The Top Ten Worst DC Comics of 2016

Oh, some of you are going to hate me for this.

Yep, the fun and hate never end and this year has brought a lot of it in so many different levels. 2016 has been a special year for DC Comics since here it is when the Rebirth initiative begins and I have to say that for the most part it was a success, it has brought several quality titles that I guarantee will appear in my Top Ten Best DC Comics of 2016 list. Is a great time to be a DC fan currently.

HOWEVER, some things that happened before and after such initiative were and still are terrible and therefore deserve to be called out to prevent them from happening again or stop them from continuing their awful path.

I suppose that you're wondering why I think I'm going to receive some hate because of this list right? Well, if you remember last year I mentioned that my picks for the worst of 2015 were titles that were universally panned both in terms of critics and fans alike.

This year though, not so much.

Yeah, there are a few titles here that some people actually like, some people actually love in fact but I simply don't share the same sentiment towards them. I can't help but find a certain amount of flaws on them that I simply can't tolerate and irritate me to no bounds.

Oh, I'm not taking this list lightly, believe me when I say that I truly hate every book that appears here, not only because the lack of quality in terms of execution but because of what they represent at their core. There are a bunch of tropes that I heavily dislike in comics and these titles perfectly exemplify them.

If you have been following my thoughts this whole year you won't be surprised by my picks so without wasting any more time let's say goodbye to:

10. Rob Williams' Martian Manhunter.

Okay, okay, this is not a good way to start I know. I know that some people actually really enjoyed this series and was well-received for the most part but hear me out.

I actually liked this series when it started. I thought that Rob Williams had a pretty nice vision for the book and a good handle of the character of J'onn J'onzz along with a sort of inventive ideas that could take him to the next level.

Then what the hell happened?

Let's just say that half-way I started to notice some of Williams' ticks, and this is something that happens to me quite often about every author's work, the narration, particularly the dialogue became quite unnatural and I realize that this series had cast consisting mostly of aliens but none of them talked in a normal way. Suddenly I realized that this was Williams' own intention because he wanted to push really hard his own style but he did it in a way that seemed like he was really trying to ape Grant Morrison's voice but he ultimately lacked the kind of bombastic tone of his dialogue and most of the time it only sounded awkward (Not saying that Morrison is perfect though since even Morrison himself can't write good Morrison' narration at times).

Plus, the characterization wasn't exactly great either. J'onn was divided in multiple personalities and I say "personalities" very lightly because these characters didn't have much personality as much as they had quirks. Mr. Biscuit was mostly noticeable because of his unrealistic lines, the FBI agent showed how a human would react to these situations, Pearl... does anyone remember Pearl's personality? I mean, she was thief but aside from that?

They were only themes to be frank and they didn't have much depth beyond that.

That being said, those are not the reasons why I put this book in this list.

At the end, after tons of awkward dialogue and characterization, it turned out that none of that was real. It was all in J'onn's head. It seems like years of solitude turned him insane and he created a whole Martian threat because he missed home so much. Hell, he even got rid of Pearl like she was nothing because that's exactly what she was, nothing. Not a character nor a person, absolutely nothing.

Why does this bother me so much? Because Williams wanted to push this theme so much to the point of disregarding everything that happened during the whole story, failing at offering a satisfying conclusion to the Martian menace simply due that he wanted to deliver a creative twist without realizing how this would actually affect the plot he has been building during the course of the title.

Pushing a theme over a story is the pure definition of being pretentious and you already know what I think about that.

Are there good aspects here? A few but most of the bad ones annoy the hell out of me and believe me, Williams' flaws would become even more obvious in some of his future works that we will see ahead.

9. James Bonny's Deathstroke.

What, did you think that the disaster of Tony Daniel's vision ended when he left the title? Well, guess again!

As you may remember, Tony Daniel's run on Deathstroke had this same exact spot last year due to its terribly written stories, derivative action movie dialogue and especially the awful characterization that he gave to Slade that refused to portray him as the estrategist he should be and instead depicted him as an annoying asshole with very little personality beyond that.

Although I forgot to mention last year that halfway of his run Daniel was accompanied by James Bonny in writing duties, hopefully to improve some of his flaws but a true improvement never occurred, not even when Daniel left the title to work in what he's actually good at, artwork.

