jueves, 10 de diciembre de 2015

The Top Ten Worst DC Comics of 2015

I just can't stop doing this kind of things can I?

Yep, just as in the last two years I'm here to create a list about the most horrendous, terrible and downright despicable titles that we had the bad luck to encounter this year and this time they have come back with a vengeance.

That's right, as you may remember last year I mentioned that there weren't as many bad books as the year before it. That's not the case in 2015 since there were TONS of bad books and some series actually became even worse than in 2014 with completely disgusting directions, bad ideas and awful creative teams.

I also mentioned last year that some of my choices could be considered controversial and they indeed were since some of the titles I included were in fact not terrible technically but I included them anyway because of what they made me feel. Again, that's not the case here either since all the titles I'm including are universally panned by both critics and fans and will most certainly not be considered scandalous to put them here at all (aside from a few people who will most likely give me some hate about it anyway).

Before we begin though, let's start with some dishonorable mentions that were sadly present this time:
  • Ann Nocenti's Klarion: Uber terrible title in every regard concerning pacing, dialogue and conclusion but I still didn't hate it as much as I expected, probably because it only had three issues this year.
  • Brian Buccellato's Convergence: Crime Syndicate: Incredibly bland story that didn't manage to achieve anything but since it was only two issues, it saves from this list.
  • Tony Bedard's Convergence: Green Lantern/Parallax: Ah, Bedard, you always have to make an appearance here don't you? I honestly wish you could write better than your usual dull stuff. 
  • Cullen Bunn's Aquaman: This series was literally so badly received that Bunn was forced to leave the book before he concluded his story. It was for the better though.
Well, that fortunately wasn't long but don't let that short list fool you, we're about to see some awful stuff. Now, with these out of the way, we're counting down!

10. Robert Venditti/Van Jensen/Brett Booth's The Flash.


The worst part about this is that I was genuinely excited about it at first.

I like these authors, I really like them. Venditti's Green Lantern continues to be a quite consistent read every month, Jensen's Green Lantern Corps was a pretty enjoyable run with tons of great characterization, Booth can create some quite vibrant action scenes and in theory he should be perfect for the character.

So, what happened?

How about storiarcs that take waaaaay too long to unfold? Their initial story about The Future Flash started solid enough but it quickly became too repetitive with Barry constantly fighting against his future self and with the latter replacing him for a while which only extended the storyline even more. However, the worst offense about this is that future Barry was not interesting enough to hold the reader's attention, he was just as darker version of the protagonist which was already a cliche when Mark Waid did it almost 20 years ago in the franchise.

The worst part would come later though, once that Professor Zoom/Eobard Thawne is reintroduced to the DCU. One would think that reintroducing Barry's archenemy would be an event that would have some build-up to it but it didn't, he just appeared immediately after The Future Flash arc with no explanation about his presence.

For that reason readers can't actually be hyped for his reappearance, is so poorly planned and executed that is just anticlimactic. Speaking of poor plans, this is probably one of the worst incarnations of The Reverse-Flash that I've ever seen due that his idea is simply destroying Barry's life by attacking him along with a bunch of metahumans. That's an incredibly by the numbers direction and makes me wish that DC would have just left him into limbo instead of  reintroducing him that way.

This storyline is not over up to this date and I seriously hope that we're getting a new creative team once that is finally concluded.

Despite of all this criticism, the series is not abysmal, just outstandingly mediocre. However, we're about to see some terrible stuff later and speaking of the devil...

9. Tony Daniel's Deathstroke.

The last Deathstroke volume was pretty decent in retrospective.

Sure, it had Rob Frikking Liefeld in the middle of it that made most people try to forget about it but it actually had some really good stories by Kyle Higgins and Justin Jordan at the beginning and end respectively.

And then DC decided to give the relaunch to another artist with writing aspirations.

To be fair though, at difference from Liefeld, Tony Daniel is actually a pretty damn good artist who is able to create quite dynamic and energetic action scenes full of beautiful characters.

As a writer though, he leaves a lot to be desired.

