101. The Superboy Prime reality punch.
100. Green Arrow making Black Canary believe her new foster daughter is dead
99. Amazons Attack
98. Having to wait for Hitman/JLA
97. The constant Superman retcons
96. Tim Drake having been ruined since Identity Crisis
95. Wonder Woman is now a bimbo who came from a society of barbaric murderesses.
94. Cassandra Cain being turned into a villain.
93. Jason trying to get with Donna Troy. *vomit*
at this point, the board starts to erupt in furious quibbling:
92. Superboy getting killed (and from what? getting thrown into a wall or something?)
91. Bart Allen dying so soon after becoming Flash.
90. The Trials of Shazam
89. Bringing back Ice, but not having a reunion scene with Guy Gardner.
88. Getting Grant Morrison to write yet another Crisis in an already long line of Crises.
87. Fill in teams on the Paul Dini Detective run.
86. Lack of artistic diversity on mainstream DC books.
85. Wonder Woman having no clear sense of direction since her relaunch.
84. Tie Ins to countdown
83. Lack of Adventures of Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane book.
82. No Batmite anywhere to be seen
81. A real Adventures of Batman and Robin (Tim Drake) villain of the week book that isn't All Star. What's the point of having a sidekick if he's just arm candy and nothing more?
I have to stop here and say that the idea of Robin as "arm-candy" for Bats is, well...
80. Slowly killing or otherwise ruining Young Justice characters
79. Geoff Johns still writes for them.
78. Grant Morrison is still obsessed with all that Robert Anton Wilson stuff he used in The Invisibles, and he keeps shoehorning it into superhero comics.
77. Batman's evil ninja son Damien
76. Citizen Steel
75. Robin trying to clone Kon-El
74. Supergirl panty shots
I could go on, but you really ought to go to the DC Message Boards and read the rest for yourself. While you're there, look around a little. Read the previews. Make yourself comfortable. Vote on the Elseworld Batman that you think is the coolest. Drink a smoothie.
Ahem. I only have but ten things I hate about DC. In no particular order:
ReplyDelete10.) The fact that NO-ONE IMPORTANT CARES ABOUT Cass Cain.
9.) The sensless destruction of Young Justice, both physically and mentally. Yes, I'm a zealot.
8.) Everyone ignoring Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers. Someone needs to use his fictionalized New York City. (It was in the Times, I think).
7.) Dick Grayson being badly written. I need to do that "Why I should write Nightwing" series.
6.) The Leigon of Superheroes being forced upon us. Just kill them all already.
5.) Death of the New Gods.
4.) Amazons Attack. Or heck, anything with Wonder Woman.
3.) Judd Winick and Brad Meltzer. The former is a hypocrite, the latter can't write a comic book.
2.) Superman. First there's too much from those movies, who is not MY Superman, then there's the late book tango, then there's the small matter of which events are in continuity or not.
1.) The fact that I'm not writing a DC Comic.
I know its a pipe dream, but I do want to write a DC Comic. Fanfiction isn't enough for me.
It's funny that you posted that Adam West picture - because today is his birthday! Happy 79th, sir!
ReplyDeleteI think I could whittle it down to three:
ReplyDelete1) The obsession with "change", to the point where every story has to kill someone off, resurrect someone, make a good character evil, an evil character good, shake up a team's line-up, blow up a landmark, wipe out thousands of civilians (because 10,000 civilian deaths=one superhero death), and/or (emphasis on and) rewrite a past story so it never happened.
2) The emphasis on creators over characters, to the point where they'll indulge any whim of a "hot name", be it their desire to totally rewrite a character's backstory, or their belief that a monthly schedule is really more of a guideline than a rule. Professionalism is for third-tier writers and artists, not the big names.
3) The mercenary decision to interconnect every single title in a web of stifling continuity so as to force people to buy 37 comics a month if they want to understand what is happening in any one issue of any one series. Nothing is stand-alone anymore.
I think that covers it, really, so long as you understand that correcting #1 would mean less pointless and random violence and death in comics as a side-effect.
Wait, Ollie did what? I look forward to seeing who breaks his legs first: Barbara Gordon or Gail Simone. I guess Barbara would be more appropriate, but I bet Gail's vicious when riled...
ReplyDelete92. Superboy getting killed - for what? A copyright dispute.
ReplyDeleteEven Superboy Prime has been regulated to being called "the Kryptonian boy" or even (ugg), "Superman Prime". Next thing you know, he'll be called "Anti-Monitior Lad".
D the G - your like some sort of non sequitur elemental. Bless.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny I have read Marvel for 20 years and find myself liking DC better but every major DC fan is the opposite where they like Marvel better.
ReplyDeleteI for one LOVE Geoff Johns and feel that he does no wrong. He got me into so many titles and characters
Green Lantern, Teen Titans, Booster Gold!!! (seriously whoda thought?)
But
10) Countdown Tie ins, eek
9) Kyle Rainer, wtf are they doing to him, he's a GL, he's Ion, he randomly appears in Countdown while still being Parallax
8) Wonder Woman going in 80 different directions at the same time
7) Geoff Johns no longer writing Teen Titans
6) Looking at the previews for JLA, I miss Meltzer and Benes :(
5) Ray Palmer mattering
4) Trials of Shazam only coming out once a year
3) Amazons Attack
2) Fat Supergirl
1) Conner/Superboy still being dead :(
An addendum to my #1 reason: Pointless change would include cancelling and relaunching a title for no reason other than to get the brief sales boost that comes from having a new "First Issue!" You know what issue numbers are for? They're for telling us what order to read the freaking comics in, that's what. If every third issue is #1, that's kind of hard to figure out.
ReplyDeleteand Marvel is any better??
ReplyDeleteNot that I don't agree with SOME of what is listed here...
http://www.talesfromthelongbox.com/
I sometimes wonder what reader demographic I'm in...some of these resonate very truely (CASSANDRA CAIN WAS ROBBED) & some of them are things I vaguely agree with (Amazons was crap) while others are things I don't disagree with (No Batman & Robin). Others I can't disagree with enough. People don't like Geoff Johns? What? He's consistently decent, which in this line counts for something, & PS? The Sinestro Corps is GREAT. & I like Damien, but then, I like Ibn al'Xuwhatever. Others I'm just stumped by...no Batmite? The hell is that? I mean, Rucka's thing with Mxy was sheer genius, but...why...retread?
ReplyDeleteI like Geoff Johns. Granted, he's about all I like at DC at the present time (well, Gail Simone too, especially when she writes the Secret Six), but...
ReplyDeleteI liked Meltzer's Green Arrow run a fair bit -- his JLA run less so. I do think he's got Ollie and Roy's voices right.
ReplyDeletePersonally, my problem with the Trials of Shazam isn't an erratic schedule but that it exists at all. It seems to have wiped out anything that made Captain Marvel enjoyable. And that causes a lot of brand confusion when it's being published at the same time that Jeff Smith produced a more classic take on Shazam with a youthful non-comics appeal.