To be fair, Bonny's ideas were actually more interesting than Daniel's on paper. Slade fighting against Lex Luthor and an army of Bizarros? That's an interesting challenge. Unfortunately, Bonny's execution was way too similar to Daniel's for his own good and ended-up committing the exact same mistakes which pretty much cemented this book as one of the worst eras of the character. Even the final battle against Ra's Al Ghul was so unremarkable that everyone forgot about it.

Thankfully the character is in good hands this time (And you will hear more about that in the next list I assure you) but one can't forget what went wrong with this volume and hopefully DC will actually learn to choose their creative teams better,

8. Meredith Finch's Wonder Woman.

Then again, DC still has a lot to prove after choosing one of the worst creative teams that ever existed for their most iconic superheroine.

Yes, once again we see our dear friends the Finchs here but this time most of the blame falls into Meredith's hands due that her husband left the title early on and so, the book only depended on her writing to survive.

And you know how the story goes already.

Nothing really changed this year in comparison, Meredith still continued her poor portrayal of Diana as a weak-willed, overly-trusting and blatantly stupid "heroine" who almost everytime was easily defeated by her enemies or even worse, easily manipulated by them.

One of the worst offenses this year was that Meredith wanted to give an interesting "twist" to her story and so she decided to make Hera the culprit of everything by revealing that she never really reformed and always secretly despised Diana and the rest for the fate of the Gods. Therefore, Meredith Finch completely disregarded all the character development Hera received during Brian Azzarello's run just because she wanted to surprise the readers which doesn't really create a good story as much as it shows a lack of respect for the previous one.

Worst of all is that the twist about Hera could have worked if only Finch would have written a proper development and build-up towards it but there weren't any hints that could demonstrate such change of heart and for that reason the twist ended-up being poorly planned and looked like it came out of nowhere.

Fortunately though, this is another run that is already over at this point and I can't really blame Meredith Finch that much because Greg Rucka would also try to retcon Brian Azzarello's run in his own way and while it was better executed, it still wasn't ideal. Nonetheless, this was still a terrible era for the character and hopefully will never be repeated in the near future.

There are bigger things to hate anyway.

7. Ben Percy's Green Arrow: Rebirth.

Yes, it is better than Ben Percy's New 52 Green Arrow run. Yes, it is still apparently improving with each new issue to the point that at times I would dare to call it good.

That still doesn't make me forget that early on this series was incredibly poorly written.

There are two things that Ben Percy should never, ever try to be: Profound or political (Or God forbid, both). Every time that Percy refuses to be relevant he actually demonstrates he has a decent skill at delivering an enjoyable story, some of the best issues from this particular title were entertaining because Percy wasn't forcing an idiotic message during the plot.

HOWEVER, whenever Percy decides to fall for some of his worst tendencies you can pretty much expect an issue ruined by political stupidity.

And I use the term "political" reaaaaally lightly since Percy doesn't actually deliver deep social commentary to make you think as much as he tries to use the latest buzzwords from the worst places from Twitter and Tumblr to gain some notoriety from that particular audience.

Phrases like "Social Justice Warrior", "You try to objectify me and you will bleed" and "Typical white guy, shoots before asking a question" are pretty common during this run. Phrases by the way that no human being actually says outside of the internet (And the last one is a pretty good example of racism, thanks for that) which makes me believe that Percy is not really interested in offering an actual complex situation and discussion, he only wants people to start retweeting/reblogging those words instead of worrying how they actually fit in his own story. Is pretty manipulative at best and detestable at worst.

On the other hand, the stories outside of those themes are not that great either. Percy has forced the Green Arrow/Black Canary relationship but he idealizes it to the point that is just unbelievable, especially considering that they don't share the same history since the reboot. This is a problem because by extracting the most problematic aspects of their romance (Oliver being a terrible boyfriend being the most prominent), you actually extract all the complexity from their dynamic and therefore makes it much less unique (Not to mention that you get the character wrong, as horrible as this might sound, an Oliver Queen who doesn't cheat is simply not Oliver Queen).

And let's not even mention that Percy doesn't even know what "Subtle" actually means. If the social media lines were not blatant enough, there are several instances where the characters couldn't be more blunt, one of my favorites being how Clock King (A different one from Jeff Lemire's run by the way, thanks for that again) now sports a clock tatoo in his frikking face which pretty much reminds me of Jared Leto's Joker with the word "Damaged" in his forehead. Literally IN YOUR FACE in every conceivable way.

