Wrong turns made in storylines for DC Comics

[blunt_eastwood]

Evil coming or how Pandora manipulated Flash into creating New 52. A new Cosmic force that is Cosmic level would have been nice.

What the hell were they thinking? They already had all of this lore with the Anti-Monitor and Crisis and all of that, and they replace it with this stupid storyline. And then of course to convolute things even more they then bring back the Anti-Monitor.

[Zero Hunter]

I also loved Chris Kent, whom come to think of it, is basically the proto Jon. Clark and Lois adopting Zod and Ursa's son was such a neat angle. He too was prematurely aged up and later got tangled in a romantic plot line.

I have been saying for years DC screwed up so bad by not moving Chris Kent to the future and making him the new permanent Superboy in the Legion. It would have given the Legion back it's ties to Superman, but with a character that would belong to the Legion writers and not the Superman writers. (They also could have brought Cir-El to the future as the new permanent Supergirl too)

[krazijoe]

What the hell were they thinking? They already had all of this lore with the Anti-Monitor and Crisis and all of that, and they replace it with this stupid storyline. And then of course to convolute things even more they then bring back the Anti-Monitor.

It was the Nu52. They wanted to refresh it a little without having to resort to the same cosmic baddies. So instead of that payoff, they turned her into Perpetua and now we have the Dark Multiverse...I think it was a wrong turn...

[Timothy Hunter]

Yes, that whiplash from the joy of Wally West returning in Rebirth to the infuriating 'Heroes in Crisis' is something I'll never forget.

All that stuff you mentioned is part of the reason why being a DC reader in the 00's was so frustrating and it got worse once the Nu52 rolled out.



All of this.



Yes, this.

I wasn't a regular Superman reader but once World of New Krypton came out I was all in on Superman titles. It was the most exciting the line up had been in long time.

I also loved Chris Kent, whom come to think of it, is basically the proto Jon. Clark and Lois adopting Zod and Ursa's son was such a neat angle. He too was prematurely aged up and later got tangled in a romantic plot line.

The worst part was that Clark had no reaction to his people getting genocided again, the next arc with JMS was him walking around America because some random woman gave him shit for not helping cure her son of cancer.

It's mind boggling how bad Straczynski's runs on Wonder Woman and Superman were. It seems like if you are a big enough name, you basically have carte blanche to whatever you want with a character, no matter how bad the idea is.

[Stanlos]

JMS Superman was bad? His credentials as a writer are long and guilded with acclaim. HTH does he botch Superman? I mean, didn't he used to write for Filmation's He-Man? I would think he'd be familiar with superhuman stuff

[Timothy Hunter]

JMS Superman was bad? His credentials as a writer are long and guilded with acclaim. HTH does he botch Superman? I mean, didn't he used to write for Filmation's He-Man? I would think he'd be familiar with superhuman stuff

I love Babylon 5 but JMS's comics work was a mixed bag I loved Midnight Station and the Twelve, but I thought his Wonder Woman, Superman, and Superman Earth One were terrible. Supreme Power didn't bring anything new to the table in terms of dark and gritty superhero deconstructions. Haven't read his Spiderman run yet, people speak positively of the issues he did with John Romita Jr, but I also heard people hate Sins Past and One More Day.

[Thor-Ul]

Making Hawkworld take place in the present day instead of being a "year one" type story for the post-Crisis Hawks.

Only this little thing, a small text on page one saying: "Many years ago" could had prevented so much problems.

[John Venus]

I have been saying for years DC screwed up so bad by not moving Chris Kent to the future and making him the new permanent Superboy in the Legion. It would have given the Legion back it's ties to Superman, but with a character that would belong to the Legion writers and not the Superman writers. (They also could have brought Cir-El to the future as the new permanent Supergirl too)

My ideal solution for World of Krypton would have been to move the Kandorians to the far side of the galaxy with Mon-El (and Chris Kent if writers didn't want to keep him earth side) as their protectors. Turn them into major players in the DC Cosmic arena.

But, moving them into the 31st century is also a good solution. I also love your idea of Chris becoming the Superman figure of the 31st century as well.

I also think both the comics and the 'Superman & Lois' tv show also missed an opportunity by not having Chris Kent as the older brother figure to Jon Kent.

It's mind boggling how bad Straczynski's runs on Wonder Woman and Superman were. It seems like if you are a big enough name, you basically have carte blanche to whatever you want with a character, no matter how bad the idea is.

Straczynski's stuff has been on a downward slope for a while. I enjoyed his Spider-Man run (no the Spider-Totem stuff obviously but the way he wrote the Peter/MJ relationship and Aunt May) and his run on Thor was magnificent but everything I read of him afterwards were just terrible. His Superman: Earth One OGN was very lackluster. You would think it's because he was working for the Big two (and maybe that did factor in somewhat) but some of his creator owned stuff has been bad as well. Like 'Sidekicks' for example which I could only bear for one issue before dropping as the whole premise seemed to be based on humiliating the main side kick character because JMS had issues with side kicks since he was a kid comic book fan.

