The Top Ten Worst DC Comics of 2022

Well, this year wasn't as bad as the last one believe it or not.

Last year I had some very personal issues that I had to deal with that really influenced my picks and trust me, I don't regret any of them, I really considered them terrible titles that poorly handled characterization, stories and important themes that had big consequences in what we have seen in 2022.

Fortunately, I learned that the truly worst has already happened and what follows are simply less harmful repercussions that while they remember me of the past, there's nothing that can be as bad as what I already endured.

Yes, I have been connecting criticism to my own particular experiences a bit too much recently but I swear it has a point here because many of the worst trends from 2021 continued here but to a lesser degree, to a less harmful degree.

That doesn't mean that they're not that bad since a common theme that has been going on this year is "mediocrity".

From the forgettable constant events that have been occurring for a while, to the directionless portrayals and plot-points, to titles that started without a clear idea and ended like a waste of time, there's just not a proper sense of purpose in 2022. Hell, it almost seems like this year was just a set-up for the upcoming "Dawn of the DCU" status quo that supposedly brings more interesting ideas and creative teams to the roster but considering what we read during all this time, is not like I have too much hope.

Actually is not like I have too much interest to begin with since, as you might have already noticed, I haven't been paying a lot of attention to comics recently due to personal issues and because there's not a lot to see as a whole, I'm only covering books here that I have been familiar with in 2022.

But let's talk more in-depth about it shall we? Let's start with:

10. Jessie Campbell's The New Champion of Shazam. 

 

Last year I said that the new Shazam series had the wrong set-up even before it began because it was building-up from the atrocious and half-assed work that Tim Sheridan did in the franchise that activated some of the worst feelings on me at the worst time.

However, that's not really the reason why this is here.

If there's something that I can congratulate Jessie Campbell for is that she realized that everything that Sheridan touched was cursed and instead decided to correct the most terrible decisions like making Freddy Freeman recuperate from his mortal illness and actually focusing on the Shazam mythos and not just creating an awful Teen Titans Academy spinoff featuring Shazam.

Unfortunately, a few good ideas are not enough because the execution is simply not the best.

Right from the beginning we see a heavy push towards Mary, the new and only owner of the Shazam mantle, as an "angry" girl because apparently being smart and responsible (You know, actual classic Mary traits) was not good and thus she needed to be overly-strong in that regard. This is unfortunately a pretty predictable trend nowadays when creating female protagonists and what makes it even more forced is that she gets the full powers without actually earning them and you might be yelling at me already: "Hey, you're just a misoginist who thinks women shouldn't be powerful!" except that's not what I'm saying at all, in fact I'm just asking what already happened in the past. For those who don't know, Freddy Freeman was also chosen to be the owner of the mantle more than a decade ago but he actually had to work for the powers, they were not simply given to him, this created a pretty solid story where worldbuilding was abundant, something that by the way is very lacking in this book.

Sure, there are little hints here and there about the biggest Shazam universe and at some points it seems like Campbell might actually be constructing a compelling development from all the decisions taken here but halfway she simply stops because she seems to want to make a point about Mary being attacked just due that she's a female protagonist and why this is a bad decision you might ask? Because this is just a 4 issue miniseries that was supposed to sell you into the idea of Mary as the new champion of Shazam, the frikking title for God's sake! There's not enough time to tell a compelling story while also complaining about the comic audience. And is not like things are going to continue from here since DC recently announced that Billy is going to return as the champion in a series written by Mark Waid (Which also makes me a bit worried because while Waid is a good writer, him writing children or teenagers is never a good choice).

So yeah, this is not only Campbell's fault, not even Sheridan's fault (and again, there's a lot there) but also DC's fault because they simply can't make a good choice for the series nor even stick to their guns about the direction they already took. I truly think that, along with Freddy, Mary is the most appropriate candidate to be the protagonist in the series after Billy but sadly, this book couldn't simply make you invested into such idea, not even because of Campbell's writing because it can also be rather overwritten.

And speaking of books that can't make you invested into their ideas.

9. Robbie Thompson's Suicide Squad.

"Unremarkable". That seems to be the curse of the Suicide Squad for quite a few years by now.

