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Worst...Writing...Ever.

 
  

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Quantum
16:33 / 27.09.05
This thread for shite comic extracts, laughably bad dialogue, stuff that made you howl with laughter or choke with rage.

I'll start with the cause of this thread- I was reading the TPB Uncanny X-Men (The New Age) Vol.1 'The End Of History'(eurgh) from the library. On the back it said
'BELOVED X-MEN WRITER CHRIS CLAREMONT RETURNS TO THE TITLE HE MADE FAMOUS.'
It was shite. In it, some X-Men rip off the end of season 4 of Buffy and mind meld to defeat the villain of the week, an indestructible hyperpowered Fury. They crush it into a singularity (!) and 'pile on the mass' but 'keep the matrix balanced'. Then here comes the gem of pure shite, Marvel Girl thinking to herself ;

"..we want a controlled breach of the dimensional interface to purge the fury into a sidebar continuum all it's own. At the same time we shrink the size of the singularity we increase it's mass by quantum levels. Until we create the ultimate gravity field. A prison that even the fury can't..."(escape).

This is at the climax of the story. WTF? Where to start? Marvellous, Marvel Girl, your tenuous grasp of physics saves the day. Thank goodness StevenHawkingMan wasn't looking! Or EnglishTeacherWoman!

Chris Claremont sucks donkey balls. How is he famous?
 
 
sleazenation
17:09 / 27.09.05
At the risk of defending Chris Claremont, I pretty sure that he was pulling that 'mind meld to defeat the villain of the week,' sctick way before Whedon was making buffy...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:16 / 27.09.05
In it, some X-Men rip off the end of season 4 of Buffy and mind meld to defeat the villain of the week, an indestructible hyperpowered Fury.

Actually, Chris Claremont is, IIRC, ripping off himself here - specifically the bit in Excalibur 50 where the team have to unite their characteristics - Nightcrawler's spatial awareness, Meggan's empathy, Captain Britain's heart, Scarecrow's brain - in order to help Phoenix 2 (or latterly Marvel Girl) defeat the big bad. A surprising amount of his recent X-Men work seems to retread Excalibur - I opened one at random recently to find Rachel Summers once again wearing a nappy for no immediately discernible reason.
 
 
COBRAnomicon!
17:18 / 27.09.05
Chuck Austen's retcon of Nightcrawler's ancestry was so silly that it made me A) piss my pants, and B) finally wake up and drop Uncanny.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:19 / 27.09.05
Oh, yes - he's, like, the bastard son of the DEVIL now, isn't he?
 
 
Tim Tempest
17:21 / 27.09.05
I can't figure it out either. I was talking to this guy at school about who wrote the best X-Men...and he said Claremont. Now, Claremont was good back in his heyday, with the Phoenix and all that, but he was never the best. I feel like he just keeps stretching himself...like living on his 'great reputation'. All he does is recycle. I think he might be a little bit past his due date.

Now, my favorite X-Men writer...I really have to think on this one. I really like Morrison, but I want to go back and read some of the other runs completely before I make up my mind. Whedon's X-Men are cool, but it just seems like Kitty Pride is Buffy, Emma Frost is Spike...etc. I still like it alot though. Astonishing is fun. And I like Cyclops now, too. I used to think he was just some arrogant, whiny sissy. For me, Morrison made him interesting.

I'm rambling, but for my opinion on the worst writing ever, it would have to be most of Image Comics. They had a cool idea every once in a while, and the art was usually spectacular...but I always felt that Todd Macfarlane's approach of artists being more important than writers was dumb. Both need to work well. And honestly, Macfarlane was probably the best writer at Image comics for a long time...which really says it all right there.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:32 / 27.09.05
What about more recently, Oddman?

