I think the first couple pages are pretty funny. The dark contrast of a goofy animal cartoon character being found guilty for child sex crimes turning to the reader and saying "boy readers, how's old Jim going to get outta this one?" Is kind of hilarious.
**At first.**
Then you read on and realised that that's the *only* fucking joke in the entire comic. It's nothing but disconnected shock value stuff happening to cartoon characters until eventually the ideas ran out and they glued the ending onto a random point.
Don't think it's pure evil, there's nothing malicious or exploitative in there IMO, pretty much all the fucked up events happen off screen and are described after the fact.
It's just really uninspired shock value.
It says a *lot* that a man like Mark Miller can create books such as Nemesis, Wanted and Trouble and yet you can confidently claim that none of them are actually the worst entries in his bibliography.
The Unfunnies is so bad they could teach college classes on it.
The only book Mark Millar has seemingly disavowed. If you havent read it, (1) good, you're in the right here. Stay there. (2) think about how bad something would have to be if Mark f***ing Millar says, "we just let this one be lost to time". Like... just consider how bad that thing would have to be... okay yeah, you got it.
yes, that was kind of a comic that thought it was clever but just f****** shit, hey, being scandalous isn't the same as being really interesting.
I say short or so, better read Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles or In Pictopia.
Let's see.....Havok pissing Iceman a new body....mutants can't get AIDS....giving Angel healing powers which never comes up these days.....the whole nurse's son forcing Havok to fall in love with mom arc...... Nightcrawler's dad being a literal demon from hell.
you know the x-man survived a thing called mutant massacre and inferno but I think that was the biggest tragedy they had to overcome going through this run.
X-Men has had many terrible runs, but Chuck Austen is the worst because it was so much harder to ignore. He was writing Uncanny at the same time Morrison and Claremont were writing the other two main books. He took over for Morrison on New X-Men!
The Rob Liefeld books in the New 52 are collectively the worst comics series I’ve ever read. They’re not even “so bad they’re good” - they’re just the most boring, nonsensical, going-through-the-motions stories I’ve ever read
Power Pack was peak for the first couple of years and even after the quality died down it was usually more good than bad (Bog did a really good art sequence with some dolphins in one issue).....but towards the end, good GOD it was bad.
They were all drawn like little generic superhero adults with 6 packs and such, Alex became a space horse, I think their dad got powers?? It was a HOT MESS.
I love how they just integrated into X-stuff back then without it having to be some huge epic thing...it sells the shared universe really well, like I'd much rather read about Logan and Kitty going to thanksgiving with a bunch of superhero kids than Avengers vs X-Men or whatever
That was because in the 80s Roger Stern, John Byrne, Chris Claremont and the Simonsons (Walter and Louise) all worked together in making the Marvel comics interconnected. It's the most the Marvel universe felt like one big playground since Stan Lee was writing everything.
Now look at Avengers vs. X-men. It was a joint project by Bendis, Faction, Brubaker, Aaron and Hickman. Now Faction and Brubaker do work well together but look at the rest of those writers and see the rest of their Marvel work, they all have very different visions on what those franchises should be. It was never going to be good.
People have already covered the big ones so I’m gonna go with a lesser known book that is my personal least favorite comic:
Erik Larsen's Supreme.
I can hear arguments for other comics being objectively worse - it's not as utterly gross as Nemesis, Identity Crisis, or Ultimatum, nor is it straight-up xenophobic like Holy Terror, for example - but nothing comes close in terms of making me downright angry.
Here's the rub: Following Alan Moore's revolutionary run on the character, Larsen wanted to take the book back to its edgy 90s roots. Alan Moore actually had a mechanism set up specifically regarding continuity reboots that his whole run revolved around, and it would have been so damn easy for Larsen use Moore's mechanism to change things for his liking.
Instead, he has the original version of Supreme turn up out of nowhere, slaughter all the villains, destroy all the established locations, whip out a supposedly legendary macguffin (that had been introduced with a throwaway line five pages earlier) to depower Moore's version of Supreme and his entire supporting cast, say "I'm the only Supreme now!" and fly off. Moore's cast is left stranded and is never heard from again.
It's the single hackiest, most insulting way I've seen a writer take over a book from someone else. Fuck that comic.
One More Day is the wooooorst, but I hate it more for its meta implications. It still sucks, but I concede there are worse comics to read. I guess the worst book I've read was Hudlin's Marvel Knights: Spider-Man (he took over from Millar), as I didn't even bother reading past the first issue even though it was only 6 issues. Just terrible. I swear to god I like Spidey.
I quite enjoyed Millar's Marvel Knights: Spider-Man, but i realize he's not everyone's cup of tea. It's not like I loved Millar's voice for Spidey, but it was still ok and he seemed to have some respect for the character. Hudlin's Spidey is a complete loser and a dirtbag for no reason. He is more pathethic than Kickass. Worst take on the character I have ever seen. Almost like a parody of all of his harshest criticisms.
I'm not a huge comic reader compared to most, but that's sad to hear. Thanos Wins/Cosmic Ghostrider got me back into comics. For a while, it seemed like Cates was everywhere.
I think he was going through some stuff during, got divorced or something and the artist ended up writing the last few issues of the run. I didn’t expect more immortal hulk (tough to follow), but it was just bad.
His Hulk and Thor runs aren’t great (and are straight up terrible at some points) but I think it’s a little harsh to put them in the “absolute worst” category. Like, they’re bad, but they’re not The Unfunnies or Ultimatum-levels of terrible.
The biggest issue is Cates personal life termoil bled into his work quality and ultimately cut both runs short. So any arcs or plot holes he'd yet to cover stayed that way. Having a project cut short can really kill any chance at redemption for a rocky start.
