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I’m making this as both an extension to a question I asked in the BSS Q&A thread as well as to the Worst Runs thread. We all know event comics. We all have some we really enjoy, the classics like Crisis on Infinite Earths or Secret Wars. Comics that are huge, game changing events that not only reshape a company’s titles, but also provide an amazing and epic reading experience. Yet we also know that the vast majority of event comics are simply garbage attempts to shake up the status quo, hell sometimes even before a status quo had even been established. This thread is dedicated to talking about not only the worst, but the most divisive event comics. So we don’t tread the same ground as the worst runs thread, let’s stick to just event comics. That means any limited series that was meant, in some way, to change the status of its company/specific character. I’d say that things like One More Day would count as well.  Civil War Probably the most divisive event comic in recent times, Civil War took an interesting concept and went about it in the worst possible way. The Registration Act itself was different from tie-in to tie-in which made it unclear what the Act even said. Was it just for heroes to give the government their identities and power sets or was it now a forcible draft where people who didn't join up were beaten half to death and sent to inter-dimensional jail? This, plus the fact that the story never gave both sides equal attention as it was intended, made the entire story a weird mish mash of ideas that eventually ended with a whimper  Identity Crisis Probably second in the category of most divisive events, IC tried to have a murder mystery but failed at the very basic concept by having the killer be someone that made literally no sense. This, coupled with the rape of Sue Dibney, an event that is still discussed as one of the worst moments in modern comics, as well as smaller issues like Deathstroke clowning the entire Justice League in an absurd fashion and having Firestorm randomly killed off with no real fanfare. The comic also introduced many people into comics though, including myself, so for many there is a feeling of nostalgia that clouds over many of the problems of the story.  Ultimatum Easily one of the most despised events in the past couple of decades, this comic almost completely destroyed the Ultimate Marvel universe. It slaughtered nearly every single interesting character in a desperate sales tactic, was horribly written, and was overall completely pointless as all it did was take the entire Ultimate universe and wipe away anything remotely interesting in it. Rumor is it was meant to actually be a reboot, with everyone coming back in the end and restarting the universe, but since that never happened, what we were left with was a barren wasteland with writers left desperately scrambling to figure out what to do next. What are some other garbage/controversial event comics? OldTennisCourt fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jul 5, 2014 |
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Jul 5, 2014 16:55
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OldTennisCourt posted:Probably second in the category of most divisive events, IC tried to have a murder mystery but failed at the very basic concept by having the killer be someone that made literally no sense. This is actually how Sherlock Holmes stories worked.
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Jul 5, 2014 20:20
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Aphrodite posted:This is actually how Sherlock Holmes stories worked. I think the problem with IC is that it didn't play fair with it's mystery. There should be, at least to me, some way to piece together for yourself who the killer is. The way IC played it, the killer was someone that we had been shown could not be the killer at all, and the explanation is completely absurd. Why the hell did she bring the flamethrower with her? If she had no plans to kill Sue why the gently caress did she bring it with her? She says to keep herself safe, but does she carry a big rear end flamethrower with her at all times? What the hell was she expecting?
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Jul 5, 2014 21:18
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It still bugs me that the core of Infinite Crisis - Golden Age Superman squaring off against grim dark Batman - was like 3 panels in the midst of a bunch of more or less incomprehensible 'let's all fight' nonsense.
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Jul 5, 2014 22:18
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Amazons Attack is probably the worst "event" I've ever suffered though while it was ongoing. It doesn't make any sense as a story, crosses over pointlessly with a bunch of books only because the protagonists are women, and only serves to kind of reboot Wonder Woman for Jodi Picoult's bizarre, lovely run because Alan Heinberg couldn't put out his books on time. It's just a giant confusing mess of people doing things that aren't ever explained and bee weapons.
