blatant [[Idiot Plot]]. The story opens with Jason beating down a rapist and turning him over to the police, only to discover that he's the titular diplomat's son. Yes, this is one of those stories where "diplomatic immunity" means [[Diplomatic Impunity|"diplomats can commit any atrocity they like and law enforcement is powerless to stop them,"]] so he walks. Seriously, ask any FBI agent and they could list a dozen different ways they could legally nail him. As for the rape victim, she is left alone in her apartment, with no police protection or counseling of any kind. I'm sure this won't lead to any negative outcome—oh look, the rapist just gave her a phone call threatening to come after her again and [[Driven to Suicide|she hanged herself.]] This leads to Robin confronting the rapist on a balcony, where he falls to his death and it's strongly implied that Robin pushed him. That's right, Jason Todd (allegedly) broke the [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]] rule against a [[Complete Monster]] who got away with his crimes due to a legal technicality that ''[[Conviction by Counterfactual Clue|doesn't actually exist,]]'' and that's why people wanted him to die.<ref>Nowadays it seems that fans who wanted Jason dead were actually a [[Vocal Minority]], with one person having made dozens of calls for his death and many others who wanted him to live being children at the time, so they weren't allowed to make the not-so-cheap call.</ref>

* Chuck Austen's ''Godfall: Preus Returns'' makes his "vaporizing Communion wafers" story look downright respectful by comparison. How bad is it? There is a scene with the titular racist Kryptonian ''kills women by having sex with them, and continues to do so''.

 

* The ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]'' comic ''[[X Wing Series|Requiem for a Rogue]]'' involves a truly idiotic artifact: an ancient temple that lets people control wild beasts with evil Sith music!

** There are TIE Interceptors - fast, fiddly ''spaceships'' - made out of ''[[Bamboo Technology|wood]]'' and piloted by those wild beasts controlled by evil Sith music. ''Everything'' about "Requiem" was bad. It marred an otherwise fine series and killed characters who had been around for a while.