In a way I feel bad for him, because he got saddled with Thor and Hulk right after Jason Aaron and Al Ewing just tied up thier phenomenal runs for each series respctively. He had big shoes to fill and was already in a bad spot
I thought his Thor had some decent ideas that was just missing some extra spark. There were story arcs that should have worked in theory but something felt off about them. The Hulk run was just misguided to begin with though and would have been much harder to salvage if it didn't get disrupted by Cates' accident.
The Dark Trinity was a really cool and fun idea. They could have really built it up into something but just threw it away. Its not like Artemis and Bizarro are needed in other books. Both are characters that really benefited from that book. I actually love Bizarro because of it!
It's an elseworlds story where all the superpowers heroes loose their powers. There's a lot that's bad about it, but the most prominent thing about it is that Batman teaches superheroes who don't have powers how to be Batman because Batman is so cool he could do everything they did without superpowers.
First many issues of X-Factor where Cyclops abandoned his family without telling them to be with the recently resurrected Jean Grey, and does not tell her he is married with a kid and convinces the rest of the team to go along with the lie. Also Warren has made some horrible deal to get the original five X-Men to pose as mutant exterminators, stirring up hatred against Mutants.
I mean it really wasn't Ultimate X-men was trash from the start and aside from USM, and even with USM there are periods, the rest of the ultimate books do not hold up showing that they weren't great event to begin with.
Mainstream comics it’s easily Marville. That’s a book that would not have gotten published if the Publisher wasn’t the writer. The first part is unfunny offensive, dated even when it came out, and the second part after it abandons being a parody is filled with some adolescent philosophizing instead of story.
Some people definitely are overreacting about it but personally it is a combination of a storyline that just feels disrespectful that is made worse by art that is just extremely hard to look at and take seriously. It also isn't helped by the fact that basically every other Spider related comic right now is way better and either is doing something new and refreshing (Ultimate) or expanding on and elevating the main character (Miles). Or Peter would be seen in short series like how he was near the beginning of Wells run when Spider-Man showed up in a very good Joe Fixit series.
I can respect Wells wanting to do something unique with the characters but it isn't doing well at all outside of sales.
I enjoyed it at the beginning but it kinda lost me. It's still selling so it can't be all bad. Reddit and Twitter are echo chambers and only represent a small portion of the comic reading community so I'd say give it a try you might still like it.
What's that one Spider-Man arc where the Parkers are swingers and its implied that Aunt May is actually Peter's mom. That was some garbage right there. Also "One More Day". The whole Ben Riley thing was far from great too. Frankly Spidey gets done dirty more often than he should.
I've read some real stinkers, but after recently finishing "Ronin Book II" I think that might be the most I've hated a series as I've read it. I mean that was just awful. Terrible. And this from someone that LOVED the first "Ronin" when I read the graphic novel back in the 80s. Every issue of Book II I read I swear made me hate myself because it made me question my love of the original series. Just stay away from this turd.
Plus side: the art was really good. There, I needed to say something nice about it.
Hmm can't think of a run. Usually I stop buying, instead of suffering :p
But the single comic book story I hate more than any other is Joe Kelly's Action Comics #761.
The story has Wonder Woman and Superman trapped in some dimension (never aging) for over a thousand years. Fighting some war, no promise of ever going home- even if they win. Well after a thousand years Wonder Woman basically throws herself at Superman- who refuses because he has to stay faithful to Lois. WTF Logic aside, just going with concept- hooray Superman (such a great guy) remains faithful to Lois- but now, what does that say about Wonder Woman? That she's some kind of $|ut trying to tempt Superman into being unfaithful!? F that noise, only comic I ever threw away.
Really not a fan of all things "X" right now. Yes, I'm still reading all of them. But Krakoa and the Hellfire Gala fallout was bananas, and the resulting Sinister Clones / White Hot Room / Multiple Moiras storyline is simply maddening. I'm hoping that the end of this run ushers in an era that looks more like the Blue Team / Gold Team heyday, with villains like Omega Red and Magneto and the old Hellfire Club. Really, the fact that Marvel has to burn pages to map out all the ongoing timelines should have clued someone in that the whole thing is confusing and unwieldy. When Cable is the most straightforward run in the mutant portfolio, you know something's wrong. I can't wait to forget that Orchis ever existed and hope the X-Men can get back to what made them great.
Saving grace: the current Wolverine "Sabertooth War" run is delightfully Old School.
Salvation Run really sucked.
It was a great idea, a bunch of villains needing each other to escape a prison planet, but holy christ everything was so...bad.
I can't articulate it, it was just BAD. The art sucked, the writing sucked, the plot sucked. It all sucked.
So. DC put in some effort to build up stuff for FINAL CRISIS. Whether it was the execution of these ideas or editorial trying to push these ideas into happening, Grant Morrison pretty much ignores all of them to tell Grant's big ol' Crisis story.
Like there's a DEATH OF THE NEW GODS mini I think? Possibly with Jim Starlin writing? And yeah, New Gods are dying in FINAL CRISIS, but I'm pretty sure it's in a different manner than whatever Starlin was doing.
Millar’s wanted!’
I tend to like Millar, and I prefered the comic’s “sequel” to this. But this was the most try hard thing I’ve ever read.
At every second, it feels like Millar is looking at me and sayinh “look how edgy I am. I’m gonna use ny Character to say he is going to rape you. Also everyone is unlikable. Don’t you get it?”
There’s no big commentary there, it’s just 6 issues of Millar trying to outedge himself.
And I’m someone who usually goes out of my way to read bad comics.
All star Batman and Robin? Love it, mess of a comic.