This book could actually be good, it is in the right path to improvement so far but this year at least, the bad points outweigh the good ones and don't save it from being panned.

On the other hand, it could have been worse.

6. Sam Humphries' Green Lanterns.

"I'll find Darkseid and see what's he's doing for dinner. Ramen? Darkseid seems like a noodle guy. Ha Ha. Very funny."

...

You know, as human beings we should be able to distinguish crap being either in terms of writing, art, music and even comedy, and I know that opinions vary from person to person and that's actually a good thing. It creates a whole world of possibilities for people to discuss and express their different views about certain topics and create an interesting interaction where we all can learn something new from the most unexpected sources.

That being said: NO! THAT IS NOT FUNNY! NO ONE WILL EVER MAKE ME BELIEVE THAT SH*T IS FUNNY! JUST BECAUSE YOU SAY "VERY FUNNY" IT DOESN'T AUTOMATICALLY MAKE IT FUNNY!

*breathes* Jesus Christ, see what this series does to me?

Humphries' work on Green Lanterns is the equivalent of a young guy with no friends who tries very, very hard to be liked by telling jokes that are only funny to himself and doesn't have the actual social skills or self-awareness to understand that they're cringey as f*ck. Is impossible to not groan whenever the characters try to be comical, not only because the jokes themselves are awful but also because they're so out of place and unrealistic at times that is hard to understand their purpose (Seriously, who says "unsubscribe" when is trying to quit?) and their purpose certainly can't be to make people laugh right?

That's not the only problem though since early in the series, Humphries believed that the only way to create an interesting dynamic between the main characters, Simon and Jessica, was to create a conflict between both of them by making Jess really insecure about her role as a Green Lantern and Simon a total douche towards her, and is all so forced that one simply can't take it seriously. Humphries doesn't understand that their distinct backgrounds were enough to offer an interesting interaction between the two and was a great opportunity to develope strong themes about race and culture.

But hey, I suppose that awkward comedy is what these characters deserve.

Worst of all is that I actually like comedy, silly books don't bother me as long as they make me laugh, some of my favorite titles even belong in that genre.

Then again, some of my favorite titles in that genre actually became worse so what do I know?

5. Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis' Justice League 3001.

Yeah, believe it or not this list was not only made for me to argue with other people but also to prove me wrong and eat my words.

Remember that in my Top Ten Best DC Comics list last year I put Justice League 3001 as one of the best books thanks to its great team dynamic, compelling worldbuilding and enjoyable humour?

Then WTF happened here?

Well, those aspects that I just mentioned are worth nothing if an actual story with satisfying resolutions doesn't exist. This was the downfall of JL3001, its incapacity to bring a proper conclusion to all the plot-points it created. For example, at the beginning of the series there was the promise of a conflict between the team and the Injustice League... which never happened, then a battle between them and Blue Beetle and Booster Gold's own JL... which never happened, finally a last fight against the Legion of Doom... and you know how this rolls at this point.

Both Giffen and DeMatteis didn't bother to finish a story before starting the next one, it was just a chaotic mess where the readers didn't even receive a proper payoff for their time. And you know what's the saddest part? That the writers didn't bother to give the book a conclusion once that it was cancelled and just ended with a joke about how "They don't care about cancelled books" (Well, not exactly but you sure as hell can't tell me that is not what they were thinking). It was a complete insult to people who used to love this series and their investment on it.

After reading so much of these particular creators' works, I'm betting that this is mostly Giffen's fault. I love Keith Giffen, I love his ability to inject humour, creativity and energy in any story he works on but the guy simply doesn't give a flying f*ck once that one of his books is cancelled no matter if there are actually many unresolved sub-plots and tends to create rushed final issues with a spit on their covers. It happened in Doom Patrol, it happened in Threshold and it happened in Justice League 3001 (and is one of the reasons why I'm afraid of Blue Beetle's fate despite that is currently enjoyable).

One of the biggest disappointments of the year and makes it worth mentioning here. Mind you, it wasn't the BIGGEST disappointment this year but I will talk about that a bit later.

4. Bryan Hitch's Justice League.

I was actually thinking about what to put here because Bryan Hitch's Justice League of America, you know, that forgettable book that started during the DC You initiative, was still running this year. A book that was plagued by delays for unexplicable reasons since it offered pretty simplistic and borderline boring stories that didn't justify the time they took.

