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The Gehenna thing was the point where I figured Blackest Night wasn't really going to amount to anything good. I tried a few more issues but I don't think I completed it. It's also poorly written in that it's Johns throwing a bunch of "cool moments" at the reader that ultimately have little or no payoff or are just kind of tossed in the background quickly. The Black Lanterns show up and then in a few issues they kind fo just go away sort of in favor of Nekron who turns a bunch of resurrected heroes into Black Lanterns as a cliffhanger. You've got dudes like Animal Man, Aquaman and loving Superman as Black Lanterns and nothing's really done with that either to make them seem special. Then you get the back-up/emergency Lanterns like Scarecrow to end the issue, then like halfway through the next it goes away without ever having accomplished anything outside of being a Cool Moment. Blackest Night was such garbage, goddamn.
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Just like almost every book modern Jeph Loeb has done, his "Sabertooth Reborn" storyline on Wolverine starting at #310 is completely godawful, one of the worst runs I've ever read. After Wolverine killed Sabretooth, Loeb decided to bring him back in order to "improve" on Wolverine's origin. Instead of just being a regular mutant, Loeb decided it would be cooler if Wolverine and Sabretooth were actually part of a race of super-evolved wolf people ( ) and Wolverine himself started Weapon X, put himself through the program ( ), and then intentionally got his memories wiped by Romulus, an immortal evolved wolf-person/crime lord/former Roman emperor (with psychic powers and super-healing and FOUR claws because he's Ultra Wolverine man!) who looked like this: The entire story was completely incomprehensible and promptly ignored (and retconned, I hope) by every writer afterward. Even then, the worst thing about the story was how plainly poorly-written it was. Almost every single speech bubble is cringeworthy, and every issue had the most cliched, hackneyed narration running throughout. It reads like horrible Wolverine fanfiction, only the author is a paid, respected member of the industry who somehow keeps getting work instead of a fifth grader trying to write the raddest Wolverine story ever. The only real saving grace is Simone Bianchi's artwork, and even that is hindered by the dark, muddy, too-airbrushed coloring Bianchi likes using for some reason. HorseRenoir fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Jul 31, 2013 |
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Jul 31, 2013 05:48
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Suben posted:Blackest Night was such garbage, goddamn. Some of the one-offs were pretty cool. And I legit would enjoy a return of Weird Western Tales.
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Jul 31, 2013 06:13
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Realism posted:Larry Hama's run on Wolverine after The Lazarus Project, he was doing quite well up until then, I don't know what happened....everything seems to just go downhill. Funny you should ask that, because I actually have the answer to this question. I remember reading an interview where Larry Hama stated offhand that he really enjoyed writing for Wolverine, but the run became a victim of its own success. Once Marvel noticed that his run was making a lot of money, His editors started micromanaging every issue he wrote because they were afraid he might do something too weird with an important property. As you can guess this had the opposite effect and his run crashed and burned shortly afterwords. Hama's run has less to do with his writing skills and more to do with the fact that comic book companies only seem comfortable with giving writers complete freedom if they are a known superstar. As for terrible runs, I like to think of JMS's run on superman where some lady yells at him for not saving her son/family member/I forget because he was too busy fighting dudes in space/saving the universe from galactic threats. Superman's solution? Walk across America and get in touch with the common man. At least, I think that was JMS's intention anyway. What his run is really about is Superman walking around and being a smug, condescending douche to anybody unfortunate enough to cross his path. This run is not only JMS at his worst, but Superman at his worst outside of the old superdickery comics. However, nothing beats Jeff Loeb's run on the Ultimates after Millar left the book. Say what you will about Millar (and believe me, a lot can be said), but he and Brian Michael Bendis helped set a consistent tone for the Ultimate universe and set a lot of its rules. However, in one run, Loeb pretty much dealt the Ultimate universe a blow that it has never really recovered from. Long story short, Loeb wrote the Ultimate characters like regular marvel characters, Magneto used magnetism to melt the polar ice caps and killed most of the world's population, the human torch DROWNED, the Blob became a cannibal and ate The Wasp, and the Ultimate universe went from a more modern and darker take on Marvel superheroes to over the top awfultown. I think it was this run that really cemented Loeb as a writer that destroyed everything he touched.
