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angelophileIn the final part of my Top Five meme, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kirke_novak asked for Top 5 Comic Books You Wish Never Existed.
Now, that's an open category. Are we talking series or individual issues? And in the days of online solicitations, I'm usually able to avoid books that look horrible.
And, let's face it, bad books are often easy to avoid. Or used to be. An issue of the X-men where the X-men encounter a villain that turns into ice cream? Easily dodged! Onslaught Returns? Did anyone even notice? So, to be truly a book that I wish never existed, it has to be something that was not just horrible in its own right, but by its existence screws up a bunch of other stuff that I actually care about too.
And, let's face it, not wanting to be a Yellow Hat, most of that's… um… well, let's just say we're talking last five years for my top picks.
But, for the record, I present my top five:
5. X-men: Deadly Genesis
A retcon that seems to exist for no other reason than to make Professor X into a huge asshole and introduce Marvel's whiniest supervillain, Deadly Genesis set out to show Xavier as a Machiavellian manipulator who sends children to their deaths without proper training and then covers it up. The phrase "editorially mandated" is to become a common cry throughout this top five and this is another of those titles where I'm not sure it's fair to blame the writer. Ed Brubaker is a writer whose work I normally enjoy, so Deadly Genesis was disappointing on a number of levels.
In actual fact, the book is frustrating. It's relatively easy to ignore Vulcan, since he's gone off into space in a bunch of books I don't read. It's also relatively easy to ignore the retcon of a second team, because it doesn't even make any sense. but less easy to ignore the damage done to the character of Professor X. The fact that Mike Carey has spent his entire time in X-men Legacy trying to rebuild the character from where he was left by this, the first of the "Professor Xavier is a jerk!" moments recently introduced, is very telling. In fact, that's the thing - Xavier might have been a jerk, but not an amoral man, which this was the start of. It's nice to have shades of grey in villains like Magneto, but when that character comes across as more sympathetic than your hero, you have a problem.
In addition it seemed to be the start of the assumption that only an utter A-hole could lead the X-men, leading to Cyclops too being dragged down the ruthless, amoral path.
Add to that, the death of Banshee, the sacrificial lamb to the Villain Sue of Vulcan. A character who still had so much to give in the right writer's hands.
So let's raise a glass to what never should have been.
4. Amazing Spider-Man #545 - (One More Day)
This is the book that my local comic store owner described as being "utterly disrespectful to the readers and retailers." I think we all know what happens: With Aunt May on her death bed after being attacked by a sniper Peter Parker agrees a Faustian deal to sell hissoul marriage to the devil in return for saving her life. From this moment on, Peter Parker stopped being a hero and became a douche.
And that's really why this issue makes the list. The issue itself is bad enough and when editorial's messed with a story so much the writer doesn't even want people to recognize it as his own any more, you know you're in trouble. Inside the issue there's horrible characterizations as characters are forced by the plot to be shadows of their formers selves - Mary Jane, for example, becomes irrational, hysterical, and impulsive, which isn't really the sort of character she's been...ever. Add to that, the fact that Quesada chose to illustrate a double-page spread of all the defining moments of Peter's marriage as he wiped it out is still seeped in irony.
Then there's the long term effect on the character - since this moment, Peter Parker's gone from being a genuine every-man to a stunted man-child because this was an attempt to bring back his youth. The marriage "aged him" and so had to go. Now he's a marriageless, immature, idiot literally basement dwelling in his late twenties. I think it says a lot about how Marvel view their audience if that's how they view the "everyman".
The only reason this doesn't place higher on the list is because, while it's left me not wanting to read about Spider-man, well, ever, the knock on effect on the rest of the Marvel universe has been negligible. It's saved me picking up a few Spider-man titles a month, but it hasn't tainted the entire Marvel universe, which others on my list have…
3. Amazing Spider-man #512 - (Sins Past)
This comic is just… I hated the storyline at the time, but in retrospect, Sins Past just seems even worse. What offends me most about this storyline most is not Gwen Stacy's children returning as force grown ninja twins, although this is a mindblowingly terrible idea in itself, the sort of crappy comic book plotline I thought we were long over. It's not even Gwen Stacy being retconned into sleeping into Norman Osborn, although this idea is so incredibly awful you have to wonder whether the cocaine got mixed with Ajax at the Marvel writer's summit that year. It's not even the revelation that Mary Jane knew all along and yet didn't ever tell her husband.
