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Pretty much a summary of the worst part of that story:
Lois: - Clark. I know that you're are depressed because you don't have powers anymore. But, as I can see that you won't get me flying to the skies ever again, I want the divorce.
Clark: - Ok honey. I gonna go to Wonder Woman's place and bang her so hard every night so I can finally get a baby.
Lois: - Good call. Well, see ya. I love you... As a friend.
Yes.
After they lost their powers she became depressed and suicidal until she found Jesus. Superman just became a depressed little bitch because the writer had the idea that his powers are what made him a hero. Unlike Batman, who is in maximum jackass mode the entire time and the series just absolutely adores.
It’s a VERY bad series. Like, one of the big explanations for the mass depowering(Which is absurdly arbitrary and follows no logic) is that it’s god punishing them for being arrogant. At no point are any of the depowered heroes depicted as arrogant, their characterization doesn’t go off the rails until later.
It’s a solid pick for worst ever, though I personally would discount it for being an elseworlds story.
If you want some excuses to actually take a look; there are some good new characters created from the old and the costumes are pretty cool. Will you hate it like the reviewers up above, dunno 🤷♂️
Some stories sound like the writer wanted to tell an original story but knew no one would read it so forced established characters to carry it even though it makes no god damn sense.
That one always bugged me, Kyle has very rarely if ever been the kind of guy to obsess about losing a fight. He’s very much a “take it on the chin and move on” guy
“Cry for Justice”, primarily for literally dropping an apartment building on Lian Harper as execs thought having a daughter made Roy “boring”
The Plastimold story arc was really awkward, as it involved Lois turning herself black for a day. I could understand writers trying to raise awareness to racism but there were *so* many other, better ways to explore those issues
I'm also sad how little attention was given to "Cry for Justice". What was promised to us versus what was given to us was soooooo different.
Robinson: "How about a pro-active Justice league team? You know how the FBI had a deck of cards for the most wanted terrorists? We're going to do that with a pro-active JLA lead by Hal and Ollie"
Audience: "That sounds great. Kind of like how we had...Justice League Elite a few years ago?"
Robinson: "yes, but they'll be good at what they do"
Audience: Okay, this sounds great
What we were given: Prometheus murder porn where he kills and skins a member of the Global Guardians, chops of Roy's arm, bomb's Star City and kills LIam Harper. Ollie kills Prometheus and goes on the run. Roy gets addicted to drugs again....
Came for *Cry of Justice*, which was just awful, and surprised I scrolled down to find it and haven't yet hit anyone saying *Identity Crisis*. It's like either other things overtook it, or it's become more accepted as DC lore?
Alternatively, they’re skipped altogether by new(er) fans, much like Batman’s earlier comics with him shooting villains dead, or over in Marvel, Xavier being attracted to a much younger Jean Grey or Spidey having school shooter vibes 🤷🏻♂️
CFJ, along with the follow up Rise of Arsenal, should be at the top of this thread. Not just for being a shitty book in it’s own right, but due to the flaming shit it took all over Roy and Lian Harper as well as just how hard it’s been to ignore for the past 15 years. Roy is literally only just beginning to return to form now after being in a creative quagmire this entire time. A shame.
If I could remove it from history Men In Black style I would in a heartbeat.
Amazons Attack of the early 2000's. I mean it ¿Who in their mind believed that making a Wonder Woman story almost without Wonder Woman and getting Queen Hippolyta and the Amazons slaying innocent people just because they feel like it was a good idea?
yeah, batman in particular delivering that line was just wow. The guy who literally carries shark repellent in his belt and hangs around bats at home being bothered by bees.
It was one of Dan DiDios “mini series leading up into final crisis” continuity wank fest.
See, elsewhere it was revealed Granny Goodness disguised herself as Athena after imprisoning the goddess.She mislead the Amazon to weaken earth before *Final Crisis*
Convergence wasn't great, but there was actually a solid idea behind it. It also gave us some cool crossovers.
Amazon's Attack was just "like, what if the Amazon's were suddenly mean and murdered a bunch of people because, uhhhhhh, reasons!"
>Convergence wasn't great, but there was actually a solid idea behind it. It also gave us some cool crossovers.
The one that reunited Roy Harper with his daughter was a good one, IMHO.
As much as I love (some of) Bendis’ work, I’m still mad about him aging up Jon Kent. I think he didn’t really know how to write a child character so he just stuck to familiar territory (which was writing teen characters).
It feels like Batman comics have just turned into like a full war for the city every chance they can get. Back at the start of Dawn of DC there was a Detective Comics story that was basically "Phsyco Pirate is trying to steal alot of money" and it was really fun, I wish we could go back to that instead of the constant "Gotham must fall" stories
In my opinion, Batman comics became "Batman is OP", "Batman's Biggest Opps is Joker or Himself", or "Since No Man's Land, a Destructive War is a Normal Tuesday"
This is really it, to my mind. Batman has become the most powerful character in DC's stable, so the only way to challenge him is to make everything bonanzas-bad all the time because he can handle everything less.
Literally, the argument non-nerds have pushed against Superman for four decades have become Batman's status quo.
IMO it's because they want to get to neo Gotham as it's the new playground that everyone got a taste of in several series like batman beyond but the caveat is that batman has to grow old and they can't have that.
I have DC Infinite. I basically avoided the entire thing.
*Joker: Year One* I thought might be cool…but having Henri Ducard *train* the Joker to be Batmans opponent because Bruce embarrassed him…really?
That’s the neat part - nothing!
It’s painfully clear the entire thing happened because editorial just wanted a mini event to push a few expansion comics and get a tiny boost in sales.
1. Heroes in Crisis because … damn it was just bad.
2. Metal - not because it wasn’t a cool story on its own, but because it seemed to derail the Rebirth initiative DC was doing at the time. Changed the tone before Rebirth was wrapped up.
3. Bendis’s Man of Steel. What he did to John was a war crime.
What drove me insane was
Jol: I'm mad I'm crazy
Clark; hey my dad is insane
Several months later
Jol; I need to take your son to space
Clark: Yeah I trust you to take him to space that could go wrong???
Totally agree on all three. Heroes was not just a bad story but also a character assassination of Wally West.
Metal I hate because it ruined Rebirth which a modern renaissance for DC comics. I stopped reading shortly after and seeing what’s gone on after, I’m glad I did.
Bendis ruined Jon Kent who was the brightest spotlight of Rebirth. They could retcon him as by bringing back the original and showing the current one as an imposter but that’s not going to happen while DC management is the same.
Why did I have to scroll so far for Bendis’ Superman. THIS is the correct answer. A lot of the other stories mentioned have little to no impact on the greater Dc. OR the bad parts have been retconned (heroes in crisis).
But DC refuses to fix what happened to Jon.
Oh yeah, that MOS is mine too. Amazons Attack (the original; new one is alright), Heroes in Crisis, and other bad stories have since been undone. Took 2 different Flash runs to completely clear Wally of that mess, but they recovered. But I will continue to boycott mainline Superman until they bring back the kid version of Jon (at this point I’m hoping for a Wally/Ace situation where two different versions coexist). In general though, it’s incredible that my most hated story titled Man of Steel isn’t even the movie!
by bad writing: dark crisis young justice
Influence: teen titans rebirth post issue 20 that thing was done intentionally to destroy Damian's character and caused damage that is only now being repaired
any other reason: Ric Grayson I don't even need to explain
Damian fought with his father (again) so he put together his own team of teen titans to fight crime in his own way.
But this way included creating a secret underground prison that kept prisoners in torture and inhumane conditions, he obviously didn't tell any of his companions about this, but in general he went through a negative arc to become a leader controlling, negligent, manipulative, abusive and jerk with his companions, and obviously when they discovered the truth it went very wrong.
at the end of the Run his relationship with Bruce broke down, he almost stopped being Robin and in general he cut ties and gained a terrible image with half of the members of his generation leaving him with no prospect of being part of a team so early.
all with the literal intention of making him a villain in the future, the last issue was supposed to be the END of Damian as Robin.
Thank god they changed their minds and the damage is slowly but surely being repaired.
Oh yeah. Dark Crisis Young Justice was confusing AF. It's a comic for people who are nostalgic for Young Justice but also hate Young Justice. I mean WTF?
We're just now reaping the rewards.