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Jul 5, 2014 23:54
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Fear Itself is probably the worst marvel event I've ever read (yes, even worse than Ultimatum). The main series didn't do a good enough job of showing how the world was supposedly on the brink of collapse, or why everyone should be quite so scared. Considering some of the crap that goes down every other week on Earth 616, a bunch of Nazi robots and some not very bright slobs wielding hammers is not really all that scary. And of course the sole female Worthy has to be "The breaker of men". The two main hero deaths (neither of which I really cared about), were undone almost instantly. Infinite Crisis had some amazing tie-ins (Omac and Sinister Six), and the build up to it was pretty impressive and nuanced (random storylines with Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman debating killing before WW killed Max Lord), but the core issues had too much stuff compressed in. It was a mess. Also it had Batman pulling a gun on Alexander Luthor. Superman doesn't kill, Batman doesn't use guns  At least we got the excellent 52 out of it.
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Jul 6, 2014 00:26
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Personally, I found Siege to be my most disappointing event comic. Most big events are usually their own self-contained things, but Siege was supposed to be big climax for Norman Osborn's multi-year rise to power arc that started back with Warren Ellis's Thunderbolts, and continued on through Secret Invasion and Dark Avengers. I knew the status quo of Osborn being in charge had to come to an end eventually, but everything had hinted towards Norman having some sort of  plan in place where even if he lost, it would force the heroes to make a huge sacrifice in order to defeat him.In the end though, the Avengers defeated him with little to no effort at all, everything went back to normal almost immediately, and it turned out his grand scheme was just to paint Goblin make-up on his face under his helmet. Oh, and then Iron Man dropped a Helicarrier on The Sentry/Void, killing him instantly. So much for the power of a million exploding suns... Once Siege ended and the Heroic Age started, I pretty much lost all interest in the overall Marvel Universe. The follow up events like Fear Itself didn't help things either.
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Jul 6, 2014 02:00
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Final Crisis got a bit  in places for me.Humanity is being shrunk and stored in trays! Darksied and a bunch of others are possessing people! Superman is in the future for a second or two. Now he's building something and shouting at Darksied's soul? Who's this random Monitor guy who isn't the same as the one from countdown? Why are there vampires? What the hell is going on?
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Jul 6, 2014 03:32
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I'm gonna say Onslaught. Identity Crisis makes a solid point for not making sense and including rape as a plot point in comics, but I didn't read it so I can't say that for certain. What I did read is a bunch of stuff with Onslaught in it (not all of it, because that was impossible, but a lot of it). You can talk about how it was basically peak 90s, or how it was based in old storylines from several years prior that weren't exactly interesting themselves (the X-Traitor and Fatal Attractions). But the worst thing about it was the end result: they turned over the Avengers line books to dudes like Liefeld, gave us Heroes Reborn, and we got CapBoobs.jpg That is the real crime of Onslaught. It was a vehicle to hand over control of the books to the Liefelds and Lees of the world.
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Jul 6, 2014 04:26
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I'm going to take it way back and say Armageddon 2001. Man I cannot ever remember being so disappointed in the ending of an event. And I think it's even worse considering how young I was then and the fact that I liked pretty much any garbage comic I could get my hands on at that age. I remember getting the reveal issue very vividly and I was just so mad it was loving Hawk of all people. Of course years later I found out why it was Hawk but that made it even stupider in my mind. I know it's not a major event or anything but it sticks out for me because it was really the first time comic books had disappointed me. I mean, Hawk? Really? 
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Jul 6, 2014 04:48
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Civil War ended with a whimper but you cant really put it out there as one of the worst event events Marvel's done. Fear Itself was the definition of 'what was the point?' for awhile, at least until Age of Ultron.
