I love comic books, have for quite some time. And while I enjoy them
there are times when a story will do something so absurd that even I
get pissed off. Of course Linkara has done many episodes of his show
discussing this very thing. From the stupidity of Countdown to the
ridiculousness of Spider-Man making a deal with devil in “One More Day”
to what happened to Ms.Marvel in the god awful Avengers #200 to the just
plan horrible “Cry for Justice”.
Today I wanted to talk about instances when something happened in a
comic that made me say “Oh please!”. I almost scrapped this idea
because some of these below are universally hated and I am not the first
to bring them up. So the only rule is that these had to be moments that
I actually read first and found stupid before I heard about it on AT4W
or elsewhere. Oh and of course this is all opinion, if you did like
these stories more power to you. I just though they were stupid.
Superman hypnotizes people…and can disguise them too!
In 1986 John Byrne rebooted the Superman books (though the term
reboot wasn’t coined yet). One of the reasons for this was because
Superman had became almost to powerful, having all sorts of unnecessary
abilities. One was super-ventriloquism. Yes. Another was that he could
hypnotize people. It was part of the explanation for why people were
fooled by those glasses, part of it was a hypnotic suggestion Superman
gave out. But the stupidest thing came in one old issue, Superman #301.
Superman needed to dash into action to fight Solomon Grundy but Clark
Kent needed to be on the air a the same time (he was a TV newsman at
this point). And manages to be in both places. How? Turns out Superman
used hypnotism to make Steve Lombard think he was Clark Kent, and then
used make-up and a voice modifier to disguise Lombard as Clark to make
the illusion complete. Are you frigging kidding me? This was so stupid!
Even if I buy the hypnotism baloney, how in the world could Superman
have disguised Lombard so well that no one could tell it wasn’t Kent?
Dumb.
Wonder Woman and Batgirl fall in love with Batman…for no reason
The above example came from the late 70’s, so I can’t even blame it
on the Silver Age. But man, was the Silver Age stupid. One thing that is
often overlooked is the way women were treated in the Silver Age. They
were there to fall in love with the hero, and that is all. Lois Lane had
a whole series devoted to that! But the worst example I ever read came
from a Batman story in Brave and the Bold #78 (you can guess how far
back this goes). Copperhead is attacking Gotham, so Batman gets Wonder
Woman and Batgirl to assist. Do they help to fight the villain or come
up with some strategy? Heck no, he’s has them pretend to fall on love
with him and their contest to see who will be Batman’s lover is supposed
to distract the villain. Not dumb enough? The contest ends up making
Wonder Woman and Batgirl really fall in love with Batman and they end up
really competing for his love. Oh those wacky female’s! They do help in
the end but it’s just so insulting to the women. I hate this comic, it
turns two great super heroine’s into drooling adolescent girls! In the
end the two snap out of it and Copperhead is finally defeated. I hated
his story.
Now truth be told I could go on and on about the idiotic stuff in the
Silver Age. Like how Robin and Jimmy Olsen would team up and/or compete
with each other. Or how Superman and Batman thought disguising as the
other was the solution to everything. But let’s move on to more recent
stuff.
Superman does Porn with Big Barda???
Now some may know that AT4W did an episode on this, but I promise that I
read these issues and hated this story LOOONNGG before that episode
ever hit the internet. As I said, John Byrne rebooted Superman and made
him into the character I fell in love with. That doesn’t mean all his
ideas were gold. And this story has never been a favorite, mostly
because it’s so…icky. Big Barda is captured by a creature called Sleez,
and forced to perform acts of perversion. Lovely. Even better is when
Superman (long story short) arrives on the scene and ends up also being
captured by Sleez. What does this evil creature make our heroes do? A
porno. Nope, not kidding at all. Mr.Miracle smashes in and breaks the
two out of the spell before to much can happen, but this whole story is
just…wrong.
Titans Hunt Goes on….and on…and on
Pretty bad when a storyline meant to attract readers and shake things
up makes me drop the book entirely! Again, Linkara mentioned this in
AT4W but I did read this when it was first published. I had finally
embraced the Titans and was enjoying their book. Than this stupidity
happened. 12 issues of nonsense piled on top of nonsense! The premise
involves the Wildebeast Society kidnapping all the Titans. It started
really well, but it kept going forever and just got dumber and dumber.
And the stupid things just got to be to much. Phantasm is really Danny
Chase? Cyborg is almost killed and turned into even more of a Cyborg?
The villain turns out to be Jericho? He was only the sweetest and nicest
character ever created! Yeah he was a tad boring maybe that’s why they
did that. And sure he was possessed but they still ruined the character.
It would take forever to explain this storyline, suffice to say it was
awful and I stopped reading the book altogether when it finally
concluded.
Green Lantern Hal Jordan Goes Insane and Kills Everyone!!
I know lots of people liked Kyle Rainer as Green Lantern, but I never
really gave him a chance. Why? Because of what they did to Hal Jordan
to get him out of the picture! After the destruction of Coast City, Hal
was distraught and wanted to bring his friends back to life. When the
Guardians refuse to help, what does Hal do? He goes nuts, flies to OA
stripping every GL of their ring, kills Kilowogg and Sinestro before
entering the power battery and killed every Guardian save one.