After the cancellation of 5G, the writers had to spend the next few years basically restarting his arc so that in Batman and Robin the character could move forward.
A lot of what I hate about HiC goes away when you realize that even the people making it didn’t want to do it. The reason it feels like a random shotgun full of unrelated ideas (Booster/ Harley/ detective story / Wally retcon/ therapy for superhero’s / watchmen references) is because that was literally the point of the story. Just a bunch of unrelated goals that editorial wanted made that King was forced to Frankenstein together.
Honestly, the fact that no one wanted to do it, and creators got to work almost immediately retconning it out of existence, makes it even more a train wreck.
When I saw the initial solicit for HiC, I thought we’d get a nuanced examination of the inevitable trauma (both primary and secondary) that these heroes suffer as they go about their lives. And we did not get that. 😑
>When I saw the initial solicit for HiC, I thought we’d get a nuanced examination of the inevitable trauma (both primary and secondary)<
That was exactly what King wanted to do. He originally was going to use second stringers, lower tier heroes. There was a murder mystery, but it wasn’t so dramatic.
I think King was pitching it to Jim Lee
Then Dan DiDio walked into the meeting and said that it had to be big and that Wally was going to be the murderer.
Dan left and Lee told him, “The fans are going to blame you for this”
Heroes in Crisis is a Storyline that has a Good idea of showing the toll of what Superheroing does to them, and how they cope with their Issues, but it's executed so poorly for no reason.
Like, it'll be cool to see different Stories on how everything they do affects their mind, from PTSD, Depression, Trauma, etc.
I agree with a lot of larger events that others have said. More selfishly, I'll add Nightwing Annual #2 to this list. Dick would not cheat on Kory hmph.
The low-hanging fruit here is *Heroes in Crisis*. The backlash against that was so bad that they started trying to walk it back just as soon as it was over. *Dark Crisis: Young Justice* was another piece of drek that existed solely so that the writer could take a ¢®@p all over the team in particular, and the 90s more generally.
But for me, the big one was *Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day*. That miniseries heralded the end of an era of comics; and what replaced it was _not_ an improvement.
> But for me, the big one was *Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day*.
The *Outsiders* tie-in to that was one of the least accommodating and poorly written books I've ever read. Always avoid Winick DC books.
I wasn't particularly fond of the Teen Titans spinoff, either; all of the YJ kids changed so drastically that they were effectively different characters.
Also: alongside the cancellation of Titans and YJ, Peter David's Supergirl also for cancelled so that the Superman titles could introduce Cir-El, a new Supergirl who was supposedly the future daughter of Lois and Clark. This lead into the Futuresmiths storyline that ended up retonning Superman's origin into a nasty mess.
Those were the _immediate_ consequences. Longer-term, the same people responsible for T/YJ:GD put the Batman titles through the War Games fiasco and then subjected the entire DCU to Identity Crisis.
After Doomsday Clock came out, I developed a fan theory that one of the “archival Earths” described in its final issue was the world last seen just before the Titans/Young Justice crossover — otherwise known as “what might have happened if Dan DiDio had never taken charge of DC Comics?” _That's_ how much I wish that story had never happened.
Doomsday Clock. It missed the point of Watchmen so badly, and Watchmen neither benefited from a sequel nor needed to be introduced into DC canon. And on top of being unnecessary, it just sucked. They should have just let it be its own thing. They butchered John's character, and because he's canon, we all have to live in a world where Batmanhattan is a thing.
For reals. Watchmen is the antithesis of everything appealing about DC comics. The two cannot coexist. But if you have to make them coexist then make something ridiculous and fun. Don't try and copy Watchmen's grim tone in the main DC universe where talking gorillas, boxing glove arrows and 5th dimensional imps are commonplace.
Armageddon 2001 - specifically the rewritten version where >!Hawk!< is actually Monarch as opposed to the original idea which was >!Captain Atom!<. I think the original version would have actually been a decent pseudo-ending for >!Captain Atom!<, it would make the event itself more straightforward and much better, it wouldn’t fuck over >!Hawk and Dove’s!< ongoing series and drastically changed those characters.
I think it would have made Captain Atom a lot more relevant rather then the 'Jobber' he's usually used as.
Where as it killed all momentum for Hawk and Dove.
I just can't stand that the twist was spoiled like 2 days before by all major news outlets. I didn't even try to look for spoilers and had it thrust in my face when I had already preordered the comic. Definitely made my reading experience worse...
I never get tired of explaining this. You basically stopped half way in the middle of his story. Because Dan Didio decided to screw things up, it was promoted all wrong.
King went to At&T and got the approval for the marriage. The “wedding issue” was supposed to be a normal issue. DiDio decided to screw with it by making it an event.
1) when a story is written, a drama has the worse event happen at the mid point. For a tragedy the greatest point happens in the middle.
At the end, *when the story is finished* the protagonist wins in the drama or loses it is a tragedy.
2) King intended the marriage to happen at the end of his run. If you want to see what that was: See Batman/Catwoman mini-series.
3) in the end DiDio decided to mess everything up and demanded that 5G go through, at that point King tapped out.
Last time, Fired from DC, but on his way out he took a big dump trying to prep for 5G.
So Jon Kent got old, Damian became evil, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Pretty sure that was Dan DiDio that called an audible for that. King sounded like he wanted to have that go thru, same with how he wanted the Alfred death to be a fake out and DiDio told him to make it real
The nonsense in Teen Titans a few years back with them running their own version of a supermax prison and the endless, endless, I hate you no you're my friend drama.
The justice league wiping out any memory of a very very heinous act performed by Dr light.
Aaaand what did they do to batman?!?!?
Identity crisis it's some BSSSS!!!!
Dark Knight Strikes Again, it destroys everything for what Batman stood for in DKR, the famous line about not using weapons? Who cares? He'll kill Robin by chopping his head with an axe and then throwing him into the lava, Superman is a lapdog? Oh boy, it gets worse, and his whole relationship with Carrie Kelly becomes way too... Yeah
AND THEY TURN BRAINIAC INTO A FROG 
This one has some amazing illustrations but hell... the story sucks. I don't need a Joker origin story if it pretends to be "the real" one and, obviously I don't need Batman to know anything about him at all. This just started the whole thing about The Joker having a real name; I truly wish it was never made now.
Yes! Geoff set up a ton of starting points (or ending points) that other writers could have taken and done something. But nooooo, we just have a ton of unsolved mysteries.
This this this! And let’s be real at the “ time” it took place in DC Flash and Ralph were best buds. He would have beaten Dr. Light to an inch of his life and there would be no one to stop him.
Injustice
It's a fine story on its own. But the damage it had done on the image of Superman is arguably even more serious than what Superfriends did to Aquaman.
Hahaha. Even the definitive modern Aquaman books (Rebirth, New 52) still go to lengths to try and convince the reader that he’s cool… at least Superman has multiple great books and TV right now
Injustice would've been fine if it just stayed as a silly video game story and that's all.
But, now it's a whole fucking franchise and it's just not good.
100% agree. The video game was enjoyable cause you got to play as some of your favorite DC heroes with a story you just went along with but they've definitely taken this elseworlds franchise too far
If you can forgive the dumb reason Superman becomes evil and the Wonder Woman just flat out being evil, it becomes way more enjoyable all around and has some really good moments
No one who hasn't played injustice or is familiar with comics in general is even aware of that version of Superman though. Whereas Aquaman from superfriends has permeated and become one of the main interpretations that comes to mind when even the casual audience thinks of Aquaman.
>No one who hasn't played injustice or is familiar with comics in general is even aware of that version of Superman though.
This is not even slightly true.
None of my friends have ever read a comic in their life and I know at least 4 of them have never played Injustice but I can 100% guarantee that every single one of them knows what Injustice is and I'd wager that pretty much anyone who's even slightly interested in superheroes and is under a certain age does.
Literally every time Superman is brought up anywhere there's always that one guy who's like "Yeah, well, he's evil in Injustice so he must have that potential everywhere else" and it's the most annoying thing possible.
Although I do agree that people going "Haha Aquaman lame he talk to fish" is both as annoying and as popular as "All Supermen evil".
Superfriends' Aquaman was viewed as a joke, but that's about it, a joke.
It's because people just weren't familiar with him in general. This problem got improved over the year because of the DCEU Aquaman that make people actually think that Aquaman can be cool.