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Jul 6, 2014 05:04
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Siege pissed me off because up until the last issue, I was so filled with hype. Dark Reign was a blast and Dark Avengers was a brilliant character piece that worked as the anti-Thunderbolts. It was what happens when a team full of anti-heroes completely fails to step over the threshold from villain to hero when they're given the opportunity to be better people. Even Noh-Varr, who wasn't even evil, was a failure because once he escaped from the team, he stayed gone and didn't do anything to stop them. Most importantly, Bendis has been building up the Sentry/Void for years and he kept upping the ante. No matter how he kept getting taken out in his comics, Sentry would just return, scarier than ever because virtually nothing could stop him. Even being torn apart molecule-by-molecule wasn't enough. Siege was about that threat finally coming to a head. There was all this speculation about how he was going to lose and in the end, it was the laziest, shittiest way possible. They just hit him really hard. Great job, guys. Also, they proceeded to bitch Reynolds out like a child like he wasn't out of his skull. This looked really bad considering this was a bookend to the "heroes loving hate each other" era that started with Disassembled. In Disassembled, they saw that Scarlet Witch was crazy and it made them all sad about being unable to help her and decide to split up the Avengers. Then in Siege, they saw that Sentry was crazy and decided, "That guy was a piece of poo poo. Let's be friends again!" Wonder Man brought this up and more in that Revengers arc, also by Bendis, but all of his points were sidestepped by the Avengers being saddened that Wonder Man was saying crazy things. The best way Siege should have ended was having Phobos stop the Void. It made perfect sense. Fury told Phobos to stay home and not join in the battle because Ares was there. Ares got horribly murdered by the Void. Sentry/Void's one weakness is his unstable psyche. Phobos brings fear to whoever looks into his eyes. If he just showed up during the climax and glared into Void's eyes, causing uncertainty and fear and all that, THEN they could have done the Helicarrier and Mjolnir combo. I would have bought that then.
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Jul 6, 2014 05:21
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There was never such a thing as an event called "The Crossing" in the pages of Avengers and elsewhere. You are better off taking the previous sentence as fact.
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Jul 6, 2014 05:22
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Deadpool posted:I'm going to take it way back and say Armageddon 2001. Man I cannot ever remember being so disappointed in the ending of an event. And I think it's even worse considering how young I was then and the fact that I liked pretty much any garbage comic I could get my hands on at that age. I remember getting the reveal issue very vividly and I was just so mad it was loving Hawk of all people. Of course years later I found out why it was Hawk but that made it even stupider in my mind. I know it's not a major event or anything but it sticks out for me because it was really the first time comic books had disappointed me.
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Jul 6, 2014 05:29
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Milotic posted:Batman doesn't use guns  Batman has absolutely used guns. He stopped for a while, but back in the day he had no qualms about it. That use in Final Crisis was Grant Morrison acknowledging Batman's pass with his whole crazy compressed time thing he had going on and was totally awesome. All of Final Crisis was awesome. When I first read it, I wasn't sure what was going on. Then I sort of ruminated on it for a few days. Then I reread and it was even better than before. It's the sheer magnitude of cosmic comic book insanity that really sold it for me--that, and I'm a suck for GMo. EDIT: 
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Jul 6, 2014 05:44
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Identity Crisis should probably be numero uno because it's the whole reason BSS was made, imo. As for me? Age of Ultron. Good lord, Bendis 
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Jul 6, 2014 05:57
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First Bass posted:Identity Crisis should probably be numero uno because it's the whole reason BSS was made, imo. As for me? Age of Ultron. Good lord, Bendis I never read Age of Ultron, but doesn't it not even feature Ultron and spends half the time in the past for some reason? Definitely say Civil War is the worst. The idea for the event is great on paper, but all it did was make everyone come off as jerks and ruined Iron Man for a few years.
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Jul 6, 2014 06:09
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Gavok posted:The best way Siege should have ended was having Phobos stop the Void. It made perfect sense. Fury told Phobos to stay home and not join in the battle because Ares was there. Ares got horribly murdered by the Void. Sentry/Void's one weakness is his unstable psyche. Phobos brings fear to whoever looks into his eyes. If he just showed up during the climax and glared into Void's eyes, causing uncertainty and fear and all that, THEN they could have done the Helicarrier and Mjolnir combo. I would have bought that then. I think that is what is so frustrating about Siege. There were just so many other directions that they could have went with that would have been better than what we got. All through Dark Reign it was shown that even though Osborn was a manipulative bastard, he generally seemed to sympathize with Reynolds and didn't just write him off as a dangerous lunatic like all the other heroes/villains did. So when the Void was finally unleashed and it looked like everything was doomed, I fully expected Norman would have been the one to step up and talk the Sentry down, somehow coming to terms with his goblin side at the same time and putting it away forever. It would have nicely brought closure to both characters. But no, in the end villains can never change and the heroes always save the day by just punching things really hard...