This book went at a higher place last year because it seemed like it was going to continue into its spyral of mediocrity but at least in 2022 it had the decency of stopping... but it didn't have the decency of stopping at a good place.

You just had to endure the same forced and obnoxious dynamic between the cast (something that Thompson never got quite good at) and all of the ideas that had promise at first eventually managed to nothing because even the biggest story this book has been building-up, the journey to Earth 3, ended-up in a rather dull manner with Amanda Waller apparently getting "her own Justice League".

Oh, and how about that Waller portrayal? It was probably one-dimensional characters ever. Far away from the most complex characterizations from a typical morally grey person, Thompson prefers to present her almost as cartoony villain who is very hungry of power and doesn't even care if what she does is right or not.

However, one of the biggest issues with this run has always been the both erratic yet dull pacing. Every issue needs to be packed with action but such action rarely serves a purpose to the lackluster plot and is just fight scenes for the sake of fight scenes and they're not even memorable at that (at least when Tom Taylor does something like this the fight scenes have good moments).

Add a "comedic" final issue that tries to be charming by showing how closer the cast has gotten to each other which I don't buy at all since the character segments were rarely engaging and you get yet another run that is as average as some of the worst examples in recent years (to be fair though, at least this didn't last as long as Rob Williams' era).

There needs to be a change here. Someone truly talented needs to take the Suicide Squad and write stories about the Suicide Squad (so we don't get another Taylor scenario either).

Far from the only unremarkable work from this year though.

8. Brian Bendis' Justice League.

I wouldn't blame you if you thought this forgettable era ended last year.

Actually yeah, why didn't this end last year?! It was pretty obvious that Brian Bendis was not the right choice for, well, pretty much anything but especially a team book where all of his flaws were exacerbated, and ESPECIALLY DC's flagship team book.

Because no, Bendis' run didn't get better obviously but if it makes you feel any better it didn't get worse either, it was just there, just existing for the sake of existing with no clear purpose whatsoever aside from pushing Bendis' pet character Naomi to a starring role that quite frankly she didn't earn and there wasn't any justification for her being on the team since her own story was just going to continue in her erratically released miniseries written by Bendis (and I like Naomi but come on, what was even the point?).

In fact, there wasn't any point for any character being here, Black Adam and Hippolyta barely did any relevant stuff despite of how much Bendis wanted them on the group and the final battle was all you know who's show with the classic Bendis' insufferable dialogue jumping from one character to another making them indistinguishable from each other and concluding in a rather abrupt way, you know, the Bendis way.

And unfortunately things didn't improve from there since the series instantly went through the Dark Crisis crossover in which the Justice League "died" (of course) and the title just concluded. Sure, we can't blame Bendis for this but the fact that his run was the most prominent before the ending of the book just leaves a bad aftertaste.

But talking generally, good Lord, this book was a letdown from start to finish. Beginning with Scott Snyder's pointless run and finishing with Brian Bendis' even more pointless one makes it a much bigger waste of time than I ever anticipated but hey, at least there was a consistent theme here.

And speaking of people being consistent in their own flaws:

7. Tom Taylor's Dark Knights of Steel.

 

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this guy, you should know at this point.

And is not like I want to hate his work because Tom Taylor has what I consider the very basics of what makes a good writer.

Sadly, he often lets the aspects of what I consider a bad writer win.

Dark Knights of Steel is something with a very interesting premise in-and-of itself, a reimagining of the DCU in the middle ages heavily focused on Superman and Batman with a Game of Thrones-like direction, it has everything to be a success.

*sigh* However, as most of us know, Taylor is not exactly what you would call a particularly "complex" writer even at his best and so, what we end-up with is a lame excuse of a plot where the true villains are blatantly obvious from the beginning and what follows is the characters simply going in circles trying to figure out what the readers already did because yes, we know already that some shapeshifters (most likely Martians) are manipulating everyone here and what makes matters worse is that this is a frikking 12 issue miniseries when is pretty clear that story only needs like half of them.

And how do I know that? Because there are quite a few issues where very little actually happens and Taylor instead chooses to focus on characterization and his trademarked "shock value" scenes, the character-centric moments wouldn't be so bad if Taylor wasn't so predictable on his takes for the whole cast. What I meant at the beginning about "the very basics" means a lot when we talk about Taylor because he just touches the bare surface of these heroes and villains' traits and offers basically nothing new about them, there is sometimes a few interesting interactions between them but aside from that, these are by the numbers portrayals to try to please everyone with little knowledge about this people (which actually connects a lot to Taylor's usual "political" commentary and oh boy, I have a lot to say about that later).