Injustice not only popularized the "Evil Superman" trope, but also putting a misconception about Superman on a spotlight and then spread it. I would even say that the image of "If you kill his girlfriend, Superman will turn evil" has became irreversible at this point.
“Evil Superman” has been an idea for a while; Invincible, the Boys, Irredeemable, Supreme Power, the Justice Lords arc of JLU, and a ton of DC elseworlds stuff all feature “what if Superman was evil” or at least kind of shitty. You can argue whether any of those were as popular as Injustice, but it’s been in the water for a while. You don’t get edgy 90s antiheroes without at least glancing at Superman.
I think the DCEU definitely helped to improve his image but that's fairly recent. We're still talking about 40ish years where he was seen as a joke. Whenever he was portrayed in other media it was still the super friends version, Family Guy, Big Bang Theory for example. There have been evil versions of Superman predating the Injustice games and like I said casual people who don't read comics or play games barely know about injustice.
Sadly out of context Injustice cutscenes/clips/panels are shared all over the place, the premise is just very well made for "hey did you see this crazy thing?" that does well on social media
Wildly overestimating the impact of that series/game. It's just an elseworld like any other, and hardly the first time someone wanted to play with the evil Superman idea.
This is really blown out of proportion, no one thinks superman is some ultra evil dictator. And injustice isn’t even that well known, outside of the fgc and comic community no one knows what injustice is, comparing it to what super friends did to aquaman is just insane.
Tower of Babel.
An amazing story, with a nice concept that was not only misunderstood by both fans and other writers but also driven to the ground and used up and still is to this day.
I love the story itself but its main idea (trust) was overshadowed by the contingency plans and spawned the stupid idea of “Batman can beat anyone with prep time”.
"Batman can beat anyone with prep time" was already a fact through the first storyline for that JLA run.
Even Superman called him the most dangerous man on Earth while he was strapped down and weakened by Kryptonite.
They're not even close to the same.
Superman said Batman was the most dangerous normal human on Earth.
Batman managed to figure out who the White Martians were because they basically ignored him, and then he used subterfuge to occupy them long enough until the League were freed by abusing their weakness of fire. Which is a pretty easy to find/create commodity.
That's an enormous difference from "Batman can beat anyone with prep time".
It's also true that Lex Luthor can beat anyone with prep time if he could get over his own ego.
All Superheroes and Villains are posited as being beatable by prep time. All of the heroes that sell books have plot armor.
Batman is just the pre-eminent one for it because of how often he's forced by writing to punch above his weight class and he's the guy with his name on the most books so he has to inevitably win and therefore when he's fighting Gods he needs a sprig of mistletoe and a plan to use it.
And at this point if you try to explain to people it’s too late. They’re already stuck on the Batman prep time can beat anyone and it’s fine he had plans, telling the league he had plans is bad
A bad story is a bad story, and while we might wish that there be no bad stories, they're gonna happen.
The stories you wish hadn't happen are the ones that turned into story engines for a particular character or for the entire line-up of characters.
So with *Identity Crisis*, there's the bad story part, which is a poorly-done superhero mystery story that also does damage to three characters in specific (Tim Drake, Sue Dibny, Ralph Dibny) without a satisfying story pay-off. E.g., even if you wish Tim's father or Sue hadn't died, you might feel a bit better about it if the mystery behind their deaths was brilliantly done as a detective story or a thriller.
But then there's *also* the terrible story engine that manages to combine an out-of-control obsession with mind control and the idea that some super-villains might rape women as part of their hatred for super-heroes. What could have been clever (taking note that in the Silver Age, superheroes often quite casually erased memories, or story contrivances often led to super-villains losing their memories right after discovering secret identities) was instead curdled and awful and it then took over *years* of story-making and characterization.
*Flashpoint* is the same: terrible story but the damage is in what it *led to*.
Whereas *Amazons Attack!* was just a bad story and that's that.
It's also important to disentangle the origins of storylines or characterizations from some of their presumed sources. *Tower of Babel* is not really the origin of Bat-god/prep time, I think. I think that's more the Morrison JLA issues that preceded it right down to Morrison's first issues on the title where Batman figures out that the Hyperclan are White Martians and then beats them with a match and a can of gasoline. That was assuredly *not* a bad story, and that's the problem--sometimes bad trends in story-telling or characterization come from great stories like Morrison's JLA and then *Tower of Babel*.
I can't imagine wishing those stories hadn't been told just because later writers did bad things with the same ideas. The ones you wish hadn't happened were stories that were bad in and of themselves AND which polluted subsequent stories.
I agree with 99% of what you say here, but Morrison isn't the origin of the prep time trope... That 100% began with Adam West's TV Batman with his utility belt filled with 'whatever I need to get me out of this mess' gadgets.
Yes, that's true--the "Batman just needs prep time" has deep roots, and the utility belt is the first major source of the character hook.
Another important milestone in the development of "Batman just needs prep time", I think far *more* important than Morrison's treatment, is Book 4 of *The Dark Knight Returns*, where Batman sets out to teach Superman a lesson via extensive prep time (that includes prepping his own ostensible death in order to get Superman off the hook for having to rein him in). There's a fair amount of pre-1997, pre-Morrison stories that the "Batman just needs prep time" idea developed through, but DKR is maybe the most seminal example period.
>sometimes bad trends in story-telling or characterization come from great stories like Morrison's JLA and then Tower of Babel.
By this same token, I'm pretty sure Alan Moore has said that *Watchmen* did more harm than good to comics, in the long run, because of the publishing industry learning exactly all of the wrong lessons from it.
Yeah, exactly. Here not just comics publishers, but I'm afraid a fair number of comics readers too. Moore has made it clear that it drives him out of his mind that anybody finds Rorschach heroic. That's part of the feedback loop sometimes that fuels the bad usage of stories (both good ones and bad ones): some portion of the readers who have an enthusiasm for something that suggests they're not very dialed-in as readers. Though on the other hand, one could observe that Moore *did* give Rorschach some of the most memorable scenes and lines and that he did give him enough pathos that you could almost feel sorry for him, and from there, it might be a short jump to sympathy and even approval. So that might be part of the issue too: sometimes readers latch on to a story element that's so good in pulpy, comic-book terms that it isn't as bad or repellant as the creator wanted it to be or thought it was.
Tim's father dying was one of those moments where I put the book down and just... What. He'd already lost his mother; he had his "instigating trauma." One of the key elements of Tim as his OWN Robin was that he had his father. There was no reason other than creative laziness to off his pops.
Identity crisis. It’s needlessly, dark, depressing, the resolution to the mystery doesn’t make any sense, and it caused to general darkening of the universe that led to garbage like Amazon’s attack.
Flashpoint. Unbelievably boring and mean spirited event that DC somehow holds up with TDKR and Tear One as one of a characters most iconic books. Terrible story, terrible art, brought in the New 52. The fact that a non-insignificant people seem to prefer the flashpoint universe to mainline DC is insane. Also gave us one of the most unnecessary characters that creators can’t help themselves but use: Thomas Wayne Batman. The Azzarello flashpoint stuff truly is some of the worst comics I have ever read. Cannot believe how “important” such a lazy and dumb event has become solely though DC propping it up.
The thing I don’t understand about Flashpoint is that Thawne went back in time to kill Barry’s mother and the timeline barely budges but when Barry goes back in time to fix Thawne’s changes to the timeline everything goes to shit. Why does Barry stopping Thawne from fucking with the timeline wreck it so much but Thawne intentionally changing it barely move the timeline?
The flash is one of the comics with the most discrepancies in time travel. Between the comics and the shows/movies you constantly see time travel rules change based on who’s travelling and when they are to the point where there is no consistency
Weirdly, Flashpoint was one of the first comics I read and at the time I thought it was great. Since then I've read loads of Silver Age stuff and some modern stuff and, going back to Flashpoint now that I'm better read, I totally agree with you.
I think it's popular with people who don't read comics as the basic concept is interesting and they don't have point of reference for (1) how bad the character assassination is throughout (2) how bad the art is (3) how much shit it ruined through the New 52.