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Jul 31, 2013 07:20
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Clip-On Fedora posted:the Blob became a cannibal and ate The Wasp, Good Christ. So this is the source of that moment in the Badass thread when Nightcrawler teleports a shark inside the Blob? I'd be perfectly happy to lose that if it meant none of that other nonsense happened.
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Jul 31, 2013 07:23
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Redeye Flight posted:Good Christ. So this is the source of that moment in the Badass thread when Nightcrawler teleports a shark inside the Blob? I'd be perfectly happy to lose that if it meant none of that other nonsense happened. Nope, that was AoA Blob, not Ultimate Blob. Cannibalism seems to be a running theme with the character.
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Jul 31, 2013 07:46
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Gavok posted:Venom just came back after two years of zero comic book appearances (shocking in its own right) and insisted on joining the Sinister Six. They didn't take kindly to this and betrayed him. Venom decided that he was going to pick them off and kill them one by one. Spider-Man would try to fight them both off and stop anyone from dying. Any capable writer could turn that into a really cool story. Not only did Mackie fumble around on it, such as the issue where Venom "killed" Sandman, but he didn't have a single ending in mind. Venom just kind of stopped with no explanation. He took out Sandman, then he went after Electro and Kraven, then he de used he wanted to get back together with his ex-wife, then she killed herself and he swore vengeance on Spider-Man, then the symbiote is stolen by Senator Ward and the last time we see Eddie Brock in Mackie's run is him being detained by the cops when he tries to go into a church to confess his sins. E the Shaggy posted:Oh man, that reminds me of the horrible "Evil Senator" arc during Mackie's run, since I think the Senator was responsible for Venom loving off. The Senator Ward thing drove me nuts. I think it ended up being a loose tie-in with the Maximum Security crossover in the Avengers and X-Men books. Of course, the big thing in Mackie's Spider-Man run was what I suppose you could call the dry-run for OMD, where Mary Jane is seemingly killed in a plane crash and Spider-Man thinks she was kidnapped by Doctor Doom, then he ends up homeless, has his costume stolen while sleeping rough and ends up moving into a swinging bachelor pad with Robbie Robertson's son.
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Jul 31, 2013 07:47
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Clip-On Fedora posted:As for terrible runs, I like to think of JMS's run on superman where some lady yells at him for not saving her son/family member/I forget because he was too busy fighting dudes in space/saving the universe from galactic threats. Superman's solution? Walk across America and get in touch with the common man. At least, I think that was JMS's intention anyway. What his run is really about is Superman walking around and being a smug, condescending douche to anybody unfortunate enough to cross his path. This run is not only JMS at his worst, but Superman at his worst outside of the old superdickery comics. Grounded and Superman's lovely attitude in it makes a lot more sense when you realize that JMS is a Ron Paul supporter.
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Jul 31, 2013 08:45
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Suben posted:Grounded and Superman's lovely attitude in it makes a lot more sense when you realize that JMS is a Ron Paul supporter. Grounded was a lovely storyline along with most of his other work, but he did say this in 2007 quote:The entry is accurate. I donated $2K to his campaign, in order to
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Jul 31, 2013 08:48
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When Peter David FINALLY ended his fantastic run on The Incredible Hulk, he was replaced by Bruce Jones (Volume 2, issues 34-76). At first I was concerned since David was THE definitive Hulk writer in my mind, but I found myself very pleasantly surprised with Bruce Jones' start on the run. It came to be one of the comics I looked forward to the most every week, as I waited to see who Mr. Blue was, what the big secret behind the conspiracy was, what part The Abomination would play, plus it was neat to see Bruce walking the land again, spending a lot of time in big open areas away from cities and other heroes/villains. Then... it just kept going. And going. And nothing was being resolved. And new plot threads got introduced and then abandoned or ignored or forgotten. And people kept dying and coming back to life (I know this is comics but this was ridiculous). And the art was so generic that I couldn't tell a lot of the female characters apart. And the whole thing just kept staggering along with no sign of stopping that by the time everything was (badly) resolved I'd long since stopped caring, and I actually struggle to even remember what DID happen except that I vaguely recall it involved The Leader somehow and that it didn't make any goddamn sense. I stopped reading Hulk until World War Hulk resparked my interest, my understanding is that after it was over Peter David came back on board and pretty much just said,"Nah none of that stuff happened", and then Greg Pak took over and made things interesting again.
