The 8 Dumbest Comic Book Story Lines to Date
BY DL Robertson
You, the constant reader, will notice that I put “to date” at the end of the title of this column. We all know that as long as there are comic books to be written and drawn, someone, somewhere, will think of an idea that is soooooo bad that it will make this list at a later date. With that in mind and with my own tendency to read books that have the red and blue arachnid in them (I’m saying Spidey makes this list a few times) let’s get started with the show.
Cue curtain.
Although I do my lists without any real consideration as to which one is actually the dumbest, this time I think the number one might actually be the number one.
1. “Marville,” by Bill Jemas. This was part of an even dumber publicity stunt called U Decide with three books being put out and the readers get to decide which makes the cut (for the record none of them lasted longer than the time it takes me to eat a Big Mac). Marville was supposed to be a parody book, proudly proclaiming on its pages…
The problem is they painstakingly went out of the way to describe everything that was meant to be funny and why it was funny, huh? Add to this Alan Greenspan (yes Greenspan), a tri-eared Batman that beats a black man with his own arm, Black Panther teaching Iron Man not to swear, and a depiction of the Almighty, what you end up with is garbage. It ran for 6 or 7 issues depending on whether you consider the 7th an actual story or not.
Kevin Smith has done some amazing things with comic books. His run on Dare Devil was nothing less than spectacular, and then there is number 2 on the list (yes, in case you are wondering and think potty jokes are funny, the pun is intended).
2. Spider-Man and Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do. What 20 something wasn’t looking forward to this book, you had Smith, Terry Dodson is doing the art, and Black Cat is back. Then you opened the book. Ok, what we have here is drugs, rape, people molesting boys, teleportation, a ton of guest appearances, and total crap. It appears that Cat had been raped before and this is why she is the BC (but nobody bothered to tell us this before). The bad guy was raped by his brother, he and Cat have a moment, Dare Devil and Spidey break Cat out of jail, and oh yeah, Nightcrawler shows up too. Mr. Smith, when you do decide to go number 2 could you please do it anywhere else besides a Spider-Man book?
When you read the title of this column you knew this was coming. It’s like its own evil sun shining on the horizon of bad ideas that is so bad it has become the “SAGA” that almost destroyed Spider-Man.
3. Yep, The Clone Saga! First off I’m sorry…but, how do you do a list like this and not uncover the cesspool that this arc was. In order not to damage the fragile psyche we have all built up over the years to this abomination I will do the crib notes version of the Saga. Clones, Professor loves Gwen, Gwen dies, makes clone, clones Peter, Peter kills clone, but does he? Gwen comes back but she is clone, Jackal dies, clone comes back, Peter is the clone, Ben was the clone, Norman Osborn didn’t die from humongous chest wound. What’s even funnier? IT’S ALL TRUE!
As ground breaking brilliant as Dark Knight Returns was, Dark Knight Strikes Again wasn’t.
4. The Dark Knight Stinks Back. I along with the rest of Comic Dom have no idea what happened to Frank Miller, but I can in no way fathom, nor could I envision that he would put out this. I have heard people defend this turd telling me it was ahead of its time. I don’t know which time it was supposed to appeal to, but I don’t want to be in that time either. Lynn Varley, who normally is fantastic, regressed to what looked like 3rd grade art, and I still get a little dizzy trying to figure out who the characters are trying to look at. The plot and just about everything else about this book is confounding and inane. I for one felt dumber for having read it.
Someone at Marvel decided to do a company wide crossover, the meeting went something like this. “Let’s do a big sweeping crossover!” “Great idea, but this is going to change a lot of things.” “No problem, the idea is fresh and it will invigorate the readership.” “OK, if you’re sure?” “Yeah, it will change everything, and shake up the Marvel U.”
5. Thus was Civil War born. Yeah, it had some ground breaking ideas, and yeah, it was kind of cool with the whole, “whose side are you on thing.” None-the-less how does a non-powered super hero take three to the chest and live? How does Spidey out himself and then go back into the closet? Finally, just how do you clone a god? In baseball three strikes and your out, this clunker should have never made it to the plate.
There are those times when making fun of stuff is just to easy; politicians, cars from third world countries, and lawyers for example.
6. Ultimates 3 is it for the comic book world. Wow, I actually sat there for a few seconds wondering what “badness” to pick as a starting point. Let’s just name them all. We have incest with Wanda and Pietro, Tony makes a sex tape, Thor is jealous of dinosaurs, robot Avengers that are pleasure aids, a dead robot that is crying, art that looks like still photos from high school (you know, it’s supposed to look like someone jumping but the feet are still on the floor and the person doing the jumping looks like he has to go poo), and writing that my nine year old could have done when she was five. I wanted to tell you the gem that was worth remembering from this debacle but there wasn’t one so…….
7: Trouble, no lead up, just the title Trouble. If you missed this one then be thankful, if you didn’t sorry about your luck. I didn’t want to see Uncle Ben and Aunt May thinking about being amorous, I didn’t want to see Aunt May in a bikini on the cover, but I did and I wanted to tear out my eyes but there were more comics to be read and I had to have a frontal lobotomy to forget it but now I’m fine or am I? Trouble, no lead up………….?? Huh?
I know the title of the column said eight (I like the number eight, and no one does eight, ten yes, five maybe, but no one does eight) but it’s actually nine. You see we are coming back to Spider-Man, my own personal hero, my friend, and if you know me there was no way the next two wouldn’t make the list. You do need to understand that there is only so much one person can take so I had to combine the last two, just to limit the torture that these are for me to write about.
8(9). Spider-Man Sins of the Past, and, One More Day. The truth be told they have a lot in common. Both were slaps in the face of Spider-man fans worldwide. Both took part of the beloved mythos that has been part of the greatest superhero of my mind and dumped it in the toilet. Both have gone out of their way to offend, cheat, steal and slander Spider-Man for nothing more than being unable and/or unwilling to tell a good story. I like to think that these stories keep the various creators up at night, silently staring at the wall hoping for redemption, but then again they had their names on the covers so maybe that is punishment enough…or not!
This concludes this list. I know of at least one person who won’t like a pick I made, and if you think I missed one please let me know and I will include it in the next installment whenever that may be. Until then, remember the next book you’re holding could be the dumbest story line to date.
I Would Buy That
Geeked Out & Nerded Up 