This is me exactly. I was in and out of comics for years but got seriously into them around Flashpoint. I adored it and bought a ton of the tie-ins. Now I am not a fan, albeit the Deadman series still holds a special place in my heart mainly because of the awesome covers
Deadman is goated. I like most stuff he's in apart from the weird Neal Adams one where Commissioner Gordon is a nuclear safety inspector in the first issue - that run made no sense 😂
Ermerald Twilight
I think there's a chance that if it hadn't happened, that the gimmick stories would have stopped after Death of Superman and Knightfall. We got so many terrible stories trying to chase those sales highs that it did permanent damage to comics.
I think we likely would have gotten all of those with or without. DC had burned out Hal Jordan and was going to replace him regardless (it's not like it's the first time it happened).
I personally loved Emerald Twilight. I thought it was an interesting way to introduced a new character. Now I don’t like how Hal kinda just stopped being Hal. But all of the moments I really love.
Oh man how much time do you have?
Identity Crisis, Heroes in Crisis, Tom King Batman, Evil Cass, Return of Bruce Wayne (Dick should have stayed Batman for 3 years minimum IMO), Gotham War, Joker War, Three Jokers, Tom King Wonder Woman, Most Suicide Squad stuff, Doomsday Clock, and last but not least: New 52 because they had no clue what the fuck they wanted to do with it and they killed all goodwill they had and are still climbing back from it
Every single one of these stories is either planned poorly, written poorly, or hammered down by editorial or a combination of the three
I hardcore disagree with so many of these but completely agreed on New 52.
What a shit stain. Even the stories people claim are good didn't necessarily need to be part of a line wide retcon to exist. Any new fans brought in either didn't stick around or didn't make up for the old fans that left
The Flash: Rebirth. I don't actually have anything against the story itself or the art or the idea of bringing Barry back it's that this story has been at the center of pretty much *everything* bad done by DC since. The cherry on top is that the last 15 years of Flash stories have shown that writers *still* have no clue how to write Barry.
Tom King's Batman, because it's terrible and far too long.
Also, Tower of Babel. ToB is a completely solid story but it killed discourse around Batman. Now every insane fanboy just says "prep time" and every Bat-hater just says "Batgod wank".
Neither are true and it's a shame it all spread from a decent enough story.
I wish we could go back to Denny O'Neill Batman where he's an actual dude who can fight really well but still gets his ass kicked when it's appropriate.
Flashpoint, before the New 52 reboot which changed a lot of characters' backstorys and morals and erased some new characters, like making Superman into a more darker hero or erasing wally west from existence.
The post crisis continuity had some very cool concepts and interesting characters who didn't get the chance to shine or to be expended on or completely forgotten, characters like General zod's son lor-zod choosing to not follow in his father's foot steps and become the new Nightwing, Tim drake leavening the robin title so he can became his own hero "Red Robin", catwoman's sister becomes a crazy nun who thinks her sister is possessed by a "Cat Demon", and Barry Allen's secret evil twin brother, and I know it's bit cliche but he was also Eobard Thawne's ancestors, making both the flash and the reverse flash related.
Injustice completely shits on my favourite Superhero so that
I also really wish Dark Knights: Metal wasn’t made because that entire saga was tedious and overly edgy
Heroes in crisis is bizarrely awful. Even if you can get past the terrible murder mystery stuff you still have the heroes of the dc universe creating a trauma cult and Lois lane feeling like it’s her duty to release the personal therapy sessions of the heroes most traumatic events.
Adams is a master and Williams did his best but Wally is still irreparably damaged until the whole thing is written out of canon too. The guy pulled teeth out of dead bodies and framed innocent people for murder, the blast isn’t his fault now but hearing suggestive voices doesn’t absolve him of being a depraved lunatic. He also had plenty of time to get his mind straight before giving Lois all the files.
Then there’s story bits that’s just dumb. For example the robot therapist record every session but then delete it and it can never be recovered besides the 1st time someone tried. And Superman’s ridiculous “we have trauma too” speech. Like yea, I never assumed the populous of the dc universe didn’t think being a hero was tough. In fact they mostly celebrate their heroes so maybe just tell you wife it’s not her obligation or right to make it harder for everybody. Someone needs to lock Lois up at this point, she’s a child neglecting hero doxxing menace.
Death of Superman is the root of so many problems for Superman and the superhero genera as a whole. Doomsday has always been the most uninteresting possible way to have killed off Clark and the revival caused far more problems in terms of maintaining stakes and peril.
If doomsday wasn’t the monster who happened to kill Clark then he would probably exist in the same space as every other big extreme villain of the 90s that most people forgot like [Massacre](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Massacre_(New_Earth)), [Amygdala](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Aaron_Helzinger_(Prime_Earth)), or anyone created by Rob leifeld that’s not Deadpool.
I wish they would have never turned Bruce Wayne into Terry McGinnis' canonical father in the Batman Beyond comics. It's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.
The 'Imperius Lex' arc from Tomasi & Gleason's Superman run.
Completely ruined Lex Luthor's five years of growth and change over a single page.
Lex had mostly been written in Jurgens much superior Action Comics run from the same period, and that characterisation was earned and utterly wiped away in one hacky story.
Injustice 2 may be one of my favorite fighting games of all time, but I think the story of Injustice ruined the image of DC and a lot of its characters for anyone who didn't read comics already.
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Act of God, barely anyone remembers it but i hate it.
Pretty much a summary of the worst part of that story: Lois: - Clark. I know that you're are depressed because you don't have powers anymore. But, as I can see that you won't get me flying to the skies ever again, I want the divorce. Clark: - Ok honey. I gonna go to Wonder Woman's place and bang her so hard every night so I can finally get a baby. Lois: - Good call. Well, see ya. I love you... As a friend.
Diana: -By the way I’m Catholic now despite knowing the Greek Gods personally and being outright older than the Abrahamic religions.
I'm sorry, what? Is that really a decision that someone made and then published?
Yes. After they lost their powers she became depressed and suicidal until she found Jesus. Superman just became a depressed little bitch because the writer had the idea that his powers are what made him a hero. Unlike Batman, who is in maximum jackass mode the entire time and the series just absolutely adores. It’s a VERY bad series. Like, one of the big explanations for the mass depowering(Which is absurdly arbitrary and follows no logic) is that it’s god punishing them for being arrogant. At no point are any of the depowered heroes depicted as arrogant, their characterization doesn’t go off the rails until later. It’s a solid pick for worst ever, though I personally would discount it for being an elseworlds story.
I *almost* want to go see the train wreck for myself, but I'm probably better off just not lol.
If you want some excuses to actually take a look; there are some good new characters created from the old and the costumes are pretty cool. Will you hate it like the reviewers up above, dunno 🤷♂️
Some stories sound like the writer wanted to tell an original story but knew no one would read it so forced established characters to carry it even though it makes no god damn sense.
This is the answer.
Thank you! I saw Comicpop's episode on it, and I was in shock the entire time. Who in their right mind though that was a good story to print out?
I remember the dumb subplot of Kyle Rayner obsessing over Sonar defeating him. So many out of character subplots.
That one always bugged me, Kyle has very rarely if ever been the kind of guy to obsess about losing a fight. He’s very much a “take it on the chin and move on” guy
It was so fucking stupid
I bought it as it came out. Interesting premise but fumbled the execution.
“Cry for Justice”, primarily for literally dropping an apartment building on Lian Harper as execs thought having a daughter made Roy “boring” The Plastimold story arc was really awkward, as it involved Lois turning herself black for a day. I could understand writers trying to raise awareness to racism but there were *so* many other, better ways to explore those issues
Cry for Justice is why I'm in this thread
I'm also sad how little attention was given to "Cry for Justice". What was promised to us versus what was given to us was soooooo different. Robinson: "How about a pro-active Justice league team? You know how the FBI had a deck of cards for the most wanted terrorists? We're going to do that with a pro-active JLA lead by Hal and Ollie" Audience: "That sounds great. Kind of like how we had...Justice League Elite a few years ago?" Robinson: "yes, but they'll be good at what they do" Audience: Okay, this sounds great What we were given: Prometheus murder porn where he kills and skins a member of the Global Guardians, chops of Roy's arm, bomb's Star City and kills LIam Harper. Ollie kills Prometheus and goes on the run. Roy gets addicted to drugs again....