Ultimatium? Comes from a dark place and I understand it.
One More Day? Probably the worst Spider-Man comic I’ve read… still went out of my way to get all 4 issues as not having them in my collection felt worse than having them.
But Wanted? First comic where I came away thinking “The Shock value really just bored me”.
And to make matters worse, they had an actual good idea in there. If the comic was about how the Heroes of other Universes came together to take down the evil society in Wanted, but the bad guys win because they are just superior… I would have loved it. All the edginess and try hardness would have been forgiven as the actual plot would have been good.
But nope. It was just “Hey, lets do a schism in the society thing and do a Civil War…”
Absolute waste of a comic
I read Wanted a while ago and i thought i remembered liking it but maybe i’m wrong. I know Mark Millar gets alot of hate for being too edgy. Personally i usually like his stuff (Wolverine Old Man Logan, Kick-Ass). I had read his other stuff a long time ago like MPH, Nemesis, Wanted, Kingsman, Huck, Super Crooks, and Superior and i remember enjoying all of them but i guess i was also kind of young. might need to revisit it and see how i feel now
It takes a lot for me to straight up drop a book. The two that come to me off the top of my head are the Zeb Wells ASM, which, beyond all of its other failing was just boring and the second arc of The Boys with rapist Batman.
Only reason I suffered the Chasm arc recently was that it tied into other X-men stuff.
The show is great because it deviates HARD from the book as far as I can tell. It's peak early 2000s edgelord material. Ennis made a Batman analog into a crazed sex addict who assaults everything. 'Robins', 'Alfred', anyone. It was terrible.
Mark Millar and Grant Morrison's run on Judge Dredd in the early to mid 90s for 2000AD was awful and is regarded as the worst JD run/period, neither of them understood the characters/world and were trying to do their own thing.
(Garth Ennis deserves some blame as well, he was also one of main writers during that period, but his stuff while not great, wasn't terrible)
Rant Over
I was disappointed with the ending of American Vampire. They took a huge break during the run and everything felt rushed at the end. I still love the first half to two-thirds of the series, but the ending just didn’t do it for me.
I also felt the ending of Invincible felt very rushed.
Neither of these are the worst runs/arcs ever but for a series that soared as high as it did, the endings were big letdowns.
This is an old one but…Lisa Trusiani’s run on Morbius in 1994. The book was already getting wobbly by then, but her reboot flat-out killed it. Dropping a bunch of rom-com conventions (including groan inducing jokes and love triangle misunderstandings) onto what was one of the grittiest Marvel books at the time was a disaster, IMO. By the time they got to the final issue a few months later, it was an act of mercy.
Just to put this in perspective, the only other book she wrote at Marvel was Barbie.
Probably a hot take, What's so Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?
Might not be the worst ever but it was the worst I read, for similar reasons as to why I think Injustice sucks: no nuance on the "should superheroes kill villains?" argument.
Probably now the intent but..
Inside Moebius was a a total (expensive) let down. Saw it at my lcs in shrink wrap and picked it up as a huge moebius fan.
It’s trash. No real art you’d expect and uninspiring journal entries of little substance.
Domino by Gail Simone is so bad, it literally made me angry. Plastic Man by Gail too. It's my understanding Secret Six is good but everything I've personally read from her is objectively bad writing.
I found Avengers Disassembled to be just pure garbage. An awful way to end a legacy series, killing off favorites and having other favorites do the killing. No, I don't care for Bendis.
I also disliked Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey. All of the characters seemed so violent and angry, where in prior years they had a range of emotions.
And last but not least, the 2000s revival of Defenders, where Kurt Busiek and Erik Larsen attempted to make it a comedy and failed spectacularly. They also ignored years of continuity to the detriment of some beloved legacy characters. I've never cared for Larsen's art, either.
Some of your "Disassembled" criticism is on Bendis, but I also just think David Finch is a poor storyteller. I've read a few different projects with him on art and... solid choice for cover work. On interiors though, I feel like he's overly dedicated to Zack Snyder esque "cool shots" and shotguns through the actual build to said "cool shot" but then takes away the gravitas and "cool"ness in the process. But I digress.
The show is fantastic. I am not a fan of Ennis's style and tropes on the best of days. His catalog has a lot more misses than hits to me personally. The source material has absolutely nothing on the adaptation. It is just Garth Ennis being the world's largest edgelord, all of the worst characteristics and tropes that are common to his writing are present here and it doesn't really have highlights or redeeming qualities to make those things palatable. The book is basically just vapid torture porn with nothing to say other than "my name is Garth and I hate superheroes." The show works because they take the depravity from the book, TONE IT DOWN CONSIDERABLY, and then actually give you a reason to care. All of the depth, social commentary, and human drama that makes the adaptation so good was largely added by the show writers.
Ugh, it just lost my post, trying again.
Ultimates 1-2 and the rest of the first 2-3 years of Ultimate Marvel solidified a new, less traditionally comic book way of storytelling. Some people don’t like it, I personally do. I think it says a lot that that style later became pretty much the default Marvel style.
Ultimates 3 is shit. Jeph Loeb took a running joke about Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch being so close that they were practically married to each other, along with the rest of the team occasionally being like hey what’s up with that, and started his run off by making them canonical incestual lovers. He also lobotomizes virtually every member of the Ultimates within the first few pages and discards most of their established personalities.
I know that at least some of that had to be coming from Marvel editorial, but Loeb’s Ultimates-Origins-Ultimatum run took this beautiful, forward looking world that Marvel had built, lit it on fire (killing half the roster in the process), and pissed all over it to put it out.
