What writer you consider a hero by saving your character from being mishandled?

[SiegePerilous02]

Johns for Green Lantern, Aquaman and to a lesser extent Shazam/Captain Marvel

Rucka for Wonder Woman and Cheetah

Morrison whenever he gets ahold of Superman. Also his run on Batman was a breath of fresh air with Crazy Awesome but likeable BatGod after years of insufferable Bat Jerk.

Tim Seeley and Tom King for Dick Grayson

While I do agree with all of the examples given here, it's unfortunate that most of these characters have since been mishandled again (to some degree or another)...

Seems to be inevitable, sadly. For my list, Dick's back in a serious rut. Hal has fallen into one somewhat as well, though to much less severe degree and he has Morrison coming up at least.

[phantom1592]

What..? Why?

I'm sure some people are tired of me saying this, but since you asked... Bendis outed Daredevil, which... had been done in the past. The shock and awe of a recycled story didn't work for me in the least. Also, he leaned way too hard on the 'Matt Murdock's life is crap' concept. Yes, It's fun to hit Matt hard and knock him down... but the key to daredevil is that he always gets back up. He doesn't let the dark and gritty world he lives in drag him down... he Always climbs back up into the light. Bendis didn't get that. He just hit him over and over and over again and never gave us the 'rising above it' thing that IS Daredevil.


Also, his stories were WAYYYYY to drawn out. Mostly boring. everyone acted very out of character... which is a typical complaint about Bendis. They MAY play better in trades... but reading them monthly was a slog.

[Hawkman]

Not to quibble, but don't David S. Goyer, James Robinson, Stephen Sadowski and Rags Morales deserve a share of the credit? One of my favourite issues of the HAWKMAN run was issue 7 set in the Old West by James Robinson, Rags Morales and Tim Truman. When Robinson left after the first ten issue, I felt like something vital was lost. Maybe Geoff Johns needs a co-plotter to control his worst impulses.

No, you're right. Which is why I used the qualifier "major" when talking about Johns's part in it. Although I've read Robinson say before that in terms of his tenure on JSA, Johns was the predominant creator between the three of them (the third being Goyer, of course).

Definitely agree with you about Johns being better when someone's there to rein in him, by the way.

[Kaijudo]

I'm still waiting for too many of "my" characters to be saved, though I think the work done on Booster by Johns and Katz deserves some recognition, not to mention Simone on Catman. And I'm hopeful that Bendis can bring back Vic Sage/The Question to greater heights.

What Tynion looks to be doing with Blue Devil, though... (shudder)

[Flash Gordon]

Geoff Johns on Aquaman
Grant Morrison on Superman

Recently Brian Bendis on Superman, totally got the character out of the nose dive he was in. Really strong books.

[kjn]

While I do agree with all of the examples given here, it's unfortunate that most of these characters have since been mishandled again (to some degree or another)...

Poor characterisations and backstory ideas sadly are like glue, they tend to stick around (see Daddy!Zeus for Wonder Woman).

Looking at the examples and causes given, I think one need to look the type of mishandling. The ones I can see mentioned here are mischaracterisation (which probably includes backstory, and supporting cast), bad stories, and obscurity.

Obscurity is probably something which nearly every comic book character suffers from at one point or another, but it's also the easiest to handle: just get a decent writer who likes the character (like Gail Simone with Plastic Man right now). The main job here is really the editors, to be on the lookout for writers who wants to take a stab at these characters.

Bad stories are just that, bad. They can lead to obscurity, poor sales, or the character being perceived as boring, but they don't really hurt the integrity of the character. People tend to steer clear of the ideas in the bad stories afterwards. A good writer can always find a few good gems left lying around to re-use, while bringing back "the good old" hero from before.

And then we have the "true" mischaracterisations, which do hurt the character long-term. Azzarello on Wonder Woman is probably one of the "best" examples, since he told a good story that was brimming with bad ideas about Wonder Woman.

[theoneandonly]

I'm sure some people are tired of me saying this, but since you asked... Bendis outed Daredevil, which... had been done in the past. The shock and awe of a recycled story didn't work for me in the least. Also, he leaned way too hard on the 'Matt Murdock's life is crap' concept. Yes, It's fun to hit Matt hard and knock him down... but the key to daredevil is that he always gets back up. He doesn't let the dark and gritty world he lives in drag him down... he Always climbs back up into the light. Bendis didn't get that. He just hit him over and over and over again and never gave us the 'rising above it' thing that IS Daredevil.