No, the truly horrible thing about it is that it was the start of Joe Quesada's, and by extension Marvel's, sickening canonical love affair with Norman. Sins Past was the storyline that saw Norman turn irrevocably from mad lunatic with wealth to a character that was meant to be seen as "sexy, charismatic and powerful". It settled the "Lex Luthorization" of Norman Osborn, with every appearance revealing Osborn to be behind some great plot to ruin Peter's life and also growing so powerful as to be untouchable. The "he's so dreamy!" attitude towards Norman in that story, despite him being a psychotic, cold blooded killer, is the first step on the path to Marvel loving Norman so goddam much they make him the centre of the entire Marvel universe. For that reason it beats out One More Day. That event just made me dislike Spider-man. The love affair with Norman makes me dislike the Marvel Universe as a whole.
And, honestly, if a close up of Norman's sweaty face as he deflowers a teenage girl isn't enough to wish this comic out of existence, I don't know what is.
2. Civil War - Frontline #11
Ah, Sally Floyd. A character for whom the phrase Mary Sue doesn't seem appropriate, despite fitting many of the definitions. However, the words strident, unlikable, unreasonable, rude, and flat-out obnoxious aren't usually words applied to Sues. So what is Sally? I think the phrase "just bloody horrible" sums her up best.
So, this is the issue in which Captain America is cowed in the infamous scene where Sally accuses him of not knowing what Myspace is. A mumbling, chastised Cap is PWNED and Sally allowed to flounce off to the penthouse apartment of Tony Stark, who, when accused, reveals that he deliberately controlled the Green Goblin into attacking and killing a party of Atlantians, thus nearly triggering a war. The crisis got the public panicked enough to allow Stark to push the Superhuman Registration Act through congress and also netting Stark over 90 billion dollars because of the fluctuating market.
Civil War by itself was bad enough to be wished from reality, but I think it was this issue that really tipped it over the edge for me. The long term damage to Stark appears irrevocable - whilst the core book made Tony more sympathic and you could, at least, understand his reasoning, this issue effectively turned him into a supervillain. Pushing the USA to the brink of war with another nation, creaming off the profits and mind-controlling someone else to do it.
When seen against that, the scene where Floyd confronts Cap, accusing him of being out of touch with modern America, that he should be representing reality and not an ideal, stating America wants the registration act, as though it were something voted on upon rather than rammed through congress by an amoral billionaire who thought he knew which way the wind blew, while Cap sits cowed and, apparently, believes she's right ijust adds to the many reasons why this book should never have been.
I hesitate to use the phrase "ruined forever", since I know it receives mockery from a certain quarter, but certainly, in this issue Stark became a character I have no interest in reading again.
And then they put him in charge of the Marvel universe.
1. House of M #6
House of M taken by itself was inoffensive. A slow moving, out of continuity tale with pretty art. Unfortunately, this was the issue that contained the line "No more mutants" and therefore I wish "No more House of M."
See, I'm not necessarily against the idea of making mutants a little rarer. But Morrison's proposition of mutants increasing in numbers, becoming more central to worldwide politics and culture would seem to me a far more interesting an relevant idea, in the days of Presidents of colour and gay marriages, then shoving the mutants back into the closet, making them a tiny minority that aren't even worth fearing, they should mostly be pitied.
In actual fact, the number of major mutant characters depowered in the event was negligible. The damage was done to the minor characters and by depowering a lot of those and leaving the mainstream intact, whilst essentially limiting any new characters, Marvel slammed the door on any freshness in the X-men for the next few years. Since then we’ve been limited to stories with the same old characters, setting the mutants back into the same oppressed minority role we've seen for the last forty years and no growth in themes or characters.
In addition, No More Mutants set the X-men on a steady route down one path - even under Morrison the X-men had reduced in scope to stories not about heroes saving the world, but fighting between, and trying to save, themselves. Since then practically every story has been about mutant issues - mutants trying to protect mutants, mutants targeted because they're mutants. The old concept of the X-men trying to protect a world that hates and fears them. Now they're just trying to protect their own asses.
And since the X-men are the characters I used to be most interested in in the Marvelverse, this takes top slot.
kirke_novak asked for Top 5 Comic Books You Wish Never Existed.Now, that's an open category. Are we talking series or individual issues? And in the days of online solicitations, I'm usually able to avoid books that look horrible.