The stories are completely by the numbers at best and humourouly bad at worst. Deathstroke, instead of being portrayed as a experienced tactician like he should be, he's characterized as a stupid fratboy who I don't even understand how can he even be considered the world's greatest mercenary. The dialogue can be pretty awkward at times with the characters saying dumb line after dumb line. The pacing is quite chaotic with the story jumping from place to place without proper transitions. Finally, the villains are just a joke.

Speaking of the villains, they're not only bad but they're also a retcon due that Daniel uses Slade's father as the "mastermind" who is targeting him while at the end of Higgins' run it was revealed that Slade's dad is just an old-man who spends his last days on a bed. Daniel might think that this retcon is dramatic and shocking (which is not since "the protagonist's father is the villain" is an obnoxious cliche at this point) but it ruins the strong themes and ending that Higgins was trying to create.

If it wasn't for such retcon, I would call this "so bad that is good" but that new direction kills what was one of the best stories based on the character and I suppose that's as good of a reason to make it simply bad.

Nonetheless, while there are some things I appreciate about this book, I can't say the same about others.

8. Sean Ryan's New Suicide Squad.


This is yet another series that I was initially excited for based on one of Sean Ryan's previous works Flashpoint: Grodd of War which is easily one of the best stories based on Gorilla Grodd and this book actually didn't start so bad, I would even call it decent at the beginning.

Still, a few issues in it was obvious that neither Ryan nor DC knew what to do with the book.

For one, Deathstroke was originally supposed to be part of the main cast but he quickly left the team for reasons that were not well-explained because he was going to star his own series (and as we just saw, that didn't turn out so well). Joker's Daughter was also going to be a part of the book but she also left it almost immediately after Slade (no big loss there though, the character is awful).

Those are not the only problems about the erratic nature of the cast though since there was also supposed to be a "New" New Suicide Squad which consisted of Poison Ivy, Reverse-Flash, a Talon, Black Hand and Parasite, they were heavily promoted by DC at the end of every series saying that they were going to replace the old team for a while. Only two of those characters actually appeared in the series and only The Reverse-Flash played an important role in the story (and that was just at the end), Parasite was so ignored that even Ryan joked about how the team completely forgot about him.

Which is not funny Ryan, it just shows how little you have planned about your own stories and how little effort you have put into them. You may be self-aware but you're still a lazy writer.

Speaking of lazy writing, the title quickly devolved into immensily mediocre, immensily BORING stories with forgettable villains, dull dialogue and awkward characterization for the cast. The characterization was so bad that most of the members of the team are unrecognizable, Deadshot is pretty insecure after having been hurt in his last mission that he couldn't even shoot right, Harley went emo because she considered herself a monster, Black Manta is constantly questioning himself and his own motivations, etc. All of them have something in common though, they are mostly useless in each mission (to be fair though, I think that at the very least Ryan wrote a solid, everyman-ish Captain Boomerang).

Fortunately. at the time I'm writing this article it has been announced that Tim Seeley is taking over the book but Ryan's legacy will remain as the author who wrote one of the most derivative and unexciting Suicide Squad runs ever.

Unfortunately, even worse things still continue.

7. Meredith Finch/David Finch's Wonder Woman.

Oh boy, where do I begin?

For one, the arrival of Meredith Finch into the title was received by a lot of criticism not only because it was immediately following the critically-acclaimed work of Brian Azzarello but also due that initial rumours stated that David Finch only wanted to work on Wonder Woman if his wife was the writer. This was deservedly accussed of nepotism and made a lot of people already condemn the run. Me on the other hand and as usual, wanted to give it a fair chance.

And I'm being completely fair when I say this book is terrible.

Dialogue that is either dull, awkward and sometimes tries to sound more profound that it actually is and ends-up sounding pretty dumb as a result. Ideas that are either not really interesting or plain bad. Finally, the Finchs are reintroducing some old characters in ways that painfully miss the point of their original concept.

