The Worst Ideas in Comics

[DanMad1977]

Cause it was a given that Slade was already evil?

I can't remember the issue number and I hope I'm not remembering it wrong, but they did do a follow up story. It was the trial of the Terminater or something and at some point Changeling has a fight with Slade but they end it with a rather calm discussion. Gar asks Slade something like, "Did you really sleep with Terra?" And Slade replies something like, "Is that the most important thing here?"

Implying. "I kill people for money, I've committed multiple acts of treason, I've attempted to murder you and your friends various times, but what makes you mad is that I slept with a crazy girl you had a crush on."

Thats hilarious

I don't think only because someone older sleeps with someone underage (except rape) is making him evil. Its something humans do from the beginning of humankind.

My mom was 17 my dad 35, they got me when she was 24 and here I am, and my parents are still together...so what?

[Gotham citizen]

Usually companies (Marvel & DC) will have these wacky good and bad ideas. Usually a terrible idea is one that a writer pitches and no one seems to step in and go ; ok this is ****. And it gets published for the world and we suffer. Both companies have the last 40+ years have had terrible crap ideas that have seen print. To start things off with this thread...and point at each company comically...







DC Comics in the late 1980's was a company trying to throw what they could out to see what would stick after the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. A lot was good of course as we saw but there was some obvious crap. I mean some very bad crap that they did that really makes no sense on what they originally planned as a series and what was published instead.

Nothing sums up bad like The Wanderers. A series that focused on characters who were created back in 1968 by Jim Shooter in Adventure Comics 375#. These characters were actually heroes before the Legion of Super-Heroes formed and would become friends with them after the 1st appearance. They even appeared a couple times after it on occasion. But by the Post Crisis they were mostly a forgotten team.

Until.....(as seen above)

Their leader was killed as they were , but they were brought back as clones and investigated why they were killed in the 1st place. The original artist Steve Dillion redesigned their costumes and soon enough he was replaced and the costumes were redesigned again by the next artist shown. But what made The Wanderers terrible was an issue where one of the characters who could morph and change to animals (Aviax) designed to sex a dinosaur to save a species.



This was actually as linked came from CBR in a column years ago...

https://www.cbr.com/i-love-ya-but-yo...th-a-dinosaur/

The entire series is utterly forgettable as are the characters. Except for the character deciding to go sex a dinosaur in a terrible plot. After 13 episodes the Wanderers was cancelled as they had found out who killed them and the series has faded from memory. Except ya know...this.
[…]

The idea is really awful, but the authors showed an out of the ordinary prophetic gift: the paleontologist were able to prove that the birds actually descend from the deynonichus (who also was actually covered by feathers) less than 20 years ago!
I'm amazed.

[Jackalope89]

The idea is really awful, but the authors showed an out of the ordinary prophetic gift: the paleontologist were able to prove that the birds actually descend from the deynonichus (who also was actually covered by feathers) less than 20 years ago!
I'm amazed.

And that most, if not all raptor dinos had feathers.

[GOLGO 13]

Him not talking to chuds on twitter before the story has even played out doesn't mean these characters weren't satire.

Right, he planned this all out of course. Quite clever of him. Satirical genius.

[GOLGO 13]

Its almost like he didnt want to deal with a million angry nerds acting like right wing trolls.

But wait, didn't he "plan" this to happen? If he did then why isn't he taking the fight to the growing Legions of trolls ridiculing his creations? So strange.

[jetengine]

But wait, didn't he "plan" this to happen? If he did then why isn't he taking the fight to the growing Legions of trolls ridiculing his creations? So strange.

Because Marvel runs on the logic of "Angry fans are good". Imagine how much free advertising a NEW WARRIORS book of all things has had, just because people are having petulant tantrums over "Safespace" and "Snowflake"

[ed2962]

But wait, didn't he "plan" this to happen? If he did then why isn't he taking the fight to the growing Legions of trolls ridiculing his creations? So strange.