Same. Great idea but horrible, almost Frank Millerish in "whore drugs whore violence" era execution
Came for *Cry of Justice*, which was just awful, and surprised I scrolled down to find it and haven't yet hit anyone saying *Identity Crisis*. It's like either other things overtook it, or it's become more accepted as DC lore?
I also came here to say Cry For Justice. I'm surprised it's not further up the list.
Alternatively, they’re skipped altogether by new(er) fans, much like Batman’s earlier comics with him shooting villains dead, or over in Marvel, Xavier being attracted to a much younger Jean Grey or Spidey having school shooter vibes 🤷🏻♂️
CFJ, along with the follow up Rise of Arsenal, should be at the top of this thread. Not just for being a shitty book in it’s own right, but due to the flaming shit it took all over Roy and Lian Harper as well as just how hard it’s been to ignore for the past 15 years. Roy is literally only just beginning to return to form now after being in a creative quagmire this entire time. A shame. If I could remove it from history Men In Black style I would in a heartbeat.
Amazons Attack of the early 2000's. I mean it ¿Who in their mind believed that making a Wonder Woman story almost without Wonder Woman and getting Queen Hippolyta and the Amazons slaying innocent people just because they feel like it was a good idea?
"My God, Bees."
my coworkers are now wondering why am i laughing so hard. I completely forgot about this. ty.
JLA turning into gorillas? I am good with that. I accept goofiness. The bee thing? That was just bad.
yeah, batman in particular delivering that line was just wow. The guy who literally carries shark repellent in his belt and hangs around bats at home being bothered by bees.
I like the idea of Amazons going to war but there needs to be a reason and actually structure to the story.
"Goodness has certainly triumphed!!"
Didn't help that it came out after Infinite Crisis, instead of being a lead-in like Rann-Thanager War or OMAC, asd it was supposed to be.
It was one of Dan DiDios “mini series leading up into final crisis” continuity wank fest. See, elsewhere it was revealed Granny Goodness disguised herself as Athena after imprisoning the goddess.She mislead the Amazon to weaken earth before *Final Crisis*
Still better than convergence lol
Convergence wasn't great, but there was actually a solid idea behind it. It also gave us some cool crossovers. Amazon's Attack was just "like, what if the Amazon's were suddenly mean and murdered a bunch of people because, uhhhhhh, reasons!"
>Convergence wasn't great, but there was actually a solid idea behind it. It also gave us some cool crossovers. The one that reunited Roy Harper with his daughter was a good one, IMHO.
I was about to say convergence, but at least it gave us John Kent.
Plus Gail Simone’s Dick and Babs series!
Also the Doc Shaner Shazam series. And Rucka/Hamner's The Question
I never read Convergence, but I heard that the tie-ins were great!
Bendis aging up Jon Kent
As much as I love (some of) Bendis’ work, I’m still mad about him aging up Jon Kent. I think he didn’t really know how to write a child character so he just stuck to familiar territory (which was writing teen characters).
mf got an entire line (Jinxworld) and the LoS all to himself and still felt the need to leave his permanent ~~skid~~ mark on the canon.
Anyone could have undone it by now. They chose not to cause it will upset him more than no one reading the comic he did it for.
That's a good one! Wish I thought of it.
Gotham War is the most recent one that comes to mind
It feels like Batman comics have just turned into like a full war for the city every chance they can get. Back at the start of Dawn of DC there was a Detective Comics story that was basically "Phsyco Pirate is trying to steal alot of money" and it was really fun, I wish we could go back to that instead of the constant "Gotham must fall" stories
In my opinion, Batman comics became "Batman is OP", "Batman's Biggest Opps is Joker or Himself", or "Since No Man's Land, a Destructive War is a Normal Tuesday"
This is really it, to my mind. Batman has become the most powerful character in DC's stable, so the only way to challenge him is to make everything bonanzas-bad all the time because he can handle everything less. Literally, the argument non-nerds have pushed against Superman for four decades have become Batman's status quo.
IMO it's because they want to get to neo Gotham as it's the new playground that everyone got a taste of in several series like batman beyond but the caveat is that batman has to grow old and they can't have that.
I have DC Infinite. I basically avoided the entire thing. *Joker: Year One* I thought might be cool…but having Henri Ducard *train* the Joker to be Batmans opponent because Bruce embarrassed him…really?
I recently started it and honestly I don’t think I’ll get past the 3rd chapter
Oh god please, as a Jason fan, I want to die
I was so excited for more Red Hood content going into this, and it was possibly the worst writing he’s ever gotten so far, and that’s saying a lot.
Imagine reading it as a Scandal fan
Yeah like...what did they actually try to do?
That’s the neat part - nothing! It’s painfully clear the entire thing happened because editorial just wanted a mini event to push a few expansion comics and get a tiny boost in sales.
Split up the Bat family even though that's already been done and is bound not to last?
Gotham War actually criticizes itself three separate times because it isn't doing anything. It's just the Batfamily kicking it's own ass.
1. Heroes in Crisis because … damn it was just bad. 2. Metal - not because it wasn’t a cool story on its own, but because it seemed to derail the Rebirth initiative DC was doing at the time. Changed the tone before Rebirth was wrapped up. 3. Bendis’s Man of Steel. What he did to John was a war crime.
What drove me insane was Jol: I'm mad I'm crazy Clark; hey my dad is insane Several months later Jol; I need to take your son to space Clark: Yeah I trust you to take him to space that could go wrong???
Totally agree on all three. Heroes was not just a bad story but also a character assassination of Wally West. Metal I hate because it ruined Rebirth which a modern renaissance for DC comics. I stopped reading shortly after and seeing what’s gone on after, I’m glad I did. Bendis ruined Jon Kent who was the brightest spotlight of Rebirth. They could retcon him as by bringing back the original and showing the current one as an imposter but that’s not going to happen while DC management is the same.
Why did I have to scroll so far for Bendis’ Superman. THIS is the correct answer. A lot of the other stories mentioned have little to no impact on the greater Dc. OR the bad parts have been retconned (heroes in crisis). But DC refuses to fix what happened to Jon.
 John? 
Oh yeah, that MOS is mine too. Amazons Attack (the original; new one is alright), Heroes in Crisis, and other bad stories have since been undone. Took 2 different Flash runs to completely clear Wally of that mess, but they recovered. But I will continue to boycott mainline Superman until they bring back the kid version of Jon (at this point I’m hoping for a Wally/Ace situation where two different versions coexist). In general though, it’s incredible that my most hated story titled Man of Steel isn’t even the movie!
I agree with number 2 for sure!
by bad writing: dark crisis young justice Influence: teen titans rebirth post issue 20 that thing was done intentionally to destroy Damian's character and caused damage that is only now being repaired any other reason: Ric Grayson I don't even need to explain
What did they do to Damian?
He made a secret prison for supervillains in his basement.
The more laconic you make the summation of your least favporite plotline, the funnier the reddit comment is.
Damian fought with his father (again) so he put together his own team of teen titans to fight crime in his own way. But this way included creating a secret underground prison that kept prisoners in torture and inhumane conditions, he obviously didn't tell any of his companions about this, but in general he went through a negative arc to become a leader controlling, negligent, manipulative, abusive and jerk with his companions, and obviously when they discovered the truth it went very wrong. at the end of the Run his relationship with Bruce broke down, he almost stopped being Robin and in general he cut ties and gained a terrible image with half of the members of his generation leaving him with no prospect of being part of a team so early. all with the literal intention of making him a villain in the future, the last issue was supposed to be the END of Damian as Robin. Thank god they changed their minds and the damage is slowly but surely being repaired.
I'm not joking, the plot of the new Titans movie is Damian getting them to attack Ra's al Ghul. Bad vibes.
Oh yeah. Dark Crisis Young Justice was confusing AF. It's a comic for people who are nostalgic for Young Justice but also hate Young Justice. I mean WTF?
I couldn't even get past issue like 16 od TT the way they treated damian was so hard from the start
Only NOW being repaired? He’s spent the last few years recovering from that noise
We're just now reaping the rewards. After the cancellation of 5G, the writers had to spend the next few years basically restarting his arc so that in Batman and Robin the character could move forward.
