We all know which modern comics out there are utter crap, and we know there's an awful lot of them. But what bad comics are there from before 2000?
My pick is X-Men vs Avengers. An already so-so crossover miniseries that immediately takes a turn for the worse when the editors boot Roger Stern off writing duties for the last issue just because he dared to write Magneto as a villain again. Which means that final issue is an unsatisfying conclusion that doesn't actually track on from the storyline the mini had set-up so far, and sees Magneto use mind-control on a judge to ensure he gets out of his war crimes trial scot-free (but at least he's not a villain!)
 |
 Tip Your Landlord Shirt $21.68 |
|
Batman Year Two is my pick. It’s really weird, and feels completely different to Miller’s Year One.
These aren't that bad.
>what bad comics are there from before 2000?
Like half of 90s Marvel, 20% of 90s DC, 90% of 90s Image, ALL of Mirage's Ultraverse, and goddamn Skateman.
Oh, and The Clone Saga. I can't believe I forgot that. Probably the worst comic of the 20th century.
Wouldn't that be on the supposed bad half of the 90s?
Yeah, but it's so bad that it deserves singling out.
The Clone Saga is around 30 or more separate storylines over a 2 year period. Some of it is deservedly hated, but there are highs and lows over those 2 years, it's not all one bad story.
There's potentially a good story in some of Shooter's Beyonder plot for Secret Wars 2. But it shouldn't have been a big crossover event that almost every book tied into, it should have been a smaller scale mini. Probably should have got a star artist for Secret Wars 2, as well.
Ultraverse was Malibu, and it wasn't all bad. Those were perfect comics for an 11 year old. Edgy and over the top.
>ALL of Mirage's Ultraverse,
Nah
Seconded
Barr was mediocre most of the time but once in a while he'd hit a home run. This wasn't one of them.
Old old X-men in general was always kind of eeeeeeeeeeeh. It didn't really kick in till Neal Adams showed up but by then the damage was done and the book was canned until Giant Sized.
60s X-Men is decently good for as long as Lee and Kirby are on it, but then they abandon the book around #20 or so because neither of them felt it was particularly worth sticking with. So the book was tossed to the side and was basically crap for the next few years until Neal Adams showed up
Though at least you had those few Jim Steranko issues a little before the Adams run, those are pretty fun
I still wouldn't call it Jack and Stan's best work. But yeah, Steranko was alright.
>I still wouldn't call it Jack and Stan's best work.
It isn't, but it's still decent fun imo. Even if they immediately overused Magneto within the first 10 issues and then couldn't think of any other good villains aside from the Sentinels before they both left the book.
At any rate, it's certainly better than Roy Thomas cutting his teeth for 30 odd issues
Both the Lee/Kirby and Roy Thomas runs aren't anyone's best work, but they're comfy Silver Age Marvel and inoffensively OK at worst. The X-Men books have seen far, far worse in the last 20 years.
Didn't Spencer's run revisit that, and also that GN with Peter's maybe-sister?
Peter's parents being spies has definitely come up a few times over the years yes
Steranko was a great loss for Marvel.
It's the opposite, the Lee/Kirby stuff is awful. Thomas' first run is okay, Drake and Thomas' second run are really good. Once Alex and Lorna are added X-Men never gets as good again until around Proteus.
Power Pack fell off big time towards the end to the point that the series got cancelled; the readers were so pissed by some of the changes that the original writing team wrote a special issue about a year after the series ended that retconned a bunch of stuff away.
What did they do so wrong that they had to retcon it as an apology?
Not that anon but I do recall they shifted all of the kids powers so that the youngest wasn't the most destructive.
The oldest kid was turning into a mutant space horse-human hybrid with the implication the rest would as well when they hit puberty so they had to move to the Kymelian homeworld, but the latter was all but killed off as a species right before that.
Also their parents were basically re-connect into being brain-damaged by well-intentioned but badly bungled mental tinkering.
More or less the last writing team for thr series went all in on early '90s grimdark writing where every victory was still a loss and every character interaction had to be just miserable in every way.
Kino
Future Imperfect is overrated and I'm glad they canned Professor Hulk.
The whole Pantheon Saga was boring. Professor Hulk ending around Onslaught and after was crap.
It is just good, not great, but good.