His Thor run made you think he would be a perfect choice for WW as well but nope, we ended up with yet another attempt to 'fix' WW by retconning her past and mythos. I don't blame JMS 100% for that decision though since Didio and co. has always been hell bent on 'fixing' WW and JMS was the latest creator they hired to do so.

Only this little thing, a small text on page one saying: "Many years ago" could had prevented so much problems.

They could have fixed it with either Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis but somehow didn't. Zero Hour made it worse while Infinite Crisis did nothing for the Hawks.

[Aahz]

Batman & Robin Eternal sidelining most Robins to let Harper, Cass and a bunch Guest Characters shine.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

Making Hawkworld take place in the present day instead of being a "year one" type story for the post-Crisis Hawks.

Bringing back the Lost Lanterns just to kill most of them off in quick succession.

Heroes in Crisis, obviously. Good Lord.

Everything that happened in Earth 2 after Robinson left.

Everything you said. Just, WHY, DC?

[married guy]

The biggest one in recent years was aging Jon Kent up off-panel. I loved having 10 year old Jon as his dad's "sidekick" and the whole family going on adventures. And all of that was just thrown away for no good reason that I can see.

This for me is the biggest one of the last few years.
It robbed us of one the most fun parings since Blue/Gold. Now the Jon/Damian team-up is weird.

[John Venus]

Just remembered:

-Starling/Eve Crawford. One of the few good things to come out of the Nu52 who ends up unceremoniously turned into a villain and then just disappeared into limbo.

-Levitz's Huntress mini that came out right before Nu52. We were initially lead to thing this was Huntress/Helena Bertinelli but at the end we got the sudden twist that it was actually Helena Wayne all along. A lot of Bertinelli fans didn't like that. There is also no good reason to characterize Wayne as Bertinelli anyway.

[godisawesome]

Most of mine are tied to seeing Dan Didio and others insist on intruding on something that’s working for the sake of micromanaging an idea to death. In general? I think the New 52 got ultimately derailed and killed well *after* it’s launch because of Didio and others changing their minds on basic ideas they’d already approved, and constantly running off talent elsewhere.

A big moment of that for me personally, though, would be mid-2012 to early-2013, when it became clear that Scott Lobdell was far too limited of a writer for the sudden and explosive expansion of books and properties handed over to him… and that he was getting those books and properties largely because he was a malleable yes-man to editorial rather than a sometimes solid journeyman, which he is.

To put this in perspective, Lobdell’s RHaTO actually started out as the weakest of the books he was writing, wholly dependent on the art and Jason Todd’ hungry fanbase to though his moronic mishandling of Starfire - and because, at first, his Teen Titans and Superboy books were actually a step ahead in terms of writing, with a better pace, more interesting set-ups, and fewer of his flaws as a writer.

…Then DC editorial got interested in the book and his idea for the Culling story, and became aware of how sycophantic and obedient of a loyal dog he was. It was all downhill from there.

They took his smaller scale, more modest finale arc idea for Teen Titans and Superboy and demanded he expand it into a major crossover that was clearly beyond his abilities, to launch a whole new team book out of it, and bring in the Legion as well. The result? The Culling was utter trash, and to get it done, Lobdell embraced his worst “90’s at Marvel when the serious writers were told to take a hike” tendencies. We got the nonsense of Harvest as a villain who quickly became a plague as DC tried to make him a major figure, a Ravagers book that utterly wasted the Gen 13 and Titans character shoved into it, Lobdell completely giving up on trying to write any of the Teen Titans’ established characters with faithfulness to their fanbases… and an editorial so delighted at his obedience…

…That they gave him his try out on Superman for the also-editorially-loved H’el on Earth crossover, and would eventually give him the Superman book entirely because he didn’t give them any lip, unlike the numerous name-creators they’d struggled with.

It sort of proved that Didio and Berganza were 1000x more likely to endorse and support limited creators who would roll-over for whatever whims they had rather than actually let writers write.

(The only good news was that after destroying the teen hero books and doing nothing to pull Superman from mediocrity, Lobdell could settle down to Red Hood and the Outlaws, and show that, if kept within his limited abilities, he could be solid.)

-Levitz's Huntress mini that came out right before Nu52. We were initially lead to thing this was Huntress/Helena Bertinelli but at the end we got the sudden twist that it was actually Helena Wayne all along. A lot of Bertinelli fans didn't like that. There is also no good reason to characterize Wayne as Bertinelli anyway.

I distinctly remember growing cold on Helena Wayne’s Huntress because of that - and I’d been enjoying the back-to-basics approach the story had before that reveal. I still to this day think it was initially a Bertinelli story that then got ordered to change to a Wayne by editorial because of how little trust Didio and co. had in their writers to carry out a reboot that they themselves were arbitrarily changing as it was unfolding.

[DABellWrites]

Bendis YJ comes to mind. Just meandered once the whole multiverse hopping started. It was a solid start though.

[Sacred Knight]

This isn't really an example of a wrong turn rather no turn. The complete lack of solid explanation for what it was that made Superman's powers turn energy based in the first place. There were possibilities thrown out, but nothing ever concretely proven. They just did the Superman Blue/Red angle and the cause of the change really never brought up again.