My guess is that it's because these creations are red herrings and not serious characters. But saying too much now would be giving it away.

[SquirrelMan]

Right, he planned this all out of course. Quite clever of him. Satirical genius.

Let me guess... You thought the Brown Bomber was a serious character in McDuffy's JLA, didn't you?

[skyvolt2000]

Let me guess... You thought the Brown Bomber was a serious character in McDuffy's JLA, didn't you?

Well if DC didn't edit out a joke when he popped up-they might have got it.

But wait, didn't he "plan" this to happen? If he did then why isn't he taking the fight to the growing Legions of trolls ridiculing his creations? So strange.

Because the trolls are now attacking EVERYBODY else.
Those who were legit upset seem to have taken a wait and see mode.

Because Marvel runs on the logic of "Angry fans are good". Imagine how much free advertising a NEW WARRIORS book of all things has had, just because people are having petulant tantrums over "Safespace" and "Snowflake"

Bingo.

It has already got mainstreamish coverage thanks to them. At the end of the day who looks bad?

Kibblesmith worked for a CBS talk show..... no one thinks Steve Colbert won't have his former employee on to joke about this "fanboy rage"?
They can rage all they like but at the end of the day-folks will judge for themselves.

I mean if you are REALLY that mad-go make your own stuff. Show Marvel how it is done.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Bingo.

It has already got mainstreamish coverage thanks to them. At the end of the day who looks bad?

Kibblesmith worked for a CBS talk show..... no one thinks Steve Colbert won't have his former employee on to joke about this "fanboy rage"?
They can rage all they like but at the end of the day-folks will judge for themselves.

I mean if you are REALLY that mad-go make your own stuff. Show Marvel how it is done.

Getting mainstream coverage for not being well received doesn't mean instant success. We have to look back at the last few things that failed due to negative reaction.


- Call of Duty : Infinite Warfare - 3.8+ million dislikes and the result was a game that undersold according to Activision. They later admitted the game failed to resonate with fans who massively dismissed it.


- Ghostbusters : 2016 - 1.1+ million dislikes and the result was a few months later the film lost around $100-125 million for the studio.


In both cases the above got mainstream coverage and both failed. Just because people are discussing a terrible idea doesn't mean that its gonna be successful.

[jetengine]

Getting mainstream coverage for not being well received doesn't mean instant success. We have to look back at the last few things that failed due to negative reaction.


- Call of Duty : Infinite Warfare - 3.8+ million dislikes and the result was a game that undersold according to Activision. They later admitted the game failed to resonate with fans who massively dismissed it.


- Ghostbusters : 2016 - 1.1+ million dislikes and the result was a few months later the film lost around $100-125 million for the studio.


In both cases the above got mainstream coverage and both failed. Just because people are discussing a terrible idea doesn't mean that its gonna be successful.

Bit of a difference there.

COD has been dead for years so one of them flopping was inevitable. Ghostbusters problem was insteaf of doing what the authors doing (ignoring the chuds) they got involved with the Troll war and made it WAY worse.

[numberthirty]

Took a look over this thread.

From the looks of it, Verotik didn't even get a mention.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Bit of a difference there.

COD has been dead for years so one of them flopping was inevitable.

Fans were growing tired of the futuristic setting that COD had been in direction wise a few years sure. But Advanced Warfare and Black Ops III both sold very well. Black Ops III has sold over 6.6+ million games at last check and was the best selling game of 2015.

Fans wanted something different and when Activision didn't do this , the result was a massive down turn that they admitted later.

Ghostbusters problem was insteaf of doing what the authors doing (ignoring the chuds) they got involved with the Troll war and made it WAY worse.

We have to admit that the trailer was pretty bad and confusing. It was a mess and didn't really sell the film well to start. A lot of down votes was the confusing start with..."30 years ago 4 guys saved New York ..." Which had people question , is this a sequel ? Hold on they said it was a reboot . No then what is it ?