But I decided to focus on Hitch's biggest book right now because of what it did to the franchise (and also because I run out of space).

Geoff Johns's Justice League run became really good, especially during its final years. He managed to deliver on the promise that started at the beginning of the New 52 and closed that era in a satisfying way by making it the final book he worked on since he got a higher position at DC Comics which prompted the DC Rebirth initiative.

So, why pick someone with a lousy record like Hitch to follow on that?

Is possible because Hitch is a big name as an artist and has good contacts around the industry but that doesn't matter at all since the final product is really average, full of uninteresting moments and issues where basically nothing happens and it just seems like Hitch is extending the story for God knows why but doesn't have anything compelling to show to at least mitigate the sense of tediousness.

And about the characterization, nothing really to talk about it since Hitch barely got any character right. Worst of all, most of the team mostly depended on Superman for the most part and every time he was on scene he showed that he could handle the threats by himself. Is not a Justice League book if the other members of the team don't contribute to anything you know?

This book is still going on and one has to wonder why due that people are losing interest on it with each new issue, that is when they bother to even release an issue since it was once again, plagued by delays.

Mediocrity seems like running theme this year right? And is not over, is just beginning.

3. Rob Williams' Suicide Squad.

A promise is a promise.

Told you right at the beginning that Martian Manhunter wouldn't be the first time we see Williams on this list. Martian Manhunter was a pretty flawed "story" in my opinion but at least I could appreciate some of its ideas and the overall experimental intention.

None of that is present in Suicide Squad though. It's like if someone would have taken Williams, robbed all the creative ideas from his brain and then hire him to write one of the most uninspired stories in the franchise. This is especially disappointing because this title was launched to coincide with the release of the movie and for that reason the cast was created to reflect such change. Mind you, the film itself wasn't perfect but it still was much more interesting than anything that has happened in this book.

I don't really understand what's wrong with Williams here, is like he simply doesn't give a sh*t. The character work is unremarkable at best and pretty off at worst with little stories that try really hard to be interesting but often fail at gaining readers' attention, finally and most importantly, some of Williams' flaws are still present here like the unnatural dialogue and characterization which turn a really mediocre book into simply a bad one.

I'm willing to bet that Williams is mostly doing this for a paycheck because there's no passion in this project at all. Mainstream books are probably not the best choice for him, his thing is being pretentious in little properties where he can actually go crazy with ideas but he demonstrated that he's a total hack when he's asked to handle big franchises (Mind you, I'm not exactly clamoring for more stories with unsatisfying conclusions just to push themes).

Oh, but there's actually a series that represents even better what I'm trying to say about Williams and is something that even I couldn't predict.

2. Tom King's Batman.

I swear to God that I wasn't expecting this, I swear.

Yes, I have been one of Tom King's biggest critics basically since the beginning and that was because I was one of the first persons who noticed his ticks like the repetitive, repetitive, repetitive narration, forcing characterization just to push a theme and making all of those flaws being related to a single idea in a series.

Still, I also recognized that some of his books like Omega Men offered really creative concepts and delivered a quite thought-provoking finale that would made me recommend it to anyone who is interested in cosmic comics or simply good stories. It was much more successful than Martian Manhunter in that regard since despite that it also was pretty pretentious at times, it actually had the good execution to support it.

Then, what is the problem with Batman?

Well, just like Rob Williams in Suicide Squad, it seems like Tom King is simply not made to write big franchises, especially DC's most popular like Batman. Yes, he already had some experience with the Batfamily in Grayson but that was a much more different book since the directions were pretty distinct from each other. 

In fact, the first thing that King did early on his run was copying the big cinematic style that Scott Snyder popularized but since his skills are not a good fit for that tone, the book was never well-executed during the opening story and ended-up with a pretty derivative tale with characters that most likely will be forgotten once that he leaves the book (Seriously, who will remember Gotham and Gotham Girl?). Every idea that King came up with during the I am Gotham arc were better executed before in other titles and he didn't offer much beyond those.

You think that's what put this book into the list? Especially this high?

Of course not because despite of how mediocre the I am Gotham storyline was, it still was the BEST part of King's run.

The true disaster would arrive with the I am Suicide arc where King reunites each and every of his flaws and intensifies them to EXTREME levels. 