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Jul 31, 2013 10:34
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Dr. Hurt posted:Why did Spider-Man even need an Iron Man suit anyway? What's the in comic explanation for why he would put that on aside from it being toyetic? The funny thing about the issue where he gets the Iron Spider suit is how stupid he acts in order to use some of its features. Like to show off how bulletproof it is he's put into a situation where he has to get shot and there are no other options to avoid it. The in-universe explanation was that Peter and Tony had been working together for a while, with Tony acting as kind of a mentor to Peter and he wanted to help him out by giving him the new suit. (Also because Tony is a huge jerk he also put in all the monitoring equipment to spy on Peter.)
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Jul 31, 2013 12:20
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Superman 204 - 215 "For Tomorrow" by Brian Azarello and Jim Lee Superman floats around talking to a priest about maybe god knows what and some plot about a million people including lois lane burbles away in the background until everything is resolved in a tedious and unsatisfactory fashion.
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Jul 31, 2013 13:09
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Spider-Man: The Other A comic where Spider-Man dies and then gives birth to himself:  Apparently this was done so he resembled the movie version more (he got organic web shooters), but those changes were retconned a short time after anyways.
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Jul 31, 2013 13:53
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I can't really do a write-up of the run, but Austen's run on Avengers was my first foray into Marvel since I was a kid. It took me like five years to try picking up a Marvel book again.
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Jul 31, 2013 14:25
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That wasn't the other that was disassembled I think.
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Jul 31, 2013 14:42
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As someone who only dips in and out of comics and even rarer into Marvel/DC, I remember finishing the the first two volumes of the Ultimates which I enjoyed a lot, not just because of any 'grim and grittier = better than' stuff but because it seemed like they were setting up to tell some pretty cool stories in a universe slightly closer to reality than fantasy. Then I had the mental equivalent of one of those record-scratch movie-trailer moments when I started reading volume three. The art turned into some kind of weird hyper-smoothed unrealistic thing that was just plain weird after the first two volumes. It felt like the dude who was leaving the series filled his successor in when they were passing each other in the halls because like three or four things didn't make sense right out of the gate (a minor character given quite a few scenes and fully established as a normal human and superhero-groupie is suddenly a superhero, and also Venom is here now?). I don't remember much more except that Quicksilver spends two pages running alongside a bullet and not catching it for some reason even though he's what twenty times faster than them? I don't know if it recovered because I didn't pick up anything after it. I remember one of you guys (it might have been Rhino or Gavok) did a much better writeup of it somewhere hear, I'll try and track it down. Now all I read is Saga and Fletcher Hanks. Thanks, Ultimates volume 3. 
