classic storylines that were disliked at the time

[Mace Dolex]

As far as more modern books that are now (rightly) held to be classics go:

every issue of Bendis Daredevil was shredded mercilessly and mocked by the AICN reviewers and other critics

Morrison's New X-Men was pummeled issue-by-issue

Ennis' MK Punisher was drug through the dirt

But aren't those still disliked because of the black leather fetish wearing X-Men?

[JJ87]

More controversial opinion: DKSA and Spider-man Clone Saga were both savaged, whereas looking back now the former borders on genius while the latter holds up quite well and contains some amazing issues.

Controversial indeed!
I accept I like the Clone Saga for nostalgia's sake, but I'd really like to know what makes DKSA border on "genius".

[Dmreyn]

This is more recent but still a great example: Superior Spider-Man. I started getting back into comics during this storyline and the hate filled rants were EVERYWHERE on comics forums. Old fans saying they'd "never read Spider-Man again", all these people trying to say Peter was never coming back, etc. Slott really pissed a lot of people off. I love it, and looking back, I think a lot of people who gave it a chance actually really enjoyed it.

[RichardWrite]

As far as more modern books that are now (rightly) held to be classics go:

every issue of Bendis Daredevil was shredded mercilessly and mocked by the AICN reviewers and other critics

Morrison's New X-Men was pummeled issue-by-issue

Ennis' MK Punisher was drug through the dirt


More controversial opinion: DKSA and Spider-man Clone Saga were both savaged, whereas looking back now the former borders on genius while the latter holds up quite well and contains some amazing issues.

I was one of the few who really liked the Clone saga at the time. Before they did that, I had been saying that they need a clever way to make Peter Parker young and single again, yet without doing a DC and saying the past several years never happened. I thought this would have been a clever way of achieving that.

[DrGregatron]

I know myself and some of the guys I knew back in the 80s thought the X-men started losing the plot around the Mutant Massacre and it only got worse when they split the comic twice with X-factor and Excalibur. Those comics were hugely popular and sometimes ok, but I know that's when I really lost interest into other titles and characters. To me, it seemed like there was just a new secret group of mutants every week and then they got into Apocalypse and I just didn't like that story line at all. Obviously in how the X-titles evolved, this was a pretty big leap of new ideas and stories that have been mined a ton over the years. It might read different to me now. I was completely out of the X-titles around the "Inferno" story line. I know my first new issue was around #128, but I don't think I started getting every issue until around the death of Jean Gray.

I was one of those people in the 80s who thought X-Men lost a lot of steam after Mutant Massacre. I hung around to about #250 before quitting. I thought all the new mutant spinoffs really sucked especially X-Factor and Excalibur. New Mutants was good until about Secret Wars 2. When I read all the X-men issues a few years ago, I softened a little and concluded that although Claremont's run went slowly downhill after Massacre, that it was still the best X-Men and that the 90s must have really sucked for fans of good X-Men comics.

[DrGregatron]

I was reading the second volume of the Uncanny X-Men by Claremont/Byrne when I stumbled upon a letter by Kurt Busiek complaining about what became the Dark Phoenix Saga. He was doing what the fanboys do, complaining about the storyline, especially the treatment of the characters (he thought the characters were getting too dark. Wonder what a young Kurt Busiek would think of the current state of Marvel and DC). In any case, I was wondering what other stories that later became classics that were disliked or hated by the fandom?

Did people really enjoy Byrne'S FF run? Simonson's Thor? I seem to remember people complaining about Brubaker's Captain America run (which I really enjoyed), but I don't know if that too recent to be considered classic.

Byrne's FF was some of my earliest comics. I loved his FF run then as much as I love it now. He was a great writer and artist then and is still better than most people working today.

I don't know if you can take the letters page from an old comic and determine whether a book was well received "back in the day", though. Those letters weren't nescessarily selected by the company for the purposes of printing in the comic because they were representative of buyer opinion.

[Shawn Hopkins]

There were a lot of very vocal Punisher fans who hated the Ennis stuff and wanted the Carl Potts superhero teamup days back.

[Bad Wolf]

I was one of those people in the 80s who thought X-Men lost a lot of steam after Mutant Massacre. I hung around to about #250 before quitting. I thought all the new mutant spinoffs really sucked especially X-Factor and Excalibur. New Mutants was good until about Secret Wars 2. When I read all the X-men issues a few years ago, I softened a little and concluded that although Claremont's run went slowly downhill after Massacre, that it was still the best X-Men and that the 90s must have really sucked for fans of good X-Men comics.

Same here, more or less. I quit UXM in the 220s, I think. I loved Excalibur though, as long as Alan Davis was on it.

In spite of this, I'm still tempted to grab the Mutant Massacre and Fall of the Mutants HCs off my local shop's half-price table. I don't know why. Maybe it will read easier on the good paper.

[Balakin]

Same here, more or less. I quit UXM in the 220s, I think. I loved Excalibur though, as long as Alan Davis was on it.

In spite of this, I'm still tempted to grab the Mutant Massacre and Fall of the Mutants HCs off my local shop's half-price table. I don't know why. Maybe it will read easier on the good paper.

I recently read Mutant Massacre in Essential and it is quite good. I wasn't too fond of the previous essential I've read (vol3, vol2 has Dark phoenix and DoFP so after those vol3 was a bit of meh) but this volume with Mutant massacre was a really enjoyable read. Never read Fall of the mutants but I would like to and for half price I would absolutely buy it.