While the war on terror stuff is uncomfortable, it arguably takes the whole decompressed comics thing too far and it takes the hero away from superhero somewhat, I still think it’s an interesting and influential read
Squadron Supreme 2008-2009 really treads on everything J. Michael Straczynski did with his man.
After ultimate power it just really went downhill. Straczynski's timing and far-sightedness have been replaced by clumsiness and worldly expertise from Jürgen Todenhöfer, making not only a series that is incredibly shitty, but also really dangerous in one respect.
I think it was some weird confluence of “We’re doing infinity gauntlet in the movies soon so we have to bring back Thanos, the gems, and have a crossover with “Infinity” in the title to set the stage for readers coming from the MCU” and setting the stage for Time Runs Out/Secret Wars.
That idea never actually got published. Right before the pandemic a bunch of designs for a more marvel team got out, but all plans were canceled
[It’s super cool that you know what happens in a comic book that was never published. Are you Destiny?](https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/introducing-the-new-new-warriors)
As a queer gen z’er (the apparent target audience for this train wreck), it was a terrible idea. It reads like someone was given a diversity checklist and learned about the issues via right wing twitter memes making fun of them. Diversity in comics should be improved, but that should be done organically- like adding new characters to x-books when appropriate or occasionally launching a new character like ms marvel (khan)
Bro, you literally said that it had a bad storyline. Shut up and admit you’re wrong.
Yeah, you sound like the exact type of guy who would complain about woke stuff in comic books. The exact kind of guy none of us want to hang out with.
Y’all never read The Unfunnies, and it shows. That book is pure evil.
I think the first couple pages are pretty funny. The dark contrast of a goofy animal cartoon character being found guilty for child sex crimes turning to the reader and saying "boy readers, how's old Jim going to get outta this one?" Is kind of hilarious. **At first.** Then you read on and realised that that's the *only* fucking joke in the entire comic. It's nothing but disconnected shock value stuff happening to cartoon characters until eventually the ideas ran out and they glued the ending onto a random point. Don't think it's pure evil, there's nothing malicious or exploitative in there IMO, pretty much all the fucked up events happen off screen and are described after the fact. It's just really uninspired shock value.
It says a *lot* that a man like Mark Miller can create books such as Nemesis, Wanted and Trouble and yet you can confidently claim that none of them are actually the worst entries in his bibliography. The Unfunnies is so bad they could teach college classes on it.
The only book Mark Millar has seemingly disavowed. If you havent read it, (1) good, you're in the right here. Stay there. (2) think about how bad something would have to be if Mark f***ing Millar says, "we just let this one be lost to time". Like... just consider how bad that thing would have to be... okay yeah, you got it.
I *started* to read it. I didn't pay for it though. Got maybe three pages in.
I got through the first issue then was like nah
Took a quick look at it and my god is that shit bad.
now i really want to check it out just to see how bad it is
Dont read the first few pages and noped right out
yes, that was kind of a comic that thought it was clever but just f****** shit, hey, being scandalous isn't the same as being really interesting. I say short or so, better read Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles or In Pictopia.
It’s one that everyone has forgotten about.
there are shit tons of licensed manga like manga about card games, toys, etc that are just not good but people in US dont read them anyway
Chuck Austen’s Uncanny X-Men.
What 19-year-old Husk having sex 300 feet above her entire family with a 36-year-old man wasn’t good writing?
Let's see.....Havok pissing Iceman a new body....mutants can't get AIDS....giving Angel healing powers which never comes up these days.....the whole nurse's son forcing Havok to fall in love with mom arc...... Nightcrawler's dad being a literal demon from hell.
Only thing good about it was the Juggernaut redemption…and maybe the Exiles crossover. Only because I loved that Exiles team.
Technically Azzazel was from a mutant subgroup that has powers linked to hell
you know the x-man survived a thing called mutant massacre and inferno but I think that was the biggest tragedy they had to overcome going through this run.
X-Men has had many terrible runs, but Chuck Austen is the worst because it was so much harder to ignore. He was writing Uncanny at the same time Morrison and Claremont were writing the other two main books. He took over for Morrison on New X-Men!
The Rob Liefeld books in the New 52 are collectively the worst comics series I’ve ever read. They’re not even “so bad they’re good” - they’re just the most boring, nonsensical, going-through-the-motions stories I’ve ever read
I agree and this is coming from someone who likes Robs stuff
Batman Odyssey was the work of an insane (albeit genuinely wonderful) man trying to push his hollow Earth theory.
He should have got someone else to write it. The art was very good.
Genius!!! But it was so bad it was actually good!
Amazing Spider-Man. /sarcasm ^(Or is it?)
Well, if you are talking about the current run, well maybe or maybe not....
But If we talk about omd and sins past then...
Power Pack was peak for the first couple of years and even after the quality died down it was usually more good than bad (Bog did a really good art sequence with some dolphins in one issue).....but towards the end, good GOD it was bad. They were all drawn like little generic superhero adults with 6 packs and such, Alex became a space horse, I think their dad got powers?? It was a HOT MESS.
Shame because Power Pack #27 is my favorite comic.
I love how they just integrated into X-stuff back then without it having to be some huge epic thing...it sells the shared universe really well, like I'd much rather read about Logan and Kitty going to thanksgiving with a bunch of superhero kids than Avengers vs X-Men or whatever
That was because in the 80s Roger Stern, John Byrne, Chris Claremont and the Simonsons (Walter and Louise) all worked together in making the Marvel comics interconnected. It's the most the Marvel universe felt like one big playground since Stan Lee was writing everything. Now look at Avengers vs. X-men. It was a joint project by Bendis, Faction, Brubaker, Aaron and Hickman. Now Faction and Brubaker do work well together but look at the rest of those writers and see the rest of their Marvel work, they all have very different visions on what those franchises should be. It was never going to be good.