Also, his stories were WAYYYYY to drawn out. Mostly boring. everyone acted very out of character... which is a typical complaint about Bendis. They MAY play better in trades... but reading them monthly was a slog.

agreed. I barely could read the beginning issues of his arc and then gave it up.

[Fergus]

Morrison on Superman.
Tomasi and Tim Seeley on Dick Grayson.
Morrison on Red Hood [B&R foe was his best role]

[Kyer]

The movie kind of did more damage to him than Parallax ever did tho. In both instances it took a handful of incompetent idiots to destroy a classic character in no time. Twice.

ROFLMAO! (As one of the smucks who had the misfortune to actually pay for the movie when it came out.) Movie *5-letter word starts with s that I can't type in due to family format*

On Flash Rebirth.... yeah, I can get the good of having brought back Barry, but did they have to bring him back... like that? Way preferred Geoff John's depiction of a happy Barry in Rebirth. Now if only Johns had repented and made his mother still alive while he had the chance.

On Flash, I love Messner-Loeb for writing Wally West after Baron got kind of...meh. I don't think I would have fallen for Wally if it had just been Baron as my sole exposure to the character.

[LP22]

I'm glad that kyle is in Dan a's hands so he could survive HIC and I'm sure he could write a good kyle like he did star lord

[Sodam Yat]

Personally, I'm going to say Peter Tomasi, Scott Snyder, and Tim Seely on Dick Grayson. I didn't like how Dick Grayson was treated in Infinite Crisis. Losing his protected city, Bludhaven was totally uncalled for. Peter Tomasi pretty much written good stories with Dick Grayson, despite the terrible things that was previously done with him. Probably one of my favorite aspects in Peter Tomasi's run, was the brotherly love with Dick and Tim. The Black Mirror storyline when Dick Grayson was Batman was pretty much one of the best stories Scott Snyder ever written and helped made him a very high modern profile writer in DC. When the New 52 arrived, I disliked his death tease in Forever Evil. And it was just awful that his secret identity was revealed to the world. It was just making the character more incompetent. With that said, there was a new direction for Dick Grayson, which he had his new solo series. The Grayson series was wonderful and had good sale numbers. This is VERY impressive and proves that his name alone can sell without associating with the Nightwing brand.

After reading some of the comments here, it’s unfortunate he’s keep being mishandled.

Van Jensen on John Stewart. Throughout the years, Geoff Johns and other writers didn’t care for John Stewart, so hardly anything was done with him. Sometimes he’s been written as a black best friend to make Hal Jordan look good (you see that with Geoff Johns and Tom King). So when John Stewart finally had the book to himself on GLC, fans weren’t sure how the character was going to be, since he’s been a broken character for years. But he’s been well received by myself and fans out there under Van Jensen’s writing. He became a very competent character. Since Geoff Johns left unfinished unexplored elements in his run with John Stewart, Van Jensen took time to fix those issues and explored those elements. He made John Stewart the character like the one that was shown on the JL/JLU cartoons.

[KC93]

Scott Lobdell for Jason Todd/Red Hood. If Grant Morrison was left in charge I would have rather they kill the character off. That will never be Jason in my eyes

[Sodam Yat]

Scott Lobdell for Jason Todd/Red Hood. If Grant Morrison was left in charge I would have rather they kill the character off. That will never be Jason in my eyes

I agree. Even though Jason has been written horribly by other writers after Judd Winick bringing him back, Grant Morrison's take on Jason was by far the worst, imo. I was very surprised by a highly regarded profile writer would write a character so horribly.

[My Two Cents]

And the winner is.............................. Marv Wolfman

Starting with D C Comics Presents #26 and continuing with New Teen Titans #1
Marv Wolfman not only saved the Teen Titans but also raised the stock of Dick Grayson, Wally West,
Donna Troy and Garth Logan, while also introducing characters that would be with us for a long time
in Raven and Starfire and Cyborg and Deathstroke (please understand this is just for D C Comics)

[Lightning Rider]

It's really simple. Barry Allen is my Flash and i was happy that he was pretty much rescued from obscurity. Barry to most people was simply a footnote.

I can respect that, I just feel as a general Flash fan he took him from obscurity and plunged him into a horrible character re-write that has plagued the Flash series to this day.