But do you know what makes things even more tedious? Is that this series is constantly delayed which makes each decompressed chapter much more irritating to read, you just keep waiting for the title to reach its end because you already know how is going to end but Taylor can't simply give you the slight satisfaction of it.

That doesn't mean that only overly-long books can be bad, the opposite can also happen.

6. Tom King's Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League: Superman & Son.

Dark Crisis is a complicated topic.

To be honest, is a pretty predictable event whose plot and threats don't justify the importance is given to it BUT at the very least Joshua Williamson offers solid moments of characterization and history of the DCU and ultimately doesn't take itself as seriously nor is as frustrating as any of the Scott Snyder's events so I wouldn't necessarily call it "bad".

That can't be said about the tie-ins though.

Let's take for example our old friend Tom King here who focuses on an alternate reality in which Superman was able to see his son Jon grow-up this time (which didn't happen in the main continuity because Bendis ruined everything) and this would be a good opportunity to explore the dynamic between father and son but of course, expecting something actually realistic from King is too much to ask and so the first thing he does is making Jon start questioning his father about how is not doing enough as a hero because that's exactly how a 14 years old would act right? It seems like King is following the atrocious work Bendis did with Jon and this shouldn't surprise me since they rarely follow proper characterization and instead try to push the characters they're given into their stories no matter how badly they fit (although to be fair about King, at least he can sometimes be truly good).

This wouldn't be so irritating to me if at least we had some semblance of good portrayals for Jon Kent but practically everything we have gotten since the last few years has been downright terrible and it seems like things are not going to improve any soon since DC still insists on making him a Superman instead of the Superboy we all loved (and yes, I'm going to talk about that in a bit).

I'm probably a bit unfair to King here but sadly my biases are too strong about this subject and is not like King's works this year have been that good as we're going to see later.

But first, let's talk about the nothing itself.

5. Stephanie Phillips' Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League: Green Arrow. 

 

If the last few years haven't been good for Jon Kent, they haven't been anything at all for Green Arrow. 

As most people know, I'm not a fan of the Rebirth era of Green Arrow written by Ben Percy because he tried to the do the most stereotypical take on Green Arrow along with one of the most shallow "political" commentaries ever (and is not even like he did it right, guy didn't even know what "mansplaining" meant) and sadly, the title didn't last too long after he left and what was left for the Emerald Archer were just cameos on other titles and a lot of them were not even well-written.

So, this was one of the few instances where the character would get the spotlight, no matter if is focusing on an alternate reality, this was his last hope... and what we got was one of the most tiring takes on Green Arrow yet.

I'm not really a fan of Stephanie Phillips' work to begin with, right from the beginning of her work on Harley Quinn since instead of actually continuing the groundwork that Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner created, she decided to mix her more with the rest of the villains and characters from Gotham City making her a much more derivative character and with that in mind, it shouldn't have surprised me that she pretty much did the same with Oliver Queen since his whole personality, HIS WHOLE PERSONALITY is about his relationship with Black Canary. Yes, I'm not a fan of that relationship either since I feel like writers try to idealize it more often than not but is not like Phillips even does a good job with that since the story surrounding that is extremely boring and doesn't tell us anything interesting about either of them, is even nauseating at some points because of how saccharine it is.

Not one of the worst things I've read this year though but the fact that we haven't gotten a proper Green Arrow book yet makes this barebones title hit even harder.

And yes, it was just 1 issue but is not the worst of the shortest titles I've read this year.

4. Tom King's Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. 

 

Only 2 issues this year, it was the climax of the story.

How the hell did Tom King make it fail so badly? 

But I should have seen this coming... pretty much after the first couple of issues. As I commented at the start of this book I actually dug where King was going with the story and the dynamic between Kara and Ruthy was pretty solid but the only issue I had with it was the narration (Hello again Tom King).