Were you tired of King's repetition? Well, you better get used to it because King can't hear you over how many times the same damn words appear in his head and on the pages.

Were you tired of the forced characterization to push a theme? Well, King couldn't care less because now Catwoman is apparently a serial killer.

Were you tired of all of these ticks being connected to a single idea? Okay, okay, I will stop now.

And you know what's the funny part about this? Is that is not only terribly written, is also boringly and terribly written. Most of the issues are so tedious that you keep waiting and waiting and waiting for something interesting to happen just to realize that this story is basically over at this point and there's nothing that will salvaged it.

Hell, even the name of the titles of the arc are repetitive by themselves. I am Gotham, I am Suicide, the next one will be I am Bane. What other proof do you need about how King's flaws are everywhere here?

This has actually made me believe that Tom King is the reverse Ben Percy. Both are pretty pompous in their own narration and ideas but while Percy eventually realized how stupid he sounded and tried to fix some of those flaws, King only got worse with time, much, much worse.

Can this book improve in the future? I honestly don't know and at this point I don't even care. I just think that King was ill-suited for it and needs a serious change one way or another.

And all of those combined problems still don't make it my most hated book this year.

Let's see how things have been rolling so far for me for my top pick. I had a waste of time in 2013, a disappointment in 2014 and just a terrible book in 2015.

What makes 2016 different?

Well, there's not much difference to be honest. This is still a quite awful series but at points it goes even beyond that. It insults your intelligence and spits into your brain, it offends you when its intention are actually the opposite and it gets a character wrong, so, so wrong that I simply can't help but detest it to the point of consider this one of the worst runs in its history.

And that character is pretty close to my heart.

1. Ben Percy's New 52 Green Arrow.

You're right, I'm dividing both Ben Percy's New 52 and Rebirth Green Arrow eras because they're pretty different in terms of quality. Green Arrow Rebirth actually started to become decent halfway but one can't forget its rotten roots and if something perfectly defines the word "rotten" is the final issues of New 52 Green Arrow this year.

Ben Percy has big important thoughts that he wants to share with the world. Why? Because he thinks he has something profound to tell, something that will change the course of humanity where we can learn to live in harmony for the rest of our existence.

By talking about how lycanthropy makes people realize they're privileged and white faced and murderous African people are a subtle symbolism.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that there are two things that Ben Percy should never try to be? Political and profound? Well, he tried to be such things here and my God, he did try.

At some points it wasn't necessarily horrible though, at some points it was actually hysterical.

I'm actually willing to accept "Werewolf = Privilege!" as one of the quintessential Green Arrow moments. Is so ludicrous in its own nature that one can't help but love it. It should be one of the running gags of the franchise from now on. You can't honestly tell me that you wouldn't see something like this in a political satire like South Park and the likes. Is so bad that is good, is so stupid that is endearing.

Then again, Percy doesn't actually consider it a satire. He took it 100% seriously but on the other hand, that actually kinda makes it better.

Nonetheless, then comes the truly terrible parts like how Percy believes in his soul that African people in white face committing terrible acts in their name is an acceptable social commentary.

And I'm not the one calling them "Africans", Percy actually uses that generalization in his story and presents them in the sterotypical way of poor and savage persons because he can't even bother to learn more about the people he supposedly wants to support. He doesn't just offend one race, he actually offends two, one on purpose and the other by pure stupidity, and he does it in so, so many ways that it would take another list to name them all.

So, either being hilariously bad or problematically bad, this series was still bad, really bad. In a memorable way in fact, so memorable that some of these mistakes are fortunately not present in the new book and I thank everyone involved here for it.

Final point as always: Do I consider Ben Percy a bad writer?

... You know, that is a difficult question.

Percy has actually been improving his work recently and sometimes he can be enjoyable when he doesn't take himself so seriously but when he does, oh my goodness, his books are something I wouldn't even want to get near to. When Percy is good, he can be good but when he's bad, he can be one of the worst writers out there, I would dare to say that he's even worse than Daniel H. Wilson when he falls for his worst traits and that's not something I say about anyone.

That my friends was my Top Ten Worst DC Comics of 2016 and just as you might expect, I'm planning to make a Top Ten Best DC Comics of 2016 list to compensate and say goodbye to this year.

See you then!