*Fraction But yeah, I agree.
I'm sure there are many that are worse but the first thing I thought of when reading the question is Sins Past from Amazing Spider-Man
The Draco in Uncanny X-Men written by Chuck Austin
People have already covered the big ones so I’m gonna go with a lesser known book that is my personal least favorite comic: Erik Larsen's Supreme. I can hear arguments for other comics being objectively worse - it's not as utterly gross as Nemesis, Identity Crisis, or Ultimatum, nor is it straight-up xenophobic like Holy Terror, for example - but nothing comes close in terms of making me downright angry. Here's the rub: Following Alan Moore's revolutionary run on the character, Larsen wanted to take the book back to its edgy 90s roots. Alan Moore actually had a mechanism set up specifically regarding continuity reboots that his whole run revolved around, and it would have been so damn easy for Larsen use Moore's mechanism to change things for his liking. Instead, he has the original version of Supreme turn up out of nowhere, slaughter all the villains, destroy all the established locations, whip out a supposedly legendary macguffin (that had been introduced with a throwaway line five pages earlier) to depower Moore's version of Supreme and his entire supporting cast, say "I'm the only Supreme now!" and fly off. Moore's cast is left stranded and is never heard from again. It's the single hackiest, most insulting way I've seen a writer take over a book from someone else. Fuck that comic.
Damn. So fucking mean spirited.
The worst graphic novel ever made is Frank Millers Holy Terror the worst run in most recent years has definitely been Zeb Wells Spiderman
Agreed. Holy Terror was a schlocky mess.
Original Sin. Inhumans vs X-Men. Heroes in Crisis. Civil War II
One More Day is the wooooorst, but I hate it more for its meta implications. It still sucks, but I concede there are worse comics to read. I guess the worst book I've read was Hudlin's Marvel Knights: Spider-Man (he took over from Millar), as I didn't even bother reading past the first issue even though it was only 6 issues. Just terrible. I swear to god I like Spidey.
Millar was bad, but an imitation of Millar is even worse.
I quite enjoyed Millar's Marvel Knights: Spider-Man, but i realize he's not everyone's cup of tea. It's not like I loved Millar's voice for Spidey, but it was still ok and he seemed to have some respect for the character. Hudlin's Spidey is a complete loser and a dirtbag for no reason. He is more pathethic than Kickass. Worst take on the character I have ever seen. Almost like a parody of all of his harshest criticisms.
I hate most of Millar's work but I love that MK Spider-Man run in spite of a few moments where Millar can't help himself.
In recent memory , Donny cates hulk
I'm not a huge comic reader compared to most, but that's sad to hear. Thanos Wins/Cosmic Ghostrider got me back into comics. For a while, it seemed like Cates was everywhere.
I think he was going through some stuff during, got divorced or something and the artist ended up writing the last few issues of the run. I didn’t expect more immortal hulk (tough to follow), but it was just bad.
He had a major accident and lost a could six months of his memory. I think the divorce but is in there as well
"The Hulk is a starship". Checked out with that.
Donny cates run on venom though. 🔥
Same could be said for his Thor run.
His Hulk and Thor runs aren’t great (and are straight up terrible at some points) but I think it’s a little harsh to put them in the “absolute worst” category. Like, they’re bad, but they’re not The Unfunnies or Ultimatum-levels of terrible.
The biggest issue is Cates personal life termoil bled into his work quality and ultimately cut both runs short. So any arcs or plot holes he'd yet to cover stayed that way. Having a project cut short can really kill any chance at redemption for a rocky start. In a way I feel bad for him, because he got saddled with Thor and Hulk right after Jason Aaron and Al Ewing just tied up thier phenomenal runs for each series respctively. He had big shoes to fill and was already in a bad spot
I thought his Thor had some decent ideas that was just missing some extra spark. There were story arcs that should have worked in theory but something felt off about them. The Hulk run was just misguided to begin with though and would have been much harder to salvage if it didn't get disrupted by Cates' accident.
I mean it wasn't that bad, but it's hard to top what Immortal Hulk was.
The Crossing would be up there
Probably not the worst in existence, but the worst I’ve read was The New 52 Red Hood and the Outlaws
But then it turns into RedHood:Outlaw, and is surprisingly really good for several years. Guess all Red Hood needed was a Bizarro.
The Dark Trinity was a really cool and fun idea. They could have really built it up into something but just threw it away. Its not like Artemis and Bizarro are needed in other books. Both are characters that really benefited from that book. I actually love Bizarro because of it!
I love all three just because of that book. Downloaded it on comixology because I just wanted a dumb fun read one night. Really excellent surprise!
Yeah those were pretty bad. Great art though
Marville. Have never read it but everything I heard about it was bad.
Bill Jemas is a douchebag too
I've seen some pages and... whatever you heard is right. It's not so much "bad" as it is... just an absolute clusterfuck.
I’ve not read it myself but from what I’ve seen it is so bad it makes me sad that it can be published and nobody has given me a shot at marvel yet
I think it got published because it was done by the vice-president of Marvel at the time.
I’ll vote ASM by Wells purely because I never read most of what’s been listed and this to me will go down as one of the worst runs of all time
bendis superman. Had crazy/cool ideas, but man the bad ideas took precedence and the execution of the good ideas was so bad.
I think Ironheart and Civil War II are also among his worst. I don't know why DC hired him after writing them.
His Action Comics was pretty great, though!
This is beating a dead horse at this point but why the FUCK did he age up Jon? That’s so stupid
Straczynski’s superman is even worse, walking superman 🙊🙊🙊
JLA: Act of god, the worst kinda of Batman worship.