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Jul 31, 2013 15:06
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Cable had been trucking along for something like 20 issues with one of the best collaborations in modern comics history--Joe Casey and Ladronn. The title couldn't have asked for a more in sync creative team, and they were absolutely killing it. Ladronn's art was a revelation, and leagues beyond what the title deserved--though definitely influenced by one Mr. Kirby, it still popped as his own (especially when it came to fine detail) and I honestly don't know how he managed to illustrate as many issues as he did without breaking his hand off. Well, it turns out Marvel had some pretty good ideas on how to improve the title. The key part of the plan? Fire Ladronn and bring on The Rob Liefeld. Well, Casey didn't take too kindly to that at all, so he bailed with his partner, Thelma & Louise style, and then Rob ended up quitting like 3 issues later anyway. The whole title floundered and went completely to poo poo. A running theme with these issues is that Liefeld, creator of Cable, never quite remembers which eye is the mechanical one, so it switches back and forth non-stop. Also, for the big #75 issue, neither Joe Pruitt (the then-current writer) nor Liefeld accepted responsibility for the plot, which is always a great sign. I'm happy that Casey & Ladronn got as long as they did on the title, but knowing that it was shut down and flushed down the hole due to pure managerial incompetence just breaks the heart. To paraphrase You Don't Know Jack, "Rob Liefeld is NEVER the right answer." redbackground fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Jul 31, 2013 |
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Jul 31, 2013 15:40
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Pierson posted:Now all I read is Saga and Fletcher Hanks. Thanks, Ultimates volume 3. Read Daredevil and Hawkeye. The most insane part of Ultimates 3 was the very beginning of it, where the team is discussing how Tony is pretty much shattered after Black Widow betrayed the team WHILE WATCHING THE SEX VIDEO THE TWO OF THEM MADE...IN FRONT OF TONY.
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Jul 31, 2013 16:16
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Alhazred posted:Spider-Man: The Other Also, the entire story hinged on a supervillain with the ability to control insects being able to influence Peter because of his spider powers. 
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Jul 31, 2013 16:18
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E the Shaggy posted:Read Daredevil and Hawkeye. Lets not forget this moment 
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Jul 31, 2013 16:29
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I never read it myself but I heard Spiderman: Sins of the Father by JMS is something special too. Something about Gwen Stacy having kids with Osbourne and other insanity. One title I was going to comment on that I have read was Way's Venom, but I think Gavok is probably saving up for a really (hopefully) big entry about that steaming pile of crap so I might as well leave it to him. But it was a steaming pile of crap. Man, what a steaming pile of crap was Way's Venom run. When people say "what is that steaming pile of crap of yonder?" the answer will always be "that's Way's Venom run". Because it was a steaming pile of crap.
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Jul 31, 2013 16:36
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Alhazred posted:Spider-Man: The Other You're actually getting your "terrible reboot Spider-Mans powers" books confused. Spider-Man: Disassembled was the one that gave Peter organic webbing and let him talk to spiders after bursting out of a giant spider. Spider-Man: The Other was a terrible JMS event that gave Peter wrist spikes, fangs and night vision from making a cocoon after he had been beaten and his eye eaten by Morlun.
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Jul 31, 2013 16:38
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bobkatt013 posted:Lets not forget this moment I haven't read any Ultimate other than Spider-Man, but this thing gets posted constantly and I don't quite understand why it's a big deal. All it says to me is that Ultimate Wolverine is a huge dick, it doesn't seem particularly gross or anything like much of the other stuff posted in this thread.
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Jul 31, 2013 16:41
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Madkal posted:I never read it myself but I heard Spiderman: Sins of the Father by JMS is something special too. Something about Gwen Stacy having kids with Osbourne and other insanity. This is what Norman Osborn looks like when he's really happy. 
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Jul 31, 2013 16:44
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Hakkesshu posted:I haven't read any Ultimate other than Spider-Man, but this thing gets posted constantly and I don't quite understand why it's a big deal. At that point he is not a huge dick. Also during Ultimate 3 Hawkeye was going on and on how his wife and kids were brutally murdered. It was just extremely out of character for both of them and just one problem with that horrible horrible comic.
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Jul 31, 2013 16:45
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Alhazred posted:Spider-Man: The Other There was a part in The Other where Spider-Man went to visit Black Panther and during the trip he changed his stairstyle to cornrows. It would have been more entertaining if they rolled with that and have him act all gangster.