No, I'm not talking about their reinvention of Donna Troy despite that is an easy target due that is one of the most criticized aspects of the run by making her overly-violent and clueless. No, I'm talking about some of the villains that they reintroduced like Aegeus who is easily one of the most annoying Wonder Woman villains, let alone characters, of all time, he's simply a whiny and stupid kid who wants power and once that he realizes he has been manipulated all this time (because that apparentely wasn't obvious enough) he decides to help Diana and she is forgiving enough to save him in spite of him having constantly threatened to kill her before. Of course this also brings the point of the awful characterization that Diana receives who is either too weak of character or too idiotic to act as the strong and competent heroine that she usually is.

However, believe it or not, those are not the reasons which forced me to put this on the list.

Oh no, all of the previous flaws are perfectly encapsulated in the next creation that the Finchs introduced: Eirene, the Goddess of Peace.

Eirene has been manipulating Aegeus all this time because Wonder Woman killed her lover Ares and wants to kill her in revenge. Then she starts explaining how there always needs to be a war because that allows men to focus their violence into a common objective instead of using it against each other.

Which is both a quite convoluted and incredibly STUPID explanation. I'm assuming that Meredith Finch wants to give this mad woman a justifcation for her actions but they don't make any sense whatsover. It seems like she doesn't even understand the basics that wars are not a necessity and that violence will occur with or without them, people kill other people in wars, that's still violence! Of course, we could also  explore about how the absense of war doesn't automatically means peace or viceversa but let's say that I have talked enough about this horrendous idea.

For being hilariously stupid and ruining what used to be one of the best DC titles this run certainly has its well-deserved place in this list.

Nonetheless, there are even bigger evils to hate.

6. Cullen Bunn's Lobo.


Nobody was excited about the new version of Lobo. Nobody.

Since the new redesign was revealed fans were already condemning the character and subsequent stories like Marguerite Bennett's awful one-shot in Villains Month didn't help matters. It seemed like the title was doomed from the beginning.

And then Cullen Bunn came on board and made things even worse.

How would you ask? Well, for one Bunn completely failed at selling the character by creating a quite by the numbers, predictable and utterly unremarkable story that relies in hollow shock value effect where he's mostly focused on demonstrating how Lobo was a complete badass by showing him seduce women, having others immediately recognize how cool he is and killing lots and lots people.

The problem about this is that is all shallow and artificial, Lobo doesn't have enough charm nor personality to make the readers believe that all of this is actually true. Sure, he kills a lot of people indeed but all of them are weaklings and don't present enough depth to make you care about the conflict and thus they don't elevate the protagonist as much as the author wants to. Lobo pretty much destroys everything in his path with little to no problem with very few challenges so he can't actually demonstrate how much of a badass he actually is because there's never a true danger for him. The fact that the rest of the characters keep talking about how competent he is at his job just makes the author trying too hard to make the readers believe that.

What I hated the most though, was how Bunn started to downgrade other characters to elevate his Mary Su... I mean protagonist. The Indigo Tribe and Red Lanterns were some of the last Lobo victims and they were quickly massacred by him and none of them were portrayed correctly because if they were they would have offered a better fight. The worst offender here was how badly portrayed characters like Bleez and Rankorr were, especially the latter who was mostly a deranged maniac instead of the everyman who Peter Milligan and Charles Soule were writing about, oh and he also was easily and unsatisfyingly killed by Lobo, YAY!

Oh and the ending, there wasn't any whatsoever. Lobo just became delusional because of a drug he was exposed to and proclaimed himself to be "The Last Czarnian" which is a poorly way to finish his angst and development that he was receiving during the series (which wasn't even really good to begin with but it should have been better concluded).

I'm not even that much of a fan of the old Lobo but I feel sorry for them, this is not a worthy successor.

Thank God that this series is cancelled at this point but you may think that based on how much I have been hating on the book the whole year it would be higher in the list but no, that honor belongs to something more personal and you know what that means!

Yeah, is Green Arrow again but goes even beyond that.

5. Andrew Kreisberg/Ben Sokolowski's Green Arrow.


It's amazing how bad characters are able to describe themselves so well with a single line.

But it would be unfair to put all of their kind in the same sack because there are bad characters and then there's Cupid, a creation so painfully ill-conceived that makes all the other characters that could be considered bad look better in comparison.

You think that Danny Chase from Marv Wolfman's New Teen Titans is bad because he was annoying? He's Mr. Badass compared to her.