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Jul 6, 2014 06:17
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Joker: Last Laugh Joker reveals that the thing that makes him unique as a character can be easily applied to a prison full of people, that you can't identify since they all look like him (most are in prison clothes) and the constantly changing art was terrible. It crossed over with most titles in which a villain appeared laughed a bit and everyone got bored.
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Jul 6, 2014 10:09
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I'm not even sure it was a proper crossover, but Mys-Tech Wars bothered the hell out of me as a kid. I picked up a book with what I thought was Alan Davis art, it turned out it was Paul Neary, and it's three full issues of Marvel characters being visibly dismembered and disemboweled on panel. For Marvel crossovers as a whole, though, nothing in the post-Quesada period has held a candle to Secret Wars II. Fatal Attractions in the X-books was pretty bad, Age of Ultron is magnificently pointless, Fear Itself is disjointed, Blackest Night is unpleasant, and Heroes Reborn started bad and got real weird once it turned into an unofficial Image/Wildstorm/Marvel crossover, but Secret Wars II shoved its warty prong into every book in the line, sometimes more than once, to tell a story that basically shouldn't exist. I honestly believe that Jim Shooter could spend the rest of his Earthly days giving hot soup and blankets to orphans, living a life of quiet upstanding citizenship in service of his fellow man, dying at an old age surrounded by world leaders and the people of a grateful nation, and when the time came to write his obituary, people would still bring up Secret Wars II. I would be amazed if at least one person involved with that book's production wasn't coked out of his goddamned skull.
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Jul 6, 2014 10:53
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Could someone go into deeper detail about the problems of Fear Itself? I don't think I've seen a single person say a kind word about it.
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Jul 6, 2014 15:20
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OldTennisCourt posted:Could someone go into deeper detail about the problems of Fear Itself? I don't think I've seen a single person say a kind word about it. This isn't at all specific, since I didn't read it, but it was so bland and forgettable that even as a normal, weekly, pull-list-having comics reader I couldn't tell you a drat thing about it except that Tony had to be made an alcoholic again in order to wear some powerful armour to do a thing. To me, that was like taking Babs out of the chair; why on Earth would you reset interesting character development? I just don't get what things like that accomplish.
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Jul 6, 2014 15:40
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I think part of the backlash against Fear Itself had to do with the tremendous amount of expectations people had for Matt Fraction when he started doing stuff with Marvel. He was a huge indie guy at that point, and Casanova was essentially the hottest thing around, but his first wave of Marvel titles was kind of a mixed bag. His Iron Man, I recall, was very popular, and his Uncanny X-Men was an improvement over what came before it with a lot of neat ideas, but he was often saddled with mediocre artists and sometimes his execution felt a little rushed. Fear Itself felt, for me at least, like Marvel's biggest vote of confidence in him yet-- a big line-wide cross-over, and the first of the "Heroic Age," at that, suggesting a turn away from the tired "hero vs. hero" tropes of the last few big events. That, and the lead-up was a lot more compelling than the actual comics. A lot of the promos were very well done, and seemed to promise a more character-based, psychological approach to "fear itself" than what we got, which was people being The Four Horsemen of [s]Apocalypse[s] Cul Borson while disposable nazis in disposable robots attack disposable set-pieces. It did have some fun tie-ins-- Avengers Academy integrated it really well with its ongoing thematic thing, and the X-Men stuff was a blast-- but a lot of truly dire ones as well (Secret Avengers). On it's own, it was probably no worse than some of the more forgettable 90's crossovers-- Atlantis Attacks or Evolutionary War or whatever-- but, like Siege, it seemed to promise a lot more than what it delivered, which is a great way to sour an audience very quickly.