[Ray1967]

I remember a lot of people did not like the changes DC did for the Crisis event, removing the multiverse, also when they just rebooted characters with little regard to their continuity, eventually the dust settled and readers became accepting.

[Bri]

Byrne's FF was some of my earliest comics. I loved his FF run then as much as I love it now. He was a great writer and artist then and is still better than most people working today.

I don't know if you can take the letters page from an old comic and determine whether a book was well received "back in the day", though. Those letters weren't nescessarily selected by the company for the purposes of printing in the comic because they were representative of buyer opinion.

Have you checked any of Byrnes creator owned books from IDW like Triple Helix or Highways? Its great-looking top notch JB.
Back on topic I remember the Defalco/Frenz run on Thor taking a lot of heat when it was coming out, but it seems like many people look back upon it fondly. It was one of faves when it first came out and I hope Marvel will continue with the Epic Collections.

[thales]

I don't know if you can take the letters page from an old comic and determine whether a book was well received "back in the day", though. Those letters weren't nescessarily selected by the company for the purposes of printing in the comic because they were representative of buyer opinion.

I would think the editors would pick letters that represented the view of what they got. Still, even if it's not representative, I still find it interesting to find letters from people like Busiek in old comics :-)

It's actually one of the thing I loved about the omnibus editions. To read what people thought about a particular issue or storyline knowing where it's going. I would really love to find out what people thought of Miller's Daredevil run, for instance (my copy of the omnibus didn't include the letters, don't know if it came in the earlier editions).

[Kurt Busiek]

I would think the editors would pick letters that represented the view of what they got.

Not at all. They weren't interested in presenting a representative sample, they were interested in filling the page with decently-written letters that hopefully had an easy hook for a nice, easy-to-write response.

The overwhelming number of letters they got back then were uncritically positive, and one or two lines long. It wasn't even unusual for letters to be written in crayon by letter-writers who wrote to the lead character as if they were real.

The staffers who put together the letter columns wanted to get through the job quickly and put out a hopefully-entertaining page. So they gave first priority to letters that were typed, and after that to letters that made an interesting point or asked interesting questions. And if they didn't get those, well, uncritical praise would do.

But they weren't designed to be a snapshot of the readership. Just to fill up the page with text in a way that wasn't too dull.

I found out when I started pitching scripts that editors remembered the names of letter-writers who could be counted on to write decent letters (something like, "Oh, good, there's a Busiek letter -- or a Sanderson letter, or M.E. Robbins, or verde or whoever -- I know I'll at least be able to use that, if I don't have anything else"). So in many cases, I was pitching to people who already associated my name with "usable stuff." Which was a nice surprise.

kdb

[FanboyStranger]

Back on topic I remember the Defalco/Frenz run on Thor taking a lot of heat when it was coming out, but it seems like many people look back upon it fondly. It was one of faves when it first came out and I hope Marvel will continue with the Epic Collections.

I think that was a more a matter of DeFalco/Frenz following up Walt Simonson's definitive run. I really like that run up until Eric Masterson takes over full time after "The Black Galaxy Saga". I think the perception at the time that DeFalco/Frenz was a step-back for Thor, but in truth, despite not being as progressive in its storytelling as Walt's run, there were a lot of wild concepts and big ideas in the book. For example, "Alone Against the Celestials" is a crazy story with an epic scale, and a year later, we'd get the "Helopolis" storyline, one of the truly classic Thor epics. But we'd also get stuff like the Mongoose, which felt like filler material. So, there's a lot to like about the DeFalco/Frenz run, but there's also a lot of pedestrian stuff. As this was such a progressive time in comics, particularly at DC, Thor felt kinda out of step with the times, but it was still good.

This happens a lot when people follow up a classic run. One of the prime examples is Rachel Pollack taking over dOOM pATROL after Grant Morrison. For years, these comics had a terrible reputation, but I've seen a lot of reappraisal lately. I've been re-reading them lately, and there's a lot to like. With some critical distance from the classic run, you can form a more balanced opinion about the runs that follow them up.

[fumetti]

I was reading the second volume of the Uncanny X-Men by Claremont/Byrne when I stumbled upon a letter by Kurt Busiek complaining about what became the Dark Phoenix Saga. He was doing what the fanboys do, complaining about the storyline, especially the treatment of the characters (he thought the characters were getting too dark. Wonder what a young Kurt Busiek would think of the current state of Marvel and DC). In any case, I was wondering what other stories that later became classics that were disliked or hated by the fandom?

Did people really enjoy Byrne'S FF run? Simonson's Thor? I seem to remember people complaining about Brubaker's Captain America run (which I really enjoyed), but I don't know if that too recent to be considered classic.

The "Death of Superman" storyline is a classic, but it was the worst Superman story ever told IMO. Suddenly Superman became a stupid fighter (punching what can't be hurt; fighting inside Metropolis instead of flying off into space) who either conveniently lost certain powers (super-speed) or they became ineffective (heat vision).

Byrne's FF was absolutely wonderful but, to me, it lost steam in the last year.

Simonson's Thor was absolutely great. He took Thor to new heights. (It helped that the book had been mediocre for a few years leading into it.)

...

Actually, I don't think you'll find many examples that fit this thread. Unliked storylines don't become "classics." Classics are not only good in their time, but they're generally better than much of what comes after them (that's why they're remembered fondly).

This can be discussed individually, such as "which classic stories did you not like at the time but do like now?"

For me, that would be Moore's Swamp Thing, Cerebus, Tomb of Dracula, Al Williamson's X-9...and other such things I sampled and passed on.