Then Sony did a terrible move by taking criticism and deciding to blame everyone who didn't like the confusing trailer and paint everyone as trolls. When this was failing as expectations was the film would open very low ; they did an ad campaign (which they should have at the start really) showing how fun it was to be a Ghostbuster. That helped it crawl back better but they dropped the ball with that 1st trailer , doubled down on it and failed.

A close comparison to this was the Sonic the Hedgehog film. Last year Paramount released a trailer and fans weren't happy. Now the company had plans to release the film in fall/winter of 2019 but they actually saw the criticism and decided to change the look of the film. This made some mock Paramount for giving in to these evil fans for not liking the look of the character or trailer...but the end result was Paramount by doing this had a success of the film doing $300+ million worldwide (and it likely could have done more had this virus not hit).

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Power Girl : Post Crisis Origin -

Crisis on Infinite Earths was the 1st big shakeup for a comics line in the industry. Basically DC decided to get a handle on their 50 years of continuity and alternate Earths with the event. The biggest change was there would no longer be an Earth 2. This Earth 2 would feature a variety of characters who had existed since the 1940's era and aged. For example... Robin was still Dick Grayson who decided to not take the mantle of the Bat or even Nightwing and stayed as Robin into an older age.

Power Girl herself was the more adult cousin of Superman on Earth 2. Introduced in the 1970's in the Justice Society title Power Girl became a popular character for how Wally Wood would draw the character. Or as Jimmy Palmotti claims , this was the true story ---

https://web.archive.org/web/20140722...st-of-friends/

Even when Justice Society was cancelled as part of the DC Implosion ; the character still appeared in a number of books up til Crisis. But when that event changed things DC was left with a major problem. How would a character tied to an origin of Superman in Pre-Crisis work in DC's new streamlined Universe ? Well for DC they decided to tie Power Girl to another Pre-Crisis character.

DC decided to tie her to Arion ; a character introduced in the Warlord series in the backup feature. Arion was an Atlantean Sorcerer and before Crisis on Infinite Earths hit had a monthly title from 1982-1985 for 35 issues. So they decided to try and keep a bit of a Pre-Crisis connection with her origin. She was now the grand daughter of Arion who was kept in suspended animation for 1,000 years . Awakening in the modern era to be a hero.

To say this origin was one no one wanted would be a lie. For a number of years DC kept hammering it to readers and plots tying this origin was done as one was so bad in 1994 it pretty much put the nail in it finally. (One we all know) . It would take til the mid 2000's and lead into Infinite Crisis to finally reveal that the whole Arion origin was a fake memory implanted and that Power Girl came from Earth 2.






Cap-Armor aka FIGHTING CHANCE !

Mark Gruenwald was a great Captain America writer and was on the book a long decade run. He introduced a number of cool rogues who would become mainstays in Captain America's rogues gallery. Crossbones , Mad Cap and Super Patriot was a couple to mention. A few arcs were really regarded like the 2+ year long Johnny Walker storyline where he became Captain America. Or the "Streets of Poison" arc.

But like a lot of writers who stay on too long a book ; Gruenwald likely stuck around too long on Captain America as his final near 2 year arc showed. In it Steve Rogers is starting to feel weak and learns his super soldier formula is now running out on him. Doctors advise him to retire due to the strain on his body being Captain America and that the formula once its gone he will likely die.

Steve decides to go down fighting (Fighting Chance is the arc) and continues on ignoring this. He eventually informs the Avengers as his body is starting to feel the effects of it. Eventually to help him combat the serum leaving his body near shut down ; Tony Stark designs a robotic suit for him to work in awhile. The storyline ends as Cap at the end seemingly dies but the next issue Steve returns to life with a blood transfusion I believe.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Lex Luthor getting someone to make a machine to figure out Superman's identity and once they learn it's Clark Kent ignore it. If Byrne wasn't going to do anything with that information he shouldn't have put it in to begin with.