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Jul 31, 2013 16:57
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I figure it's time to delve into the big one: Joe Quesada's Spiderman Something strange happened with Spiderman around the time of the Clone Saga. The character isn't a vehicle for good stories anymore, its a vehicle for spectacle. Rather than hire on folks to write good stories, its all about EVENTS! NEW COSTUMES! CLONES! DEALS WITH SATAN! When I say Joe Quesada's Spiderman run, I'm talking about all the editorial poo poo he pulled during JMS' run, and then every time he wrote/created a story following it. When JMS thought of the idea of revealing that Gwen Stacy had Peter's secret children, Quesada thought that Peter having children was a terrible idea, but rather than scrap the story, they just replaced Peter with Norman Osborn, effectively destroying the character of Gwen Stacy. Gwen Stacy was now the girl who hosed her friend's, Harry, dad while he was going through withdrawals because she was attracted to Norman's "magnetism" Christ. We also got Norman (AND THE loving GREEN GOBLIN'S) "Oh face":  But really, having Gwen Stacy secretly gently caress Norman Osborn wasn't what was destroying the Spiderman book, it was the marriage! The marriage to Mary Jane was making Peter old and unrelatable and this simply couldn't happen (Meanwhile, a 50 year old obese super villain is residing in Peter's body, which I think we all can relate to). So the idea was created to get rid of the marriage, but how? Peter and Mary Jane divorcing would make Peter seem old. Killing Mary Jane off would make Peter a widow and make him old. So the logical course was taken, Peter would make a deal with the devil. Mephisto was brought in to offer Peter one of the most convulted deals in the history of comics, that ended up working out for all parties involved. Divorce is wrong kids, but making deals with the devil is totally awesome! To say nothing of the fact that JMS had actually created the perfect out that didn't involve the devil. During his run, Loki became indebted to Spiderman and owed him a favor, but since Loki was being used elsewhere, the idea was shot down. So the deal was made, Peter's identity is made secret again (which wasn't revealed how until years later) and the marraige was done away with. Then came "OMIT - One Moment in Time" where its explained that Peter originally missed his marriage day with Mary Jane because a fat guy landed on him.  Like...how can you even make this poo poo up and think its a good idea? At the same time, in the present, Peter is talking with Mary Jane about why they never got married, and its because Mary Jane would only get married if she could have kids and she couldn't have kids if Peter was Spiderman and is your head exploding yet? OMIT also showed how Mary Jane had tricked Mephisto with the deal by making it so that the deal actually never happened or something...There's just nothing worse in comics. E the Shaggy fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Jul 31, 2013 |
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Jul 31, 2013 17:00
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Waterhaul posted:You're actually getting your "terrible reboot Spider-Mans powers" books confused. The Other also gave us MJ and Aunt May flying around in old Iron Man armors!
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Jul 31, 2013 17:04
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Endless Mike posted:The Other also gave us MJ and Aunt May flying around in old Iron Man armors! That doesn't sound terrible. That sounds the opposite of terrible.
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Jul 31, 2013 17:11
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Clip-On Fedora posted:Loeb wrote the Ultimate characters like regular marvel characters, Magneto used magnetism to melt the polar ice caps and killed most of the world's population, the human torch DROWNED, the Blob became a cannibal and ate The Wasp, and the Ultimate universe went from a more modern and darker take on Marvel superheroes to over the top awfultown. I think it was this run that really cemented Loeb as a writer that destroyed everything he touched. Human Torch didn't drown. Blob, however, did eat Wasp which was one of the stupidest out of character things I've ever seen in comics. The story was really really weak overall, and did far more harm than it did good. That said, just like with anything dealing with Ultimate Marvel, everything Spider-Man related was gold. Plus, without Ultimatum, Iceman and Human Torch would have never moved into Aunt May's house.
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Jul 31, 2013 17:15
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Sins Past was fantastic. I approve. I do not approve of OMD or OMIT and would have rather they just have had Waid, Wells, Kelly on the book instead. JMS's run started out well enough then sort of petered into all over the place and to questionable quality. At least he turned things around initially on the book.