Think that Cobalt Blue from Mark Waid's Flash run is bad because he was forced and a poor villain? At least he presented some kind of threat and justified a bit his amount of importance.

Hell, even my own sentiments about Val-Zod as someone who received a huge level of importance despite of having a complete lack of personality means nothing against her, he might as well be the most charismatic person who actually deserved his spot next to her.

Cupid is an abominable mystery. A character who not only has one of the most obnoxious personalities that you could find in comics but is also one of the most detestable ones at the same time but for some reason her creator seems to be completely unaware of this or is purposely ignoring it (which would be worse).

In her previous incarnation she was culprit of both murder and rape which would be okay if she was supposed to be a villain but you quickly learn that was not the author's intention because an actual villain would have suffered the respective punishment for such crimes but she never did, she didn't even get a slap in the wrist. Everything was forgiven for her, everything came easy to her, everything was incredibly forced about her.

And with her reintroduction in the current continuity it seems like Andrew Kreisberg still wants to continue that route without even referencing her previous acts, he still wants everyone to ignore and forgive all of her actions.

Oh, but that's not the only thing he wants. He's not only asking you to forgive a rapist, he's asking you to LIKE a rapist.

What other reason could be for her constant appearances in Kreisberg's Green Arrow works in both comics and TV? He wants to sell this atrocity as some kind of charming Harley Quinn wannabe but she's not, Harley actually has a natural charm about her. Cupid suffers from a HUGE Sue complex where her creator makes every person acknowledge her existence somehow being either in stories or real life. He wants this rapist to be a thing.

And you could be saying: "Oh but that doesn't mean that she's still the same creep in this continuity!".

Did you see the picture above? She said "Get your hands off my man!" to Emiko, Oliver's sister, who is a 12 years old girl.

So yeah, she's still a damn creep. Even if that wasn't the case, crimes need to receive some sort of punishment, not simply because of the fact that there needs to be some ramifications but also because it allows for a satisfying conclusion to a story. Cupid's story never ended, she just continues her horrid journey without anything bad happening to her.

I don't personally like to touch upon social topics because I feel is an overused theme that many people try to exploit these days, but even I have to admit that she's a goddamn sexist and misoginistic character due that she represents women in a terrible light as people who need to be always obsessing over men to the point of commiting atrocities. Plus, she's also misandrist because she treats most men like crap to the point of violating and killing them. Nobody sane should like her.

Oh but don't think I completely detest her. I just hope that if she's ever brought back to the comics she suffers a painful and humilliating death, burns in hell and people spit in her grave. That's all.

In conclusion: Cupid is putrid.

... Wait, was this article about her or... Oh right, criticism about stories!

Yeah, the rest of Kreisberg's run is quite uninspired with an insignificant villain who is quickly defeated. He also introduces Felicity Smoak from the Arrow TV show who is portrayed as a blatant Mary Sue and could have easily been the most annoying character here if it wasn't for, you know, the already mentioned one.

That was pretty long and we're not even over yet, there's something that I hated more this year and sadly, is also connected to my favorite character.

4. Ben Percy's Green Arrow.


"Thousands of words, thousands of eyes, that's an equation that results in making readers believe I'm saying something".

I'm going to say this about Kreisberg's run: At least he didn't try to PRETEND he was making something more than his usual terrible stuff.

What happens when an author tries to PRETEND that he/she is saying something more?

Well, then you have an incredibly pretentious work.

Then you have Ben Percy's run on Green Arrow.

I was honestly ready to love this run. After all, it was replacing one of the writers I dislike the most and it was also accompanied by Patrick Zircher, a fantastic storyteller to handle the art. Everything seemed promising.

Then the first issue arrived. It only took the First. Frikking. Issue. to make me realize that this was going to be terrible.

The image above is just an example of what kind of writing Percy brings to the title but such phrase perfectly summarizes his work here. Pay special attention to that line, read it quite a few times and you might realize what it actually means.

What? You don't need to read it more than once? Of course you don't because from the first time you put your eyes on it you immediately realize it means nothing.  

NOTHING.