Recently, for me, Brian Michael Bendis. No, wait, back up, seriously. But in a quite specific way. See, Bendis really seems to like Emma Frost. He's writing her in House of M, and he's writing her in Avengers. Admittedly, with Prof. X out of the picture and Psylocke and Rachel Summers clutched in the dead hand of Claremont (and who wants to read that stufff to make sure you've got the continuity straight?) she is probably the heaviest-hitting and most high-profile telepath around. But. But Bendis cannot write Emma Frost for toffee. She becomes a grotesque parody of all Bendis's worst features. I think we hit our nadir in the latest New Avengers, where for some reason our classy bird Emma feels the need to tell somebody (sreliosp diova!) that they are going to feel like they have taken the biggest dump of their life. God's sake...
 
 
Tim Tempest
17:40 / 27.09.05
Recently? Let me get back to you, I have a test in about an hour.
 
 
imaginary friend on the phone
17:48 / 27.09.05

I'm in agreement that Claremont's time is done, but take that psuedo-phsycic save the world techno babble out of context and put it next to almost any comic author's personal verion of sci-fi amalgamated with super heroic mytho-speak, and I wonder how hard it would be to tell the difference. Sometimes it takes big words and pretty colors to save the world.

I'm all for the venting process and catharsis and all that, but couldn't our time be better spent discussing comics we like and just choose to ignore the stuff we don't. Or at least revel in the sheer love to hate it awfulness of some of our favorite guilty pleasures.
 
 
ZF!
18:01 / 27.09.05
Didn't make me angry but Chuck Austens run on JLA (Pain of the Gods) was pretty terrible. Well maybe it got better. I had only bought and read the first two issues of his run, before common sense took hold of me, gripped me by the shoulders shook me around a bit then slapped me upside the head saying "What are you doing boy? What the HELL are you doing!!?"

Needless to say I stopped buying then and only resumed when PAD came on.

Mhmm!

Z
 
 
COBRAnomicon!
18:02 / 27.09.05
Oh, yes - he's, like, the bastard son of the DEVIL now, isn't he?

Yep. And the more I think about it, that bit was what cemented Austen as the worst writer on the planet; at least Claremont has some 20-year-old laurels to rest on.

Another candidate for worst writing: that Rogue miniseries written by Fiona Avery in 2001. It's tough to pin down a specific worst moment, but the whole thing just reeked of pointlessness.

Aaand just to suggest a contender that isn't an X-book, how about Countdown to Infinite Crisis? The writing on that piece of crap, in plotting, characterization, and dialogue, was what my wife would call "stanky."
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:08 / 27.09.05

I'm all for the venting process and catharsis and all that, but couldn't our time be better spent discussing comics we like and just choose to ignore the stuff we don't. Or at least revel in the sheer love to hate it awfulness of some of our favorite guilty pleasures.


Well, I think there is a pleasure to be had in discussing the worst excesses of a much-loved medium - there was a thread in "Books" similar to this a year or two ago, which people had quite a bit of fun with. Unless it can be proven that a particular form of talking about comics is ipso facto more profitable in terms of use of time than another, I think we're good.
 
 
PatrickMM
18:22 / 27.09.05
According to the commentary on that Buffy episode, they actually got the mind meld thing from the issue of Promethea where Sophie defends the hospital from a bunch of demons and draws on the attributes of her mom and Stacia to gain more power. I forget exactly what happened, but when I read it, it was very close to the Buffy thing.

Though Joss is also heavily influenced by Claremont, so he could be drawing from those Claremont comics. And it's possible still that Claremont saw the episode of Buffy, and thus is influenced by himself, filtered through Buffy.

Any why is Rachel Summers called Marvel Girl? That name should have been left for dead in the sixties.
 
 
Aertho
18:33 / 27.09.05
It's to "honor her mom", who she whines about page after page.