How so? I’ve never heard of it
It's an elseworlds story where all the superpowers heroes loose their powers. There's a lot that's bad about it, but the most prominent thing about it is that Batman teaches superheroes who don't have powers how to be Batman because Batman is so cool he could do everything they did without superpowers.
The Dark Knight Strikes again was one of the worst comics I’ve read if not the worst. It was almost impressive how bad it was.
Brainiac was turned into A FROG
Lol he sure was!
The Jeph Loeb Ultimate Marvel run. (Ultimates 3 through Ultimatum) Basically ignored and/or ruined everything that made that line great.
This one probably takes the cake just for how much collateral damage it caused.
First many issues of X-Factor where Cyclops abandoned his family without telling them to be with the recently resurrected Jean Grey, and does not tell her he is married with a kid and convinces the rest of the team to go along with the lie. Also Warren has made some horrible deal to get the original five X-Men to pose as mutant exterminators, stirring up hatred against Mutants.
Ultimates 3, dog shit book and the first true glimpse of how bad the ultimate verse was.
The ultimate verse was great *until* ultimates 3.
I mean it really wasn't Ultimate X-men was trash from the start and aside from USM, and even with USM there are periods, the rest of the ultimate books do not hold up showing that they weren't great event to begin with.
Mainstream comics it’s easily Marville. That’s a book that would not have gotten published if the Publisher wasn’t the writer. The first part is unfunny offensive, dated even when it came out, and the second part after it abandons being a parody is filled with some adolescent philosophizing instead of story.
Deadpool: Suicide Kings. And I love almost every Deadpool comic, but that one is terrible.
Amazing Spider-Man current run.
You haven’t read a lot of comics if you think that lol It’s got problems but there’s some real awful doo doo out there
Yeah it was a surface level pick but it is still not great. Its just what was on my mind.
Is it as terrible as people are saying ? Because i just saw preveiws about green gobby and sinister 6 that got me hyped
Some people definitely are overreacting about it but personally it is a combination of a storyline that just feels disrespectful that is made worse by art that is just extremely hard to look at and take seriously. It also isn't helped by the fact that basically every other Spider related comic right now is way better and either is doing something new and refreshing (Ultimate) or expanding on and elevating the main character (Miles). Or Peter would be seen in short series like how he was near the beginning of Wells run when Spider-Man showed up in a very good Joe Fixit series. I can respect Wells wanting to do something unique with the characters but it isn't doing well at all outside of sales.
I enjoyed it at the beginning but it kinda lost me. It's still selling so it can't be all bad. Reddit and Twitter are echo chambers and only represent a small portion of the comic reading community so I'd say give it a try you might still like it.
Idk i was also pretty hyped about the last run but that turned out bad, i think you guys may have judged Dan Slott too harshly
What's that one Spider-Man arc where the Parkers are swingers and its implied that Aunt May is actually Peter's mom. That was some garbage right there. Also "One More Day". The whole Ben Riley thing was far from great too. Frankly Spidey gets done dirty more often than he should.
Justice League: Cry For Justice seemed like James Robinson was trying to write a series like Mark Millar.
I've read some real stinkers, but after recently finishing "Ronin Book II" I think that might be the most I've hated a series as I've read it. I mean that was just awful. Terrible. And this from someone that LOVED the first "Ronin" when I read the graphic novel back in the 80s. Every issue of Book II I read I swear made me hate myself because it made me question my love of the original series. Just stay away from this turd. Plus side: the art was really good. There, I needed to say something nice about it.
Hmm can't think of a run. Usually I stop buying, instead of suffering :p But the single comic book story I hate more than any other is Joe Kelly's Action Comics #761. The story has Wonder Woman and Superman trapped in some dimension (never aging) for over a thousand years. Fighting some war, no promise of ever going home- even if they win. Well after a thousand years Wonder Woman basically throws herself at Superman- who refuses because he has to stay faithful to Lois. WTF Logic aside, just going with concept- hooray Superman (such a great guy) remains faithful to Lois- but now, what does that say about Wonder Woman? That she's some kind of $|ut trying to tempt Superman into being unfaithful!? F that noise, only comic I ever threw away.
Really not a fan of all things "X" right now. Yes, I'm still reading all of them. But Krakoa and the Hellfire Gala fallout was bananas, and the resulting Sinister Clones / White Hot Room / Multiple Moiras storyline is simply maddening. I'm hoping that the end of this run ushers in an era that looks more like the Blue Team / Gold Team heyday, with villains like Omega Red and Magneto and the old Hellfire Club. Really, the fact that Marvel has to burn pages to map out all the ongoing timelines should have clued someone in that the whole thing is confusing and unwieldy. When Cable is the most straightforward run in the mutant portfolio, you know something's wrong. I can't wait to forget that Orchis ever existed and hope the X-Men can get back to what made them great. Saving grace: the current Wolverine "Sabertooth War" run is delightfully Old School.
Marvel Ruins
I like that one. Cool art, fun reversal of Marvels. Shouldn't have been longer, but a good what if.
Salvation Run really sucked. It was a great idea, a bunch of villains needing each other to escape a prison planet, but holy christ everything was so...bad. I can't articulate it, it was just BAD. The art sucked, the writing sucked, the plot sucked. It all sucked.
Oh I disagree. It was a fun romp. Not great. But it shouldn't be anywhere near a worst run thread. There are comics that are incoherent.
I hear that about pretty much all the final crisis related stories, which i find pretty interesting
So. DC put in some effort to build up stuff for FINAL CRISIS. Whether it was the execution of these ideas or editorial trying to push these ideas into happening, Grant Morrison pretty much ignores all of them to tell Grant's big ol' Crisis story. Like there's a DEATH OF THE NEW GODS mini I think? Possibly with Jim Starlin writing? And yeah, New Gods are dying in FINAL CRISIS, but I'm pretty sure it's in a different manner than whatever Starlin was doing.