Good GOD, the narration! This is probably one of the most overwrought ways to tell a story that I've ever read, every single issue King just needed to tell the audience every single thing that was happening on the character's heads or even things we were already seeing, there was very little left for the imagination and in many instances it made the book worse because this was actually one of the most gorgeous books at the time. King always had the great luck of being paired with extremely talented artists and Bilquis Evely might be one of the best, every scene she draws is full of beauty, detail and personality, it elevated everything that King tried to tell.

When she could of course because again, all those goddamn frequent narration boxes covered a lot of that wonderful style and barely let it tell the story by itself. This is one of the classic problems with King, he fixates on a "theme" and just can't let it go, this time being the writing style no matter how tiresome it gets after just a few installments.

And speaking of the installments, I can safely say that like half of them were not really necessary since a lot of them got really repetitive about their own ideas (Again, King and repetition go hand by hand) and since the same kind of writing was prevalent during all of them, it made them painful to read at times. Oh, and that conclusion makes me think that the characters didn't learn anything at the end which makes everything even more pointless.

I suppose some people might have liked this but there are just some King tics that I can't tolerate and if you think this is some sort of "controversial" pick, let me tell you haven't seen anything yet.

3. Tom Taylor's Superman: Son of Kal-El.

 

Ugh.

There's nothing controversial about this though since a lot of people genuinely hated this.

However, they often hate it for the wrong reasons.

I have seen so many people, particularly in Youtube, that wanted this book to fail simply because DC and the creative team made Jon Kent Bisexual and gave him a boyfriend which is the classic reaction from a certain part of the comic community that tends to hate on anything that resembles diversity and that's simply disappointing and sad.

Nonetheless, there are so many things wrong with this book and unfortunately that all on our old reliable Tom Taylor.

Taylor writing something Superman-related is not much of a surprise since he has proclaimed several times in the past about how much he loves the character and universe but, just like James Tynion IV and Tim Drake/Robin, being a big fan doesn't mean that you will automatically do a good job.

Take for example the characterization of Jon Kent here and there's actually very little to talk about since Taylor seems to be following the Bendis' school of portraying Jon Kent after he grew up, meaning that he makes him as bland as possible to not offend anyone whatsoever except that unlike Bendis, Taylor didn't make him insufferably whiny early on so there's no reason for this portrayal to compensate anything. The Jon appearing here is basically a cardboard, what a surprise from the guy who gave us the forgettable Val-Zod.

The truth is that the only relevant change for Jon's character here is the revelation about his sexuality... and that's a bit sad isn't it? I actually think is fine that Jon is Bi (and Taylor handles the matter decently enough) but when the only important development about him is that, something that doesn't really make him any more complex as a character nor contributes to the lackluster personality that Taylor gave him, one can't help but suspect this might have been done mostly to gain some temporary attention from the media. It doesn't help that this came along with the revelation of Tim Drake also being Bi (something I have more problems with) and makes you think that DC was just trying to be trendy.

Not to mention that Jon's boyfriend is just kinda dull as well in terms of actual character, his biggest draw is that he's some kind of revolutionary for his people (and speaking of that, of course Taylor had to force his "Revolutionaries" from his cursed Suicide Squad run in this thing) which leads us to the next problem. Taylor writing anything "political" is always a bad idea, the guy is extremely close to Ben Percy levels of barely understanding the topics he wants to tackle, he just touches the surface of the matter so people can start talking about it online but rarely handles any subject in a way that makes you think (again, not a surprise considering how Jon's Bisexuality is the only thing he introduced about his character) nor tries to challenge anyone's views because that would prevent it from having retweets (or whatever comes next because a lot of that audience is leaving Twitter left and right).

About that story, is also shallow as hell. Henry Bendix and Lex Luthor are the main antagonists and once again show that Taylor is not the best at writing villains since they can be as one-dimensional as possible to show that they're the clear bad guys. There's a certain favoritism towards Luthor because Superman but still doesn't really make him any more memorable than your usual Lex portrayal. The decompression doesn't make things any better since a lot of the issues feel like they're padding for a conclusion that is bound to be a letdown (See Dark Knights of Steel for more of this).

I can't believe that I'm saying this but I still believe there's potential in Taylor, is just that I wish he put his strengths in books more appropriate for him without letting his dark side take place.

On the other hand, there's always that guy who has been bad from the start with no redeeming qualities.