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Jul 6, 2014 17:11
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Blackest Night had a lot of problems. After a week or so, the various tie-ins became rather formulaic:  "Hi blahblah, it's me, blahblah!"  "But blahblah, I thought you died!"  "Oh but I DID and now I'm gonna take your heart!" "Nu-uh, I'm gonna be resolute and not let emotions effect m-" "-did I ever tell I once stole five bux from you?"  "I'LL KILL YOU I HATE YOU RAAAAARGH!"Rinse and repeat.
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Jul 6, 2014 17:41
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Blind Sally posted:Batman has absolutely used guns. He stopped for a while, but back in the day he had no qualms about it. That use in Final Crisis was Grant Morrison acknowledging Batman's pass with his whole crazy compressed time thing he had going on and was totally awesome. All of Final Crisis was awesome. When I first read it, I wasn't sure what was going on. Then I sort of ruminated on it for a few days. Then I reread and it was even better than before. It's the sheer magnitude of cosmic comic book insanity that really sold it for me--that, and I'm a suck for GMo. Uh, that scene explicitly ignores Batman's gun toting past.
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Jul 6, 2014 17:54
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Deadpool posted:I'm going to take it way back and say Armageddon 2001. Man I cannot ever remember being so disappointed in the ending of an event. And I think it's even worse considering how young I was then and the fact that I liked pretty much any garbage comic I could get my hands on at that age. I remember getting the reveal issue very vividly and I was just so mad it was loving Hawk of all people. Of course years later I found out why it was Hawk but that made it even stupider in my mind. I know it's not a major event or anything but it sticks out for me because it was really the first time comic books had disappointed me. I actually liked the summer Annual events DC had right then. Armageddon 2001 and the Eclipso thing were a fun way to give everyone a framework for the character's story in the annual. Yeah, the payoff at the end sucked for both of them, but we got fun stuff out of the annuals. Then they did that Bloodlines poo poo and the only good thing to come out of that was Hitman. Rirse posted:Definitely say Civil War is the worst. The idea for the event is great on paper, but all it did was make everyone come off as jerks and ruined Iron Man for a few years. The big problem with Civil War is that it forces the reader to step outside of the comic book book universe and look at things from an external perspective. The only reasonable conclusion to draw is, "Yeah, why isn't someone doing anything about vigilantes wandering the streets and beating people half to death with no consequences to their actions?" So in response the pro-registration side became absurdly evil. I can't say for certain what the worst event book is, but it has to be one of the various mutant book crossovers from the nineties after Claremont left. Even before Claremont left they were getting pretty lovely. After he left, the books became completely incoherent and the crossovers even worse.
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Jul 6, 2014 18:21
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Civil War is a good set up for an event that isn't set in an ongoing universe and using writers that aren't entrenched in the status quo of comic books. Characters went mini-hitler to justify keeping the secret identity trope going and keep heroes as outside the law loners.
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Jul 6, 2014 18:40
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Waffles Inc. posted:To me, that was like taking Babs out of the chair; why on Earth would you reset interesting character development? I just don't get what things like that accomplish.
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Jul 6, 2014 21:39
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I'm trying to think of a Marvel crossover event without even one redeeming quality. Fear Itself was boring but had the aforementioned Avengers Academy and X-Men fun times. Age of Ultron was pointless but had a few bright spots. Atlantis Attacks gave us that creepy What If issue. Siege had a neat build-up and also a few bright spots. Onslaught was neat for what it was even if it wasn't much plus it gave us the best of the Capcom fighting bosses. The only one I can't think of as having any positive effect was Ultimatum. Characters died for no reason, the villains had no real motivation and were defeated with little effort, there was gratuitous violence and shock-horror that was pretty unnecessary, and at the end of the day it spun out nothing good at all. Also loving SHADOWLAND. But other than that, every Marvel event has something neat to come out of it, no matter how bad the event itself might be. Edit: On second thought, Shadowland gave us the new Power Man.
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Jul 6, 2014 22:03
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I'd also like to add that Civil War ruined Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. So, uh, there's that.
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Jul 6, 2014 22:18
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I will continue to defend how much better MUA2 was over MUA1 until the day I die. Civil War story and all.