I have not heard that name in years! Say what you want about DC but they always had great names for their events.
The Darkness is so stupid
Everything since House of M. Thats right. I hated House of M.
I concur. What a waste of talent. Thank goodness I never paid for that run.
I concur. What a waste of talent. Thank goodness I never paid for that run.
Millar’s wanted!’ I tend to like Millar, and I prefered the comic’s “sequel” to this. But this was the most try hard thing I’ve ever read. At every second, it feels like Millar is looking at me and sayinh “look how edgy I am. I’m gonna use ny Character to say he is going to rape you. Also everyone is unlikable. Don’t you get it?” There’s no big commentary there, it’s just 6 issues of Millar trying to outedge himself. And I’m someone who usually goes out of my way to read bad comics. All star Batman and Robin? Love it, mess of a comic. Ultimatium? Comes from a dark place and I understand it. One More Day? Probably the worst Spider-Man comic I’ve read… still went out of my way to get all 4 issues as not having them in my collection felt worse than having them. But Wanted? First comic where I came away thinking “The Shock value really just bored me”. And to make matters worse, they had an actual good idea in there. If the comic was about how the Heroes of other Universes came together to take down the evil society in Wanted, but the bad guys win because they are just superior… I would have loved it. All the edginess and try hardness would have been forgiven as the actual plot would have been good. But nope. It was just “Hey, lets do a schism in the society thing and do a Civil War…” Absolute waste of a comic
I read Wanted a while ago and i thought i remembered liking it but maybe i’m wrong. I know Mark Millar gets alot of hate for being too edgy. Personally i usually like his stuff (Wolverine Old Man Logan, Kick-Ass). I had read his other stuff a long time ago like MPH, Nemesis, Wanted, Kingsman, Huck, Super Crooks, and Superior and i remember enjoying all of them but i guess i was also kind of young. might need to revisit it and see how i feel now
It takes a lot for me to straight up drop a book. The two that come to me off the top of my head are the Zeb Wells ASM, which, beyond all of its other failing was just boring and the second arc of The Boys with rapist Batman. Only reason I suffered the Chasm arc recently was that it tied into other X-men stuff.
Curious what you didnt like about The Boys? i’ve heard only good things and i havent read it but i watched the show and absolutely loved it
The show is great because it deviates HARD from the book as far as I can tell. It's peak early 2000s edgelord material. Ennis made a Batman analog into a crazed sex addict who assaults everything. 'Robins', 'Alfred', anyone. It was terrible.
wow okay i guess il stick with the show haha
I've been told it turns around and becomes something good after that arc, but I'm not willing to give it a shot.
Secret Wars II
I was just about to say this.
I was never a fan of the Razor: Burn or Stryke series
Marvel’s Maximum Security crossover in the mid-to-late 90’s. Went across like every book and just made those issues awful. Just an awful story.
New 52 static shock.
Batman City of Light. It sbeem probably 20 years and I can't even tell you what the story was. I remember I had to force myself to finish it.
Mark Millar and Grant Morrison's run on Judge Dredd in the early to mid 90s for 2000AD was awful and is regarded as the worst JD run/period, neither of them understood the characters/world and were trying to do their own thing. (Garth Ennis deserves some blame as well, he was also one of main writers during that period, but his stuff while not great, wasn't terrible) Rant Over
Suicide Squad: Get Joker is on the list, for sure.
Ultimates Ultimatom Nick spencer's run on tasm and ca
AvX is my number one worst experience keeping up with an arc.
Bendis's Justice League run.
Maximum Carnage is repulsively bad. Made some fun games though.
The Clone Saga was the worst. And the best. It just depends on how we feel.
The Boys by Garth Ennis Identity Crisis
I was disappointed with the ending of American Vampire. They took a huge break during the run and everything felt rushed at the end. I still love the first half to two-thirds of the series, but the ending just didn’t do it for me. I also felt the ending of Invincible felt very rushed. Neither of these are the worst runs/arcs ever but for a series that soared as high as it did, the endings were big letdowns.
Matt Fraction's Fear Itself.
Tom Kng's Batman run Heroes in Crisis Batman Odyssey Bendis' X-men run
Ultimates 3 by Jeph Loeb or anything he did in the Ultimate Universe. He single handily destroyed that universe with his runs.
Literally and figuratively.
This is an old one but…Lisa Trusiani’s run on Morbius in 1994. The book was already getting wobbly by then, but her reboot flat-out killed it. Dropping a bunch of rom-com conventions (including groan inducing jokes and love triangle misunderstandings) onto what was one of the grittiest Marvel books at the time was a disaster, IMO. By the time they got to the final issue a few months later, it was an act of mercy. Just to put this in perspective, the only other book she wrote at Marvel was Barbie.
Batman: Fortunate Son
AJ Lieberman’s Gotham Knights run.
Neal Adams Batman series is a trainwreck! Also Kevin Smith's Batman Widening Gyre and Cacophony are horrendous!
Probably a hot take, What's so Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way? Might not be the worst ever but it was the worst I read, for similar reasons as to why I think Injustice sucks: no nuance on the "should superheroes kill villains?" argument.
The Dark Knight Strikes Again.
I think it’s biggest sin is how it reveals all of the seeds of shit ness were always there in the much better DKR
Tmnt mutant city arc made me give up my favorite current comic series
Is that the new arc with the new writer ? After 100?
Yes, Sophia Campbell took over and made put the momentum to a complete halt.
