On the old forum I had started a thread talking about the worst that writers had done to characters, such as Shooter's Hank Pym's fateful slap, Bendis making the Scarlet Witch a crazy mass murder, Shooter having Moondragon's rape Thor, Slott transforming Starfox into a rapist pervert (must be something in the air of Titan) and so on, efectively assassinating the character. There were a lot of interesting discussions over there, and I'd like to keep the floor open to continue it here.
To get the ball rolling, Steve Englehart's trashing of Quicksilver, making him a failed husband and father, and a petty, vindictive, and largely inconsequential villian. From the get-go, he seemed to have it for Pietro, showing him as a small-minded and very ineffective hero. Than, Crystal (another character that Englehart seemed to really have it for, making her into a shallow, slutty character, who not only cheated on her husband, but had to leave the FF because she couldn't resist putting the moves on the then married Human Torch) cheated on him, and he went on the deep end with rants of Crystal having curropted his purity and innocence (Yeah, you are gonna take seriously a grown man who shouts things like this...), and looking down at everybody, blamminh everyone else for his constant failures. Englehart seemed to have it so badly for Pietro and Crystal that his smear campaign went on from the Vision and Scarlet Witch 12 issue Maxi-series, to WCA, to the FF. Quicksilver's dilema was finnally resolved off panel, with the Inhumans figuring out off-panel that Pietro had always been under the influence of Maximus. It took years, and PAD finnaly landing Quicksilver in his X-Factor to finally redeem the character, however, by then, he was already tagged as a weak secrew-up, who caused M-Day and aalmost started a war with the Inhumans.
So, what others can you guys think about? Why does it irk you so much? Why do you think it's so damaging?
Peace