Overworked narration, pompous and unnatural dialogue and stories that represent themes more than an actual plot are abundant in this run. Is like the annoying douchebag who tries to use complicated words to impress others until someone finally tells him the truth, he doesn't sound smart, he sounds like a complete awkward idiot.

Let's talk a bit more about such stories (if someone can even call them that way), they're devoid of any actual substance despite that the writing wants to tell you otherwise. Percy is trying to go into the more "traditional" route for Green Arrow which is touching upon social issues (which is not even that relevant for the kind of character that Green Arrow is but whatever) but he does it in such a shallow, ridiculous and downright dumb way that I think he actually hurts more the issues that he's trying to address.

Want to talk about racism and discrimination in general? How about adding one-dimensional, unreal villains and racist robots? That makes the whole story completely relatable to people right?!

The plot itself has no depth and the message itself is badly explained. This is one of the problems with current writers who want to talk about serious topics, they just go all like: "Oh, this is something popular... I mean relevant right now and it will make me sound intelligent and empathetic if I address it!".

No, is not only about that. You need to go beyond that. You actually need to explore what happens in every side to actually create a situation that people can relate to, not only a sector that you want to impress or be liked by. You know, a real story with actual characters, not only vehicles for the kind of message you want to deliver.

None of that was more obvious than in the first Green Arrow Annual (what a way to start the format). Percy spent the issue talking about how Oliver was "privileged" while also introducing a theme about discrimination with forgettable villains once again. This whole topic didn't offend me that much because Ollie is privileged, the problem is that Percy didn't actually want to explore the idea, he didn't make Ollie express his own opinions about the topic, you know, like a true person, he only made the guy start questioning himself like a clueless moron and called it a day.

What really offended me though, was that Percy made a girl say to Oliver: "You're rich, you're hot, you're white, you're not real. Nobody can relate to you".

Which is complete bullcrap. Oliver Queen is my favorite character and I don't need to be neither rich nor white to relate to him. I relate to his incredibly emotional and human nature, I don't need anything else. That's yet another problem with this kind of stories, the writers think that they're speaking for everyone when they actually don't, at all.

The fact that this run only uses such aspects to hide the incredible mediocrity of its stories and uses simplistic ideas disguised with unnatural narration it's just the icing in this digusting cake.

This work has been so badly received that they're even rumours of the upcoming cancellation of the title. Even Zircher himself has been either unintentionally or intentionally making fun of it by saying things like "if you can't create natural narration you better try harder" and "Privileged is one of the most used insults right now". The title is so bad that I don't even care about its rumoured cancellation, I don't even care about my favorite character losing his book.

F*ck this story. F*ck this direction. F*ck this patronizing, generalizing, unreal, pretentious and sanctimonious run.

F*CK IT ALL!

With that out of the way, we can go on with the direction that caused the most destruction.


3. Daniel H. Wilson/Marguerite Bennett/Mike Johnson's Earth 2: World's End.

No you won't.

This series already concluded but its legacy will live on.

I have talked a lot about that last year, it was also part of my Top Ten Worst DC Comics of 2014 and with good reason. It suffered from many problems that I have already mentioned in that list like terrible pacing, bad characterization, editorial problems, retcons and a plot that revolved around a single idea: Destroy the whole planet.

Something that actually happened, the planet ended-up being destroyed.

Yes, I was right all this time about my prediction about how this series meant the end of Earth 2. It meant the end of James Robinson's wonderful worldbuilding that he created early on the main book. It meant the end of the readers' investment on the title. It meant the end of everything literally.

I still don't understand how this could have happened. How did DC think that this was actually a good idea? Earth 2 had the potential to become a rich universe in which the Golden Age characters could have a new life with tons of opportunities to go into different direction that were still true to their core.

However, they decided to go into a terrible route handled by an even worse main writer who made everything possible to create the most unsatisfying, pointless and out of place story that not even one of the worst haters could have imagined.

And you know what's both funny and frustrating about this? World's End wasn't even a proper end for the era. The end would actually come in Convergence by Jeff King which wasn't even a good series but at least treated the characters with more respect than this and showed them a new beginning.