Geez guys! At least with Jericho you could argue he was possessed
when he turned evil. What was Hal’s excuse? And don’t say the Parallax
thing that retcon came around about ten years later! It made sense that
Hal would be grieving but to snap like that was a total betrayal of his
character, who was a loyal and honest guy. I do give the creators credit
for not ignoring this when they finally brought him back. Instead they
explained it away with the bug thing which was kind of lame, but I’ll
let it go. As for Kyle, I liked some of his stories but for me Green
Lantern will always be Hal Jordan.
Between this and Titans Hunt it’s no wonder I was dropping all titles
but Superman in the mid 90’s. Ok let’s go back a bit now, back to the
stupid days of the 70’s
The Atom reanimates Batman’s lifeless corpse
What? Oh yes my friends. Get this in Brave and the Bold #115 there is
a story where Batman gets caught in a trap, and is declared clinically
brain dead! No kidding! The Atom finds out about this, and decides he
can help Batman solve his final case. He shrinks inside Batman’s brain
and manages to animate his corpse. The story is about how he uses a TV
receiver to see, and controls Batman making him walk and even fight. You
get the feeling this writer really liked the Trek episode “Spock’s
Brain”? Bob Haney wrote this and while I respect him, this is really far
fetched. And it wasn’t even made in the silver age, I can’t even use
that excuse! Oh and the ending? All of the Atom’s fooling around and
manipulating causes Batman’s brain to come back to life, and he’s fine!
Yeah because that’s really how that works. I need one of those “Of
course, don’t you know anything about science” clips!
Blue Beetle and Booster Gold Become Idiots in JLI
When the Justice League was relaunched in the late 80’s it was given a
humorous slant. And it was good at first. The characters felt like real
people and the stories were pretty well done. But things got silly as
time went along, and the worst came in a three parter when Blue Beetle
and Booster Gold decide to build a casino on an island annexed by the
JLI. Why? To get rich, of course. Blue Beetle was turned into an idiot
in this book and Booster Gold was made to be even more greedy than he
should have been. So they build the casino but there a couple of
problems, not the least of which is that the island is alive! Yeah, I
know. The book got sillier and sillier until wiser heads took over and
tried to give it a more serious direction. That’s a story for another
day. Blue Beetle in his book was awesome and smart, I loved that book
and what they did to him for awhile in JLI was an insult.
But wait, what about non-superhero stories? Glad you asked my friends :
Star Trek Bachelor Party
I have been waiting to hear what Linkara thought of this, maybe one
day I still will. I actually liked the DC run of Star Trek in the 80’s.
They did justice to the original characters while creating their own new
characters. One of those was a jerk named Bearclaw. Another two were a
woman named Nancy and a Klingon named Konom. Ok, looonng story short
Nancy and Konom are getting married so they hold a bachelor party for
Konom. Including a green Orion slave girl jumping out of a cake. There,
the punch is spiked and Beaclaw gets into a fight with Konom. There is a
brawl and people get hurt. So what is the stupid part (not the Orion
slave girl isn’t it)? The punch gets spiked when Chekov, McCoy, and
Scotty individually decide the punch needs some kick and each provides
different forms of alcohol. Now if this wasn’t a Star Trek book I would
be Ok with this, but the idea that McCoy and Scotty would do this is
waayyy out there. Especially when Kirk ends up getting smashed in the
head with a bottle. The three are later reprimanded, and this whole
thing just felt like an insult for these three. Yeah they all drank on
the series but they weren’t careless like that. They were senior
officers for pete’s sake! Ok Scotty got an alien drunk once but that was
a strategy. It’s just to far fetched and I hated that when I read it.
So, what about more recent stuff? I don’t read newer stuff but one thing did catch my attention that I felt deserve a mention.
Identity Crisis
This one is a small cheat, since I didn’t read the whole series. I
did read the first issue, and ay some point the conclusion, so I decided
that it was worth a mention. The idea was to darken the DC universe,
and that turned me off. So what was dumb about it? The first issue was
OK, setting up the shocking death of Sue Dibny. It’s what happened after
that which fans cringe at. Zatanna mind wiping Dr.Light? Dr.Light
raping Sue Dibny? Zatanna doing another mind wipe on Batman? The killer
tuning out to be Jean Loring? What?? Yeah there is just way to make
stuoidty in this, and I am glad that I didn’t buy every issue of this
series.
Elseworlds Stupidity
Finally, let’s talk about Elseworld’s. The concept is really good,
taking characters and putting them in crazy situations. In the old days
they were simply called “imaginary stories” which enabled the creators
to be as goofy as they wanted. Some are real good, but others…not so
much. Superman at Earth’s End is real stupid. Batman:Holy Terror is over
the top (not the frank miller one the other). I liked JLA:The Nail but
found it’s sequel “Another Nail” unbelievably stupid. I was looking
forward to reading Superman/Batman:Generations. But I found some of the
choices made real absurd and was thoroughly disappointed by the book. I
would re be remiss if I didn’t mention Catwoman:Guardian of Gotham even
though I didn’t read that one. And then there was Act of God. Oh man, is
there Act of God. This story is so insulting to the heroes that I could
be here all day. It basically makes all the heroes into whiny babies
and says that Batman is the most awesome of everyone. It’s awful and I
am just glad that Linkara tore it apart. Check out the AT4W episode for
more.
That’s a few things that pissed me off in comics when I read them.
Are there more? Oh sure, and I will probably cobble up another list
soon. Until then comment and let me know if you remember any moments
when a comic did something so dumb you just said “WTF??
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