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Jul 31, 2013 17:23
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Doug Monech's run on Catwoman. He's one of my favorite Batman writers, I have no idea how the heck he screwed this one up so badly. The electrical armor cat was not only an abysmal idea, it's just disappointing that he had to go that route. It seems all these Superheroes have a 'robot' version of them stashed somewhere, and he had to do it for Catwoman too? I mean Come on...  Not only did he screw up Catwoman, Two-Face was terrible in here as well, he was an ordinary dumb-thug in here, that's all he was.
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Jul 31, 2013 19:40
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HorseRenoir posted:Just like almost every book modern Jeph Loeb has done, his "Sabertooth Reborn" storyline on Wolverine starting at #310 is completely godawful, one of the worst runs I've ever read. After Wolverine killed Sabretooth, Loeb decided to bring him back in order to "improve" on Wolverine's origin. Instead of just being a regular mutant, Loeb decided it would be cooler if Wolverine and Sabretooth were actually part of a race of super-evolved wolf people ( You forgot the best part:  http://www.dailyraider.com/index.php?id=4318 posted:"Unless you admit intelligent design is an equally plausible theory for mankind's origins, I am OUT OF HERE!"
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Jul 31, 2013 20:09
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Are there any serious Christian fundamentalist heroes? Now I am curious. Like literally bible toting preachin' Christian.
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Jul 31, 2013 20:32
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Spoilers Below posted:You forgot the best part: Okay, it's definitely a bit out of character for Wolverine to say it, but I'd have to see it in context to get a better idea. Like I could see Wolverine saying something like this, just to be the voice of opposition to an idea, since Wolverine does that all the time. And despite what that article says, I never saw Wolverine as an atheist. Oh sure, he's a cynic and may be down on organized religion, but the man has lived long enough that he would have to pick up some form of spirituality. (If nothing else then from his time spent in Japan.) I think the best quote to sum up Wolverine would be from Pitch Black "Got it all wrong, Holy Man. I absolutely believe in God....And I hate the fucker." As for the panel, while on the one hand it's pretty dumb....on the other hand. Giant Space Gods DID land on Marvel Earth and start blasting rays at the ground until normals, Deviants and Eternals emerged. Hell, one of them is just standing around in San Fransisco. And then like years later, a bunch of blue and pink aliens tried to copy the space gods and the Inhumans were created. Inteligent Design is something that isn't so far fetched in the MU.
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Jul 31, 2013 20:40
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Moonshine Rhyme posted:Are there any serious Christian fundamentalist heroes? Now I am curious. Like literally bible toting preachin' Christian. Wasn't Nightcrawler a priest?
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Jul 31, 2013 20:41
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smashpro1 posted:Wasn't Nightcrawler a priest? No it was an illusion. It was a plot to make Nightcrawler pope and then reveal to the world that the pope is a mutant and then cause the rapture with exploding communion wafers. Thank you very much Chuck Austin.
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Jul 31, 2013 20:48
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He, at the least, was into Jesus. In fact, I'm fairly sure they mentioned that as a contrast between him and Logan.
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Jul 31, 2013 20:48
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The Question IRL posted:Okay, it's definitely a bit out of character for Wolverine to say it, but I'd have to see it in context to get a better idea. Like I could see Wolverine saying something like this, just to be the voice of opposition to an idea, since Wolverine does that all the time. And despite what that article says, I never saw Wolverine as an atheist. Oh sure, he's a cynic and may be down on organized religion, but the man has lived long enough that he would have to pick up some form of spirituality. (If nothing else then from his time spent in Japan.) Wolverine's not an atheist, because he wasn't able to resist Weapon XVI. Noh-Varr and Fantomex had to save the day.
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Jul 31, 2013 20:50
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Given his love of Japanese culture, maybe he's into Shintoism?
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Jul 31, 2013 20:51
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