For being one of the most catastrophic mandates and executions in any sense of the word, this book couldn't go any lower than this. This could be considered the Countdown of this generation people but at least Countdown didn't destroy things that people actually cared about.

There's something I consider even more terrible though and is once again, something that goes along my own beliefs about what is worse.

2. Daniel H. Wilson/Marguerite Bennett/Mike Johnson's Earth 2.

Yeaaaaah, whatever happened to that and you?

If there's something worse than being World's End is failing at being World's End.

As you remember, I put Tom Taylor's Earth 2 run at the top of my list last year because it was the beginning of the end for the franchise but despite of all my criticisms about it, one can't deny that at least big things were actually happening there. You can make the case that the same was occurring in World's End too.

None of that was present in the last few issues of Earth 2. It was only filler, World's End filler which is the worst kind of filler you can find.

Each new story consisted of only little tales that contributed nothing to the main plot, they were forgettable at best. They were focused on characters but again, they didn't present anything particularly interesting about the cast. Now that I think about it, they didn't even were followed upon due that many of the sub-plots that were introduced here were not continued in the upcoming series.

What happened to Khalid and his desire to stop being Doctor Fate? Nobody knows.

What happened to Dick Grayson's son? Nobody knows.

What happened to the different entities that were trying to save the planet? Yeah, you get the idea.

It was only a boring version of the main event. Nothing more, nothing less. This automatically makes it more terrible in my eyes because at least I had some fun hating on the crossover. This made me feel nothing.

It was one of the biggest wastes of time that the franchise and comics in general have ever seen and of course, readers are also included.

So, this brings me to the final point: What is the worst DC comic of 2015?

You see, I have been fluctuating all this year about which would be at the top of the list.

At the beginning of the year I thought it would be Kreisberg's Green Arrow because of the reintroduction of Cupid. I was going to say something like: "This is the book I hated the most and if we're talking about pure hate it always comes back to Andrew Kreisberg".

A few months ago I thought it would be Percy's Green Arrow because of the terrible Annual and I would have been all like: "Pretentiousness is one of the most absurd things that is currently happening in the industry and deserves to be called the way it is".

But then in the last couple of months I realized that pure badness trumps everything.

Sure, all of these titles are considered bad but this is a special kind of bad. Is the kind of bad that refused to change, that refused to acknowledge its previous mistakes and continued its terrible ways despite of everyone telling it to do otherwise.

In the first year I did this I put a book that made me feel like I was wasting time on my time to waste time on top

In the second year, the number one choice was a disappointment.

This year however, was a book that exceeded my expectations. I knew it was going to be terrible but I couldn't even imagine how terrible things could actually become. Is the reason why I put the last two titles above in those spots, they share the same theme.

And one person is the common culprit.

1. Daniel H. Wilson's Earth 2: Society.


I miss you Tom Taylor, I really do.

Despite that your whole vision, either mandated or personal, sucked balls at least you were able to WRITE.

I can't sincerely say the same about the author in question.

Wilson has demonstrated over the course of his Earth 2 era something in particular: He's the worst thing that could have happened to the line and is no more obvious anywhere else than in this book in particular.

The pacing is still incredibly erratic but this time he doesn't have the excuse of being forced to work with the weekly format like in World's End anymore. The concepts are poorly explored but he also doesn't have the excuse to play with a single premise again either. Finally, the characterization is a mess but he doesn't have to deal with the enormous cast like in such event.

The characterization is both infuriating and intriguing at the same time. It makes you wonder how an author can get these persons so wrong. Alan Scott became emotionless instead of the charismatic leader of the team, Jay became an irresponsible asshole intead of the likable everyman of the past, Helena wants to go back to the old Earth 2 when her original motivation was the contrary, Kara is a gullible idiot, Val-Zod has even less of a personality and importance, Jimmy is a madboy, etc.

I'm even defending characters that I previously didn't care for for God's sake! 

Wilson actually makes me think that someone like Val Frikking Zod deserves better!

Even beyond the misguiden characterization, the story is mediocre, pointless and some parts even inconsistent. As I mentioned before, Wilson is not following ANY of the plot-points he previously created. Characters like Khalid and Dick Grayson's son are completely absent, the entities that existed before are gone.

