The WORST transition on a title was...?

[Mike_Murdock]

You could see the WCA shenanigans coming when before that he was one of the players in screwing up Dark Phoenix. He also tried to make Lockjaw the dog into a freak accident that's just treated like a dog, so even Lee/Kirby stuff wasn't safe.

I don't think Lockjaw being an Inhuman is inconsistent with what came before. The Fantastic Four called him a dog (usually "Crystal's dog"), but the rest of the Royal family didn't. I'd also argue that the issue of The Thing where he did that told a very interesting story. It wasn't changing continuity for the sake of changing it but because he thought it would add to the mythos and make for a good story. Likewise, his involvement in resurrecting Jean just feels like work for hire. To my knowledge, he wasn't involved in the plotting of the resurrection device itself.

But there is one good example of his reactions with the X-Men line that suggested the sort of pettiness I felt in his West Coast Avengers run. It's not a retcon, though. The whole Trial of Galactus storyline was a spat with Claremont. He had Reed save Galactus. Claremont was upset because he had to kill Jean for killing one planet but Reed gets to save Galactus who has destroyed thousands of planets. So Claremont put a scene in one of his stories where Lilandra tells Mr. Fantastic that, if Galactus kills again, the deaths would be on their hands. So Byrne responds by having Galactus destroy the Skrull homeworld and Reed Richards get put on trial. The funny thing is, from a reader's perspective, it's one of the best examples of cross-continuity of the era. But it was really just a pissing match between two creators.

[Tony Stark]

I know X-Force was already in the weeds because of Counter X ruining all the periferal x-titles but the jump from classic X-Force to Milligan's X-Statix roster was just as jarring if not more so. After over a hundred issues the entire team gets the boot for all new characters with pretty much no links to the themes of the previous team. The change in art style was also a complete 180 on what had been on the book so far.

I know the X-Statix roster has it lovers, but as a fan of the original X-Force characters I despised the change.

The shadowland Daredevil era.........yikes that was bad!

And while I mostly like Bendis his tenure on Guardians was quite a diaster.

Yeah. Both of these were really bad. I was collecting both of them then and was like WTF is going on?!?!?!

[Digifiend]

Both the fight club Thunderbolts and future X-Statix X-Force should've been new #1s for sure, and not using those names. For X-Force, just call them X-Statix from the start. Thunderbolts should've been named something like Brawlers.

[stingray]

Bendis taking over Avengers. After a few issues of his decompressed crap, I dropped Avengers for the first time since 1968.

[DrNewGod]

I haven't read his She-Hulk or Alpha Flight. His Fantastic Four has issues but is good overall. But the stuff between Stan Lee and him are relatively inconsequential. This is the first work I was aware of that felt entirely destructive of both the West Coast Avengers continuity that came before it and the Avengers stuff that was, frankly, iconic at that point.

IMO, Byrne's AF started pretty well and was full of promise, but he seemed to use up all the energy in it pretty fast.

I don't think Lockjaw being an Inhuman is inconsistent with what came before. The Fantastic Four called him a dog (usually "Crystal's dog"), but the rest of the Royal family didn't. I'd also argue that the issue of The Thing where he did that told a very interesting story. It wasn't changing continuity for the sake of changing it but because he thought it would add to the mythos and make for a good story.

I'm with Mike_Murdock on this one. I actually thought making Lockjaw a cautionary tale about the Terrigen mists was interesting, and didn't really violate anything established. The Inhumans had often been shown to be pretty unpleasant toward their genetic inferiors, even among themselves. It also added some dimension to Inhuman culture; I mean, how hung up on obtaining eugenic optimization does your society have to be for its members to risk outcomes like that?

But there is one good example of his reactions with the X-Men line that suggested the sort of pettiness I felt in his West Coast Avengers run. It's not a retcon, though. The whole Trial of Galactus storyline was a spat with Claremont. He had Reed save Galactus. Claremont was upset because he had to kill Jean for killing one planet but Reed gets to save Galactus who has destroyed thousands of planets. So Claremont put a scene in one of his stories where Lilandra tells Mr. Fantastic that, if Galactus kills again, the deaths would be on their hands. So Byrne responds by having Galactus destroy the Skrull homeworld and Reed Richards get put on trial. The funny thing is, from a reader's perspective, it's one of the best examples of cross-continuity of the era. But it was really just a pissing match between two creators.

I had not heard that one. That's really interesting.