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Jul 6, 2014 22:22
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Little Mac posted:
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Jul 6, 2014 22:25
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OldTennisCourt posted:Why the hell did they think sweeping away half their entire roster was a good plan? and then it Cataclysm they did it AGAIN
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Jul 6, 2014 22:33
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Random Stranger posted:I actually liked the summer Annual events DC had right then. Armageddon 2001 and the Eclipso thing were a fun way to give everyone a framework for the character's story in the annual. Yeah, the payoff at the end sucked for both of them, but we got fun stuff out of the annuals. Then they did that Bloodlines poo poo and the only good thing to come out of that was Hitman. I was gonna bring up Bloodlines, because it has a very soft spot in my heart. When I was naught but a little Rotinaj, I read primarily old comics, because family friends would give them to me. Stuff from the 80s, cheap reprints of stuff... I had a Spiderman vs Superman and a Superman vs Batman event comic, or something like that... Then, when I was brought to a specific pizza restaurant, they had a rack of comics. Most of 'em were dogeared and tattered, but still legible. There was a copy of the second half of the big event finale to Bloodlines, "Bloodbath". The whole premise of Bloodlines was that a bunch of spinal fluid drinking aliens that looked like the Xenomorphs ended up on Earth, and start drinking spinal fluid. Every comic in DC did an Annual issue where a new hero was introduced, after the spinal fluid aliens awakened someone's metagene by drinking their juices. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. A whole bunch of brand new heroes, some who were all cyberpunk, some who were all '90s! There was a Mood Ring Hulk, who changed color depending on how mad he got and how strong he was! A dude whose power was... Uh, he had gross armor skin and looked weird, and used lots of guns! A cyberpunk girl whose arms turned into knives! A guy who had the power to emulate superpowers and skills around him! Hitman! And in Bloodbath pt. 2, all these New Blood heroes got to fight against a big scary giant Alien monster who was beelining for Metropolis through an infinitely long swamp! Explosions and cool stuff! All the DC heroes got taken out by the alien's power drain field! Superman got to be a badass and blow up an oil deposit with heat vision! And then the coolest splash page ever!  Rereading it now, I see how 90s and over-the-top extreme it was, even if it wasn't QUITE as bad as some of the Image poo poo soon to come. But it still blew 8-year-old me away with all the stuff a kid wants to see. It would have been nice if a single one of the comics spinning out of Bloodlines aside from Hitman hadn't been garbage. "Gunfire" wasn't... excrement, but it wasn't good, either. The rest... Eh.
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Jul 6, 2014 23:35
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We're all agreed on Countdown, right? Because gently caress Countdown.
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Jul 7, 2014 00:13
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Deadpool posted:I mean, Hawk? Really? According to Wikipedia, he was supposed to be Captain Atom, but then it was either leaked, or too many readers worked it out ahead of time, so they changed it to Hawk.
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Jul 7, 2014 00:56
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Ensign_Ricky posted:We're all agreed on Countdown, right? Countdown at least had the most entertaining version of Superboy Prime (I'll kill you to death!) I literally remember nothing about Death of the New Gods aside from Morrison saying that you shouldn't read it because it makes no sense with the story he was writing. EDIT: actually I remember the Source being revealed as a two-face looking thing. Which is pretty stupid so
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Jul 7, 2014 01:08
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I would love to read about the Countdown spin-offs, because everybody knows how terrible Countdown itself is and why, but I hear very little about like, Arena and Salvation Run.
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Jul 7, 2014 01:18
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catlord posted:I would love to read about the Countdown spin-offs, because everybody knows how terrible Countdown itself is and why, but I hear very little about like, Arena and Salvation Run. Yeah I like to know more about Arena. All I know is the fact they tried to make Captain Atom become the Monarch like he was suppose to become in Armageddon 2001, but then reverse it like a month later.
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Jul 7, 2014 01:21
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I think Ultimatum wins just for being both the most pointless and the most offensively awful. Loeb should have been fired out of a cannon for producing that piece of poo poo.
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Jul 7, 2014 01:31
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