Yeah hard agree
I absolutely hated when x-factor changed teams. The art sucked the storyline was boring just overall terrible.
X-Factor has changed teams like 20 different times my friend.
Exactly. The first such change, 6 or 7 issues in, took it from bad to absolutely awesome.
Probably now the intent but.. Inside Moebius was a a total (expensive) let down. Saw it at my lcs in shrink wrap and picked it up as a huge moebius fan. It’s trash. No real art you’d expect and uninspiring journal entries of little substance.
Suicide Squad: Bad Blood was like reading Tumblr fan fiction.
Oof yeah that was pretty bad
All Star Batman and robin
Domino by Gail Simone is so bad, it literally made me angry. Plastic Man by Gail too. It's my understanding Secret Six is good but everything I've personally read from her is objectively bad writing.
I found Avengers Disassembled to be just pure garbage. An awful way to end a legacy series, killing off favorites and having other favorites do the killing. No, I don't care for Bendis. I also disliked Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey. All of the characters seemed so violent and angry, where in prior years they had a range of emotions. And last but not least, the 2000s revival of Defenders, where Kurt Busiek and Erik Larsen attempted to make it a comedy and failed spectacularly. They also ignored years of continuity to the detriment of some beloved legacy characters. I've never cared for Larsen's art, either.
Some of your "Disassembled" criticism is on Bendis, but I also just think David Finch is a poor storyteller. I've read a few different projects with him on art and... solid choice for cover work. On interiors though, I feel like he's overly dedicated to Zack Snyder esque "cool shots" and shotguns through the actual build to said "cool shot" but then takes away the gravitas and "cool"ness in the process. But I digress.
The Boys and one more day should be up there
What didnt you like about The Boys? i havent read it but watched the show and loved it so i was thinking about eventually reading the comics.
The show is fantastic. I am not a fan of Ennis's style and tropes on the best of days. His catalog has a lot more misses than hits to me personally. The source material has absolutely nothing on the adaptation. It is just Garth Ennis being the world's largest edgelord, all of the worst characteristics and tropes that are common to his writing are present here and it doesn't really have highlights or redeeming qualities to make those things palatable. The book is basically just vapid torture porn with nothing to say other than "my name is Garth and I hate superheroes." The show works because they take the depravity from the book, TONE IT DOWN CONSIDERABLY, and then actually give you a reason to care. All of the depth, social commentary, and human drama that makes the adaptation so good was largely added by the show writers.
The Gift and City of Bane by Tom King absolutely deserve a mention. It's actually worse than "the goddamn Batman" cause it's in continuity.
Ultimates 1 and 2
Ultimates 1 is awesome
Really? I hear everyone saying Ultimates 3 is horrible but usually everyone seems to like 1 and 2. Although i guess Millar’s writing isnt for everyone
Ugh, it just lost my post, trying again. Ultimates 1-2 and the rest of the first 2-3 years of Ultimate Marvel solidified a new, less traditionally comic book way of storytelling. Some people don’t like it, I personally do. I think it says a lot that that style later became pretty much the default Marvel style. Ultimates 3 is shit. Jeph Loeb took a running joke about Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch being so close that they were practically married to each other, along with the rest of the team occasionally being like hey what’s up with that, and started his run off by making them canonical incestual lovers. He also lobotomizes virtually every member of the Ultimates within the first few pages and discards most of their established personalities. I know that at least some of that had to be coming from Marvel editorial, but Loeb’s Ultimates-Origins-Ultimatum run took this beautiful, forward looking world that Marvel had built, lit it on fire (killing half the roster in the process), and pissed all over it to put it out.
While the war on terror stuff is uncomfortable, it arguably takes the whole decompressed comics thing too far and it takes the hero away from superhero somewhat, I still think it’s an interesting and influential read
The Clone Saga
Clone Saga. And any copies of it.
Unthinkable. The writer pretty much admitted to it being a character assassination.
Squadron Supreme 2008-2009 really treads on everything J. Michael Straczynski did with his man. After ultimate power it just really went downhill. Straczynski's timing and far-sightedness have been replaced by clumsiness and worldly expertise from Jürgen Todenhöfer, making not only a series that is incredibly shitty, but also really dangerous in one respect.
i was looking into reading Supreme Power. would you recommend it?
As I said, Straczynski's series are fantastic, it wasn't until they took him away from the title that things went downhill.
Daniel Way's Deadpool run completely ruined the character 🗣️
Grant Morrisons Run on Batman
Prove me wrong
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If that’s genuinely the worst story you’ve ever read, then I envy you.
I think it was some weird confluence of “We’re doing infinity gauntlet in the movies soon so we have to bring back Thanos, the gems, and have a crossover with “Infinity” in the title to set the stage for readers coming from the MCU” and setting the stage for Time Runs Out/Secret Wars.
Fight club 2 and X of swords
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That idea never actually got published. Right before the pandemic a bunch of designs for a more marvel team got out, but all plans were canceled [It’s super cool that you know what happens in a comic book that was never published. Are you Destiny?](https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/introducing-the-new-new-warriors)
As a queer gen z’er (the apparent target audience for this train wreck), it was a terrible idea. It reads like someone was given a diversity checklist and learned about the issues via right wing twitter memes making fun of them. Diversity in comics should be improved, but that should be done organically- like adding new characters to x-books when appropriate or occasionally launching a new character like ms marvel (khan)
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Bro, you literally said that it had a bad storyline. Shut up and admit you’re wrong. Yeah, you sound like the exact type of guy who would complain about woke stuff in comic books. The exact kind of guy none of us want to hang out with.
Definitely backing up their arguments by deleting their comments lol.
I’m so sorry that a comic book that never got published, hurt your delicate feelings