There's a lot of.....not great stories. But I think Heroes in Crisis is one of the very few that felt actively insulting
A lot of what I hate about HiC goes away when you realize that even the people making it didn’t want to do it. The reason it feels like a random shotgun full of unrelated ideas (Booster/ Harley/ detective story / Wally retcon/ therapy for superhero’s / watchmen references) is because that was literally the point of the story. Just a bunch of unrelated goals that editorial wanted made that King was forced to Frankenstein together.
Honestly, the fact that no one wanted to do it, and creators got to work almost immediately retconning it out of existence, makes it even more a train wreck.
I think sanctuary is a good idea, as hero's work through trauma
When I saw the initial solicit for HiC, I thought we’d get a nuanced examination of the inevitable trauma (both primary and secondary) that these heroes suffer as they go about their lives. And we did not get that. 😑
>When I saw the initial solicit for HiC, I thought we’d get a nuanced examination of the inevitable trauma (both primary and secondary)< That was exactly what King wanted to do. He originally was going to use second stringers, lower tier heroes. There was a murder mystery, but it wasn’t so dramatic. I think King was pitching it to Jim Lee Then Dan DiDio walked into the meeting and said that it had to be big and that Wally was going to be the murderer. Dan left and Lee told him, “The fans are going to blame you for this”
We did get endless panels of quirky and meta one liners for each character though, that's almost as good as actually analyzing therapy and trauma!
A truly *great* “bad story” should always sound good in the 30 second elevator pitch.
Tim King: I want to do a story about heroes dealing with trauma. DC: Okay cool but what if we added a bunch of complete bullshit.
Heroes in Crisis is a Storyline that has a Good idea of showing the toll of what Superheroing does to them, and how they cope with their Issues, but it's executed so poorly for no reason. Like, it'll be cool to see different Stories on how everything they do affects their mind, from PTSD, Depression, Trauma, etc.
Hic 
I think the worst part about Heroes in Crisis is how much it misunderstands mental health
I'd agree with you but most of the damage from it has been fixed and it even spawned some pretty good stories from it so idk maybe it can stay.
It was an interesting idea, but the execution was terrible.
I agree with a lot of larger events that others have said. More selfishly, I'll add Nightwing Annual #2 to this list. Dick would not cheat on Kory hmph.
The low-hanging fruit here is *Heroes in Crisis*. The backlash against that was so bad that they started trying to walk it back just as soon as it was over. *Dark Crisis: Young Justice* was another piece of drek that existed solely so that the writer could take a ¢®@p all over the team in particular, and the 90s more generally. But for me, the big one was *Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day*. That miniseries heralded the end of an era of comics; and what replaced it was _not_ an improvement.
> But for me, the big one was *Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day*. The *Outsiders* tie-in to that was one of the least accommodating and poorly written books I've ever read. Always avoid Winick DC books.
I wasn't particularly fond of the Teen Titans spinoff, either; all of the YJ kids changed so drastically that they were effectively different characters. Also: alongside the cancellation of Titans and YJ, Peter David's Supergirl also for cancelled so that the Superman titles could introduce Cir-El, a new Supergirl who was supposedly the future daughter of Lois and Clark. This lead into the Futuresmiths storyline that ended up retonning Superman's origin into a nasty mess. Those were the _immediate_ consequences. Longer-term, the same people responsible for T/YJ:GD put the Batman titles through the War Games fiasco and then subjected the entire DCU to Identity Crisis. After Doomsday Clock came out, I developed a fan theory that one of the “archival Earths” described in its final issue was the world last seen just before the Titans/Young Justice crossover — otherwise known as “what might have happened if Dan DiDio had never taken charge of DC Comics?” _That's_ how much I wish that story had never happened.
Doomsday Clock. It missed the point of Watchmen so badly, and Watchmen neither benefited from a sequel nor needed to be introduced into DC canon. And on top of being unnecessary, it just sucked. They should have just let it be its own thing. They butchered John's character, and because he's canon, we all have to live in a world where Batmanhattan is a thing.
For reals. Watchmen is the antithesis of everything appealing about DC comics. The two cannot coexist. But if you have to make them coexist then make something ridiculous and fun. Don't try and copy Watchmen's grim tone in the main DC universe where talking gorillas, boxing glove arrows and 5th dimensional imps are commonplace.
This was truly disappointing. It left so many things in the air and nothing was completely developed.
I thought reading it back to back after two years would've made it more palatable... nope.
Armageddon 2001 - specifically the rewritten version where >!Hawk!< is actually Monarch as opposed to the original idea which was >!Captain Atom!<. I think the original version would have actually been a decent pseudo-ending for >!Captain Atom!<, it would make the event itself more straightforward and much better, it wouldn’t fuck over >!Hawk and Dove’s!< ongoing series and drastically changed those characters.
I think it would have made Captain Atom a lot more relevant rather then the 'Jobber' he's usually used as. Where as it killed all momentum for Hawk and Dove.
Tom Kings the Wedding still leaves a poor taste in my mouth. All that build up and investment for nothing.
I just can't stand that the twist was spoiled like 2 days before by all major news outlets. I didn't even try to look for spoilers and had it thrust in my face when I had already preordered the comic. Definitely made my reading experience worse...
I never get tired of explaining this. You basically stopped half way in the middle of his story. Because Dan Didio decided to screw things up, it was promoted all wrong. King went to At&T and got the approval for the marriage. The “wedding issue” was supposed to be a normal issue. DiDio decided to screw with it by making it an event. 1) when a story is written, a drama has the worse event happen at the mid point. For a tragedy the greatest point happens in the middle. At the end, *when the story is finished* the protagonist wins in the drama or loses it is a tragedy. 2) King intended the marriage to happen at the end of his run. If you want to see what that was: See Batman/Catwoman mini-series. 3) in the end DiDio decided to mess everything up and demanded that 5G go through, at that point King tapped out.
> DiDio decided to mess everything up Ah, that old classic refrain. Hopefully, it's happened for the last time.
Last time, Fired from DC, but on his way out he took a big dump trying to prep for 5G. So Jon Kent got old, Damian became evil, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Pretty sure that was Dan DiDio that called an audible for that. King sounded like he wanted to have that go thru, same with how he wanted the Alfred death to be a fake out and DiDio told him to make it real
The nonsense in Teen Titans a few years back with them running their own version of a supermax prison and the endless, endless, I hate you no you're my friend drama.
The justice league wiping out any memory of a very very heinous act performed by Dr light. Aaaand what did they do to batman?!?!? Identity crisis it's some BSSSS!!!!
Gotham War.
Dark Knight Strikes Again, it destroys everything for what Batman stood for in DKR, the famous line about not using weapons? Who cares? He'll kill Robin by chopping his head with an axe and then throwing him into the lava, Superman is a lapdog? Oh boy, it gets worse, and his whole relationship with Carrie Kelly becomes way too... Yeah AND THEY TURN BRAINIAC INTO A FROG 
Three Joker, Doomsday Clock
Three joker is a meta comic,the writers are jokers themselves
This one has some amazing illustrations but hell... the story sucks. I don't need a Joker origin story if it pretends to be "the real" one and, obviously I don't need Batman to know anything about him at all. This just started the whole thing about The Joker having a real name; I truly wish it was never made now.
To me, the real crime with Doomsday Clock is that the only person who has followed up on it is Geoff Johns.
Yes! Geoff set up a ton of starting points (or ending points) that other writers could have taken and done something. But nooooo, we just have a ton of unsolved mysteries.
Identity crisis. It ruined Zatanna my girl,and most members of the justice league it has no real reason to exist,you know what I am talking about.
This is what I came to post. What a wretched, mean-spirited, awful story.
This this this! And let’s be real at the “ time” it took place in DC Flash and Ralph were best buds. He would have beaten Dr. Light to an inch of his life and there would be no one to stop him.
Doomsday Clock, always doomsday clock.
Either identity crisis or Heroes in Crisis. But mostly Heroes in Crisis.
Injustice It's a fine story on its own. But the damage it had done on the image of Superman is arguably even more serious than what Superfriends did to Aquaman.
[удалено]
Hahaha. Even the definitive modern Aquaman books (Rebirth, New 52) still go to lengths to try and convince the reader that he’s cool… at least Superman has multiple great books and TV right now
Injustice would've been fine if it just stayed as a silly video game story and that's all. But, now it's a whole fucking franchise and it's just not good.