2. Tim Sheridan's Teen Titans Academy.

 

Can you believe this POS comic lasted for almost half this year?

Can you believe someone thought it was a good idea to give one of the worst writers in recent years so much time and freedom?

Yes, worse than Brian Bendis, worse than the worst, that's Tim Sheridan, a name so hated by so many people that I doubt the guy has any future in the comic industry unless he's the product of some sort of nepotism. This was pretty obvious since he landed at DC and things just went downhill from there. I still maintain that Shazam was the worst thing that he ever did but Teen Titans Academy? Teen Titans Academy is a very damn close second.

As I said last year, Sheridan for some reason believes that Red X, that one-note character from the 2003 Teen Titans show, was important and popular enough to devote a full run on him (and that includes the Future State issues that served as a prologue) and, based on everything we have seen about this man, it was pretty obvious that the revelation was going to left quite a bit to be desired.

Because it turns-out that Red X was one of the students of course. Except that was just one Red X, it turns out that there apparently were three or so which serves no purpose at all and is just a lazy way to artificially make the "mystery" more complex than it actually is (and is not in the slightlest), not to mention that I don't think we didn't really learn who were the other two unless I'm missing something because quite honestly, each issue was so bad before and after that revelation that I just wanted to stop reading.

Yes, the story didn't get any better from that since the older Titans simply decided to ignore all the dead students (Yes, kids died and they just wanted to go on with the academy, Sheridan must be taking Tom King's notes about Sanctuary in Heroes in Crisis) and go straight into a crossover with both Robbie Thompson's Suicide Squad and Jeremy Adams' The Flash focusing on the "evil" Earth 3 which is not a bad premise per se but considering we had two bad titles and a merely passable one telling it, is not like there was much hope for it in the first place and it turned out to be as unremarkable as predicted. Plus, Sheridan just needed, NEEDED to include his stupid "Cybeast" fusion of Cyborg and Beast Boy from Future State because he just can't let a bad idea go. All of this concluding in such a dull manner that it simply makes you smile to realize that the misery is over.

Since there was absolutely nothing to appreciate here. The main Titans became background characters in what used to be their book (and in the rare occasions they were the focus they acted pretty stupid) and the students introduced here to replace them were so dull and annoying that there was simply no point in following their adventures. I'm pretty sure that everyone at DC realizes this run was widely detested due that Sheridan doesn't have any role later on and even Joshua Williamson decided to destroy every trace from Teen Titans Academy (including some of the most obnoxious students) in Dark Crisis (which is one of the reasons why I don't consider it such a bad event).

So yeah, Tim Sheridan's Teen Titans Academy is without a doubt the worst written title of 2022.

But you already know how these lists work and in many instances I let my most personal thoughts guide me.

What could be worse for me than the most atrociously executed book in recent times?

Well, let's start by saying that this is not something as badly-written (clearly because that would take a lot of effort) but is something that misses the mark in a lot of points, sometimes purposely and it seems like it was specifically made to annoy one part of the audience.

And that part of the audience includes me.

1. Tom King's The Human Target.

 

I really love the Justice League International.

It was way before my time but I eventually went back to the original series created by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire. It was something widely different from what we used to see in comics (and it must have been even more different at the time of release). A superhero book starring lesser-known characters from that era, heavily focused on comedy and yet still having really serious and important moments, even more surprising is that this was a Justice League book that didn't feature DC's heavy hitters (aside from Batman because Batman needed to be everywhere), something seemingly impossible for the 80s. This series inspired many other books and writers over the years, some of them even become very influential themselves.

This is the reason why I tend to support all the books featuring this particular cast. Being Guy Gardner, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Martian Manhunter, Ice, Fire, etc. It just pushes me to try to give a chance to all of their titles no matter if the quality is eventually not up there. I have a huge passion for these heroes.

So of course once that Tom King announced that he was going to create a story featuring these characters I couldn't help but be a little worried.

We all know that Tom King doesn't have the best track record at handling fan favorite characters (The most infamous example of this being the horrendous Heroes in Crisis) so everyone started to wonder what was he going to do here, especially considering that the JLI are not really the stars here, the protagonist is Christopher Chance, a man who disguises himself as other people who have been targeted for murder, the twist being that this time Christopher is dying and has to deal with it over the course of the series and that's where the series really shines.