This fricking book. This is the first truly awful Spider-man comic ever printed.
No, it's great.
And it's the first Spidey comic I've read.
You poor soul, that's like saying your first comic was Spider Island.
Peter Parker's parents being super secret SHIELD spies is just genuinely a dumb plot point and I'm glad that it's basically more or less ignored by everyone after
Peter crying upon learning that his parents weren't perfect little imperialists was pathetic. He should have been thrilled that they were based domestic traitors and then disappointed to learn that they weren't.
>Peter Parker's parents were killed by the Red Skull!
>No, not that Red Skull. The Communist one you've probably never heard of.
Marvel editorial had to have greenlit Stern's story for this mini, a story where the entire point of it all was Magneto reverting to being a villain. So what happened? Did editorial change their minds? Did Claremont belatedly object and have enough pull to block Stern, too late to stop the entire project but in time to force a change to the ending?
Even without the ending change, as an X-Men vs Avengers story it would have been a letdown as the late 80s lineups for both teams are missing a number of important characters.
>So what happened? Did editorial change their minds? Did Claremont belatedly object and have enough pull to block Stern, too late to stop the entire project but in time to force a change to the ending?
There's probably a story about it on some blog somewhere, I bet.
>as an X-Men vs Avengers story it would have been a letdown as the late 80s lineups for both teams are missing a number of important characters.
Having Dr Druid on the Avengers line-up for this is definitely an interesting choice
>Having Dr Druid on the Avengers line-up for this is definitely an interesting choice
I think that was a brilliant move by Stern and he was the only writer who saw the value of Druid as a utility character who wouldn't overpower the team like Dr. Strange would have.
>Having Dr Druid on the Avengers line-up for this is definitely an interesting choice
Stern was just working with the exact Avengers and X-Men lineups of the time, rather than bringing back more important members whose presence might have made it more of an event. Even Avengers who were active on the West Coast team, or X-Men characters who were in X-Factor at the time got left out.
Druid being on the Avengers served the plot purpose of the Avengers not being instantly taken out by the X-Men's telepath, as happened to the Soviet Super Soldiers at one point in the story.
Shocking that this was written by the EIC at the time. So many amateurish storytelling mistakes from someone who should have known better.
Even the staunchest of Shooter defenders agree that this was a terrible idea and should have been the point he left Marvel
Secret Wars II was the only thing Shooter ever did wrong.
The man was a saint, damn it
The Armor Cap Saga. And all of Heroes Reborn.
Most of these old comics are bad.
Even some of the issues from celebrated runs, like Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four, can be bad.
I think a lot of people count them as good because the art is good.
>Most of these old comics are bad.
You know I'm right.
But you aren't. That's why I ignored your opinion.
Deep down you agree. That's why you replied instead of actually ignoring me.
Deep down you know
was right all along about you and you can't stop replying
That doesn't make sense. I'm not the one who's supposedly ignoring people.
Green Lantern/Green Arrow
That one is great.
Random but for the hell of it the TV Tropes page for Doom Patrol is largely talks about and sucks off Rachel Pollack's run as an unheralded masterpiece more than it talks about any of the other runs even though it was complete shit that everyone hated and led to the book getting cancelled. I'm guessing the page is written/watched by a troony or something.
Probably, yeah. TV Tropes is like that sometimes.
Her run in recent years have gotten more appreciation. The only Vertigo series that lasted longer at the time were Hellblazer and Swamp Thing (Animal Man lasted as many issues). Also no other Doom Patrol after her has reached as many issues.
>Her run in recent years have gotten more appreciation.
Yes because it was written by a troony with troony self-insert at a time where that wasn't common. It's a shit book that's worse than the runs it's sandwiched inbetween and Coagula is also terrible for being a replacement for Crazy Jane.
>Also no other Doom Patrol after her has reached as many issues.
What's this obfuscation shit? Pollack's run was from v2 #64-87 which is 24 issues. Arcudi and Giffen's runs were both 22 issues so two issues more isn't really kind of accomplishment, they all hit more or less the same numbers and the latter two did it without having the momentum and good will of Morrison's run to boost them (which Pollack pissed away).
>Her run in recent years have gotten more appreciation.
He. Rachel Pollack is a israeli man who loved to talk about periods because of course he did. And that run does get more appreciation because he is a troony.