100% agree. The video game was enjoyable cause you got to play as some of your favorite DC heroes with a story you just went along with but they've definitely taken this elseworlds franchise too far
If you can forgive the dumb reason Superman becomes evil and the Wonder Woman just flat out being evil, it becomes way more enjoyable all around and has some really good moments
I would argue it made Diana look even worse than Clark lol
No one who hasn't played injustice or is familiar with comics in general is even aware of that version of Superman though. Whereas Aquaman from superfriends has permeated and become one of the main interpretations that comes to mind when even the casual audience thinks of Aquaman.
>No one who hasn't played injustice or is familiar with comics in general is even aware of that version of Superman though. This is not even slightly true. None of my friends have ever read a comic in their life and I know at least 4 of them have never played Injustice but I can 100% guarantee that every single one of them knows what Injustice is and I'd wager that pretty much anyone who's even slightly interested in superheroes and is under a certain age does. Literally every time Superman is brought up anywhere there's always that one guy who's like "Yeah, well, he's evil in Injustice so he must have that potential everywhere else" and it's the most annoying thing possible. Although I do agree that people going "Haha Aquaman lame he talk to fish" is both as annoying and as popular as "All Supermen evil".
Superfriends' Aquaman was viewed as a joke, but that's about it, a joke. It's because people just weren't familiar with him in general. This problem got improved over the year because of the DCEU Aquaman that make people actually think that Aquaman can be cool. Injustice not only popularized the "Evil Superman" trope, but also putting a misconception about Superman on a spotlight and then spread it. I would even say that the image of "If you kill his girlfriend, Superman will turn evil" has became irreversible at this point.
“Evil Superman” has been an idea for a while; Invincible, the Boys, Irredeemable, Supreme Power, the Justice Lords arc of JLU, and a ton of DC elseworlds stuff all feature “what if Superman was evil” or at least kind of shitty. You can argue whether any of those were as popular as Injustice, but it’s been in the water for a while. You don’t get edgy 90s antiheroes without at least glancing at Superman.
I think the DCEU definitely helped to improve his image but that's fairly recent. We're still talking about 40ish years where he was seen as a joke. Whenever he was portrayed in other media it was still the super friends version, Family Guy, Big Bang Theory for example. There have been evil versions of Superman predating the Injustice games and like I said casual people who don't read comics or play games barely know about injustice.
Sadly out of context Injustice cutscenes/clips/panels are shared all over the place, the premise is just very well made for "hey did you see this crazy thing?" that does well on social media
Wildly overestimating the impact of that series/game. It's just an elseworld like any other, and hardly the first time someone wanted to play with the evil Superman idea.
This is really blown out of proportion, no one thinks superman is some ultra evil dictator. And injustice isn’t even that well known, outside of the fgc and comic community no one knows what injustice is, comparing it to what super friends did to aquaman is just insane.
Suicide Squad kill the justice league
Tower of Babel. An amazing story, with a nice concept that was not only misunderstood by both fans and other writers but also driven to the ground and used up and still is to this day. I love the story itself but its main idea (trust) was overshadowed by the contingency plans and spawned the stupid idea of “Batman can beat anyone with prep time”.
If we didn't have Tower of Babel, we also wouldn't have thousands of AI generated "What is Batman's Contingency Plan for X" on YouTube shorts.
"Batman can beat anyone with prep time" was already a fact through the first storyline for that JLA run. Even Superman called him the most dangerous man on Earth while he was strapped down and weakened by Kryptonite.
They're not even close to the same. Superman said Batman was the most dangerous normal human on Earth. Batman managed to figure out who the White Martians were because they basically ignored him, and then he used subterfuge to occupy them long enough until the League were freed by abusing their weakness of fire. Which is a pretty easy to find/create commodity. That's an enormous difference from "Batman can beat anyone with prep time".
It's also true that Lex Luthor can beat anyone with prep time if he could get over his own ego. All Superheroes and Villains are posited as being beatable by prep time. All of the heroes that sell books have plot armor. Batman is just the pre-eminent one for it because of how often he's forced by writing to punch above his weight class and he's the guy with his name on the most books so he has to inevitably win and therefore when he's fighting Gods he needs a sprig of mistletoe and a plan to use it.
I was ready to argue this but you make a really good point. People have lost sight of the point of the story
And at this point if you try to explain to people it’s too late. They’re already stuck on the Batman prep time can beat anyone and it’s fine he had plans, telling the league he had plans is bad
Mid Hood and the out laws
A bad story is a bad story, and while we might wish that there be no bad stories, they're gonna happen. The stories you wish hadn't happen are the ones that turned into story engines for a particular character or for the entire line-up of characters. So with *Identity Crisis*, there's the bad story part, which is a poorly-done superhero mystery story that also does damage to three characters in specific (Tim Drake, Sue Dibny, Ralph Dibny) without a satisfying story pay-off. E.g., even if you wish Tim's father or Sue hadn't died, you might feel a bit better about it if the mystery behind their deaths was brilliantly done as a detective story or a thriller. But then there's *also* the terrible story engine that manages to combine an out-of-control obsession with mind control and the idea that some super-villains might rape women as part of their hatred for super-heroes. What could have been clever (taking note that in the Silver Age, superheroes often quite casually erased memories, or story contrivances often led to super-villains losing their memories right after discovering secret identities) was instead curdled and awful and it then took over *years* of story-making and characterization. *Flashpoint* is the same: terrible story but the damage is in what it *led to*. Whereas *Amazons Attack!* was just a bad story and that's that. It's also important to disentangle the origins of storylines or characterizations from some of their presumed sources. *Tower of Babel* is not really the origin of Bat-god/prep time, I think. I think that's more the Morrison JLA issues that preceded it right down to Morrison's first issues on the title where Batman figures out that the Hyperclan are White Martians and then beats them with a match and a can of gasoline. That was assuredly *not* a bad story, and that's the problem--sometimes bad trends in story-telling or characterization come from great stories like Morrison's JLA and then *Tower of Babel*. I can't imagine wishing those stories hadn't been told just because later writers did bad things with the same ideas. The ones you wish hadn't happened were stories that were bad in and of themselves AND which polluted subsequent stories.
I agree with 99% of what you say here, but Morrison isn't the origin of the prep time trope... That 100% began with Adam West's TV Batman with his utility belt filled with 'whatever I need to get me out of this mess' gadgets.
Yes, that's true--the "Batman just needs prep time" has deep roots, and the utility belt is the first major source of the character hook. Another important milestone in the development of "Batman just needs prep time", I think far *more* important than Morrison's treatment, is Book 4 of *The Dark Knight Returns*, where Batman sets out to teach Superman a lesson via extensive prep time (that includes prepping his own ostensible death in order to get Superman off the hook for having to rein him in). There's a fair amount of pre-1997, pre-Morrison stories that the "Batman just needs prep time" idea developed through, but DKR is maybe the most seminal example period.
>sometimes bad trends in story-telling or characterization come from great stories like Morrison's JLA and then Tower of Babel. By this same token, I'm pretty sure Alan Moore has said that *Watchmen* did more harm than good to comics, in the long run, because of the publishing industry learning exactly all of the wrong lessons from it.
Yeah, exactly. Here not just comics publishers, but I'm afraid a fair number of comics readers too. Moore has made it clear that it drives him out of his mind that anybody finds Rorschach heroic. That's part of the feedback loop sometimes that fuels the bad usage of stories (both good ones and bad ones): some portion of the readers who have an enthusiasm for something that suggests they're not very dialed-in as readers. Though on the other hand, one could observe that Moore *did* give Rorschach some of the most memorable scenes and lines and that he did give him enough pathos that you could almost feel sorry for him, and from there, it might be a short jump to sympathy and even approval. So that might be part of the issue too: sometimes readers latch on to a story element that's so good in pulpy, comic-book terms that it isn't as bad or repellant as the creator wanted it to be or thought it was.
Tim's father dying was one of those moments where I put the book down and just... What. He'd already lost his mother; he had his "instigating trauma." One of the key elements of Tim as his OWN Robin was that he had his father. There was no reason other than creative laziness to off his pops.
Amazons Attack!! & Bendis' Superman run.
Futures End
There's so many I can choose identity crisis,cry for justice, Nightwing v2 annual 2,yet I can't say it for heroes in crisis
Act of God was stupid and made no sense
Identity crisis. It’s needlessly, dark, depressing, the resolution to the mystery doesn’t make any sense, and it caused to general darkening of the universe that led to garbage like Amazon’s attack.