And, let's face it, bad books are often easy to avoid. Or used to be. An issue of the X-men where the X-men encounter a villain that turns into ice cream? Easily dodged! Onslaught Returns? Did anyone even notice? So, to be truly a book that I wish never existed, it has to be something that was not just horrible in its own right, but by its existence screws up a bunch of other stuff that I actually care about too.
And, let's face it, not wanting to be a Yellow Hat, most of that's… um… well, let's just say we're talking last five years for my top picks.
But, for the record, I present my top five:
5. X-men: Deadly Genesis
A retcon that seems to exist for no other reason than to make Professor X into a huge asshole and introduce Marvel's whiniest supervillain, Deadly Genesis set out to show Xavier as a Machiavellian manipulator who sends children to their deaths without proper training and then covers it up. The phrase "editorially mandated" is to become a common cry throughout this top five and this is another of those titles where I'm not sure it's fair to blame the writer. Ed Brubaker is a writer whose work I normally enjoy, so Deadly Genesis was disappointing on a number of levels.
In actual fact, the book is frustrating. It's relatively easy to ignore Vulcan, since he's gone off into space in a bunch of books I don't read. It's also relatively easy to ignore the retcon of a second team, because it doesn't even make any sense. but less easy to ignore the damage done to the character of Professor X. The fact that Mike Carey has spent his entire time in X-men Legacy trying to rebuild the character from where he was left by this, the first of the "Professor Xavier is a jerk!" moments recently introduced, is very telling. In fact, that's the thing - Xavier might have been a jerk, but not an amoral man, which this was the start of. It's nice to have shades of grey in villains like Magneto, but when that character comes across as more sympathetic than your hero, you have a problem.
In addition it seemed to be the start of the assumption that only an utter A-hole could lead the X-men, leading to Cyclops too being dragged down the ruthless, amoral path.
Add to that, the death of Banshee, the sacrificial lamb to the Villain Sue of Vulcan. A character who still had so much to give in the right writer's hands.
So let's raise a glass to what never should have been.
4. Amazing Spider-Man #545 - (One More Day)
This is the book that my local comic store owner described as being "utterly disrespectful to the readers and retailers." I think we all know what happens: With Aunt May on her death bed after being attacked by a sniper Peter Parker agrees a Faustian deal to sell his
And that's really why this issue makes the list. The issue itself is bad enough and when editorial's messed with a story so much the writer doesn't even want people to recognize it as his own any more, you know you're in trouble. Inside the issue there's horrible characterizations as characters are forced by the plot to be shadows of their formers selves - Mary Jane, for example, becomes irrational, hysterical, and impulsive, which isn't really the sort of character she's been...ever. Add to that, the fact that Quesada chose to illustrate a double-page spread of all the defining moments of Peter's marriage as he wiped it out is still seeped in irony.
Then there's the long term effect on the character - since this moment, Peter Parker's gone from being a genuine every-man to a stunted man-child because this was an attempt to bring back his youth. The marriage "aged him" and so had to go. Now he's a marriageless, immature, idiot literally basement dwelling in his late twenties. I think it says a lot about how Marvel view their audience if that's how they view the "everyman".
The only reason this doesn't place higher on the list is because, while it's left me not wanting to read about Spider-man, well, ever, the knock on effect on the rest of the Marvel universe has been negligible. It's saved me picking up a few Spider-man titles a month, but it hasn't tainted the entire Marvel universe, which others on my list have…
3. Amazing Spider-man #512 - (Sins Past)
This comic is just… I hated the storyline at the time, but in retrospect, Sins Past just seems even worse. What offends me most about this storyline most is not Gwen Stacy's children returning as force grown ninja twins, although this is a mindblowingly terrible idea in itself, the sort of crappy comic book plotline I thought we were long over. It's not even Gwen Stacy being retconned into sleeping into Norman Osborn, although this idea is so incredibly awful you have to wonder whether the cocaine got mixed with Ajax at the Marvel writer's summit that year. It's not even the revelation that Mary Jane knew all along and yet didn't ever tell her husband.
No, the truly horrible thing about it is that it was the start of Joe Quesada's, and by extension Marvel's, sickening canonical love affair with Norman. Sins Past was the storyline that saw Norman turn irrevocably from mad lunatic with wealth to a character that was meant to be seen as "sexy, charismatic and powerful". It settled the "Lex Luthorization" of Norman Osborn, with every appearance revealing Osborn to be behind some great plot to ruin Peter's life and also growing so powerful as to be untouchable. The "he's so dreamy!" attitude towards Norman in that story, despite him being a psychotic, cold blooded killer, is the first step on the path to Marvel loving Norman so goddam much they make him the centre of the entire Marvel universe. For that reason it beats out One More Day. That event just made me dislike Spider-man. The love affair with Norman makes me dislike the Marvel Universe as a whole.