[Zero Hunter]

Your forgetting abut the Kang Dynasty when Kang literaly took over the entire world and trapped the heroes in various prison camps.

The Kang Dynasty was just a weird story. It lasted over a year (16 issues) and had Kang taking over the whole world and destroying whole cities, and yet not one other book was effected or even mentioned it. It was just so piss poor in execution. You can not have a year plus mega story running in one book that effects the whole world, but has not spill over into the rest of the books of the Marvel U. It was like a giant alternate reality tale dropped right in the middle of the connected universe which just made it read hollow.

[Mike_Murdock]

I had not heard that one. That's really interesting.

I should also add my favorite John Byrne story is the reason he left X-Men. Basically, he was mad that he drew a scene where Colossus was easily pulling a tree out of the ground and Chris Claremont added dialogue suggesting it was a struggle. He was already upset that Claremont overwrote his art with dialogue in a different direction and decided that was one step too far.

[Baron of Faltine]

The Kang Dynasty was just a weird story. It lasted over a year (16 issues) and had Kang taking over the whole world and destroying whole cities, and yet not one other book was effected or even mentioned it. It was just so piss poor in execution. You can not have a year plus mega story running in one book that effects the whole world, but has not spill over into the rest of the books of the Marvel U. It was like a giant alternate reality tale dropped right in the middle of the connected universe which just made it read hollow.

yeah was weird, to say the least, but was well drawn mostly and had at least one satisfying beating of kang by Cap...I loved how thor said that Cap absolutely didn't needed any help to beat the crap out of Kang(he didn't just beat him, he humiliated him!). But was too little for a supposed megaevent

[Personamanx]

Most of the worst transitions I can think of don't even involve a change in creative team. Anytime a book has it's own story going on, only to have it be interrupted by an event tie-in or crossover. It's the absolute worst part of enjoying anything that happens in a "shared universe." Unless you're blessed by good fortune, something from another book is going to ruin a series that was doing well on its own.

Sure it can often involve a change of creators, even if only briefly. But even if it's the same team you've enjoyed for years it's rarely going to come out of an event for the better.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The whole Trial of Galactus storyline was a spat with Claremont. He had Reed save Galactus. Claremont was upset because he had to kill Jean for killing one planet but Reed gets to save Galactus who has destroyed thousands of planets. So Claremont put a scene in one of his stories where Lilandra tells Mr. Fantastic that, if Galactus kills again, the deaths would be on their hands. So Byrne responds by having Galactus destroy the Skrull homeworld and Reed Richards get put on trial. The funny thing is, from a reader's perspective, it's one of the best examples of cross-continuity of the era. But it was really just a pissing match between two creators.

I have to say I kind of agree with Byrne in that instance. Stopped Clock fellas, Stopped clock. Claremont I think misunderstood the entire reason and point of why Phoenix killing planets was wrong. Jim Shooter explained that in his blog where his original pitch was for an X-Men hero to go bad and stay bad. (http://jimshooter.com/2011/06/origin...nix-saga.html/)

What Claremont fails to understand is that Galactus is a bad guy, or rather he's an alien force of nature beyond all human understanding yada-yada-yada. He's not a hero or a good guy, he's not a guy you are pals with or friends with. Nor are you supposed or expected to be. Claremont however always intended Phoenix to be a good guy, so she goes bad kills a planet and then she becomes a hero and lapses to civilian life. Shooter said that if Claremont was okay with Phoenix becoming a permanent villain then he would have been okay with letting her live but Claremont was insistent on redeeming her. I like Claremont more than Byrne, but when you are wrong you are wrong.

John Byrne in general represents the extreme lengths a certain mentality goes to. Byrne will always say and claim "Write like Stan and Jack and Steve" and so on. That's fair, but what that amounts to in practice is a form of self-entitlement where Byrne or whoever else with similar claims and ideas can go, "all the writers before me and alongside me suck and I and I alone have claims on the original intent" even when functionally Byrne and others are no different than anyone else in relation to Stan, Jack and Steve. It amounts to a kind of professional disrespect of peers and colleagues I think.

Whereas Claremont is someone who is all about accepting the origins but building on new stuff and taking new contributions and working with that. Claremont got the status-quo Len Wein gave him in Giant Size X-Men, and yet rather than dismissing that, he accepted and folded that in and took it a new way. I think that's the more healthy way even if Claremont is not always right or correct in his judgment (nobody is after all, not even Stan, Jack and Steve).

[TriggerWarning]

One More Day