Is Tom King the most hated writer in comics?

[Restingvoice]

King's only for Batman, BatCat, and HiC. Haven't heard of Slott in a while. Tamaki, only for Starfire's daughter. Snyder, for his choice of storytelling. Glass for Damian. Spencer for Hail Hydra. Lobdell for Starfire. I don't know what the others do.

I don't know if there's someone that's consistently hated and how much since they usually show up in burst and really specific for a topic.

The longest I know is Bendis, since the day of Avengers Disassembled until now with Jon Kent Superboy. So I'm going with him.

[BatmanJones]

If you're saying he's most hated as a person and not a writer, I can't speak to that and I don't care about it.

If you're saying he's among the most hated writers, that is absurd.

Even if you hated his Batman and Heroes in Crisis, there's Sheriff of Babylon, Vision, Omega Men, Mister Miracle, Swamp Thing Winter Special, Superman: Up in the Sky, Strange Adventures, and Rorschach, each of which has been widely praised. (I'll leave out the also widely praised Grayson because he cowrote it with Seeley, though King's issues were extremely well received on that series too.)

And because I'm so sick of people acting like he's a bad writer, and also because he's actually my favorite current comic writer, I'm gonna go ahead and do all of this...

Eisner Awards
Best Limited Series - 2017
Best Writer (tie) - 2018
Best Limited Series - 2019
Best Writer - 2019

Don't care about awards? Let's see what the critics think.

These aggregate scores are taken from Comic Book Roundup, which I believe is the closest thing to Rotten Tomatoes wrt comics, and these aggregates cover pretty much every comic series he's written:

Sheriff of Babylon: 9.1
Vision: 9.3
Omega Men: 8.5
Mister Miracle: 9.2
Batman: let's say 7.5 (hard to aggregate b/c it's mixed in with Tynion, but his lowest score was 6.8, out of 85 issues. Most were 8 or higher)
Swamp Thing Winter Special: 9.2
Superman: Up in the Sky: 7.3
Heroes in Crisis: 6.9
Strange Adventures: 8.5
Rorschach: 8.3
Batman/Catwoman: 7.7

Aggregate all of those scores and you get 8.3. That's 83% out of 100.

Which other writer scores an 8.3 over so many series in so few years? Maybe a handful but also maybe none. I'm not doing the research on other writers, but 8.3 is insanely good for this body of work.

Yes, there are fans that will never forgive him for Heroes in Crisis. That's fine but they are silly to carry over that hatred to everything else he's ever written and they are missing out on a ton of good comics. And, outside of this board, their legions are few.

According to every other metric I can think of, he's nearer to the most beloved writer than the most hated.

[Lightning Rider]

Side note, I never experienced a writer whose work I could totally love in one instance and hate in an other. (Mr. Miracle and Heroes in Crisis being the examples.)

Maybe Johns actually, but that's more because of harmful story choices, rather than also puzzlingly bad writing.

[BatmanJones]

Side note, I never experienced a writer whose work I could totally love in one instance and hate in an other. (Mr. Miracle and Heroes in Crisis being the examples.)

Maybe Johns actually, but that's more because of harmful story choices, rather than also puzzlingly bad writing.

That's true, but I'd say it's because he takes big swings so he's going to hit home runs and he's going to strike out. A bold or experimental artist will sometimes fail; that's the nature of boldness and experimenting. And, as the late great Elliott Smith once said, "Fucking up is part of it." But you're right. It's a good point.

[Johnny Thunders!]

I really liked his Superman miniseries too. I am surprised he is hated, I think he's great and can't wait to read Adam Strange next!

[Tulku]

Tom King is a total pretender to the throne as long as Jason Aaron is still "writing."

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Heroes in Crisis and parts of his Batman run aside, Tom King is a brilliant writer. One of the best around. While Bendis may be more deserving of some of the criticism that is thrown his way (as a writer; he seems to be a total mensch as a person), the hatred for both writers seems mostly to be based on the fact that they have a very identifiable authorial voice in even their most mainstream comics and that puts people off who prefer more cookie cutter superhero stuff. They may get a lot of hate for their work on mainstream superhero comics but on their creator-owned and insulated superhero work (like Mister Miracle or Ultimate Spider-Man), they are generally pretty revered.

[seismic-2]

Is Tom King the most hated writer in comics?

Not while Frank Miller is still alive.

[Vakanai]

Not while Frank Miller is still alive.

While his modern work is trash, people still love his early stuff - Daredevil, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One.

[Kingdom X]

HiC makes me sick, but since he’s gone back to doing more self-contained stories I think a lot of the negative press around him has dissipated. I even think a lot of people were disappointed that his New Gods project with Ava got cancelled.

[C_Miller]

I don't like King, but there are other writers that are just as worse. Bendis, Lobdell, Brubaker, etc.

Does not compute...

[Vakanai]

HiC makes me sick, but since he’s gone back to doing more self-contained stories I think a lot of the negative press around him has dissipated. I even think a lot of people were disappointed that his New Gods project with Ava got cancelled.

I have no interest in the New Gods but I still thought the movie could be cool.

Plus its cancelling has helped motivate the Snyder cult.

[skyvolt2000]

Sheriff of Babylon: 9.1
Vision: 9.3
Omega Men: 8.5
Mister Miracle: 9.2
Batman: let's say 7.5 (hard to aggregate b/c it's mixed in with Tynion, but his lowest score was 6.8, out of 85 issues. Most were 8 or higher)
Swamp Thing Winter Special: 9.2
Superman: Up in the Sky: 7.3
Heroes in Crisis: 6.9
Strange Adventures: 8.5
Rorschach: 8.3
Batman/Catwoman: 7.7

How much freedom or lack of freedom does he get?

It seems books that would have or sniff editorial interference have the rating issues.

The bottom 3 followed HIC-so that probably has a hand in those ratings.


I would say Coates would have that title since he OPENLY expressed hatred of Black Panther and showed it.

[TheMaker1610]

Regarding Bendis, I absolutely love his USM and New Avengers runs, but have mixed feelings on almost everything else. His infamous "Bendispeak" doesnt help also.
Other than that, Bendis is a really chill guy. I just cant find any reason as to why would people hate him tbh.

Now, the thing with Tom King, as another guy here already pointed out, is that he does pretty controversial stuff in his social feeds, in the same way Slott and Spencer (during the Hydra-cap days) would do, earning innecesary heat. Also, I think people dislike the kind of favoritism he earned from Didio at the time. I mean, every single writer had editors breathing on its neck, but Tom King could somehow do his Batman run relatively unopposed? Yeah, that a good way to alienate people imo.
In my case, I dont hate King, but what I said above, along with the quality of his Batman run (and that cesspool named HiC) are some of the reasons I dislike him as a writer.



On another note.. WHY WOULD ANYONE HATE TAYLOR?
I mean, of all people.. TAYLOR? Why tho? Please dont say Injustice.. PLEASE.

[Nite-Wing]

This board has a tendency to hate Good Writers like King once they utilize characters they like badly.
Wally West and Dick were victims of King's stories and subsequently he became the most hated writer on this board.

Forget the fact that Half his writing resume absolutely destroys the fan favorites on this board like Johns or Seeley