Ridiculously forced directions occur constantly. Kara breaks-up with Val and fights him simply because Terry Sloan told her that he's somewhat culprit of killing her cousin, let alone the fact that Sloan is not trustworthy at all to actually believe him, that's not how it happened! Clark didn't die the way Wilson explains it and Val only got out of his prison after the others discovered him. Speaking of Sloan, he's killed in a pretty stupid and useless way because Wilson wanted to make the menace of Jimmy even bigger (at least I think that's what happened because he doesn't make it clear at all). Finally, Jimmy went crazy and eeeviiil because Oliver Queen insulted him.

You understand what I mean by "forced" right? Nothing is ever natural with Wilson, absolutely nothing, he just decides he wants to do something and does it no matter how out of character or idiotic it may seem.

His final issue just arrived at the point I'm writing this and is not terrible but a rather unremarkable way to end a run and if you think that he addressed many of the mistakes that happened during this series then you're not paying attention.

Final point, do I consider Daniel H. Wilson a bad writer?

Well, I haven't read his novels (and I don't plan to) but based on all the things I have actually checked out I can sincerely say: HELL TO THE F*CKING YES!

His comic work is some of the worst things I have ever put my eyes on, is so bad that makes everything cited in this list look passable, is so bad that actually makes me wonder if the guy secretly works for a rival company and was asked to ruin this line on purpose.

I actually feel sorry for Dan Abnett who is going to write the upcoming run because he's inheriting one of the biggest disasters in years. Nothing will ever be the same for this franchise people, it would quite frankly need a miracle to recover (or even better, a retcon).

If there's something worse than being World's End and failing at being World's End is having learned nothing from World's End.

Okay guys, I have gone all over-the-top in this list and as usual, I don't plan to end the year in by being negative because that's not in my nature. Hopefully before the year ends I will manage to get my Top Ten Best DC Comics of 2015 list ready.

See you later!

24 comentarios:

  1. Wow, you really, really didn't like Earth 2 comics this year...I count Society as one of my favorites. As a concept it's complete dynamite. Maybe it doesn't hurt that my overall Earth 2 has been far more sporadic than yours. Lives and motivations have been in complete turmoil since Robinson's first issue. I think that's kind of the point. This is the series/franchise where all bets are off (ever moreso than Giffen/DeMatteis's Justice League 3000/3001, which judging from how you view Earth 2 may not be the safest thing for you to read), anything goes. For a property that totally reinvented the Justice Society concept, finally there literally is a society, but in an entirely new configuration. In a lot of ways, it's an ideal superhero world, one that makes more sense than superheroes have, technically, since WWII, when they were at their most popular. Well, like I said, it intrigues me. And it has yet to bother me. But we can agree to disagree about it.

    ResponderBorrar
    Respuestas
    1. The biggest problem for me was the execution. I don't mind new beginnings, I like them a lot actually, the thing is that Wilson's execution was so terrible and he got so many of the characters wrong that I just couldn't help but hate it.

      But anyway and again, if you liked it that's cool.

      Borrar
  2. "Since the new redesign was revealed fans were already condemning the character and subsequent stories like Marguerite Bennett's awful one-shot in Villains Month didn't help matters. It seemed like the title was doomed from the beginning."

    I admit that Bunn's series was flawed, but to call Bennett's one-shot awful is extraordinarily unfair. What makes it awful?

    ResponderBorrar
    Respuestas
    1. I wouldn't have disliked Bennett's one-shot so much if it wasn't that she used one of my most disliked writing effects: Repetition.

      The whole "Sorry, not sorry" got old just in the second one and I'm going to say this about Bunn: At least he referenced it without overdoing it.

      Borrar
    2. There's nothing wrong with repetition, not when used in certain instances. In this case, highlighting the character's ambiguity; on one hand, one could say that the line was just reflective of his sheer indifference and that both phrases were utterly meaningless to him; this was, after all, a guy who rarely smiled, and when he did it was usually with predatory glee as he would leap in for the kill or was on the hunt. On the other hand, though, the fact that he kept repeating the line indicates an obsessive and unstable personality, even going so far as to hint at the character possibly having a conscience that was either eating away at him or one he's trying to ignore. Plus, the fact that he had a conscience was in itself suggestive that perhaps he wasn't the real Lobo.