And, honestly, if a close up of Norman's sweaty face as he deflowers a teenage girl isn't enough to wish this comic out of existence, I don't know what is.
2. Civil War - Frontline #11
Ah, Sally Floyd. A character for whom the phrase Mary Sue doesn't seem appropriate, despite fitting many of the definitions. However, the words strident, unlikable, unreasonable, rude, and flat-out obnoxious aren't usually words applied to Sues. So what is Sally? I think the phrase "just bloody horrible" sums her up best.
So, this is the issue in which Captain America is cowed in the infamous scene where Sally accuses him of not knowing what Myspace is. A mumbling, chastised Cap is PWNED and Sally allowed to flounce off to the penthouse apartment of Tony Stark, who, when accused, reveals that he deliberately controlled the Green Goblin into attacking and killing a party of Atlantians, thus nearly triggering a war. The crisis got the public panicked enough to allow Stark to push the Superhuman Registration Act through congress and also netting Stark over 90 billion dollars because of the fluctuating market.
Civil War by itself was bad enough to be wished from reality, but I think it was this issue that really tipped it over the edge for me. The long term damage to Stark appears irrevocable - whilst the core book made Tony more sympathic and you could, at least, understand his reasoning, this issue effectively turned him into a supervillain. Pushing the USA to the brink of war with another nation, creaming off the profits and mind-controlling someone else to do it.
When seen against that, the scene where Floyd confronts Cap, accusing him of being out of touch with modern America, that he should be representing reality and not an ideal, stating America wants the registration act, as though it were something voted on upon rather than rammed through congress by an amoral billionaire who thought he knew which way the wind blew, while Cap sits cowed and, apparently, believes she's right ijust adds to the many reasons why this book should never have been.
I hesitate to use the phrase "ruined forever", since I know it receives mockery from a certain quarter, but certainly, in this issue Stark became a character I have no interest in reading again.
And then they put him in charge of the Marvel universe.
1. House of M #6
House of M taken by itself was inoffensive. A slow moving, out of continuity tale with pretty art. Unfortunately, this was the issue that contained the line "No more mutants" and therefore I wish "No more House of M."
See, I'm not necessarily against the idea of making mutants a little rarer. But Morrison's proposition of mutants increasing in numbers, becoming more central to worldwide politics and culture would seem to me a far more interesting an relevant idea, in the days of Presidents of colour and gay marriages, then shoving the mutants back into the closet, making them a tiny minority that aren't even worth fearing, they should mostly be pitied.
In actual fact, the number of major mutant characters depowered in the event was negligible. The damage was done to the minor characters and by depowering a lot of those and leaving the mainstream intact, whilst essentially limiting any new characters, Marvel slammed the door on any freshness in the X-men for the next few years. Since then we’ve been limited to stories with the same old characters, setting the mutants back into the same oppressed minority role we've seen for the last forty years and no growth in themes or characters.
In addition, No More Mutants set the X-men on a steady route down one path - even under Morrison the X-men had reduced in scope to stories not about heroes saving the world, but fighting between, and trying to save, themselves. Since then practically every story has been about mutant issues - mutants trying to protect mutants, mutants targeted because they're mutants. The old concept of the X-men trying to protect a world that hates and fears them. Now they're just trying to protect their own asses.
And since the X-men are the characters I used to be most interested in in the Marvelverse, this takes top slot.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-14 04:29 pm (UTC)To be honest, it just went downhill (Tony + Maria rutting was like being hit in an aching jaw with a dick, to borrow a phrase I read today)
I had no idea what was going on in Marvelworld until two days ago, when I found out they are bringing You Know Who back. I hope the first thing he does is to line up every single person, ever and smack them with his shield. For great justice!
One More Day was a travesty, even to someone who was not a regular Spidey fan. Another nail in the coffin. I have a feeling that every Marvel employee has about 3 ideas how to bring "our" Spidey back, because everyone knows the first thing the knew EIC of Marvel will say at the very first staff meeting will be - One More Day; how do we retcon that crap?
no subject
Date: 2009-08-14 04:38 pm (UTC)Oh god.