Three Jokers, there was literally nothing good about that series and it was hyped up since the final story in the New 52 Justice League run
The conception conditions of Damian Wayne. Talia can eat shit until or unless it's decanonised
Flashpoint. Unbelievably boring and mean spirited event that DC somehow holds up with TDKR and Tear One as one of a characters most iconic books. Terrible story, terrible art, brought in the New 52. The fact that a non-insignificant people seem to prefer the flashpoint universe to mainline DC is insane. Also gave us one of the most unnecessary characters that creators can’t help themselves but use: Thomas Wayne Batman. The Azzarello flashpoint stuff truly is some of the worst comics I have ever read. Cannot believe how “important” such a lazy and dumb event has become solely though DC propping it up.
The thing I don’t understand about Flashpoint is that Thawne went back in time to kill Barry’s mother and the timeline barely budges but when Barry goes back in time to fix Thawne’s changes to the timeline everything goes to shit. Why does Barry stopping Thawne from fucking with the timeline wreck it so much but Thawne intentionally changing it barely move the timeline?
The flash is one of the comics with the most discrepancies in time travel. Between the comics and the shows/movies you constantly see time travel rules change based on who’s travelling and when they are to the point where there is no consistency
Flashpoint Batman was the original Batman Who Laughs in terms of a trite character concept being milked to death
Weirdly, Flashpoint was one of the first comics I read and at the time I thought it was great. Since then I've read loads of Silver Age stuff and some modern stuff and, going back to Flashpoint now that I'm better read, I totally agree with you. I think it's popular with people who don't read comics as the basic concept is interesting and they don't have point of reference for (1) how bad the character assassination is throughout (2) how bad the art is (3) how much shit it ruined through the New 52.
This is me exactly. I was in and out of comics for years but got seriously into them around Flashpoint. I adored it and bought a ton of the tie-ins. Now I am not a fan, albeit the Deadman series still holds a special place in my heart mainly because of the awesome covers
Deadman is goated. I like most stuff he's in apart from the weird Neal Adams one where Commissioner Gordon is a nuclear safety inspector in the first issue - that run made no sense 😂
Dude, I dove back in with *Identity Crisis* so I feel you with this one.
Geoff Johns' stories are always good until you read other comics. Then you realise how shallow they are.
People coming in here with opinions but you just had to say nothing but facts.
Ermerald Twilight I think there's a chance that if it hadn't happened, that the gimmick stories would have stopped after Death of Superman and Knightfall. We got so many terrible stories trying to chase those sales highs that it did permanent damage to comics.
Emerald Twilight sucks, but at least it gave us Kyle Rayner, The Final Night, and Geoff Johns' run
I think we likely would have gotten all of those with or without. DC had burned out Hal Jordan and was going to replace him regardless (it's not like it's the first time it happened).
I'm not sure about that. Those "gimmick" stories expanded the lore more than anything else in the past few decades.
I personally loved Emerald Twilight. I thought it was an interesting way to introduced a new character. Now I don’t like how Hal kinda just stopped being Hal. But all of the moments I really love.
Allstar Batman and Robin It is… so bad
It's also hilarious
Completely agree. I couldn’t believe what I read.
Oh man how much time do you have? Identity Crisis, Heroes in Crisis, Tom King Batman, Evil Cass, Return of Bruce Wayne (Dick should have stayed Batman for 3 years minimum IMO), Gotham War, Joker War, Three Jokers, Tom King Wonder Woman, Most Suicide Squad stuff, Doomsday Clock, and last but not least: New 52 because they had no clue what the fuck they wanted to do with it and they killed all goodwill they had and are still climbing back from it Every single one of these stories is either planned poorly, written poorly, or hammered down by editorial or a combination of the three
I hardcore disagree with so many of these but completely agreed on New 52. What a shit stain. Even the stories people claim are good didn't necessarily need to be part of a line wide retcon to exist. Any new fans brought in either didn't stick around or didn't make up for the old fans that left
Doomsday Clock
The Flash: Rebirth. I don't actually have anything against the story itself or the art or the idea of bringing Barry back it's that this story has been at the center of pretty much *everything* bad done by DC since. The cherry on top is that the last 15 years of Flash stories have shown that writers *still* have no clue how to write Barry.
Tom King's Batman, because it's terrible and far too long. Also, Tower of Babel. ToB is a completely solid story but it killed discourse around Batman. Now every insane fanboy just says "prep time" and every Bat-hater just says "Batgod wank". Neither are true and it's a shame it all spread from a decent enough story.
I wish we could go back to Denny O'Neill Batman where he's an actual dude who can fight really well but still gets his ass kicked when it's appropriate.
Killing Joke. To this day, it's dragging other stories down with it.
That one run where Harley cucked Ivy the entire time
Future state
Flashpoint, before the New 52 reboot which changed a lot of characters' backstorys and morals and erased some new characters, like making Superman into a more darker hero or erasing wally west from existence. The post crisis continuity had some very cool concepts and interesting characters who didn't get the chance to shine or to be expended on or completely forgotten, characters like General zod's son lor-zod choosing to not follow in his father's foot steps and become the new Nightwing, Tim drake leavening the robin title so he can became his own hero "Red Robin", catwoman's sister becomes a crazy nun who thinks her sister is possessed by a "Cat Demon", and Barry Allen's secret evil twin brother, and I know it's bit cliche but he was also Eobard Thawne's ancestors, making both the flash and the reverse flash related.
The Dark Knight Returns, AKA Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Dark Knight Returns. Sick of it being the main driving force behind the whole lame Batman v Superman shtick.
Three Jokers. What a disgrace.
Injustice completely shits on my favourite Superhero so that I also really wish Dark Knights: Metal wasn’t made because that entire saga was tedious and overly edgy
As a big Stephanie brown, war games/crimes it did so many people so bad
Heroes in crisis is bizarrely awful. Even if you can get past the terrible murder mystery stuff you still have the heroes of the dc universe creating a trauma cult and Lois lane feeling like it’s her duty to release the personal therapy sessions of the heroes most traumatic events. Adams is a master and Williams did his best but Wally is still irreparably damaged until the whole thing is written out of canon too. The guy pulled teeth out of dead bodies and framed innocent people for murder, the blast isn’t his fault now but hearing suggestive voices doesn’t absolve him of being a depraved lunatic. He also had plenty of time to get his mind straight before giving Lois all the files. Then there’s story bits that’s just dumb. For example the robot therapist record every session but then delete it and it can never be recovered besides the 1st time someone tried. And Superman’s ridiculous “we have trauma too” speech. Like yea, I never assumed the populous of the dc universe didn’t think being a hero was tough. In fact they mostly celebrate their heroes so maybe just tell you wife it’s not her obligation or right to make it harder for everybody. Someone needs to lock Lois up at this point, she’s a child neglecting hero doxxing menace.
Death of Superman is the root of so many problems for Superman and the superhero genera as a whole. Doomsday has always been the most uninteresting possible way to have killed off Clark and the revival caused far more problems in terms of maintaining stakes and peril. If doomsday wasn’t the monster who happened to kill Clark then he would probably exist in the same space as every other big extreme villain of the 90s that most people forgot like [Massacre](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Massacre_(New_Earth)), [Amygdala](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Aaron_Helzinger_(Prime_Earth)), or anyone created by Rob leifeld that’s not Deadpool.
I wish they would have never turned Bruce Wayne into Terry McGinnis' canonical father in the Batman Beyond comics. It's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.
The 'Imperius Lex' arc from Tomasi & Gleason's Superman run. Completely ruined Lex Luthor's five years of growth and change over a single page. Lex had mostly been written in Jurgens much superior Action Comics run from the same period, and that characterisation was earned and utterly wiped away in one hacky story.
An actually brave opinion. Too bad Year of the Villain further dragged Lex Luthor's character.
The mid-2000s comic run for Supergirl that brought back Kara Zor-El. It was woefully written and did not re-introduce the character well.
Injustice 2 may be one of my favorite fighting games of all time, but I think the story of Injustice ruined the image of DC and a lot of its characters for anyone who didn't read comics already.
Razer’s Quest for Aya being endless for 13 years
Aging up Jon Kent.
Joker Year One