      It's maddening nothing was done with the imposter storyline. There were so many fascinating possibilities for it. I mean, what if 90s Lobo was the imposter and this "new" Lobo was the real one, this scary, brilliant mastermind behind Czarnia's destruction (or vice versa)?

      Borrar
    3. "this was, after all, a guy who rarely smiled, and when he did it was usually with predatory glee as he would leap in for the kill or was on the hunt" At least, in the 23.2 issue, anyway. Bunn's version was a totally different breed.

      Borrar
  3. Lobo was far from the worst. If anything, that title belongs to "Doomed".

    ResponderBorrar
    Respuestas
    1. Eh, I thought that Doomed had a likable character at the very least.

      Borrar
    2. Having a likable protagonist doesn't make a story "good". I mean, is Frankenstein, Macbeth or Hamlet "likable"? Or the protagonists from "Masque of the Red Death", "The Tell Tale Heart", "High Plains Drifter", "A Clockwork Orange", "Starship Troopers" and countless others, for that matter?

      Borrar
  4. Some are even worse, especially the retards who've been sending Marguerite Bennett and Cullen Bunn death and rape threats.

    ResponderBorrar
  5. "The worst offender here was how badly portrayed characters like Bleez and Rankorr were, especially the latter who was mostly a deranged maniac instead of the everyman who Peter Milligan and Charles Soule were writing about, oh and he also was easily and unsatisfyingly killed by Lobo, YAY!"

    You can't really comment on Bleez's being "badly portrayed" given that she was barely there. In terms of Rankorr, I sincerely doubt being hunted and shot at by a maniac would make him feeling amiable.

    ResponderBorrar
    Respuestas
    1. Rankorr has been in even worse situations in his own title and he never acted this way. He simply wasn't himself, it was a badly-written portrayal.

      Borrar
    2. He's been written way worse.

      Borrar
    3. Not really, he was written much better by both Peter Milligan and Charles Soule.

      Borrar
    4. Including the "Future's End" issue of "Red Lanterns"?

      Borrar
  6. "What I hated the most though, was how Bunn started to downgrade other characters to elevate his Mary Su... I mean protagonist."

    Writers have been doing the same thing to Lobo for years to elevate their own characters, including Hitman, Harley Quinn, etc. and yet no one bitches about that. And now that the roles have been switched and he's played straight it's suddenly an issue?

    ResponderBorrar
    Respuestas
    1. The thing is that the cameos in both Hitman and Harley Quinn are not meant to be taken seriously.

      Everything in Lobo is to be taken too seriously, especially Lobo himself.

      Borrar
    2. There's nothing wrong with having Lobo taken seriously. As a character, he is one DC's darkest and has, I feel, potential to be more than Bozo the space clown.

      Borrar
    3. "Lobo doesn't have enough charm nor personality to make the readers believe that all of this is actually true." The problem isn't personality - it's clearly defined through his various gestures, expressions, actions, the things he says, etc. "Charm" is subjective among readers, especially in terms of what they're looking for and how they're reading/viewing said-comic.

      Borrar
  7. Eh, there were several worse ones. Andreyeko's Batwoman and the rape damage control. Scott Lobdell's Red Hood and the Outlaws and Red Hood/Arsenal are as close to the bottom of the barrel as you can get. Teen Titans was a complete mess.

    ResponderBorrar
    Respuestas
    1. Don't forget "Future's End".

      Borrar
    2. The thing is that Andreyko immediately stated that there was no rape and the explanation also happened in story. Lobdell's Red Hood stuff wasn't great but nothing to be really hateful about. Teen Titans should have gotten a nomination though.

      Borrar
    3. The explanation for the rape had the villain telling the hero, "it's not rape because you wanted it all along". And the villain continues to go on and on about how she hadn't slept with a girl since college, or that she was tired of sleeping with old men. It was the most transparent and yet ineffective attempt at PR damage control I've seen in a long time.

      Borrar