I do believe that this series is well-written, probably one of the best written by King (and considering I'm not that fond of his work as you already know, that's saying something). There are really emotional beats concerning Christopher's struggles here, how they connect to his work and life and how that marks the inevitable end that comes closer and closer.

So you will understand my frustration when I say that I HATE basically every take on all the other characters here, especially the JLI.

You know how King works now, write a miserable story and making the people in it suffer as much as possible. Sometimes it works (Mister Miracle), sometimes it doesn't (A lot of other King examples) but one thing is fairly common in all of them, he pretty much ignores what makes every known character special and instead just writes whatever it fits into what he tries to say, the "theme over characterization" approach that I adore so much.

The theme here being a noir story in which Ice, the usual sweet and naive girl from the JLI, becomes some sort of femme fatale and the main love interest on the protagonist and that, that is one of the least offensive portrayals here. Let's take for example Booster Gold (who I don't know why King insists on writing when he pretty much destroyed him previously) who is still depicted as an egotist idiot that doesn't know how to be a proper superhero, Rocket Red who suddenly becomes an overly violent and vengeful guy, Martian Manhunter who has this weird affair with Fire (a woman whose powers are his weakness) because he needs to suffer in some way because King. This is almost a parody of King's work in which he tries to be as grim and gritty as he can imagine, basically an immediate post-Watchmen era book in which writers believe that pessimism equals realism (something that Grant Morrison would debunk just a few years later).

But nothing, nothing compares to what was done to Guy Gardner. You would think that after the whole debacle that happened with Wally West in Heroes in Crisis, Tom King would learn to do better but no, if anything he did worse. Guy Gardner is portrayed here as the extremely toxic ex-boyfriend of Ice who is completely jealous of her new relationship and is both verbally and possibly even physically abusive towards her. King just apparently to represent that sort of archetype in this story because you know, the theme, without realizing how extremely wrong this is. Yes, Guy Gardner has always been a jerk during a lot of his history but over the years he grew up to be a more understanding and even sympathetic person but that's not really why King's portrayal is so wrong, it is wrong and very damaging because Guy himself suffered from abuse by his alcoholic father so it not only destroys his character but also perpetuates a terrible behavior that should be left behind. So once again, King wants to tell a complex story but at the same time he handles serious subjects very poorly.

And you might be saying: "But this story is not canon!" to what I say: "So what?". When you write a story, Elseworlds or not, you try to focus on what makes these classic characters special and beloved, not taking them completely off, is one of the reasons why everyone hates stuff like JLA: Act of God (a story universally hated because it forces its characters to fit into its main theme) and is not like this is some sort of "Dark Universe" like the Metal stuff or such, these are clearly designed to be the JLI we know

What really makes me scratch my head is that King should have known at this point how his shallow takes on characters are not really popular with the main audience (and in fact, I'm pretty sure he admitted it in some interviews post-Heroes in Crisis) so what other reason there is to depict them so badly?

Well, I'm willing to say that he's doing it on purpose at this point. He knows his portrayals are wrong, he knows that people hate them and he knows it will get a reaction from readers. He's basically trolling the whole fanbase by now and if he's self-aware, does it make it less bad?

Of course not, it just makes it worse.

He could have made a very good story with original characters or at least more obscure characters that can be more easily adapted to whatever he wants to say but no, he just had to twist these heroes to the point they're either caricatures or simply unrecognizable from their former selves. This is why I consider this one of the most frustrating titles of the year, it has everything to be great but at the same time it has everything to be hated and it was deliberately done.

Final point, do I consider Tom King a bad writer?

Yeah, at this point you should know that I'm pretty mixed about that. At least with someone like Tim Sheridan you can always expect something awful, with King you just never know what you're going to get but now even in a title like The Human Target you can see both the good and the bad clashing with each other and delivering a tale that just fails at being satisfying and that just bothers me immensely, especially because at this point DC needs something great more than ever.

In a year of mediocrity King just had to release a title with great potential but never couldn't quite reach it and that's the biggest offense of all.

Don't worry though, once again I refuse to end the year on a bad note so I'm going to prepare The Top Ten Best DC Comics of 2022 list in a few weeks.

See you then.