Shoulda just trimmed it to "Marvel". I think it'd work, but the trend is nostalgic.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
18:53 / 27.09.05
Worst writing ever?
A part of Batman: No Man's Land (vol. 3) where he fights Mr. Freeze. I enjoyed NML a lot, more than Hush anyways, but this just stank up the joint like a corpse under the floorboards:

Example:
Freeze: There is only one thing that can block out the pain (of his wife's death) SWEET VENGANCE!
Batman: Revenge is not sweet Freis- it is a BITTER PILL! And that pill is an erosive medication, that eats away at your soul!
Later...
Freeze: What's that you're reaching for behind your back?
Batman: It's a BATARANG(tm) Mr.Freeze... and they have a habit of coming back at you!
Freeze: My FREEZE RAY!
Later still, as Mr. Freeze's ice castle explodes...
Batman: As every CHESS PLAYER knows, it doesn't matter how CLEVER, RESOURCEFUL or IMAGINATIVE you are - if you don't think five moves ahead!
Freeze: You don't have me in CHECK yet Batman!-- I have yet to bring my CASTLE into play!
Batman: You had better watch out for the DARK KNIGHT! - He attacks from an ODD ANGLE!

Then there's the references, oh so clever, to Prometheus ('cos Freeze stole fire, sorry, Ice, from the gods, or something). It ends with Freeze saying that he 'SHALL RETURN!', and Batman promising to wait, presumably for another scintilating bout of bad puns and weak metaphors.
 
 
sleazenation
19:42 / 27.09.05
I'm all for the venting process and catharsis and all that, but couldn't our time be better spent discussing comics we like and just choose to ignore the stuff we don't. Or at least revel in the sheer love to hate it awfulness of some of our favorite guilty pleasures.

I'm increasingly coming to the opinion that comics would be a far better if a few more readers focused a little more of a critical gaze upon what they are reading...
 
 
Benny the Ball
19:50 / 27.09.05
I really, REALLY didn't like Dan Jurgan's run on Justice League post Giffen De Mattis. It was just a strange attempt to ignore all the characterisation of the series that had run for five years, and go back to a real oldy 70's feel, but with none of the class and charm.

Plus Youngblood was the worst thing I remember reading in the 90's.

More recent. Erm, Identity Crisis kind of went from okay to terrible to painful in really quick steps.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
19:50 / 27.09.05
Oh, COCK, yes, that Freeze/Batman thing. The Christ was that?

Sorry, incoherent with loathing, but that was just... awful.
 
 
Quimper
21:57 / 27.09.05
I love the tripe from The Draco, Nightcrawler's full origin story. Turns out his dad is the Devil! Or some demon Azazal that people oft mistake for Lucifer himself. All the blue teleporting fuzzy demon-like mutants (of which there are thousands!...didn't you know that?) are his kids. They all converge to bring him back into this dimension via a giant BAMF. He comes to earth and chills with Mystique who's all like "Oh! I didn't want you to know your father was a demon in a bad suit with a mullet!" And I think she kicks him at some point. And then it ends somehow. And Mystique gets pulled into the dark dimension the 1000s of Nightcrawler variations teleport through. And shows up in another book like next week.

And that is the origin of Nightcrawler. Chuck Austen.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
00:30 / 28.09.05
Anyone read the new Ghost Rider? Oh holy shit, that was just terrible. I love Ennis' Max Punisher, but this? Wow.
 
 
matsya
01:23 / 28.09.05
Off the top of my head, no quotes, sorry, John Ostrander's abysmal Martian Manhunter series is mighty shite in plot AND dialogue, so there's that.

Also picked up some recent superman trades at the library, just to see. President lex was almost incoherent and Return to Krypton wasn't much better. I mean - honey, I'm off to travel through time and dimensions to a planet that may or may not exist - wanna come? kee-rist.
 
 
electric monk
02:41 / 28.09.05
It may be too, too obvious but...

John Byrne's 'Doom Patrol' #1. Bought it out of morbid curiosity. Avoided it. Read it and...I lost my faith in the comic book medium that day.


PARTIAL 'YOU'LL NEVER READ IT, SO WHY DO YOU CARE' SPOILER



For one, Batman TRUSTS Niles Caulder? Perhaps it's only me, as I'm biased toward Morgenstern's creepy Caulder and a slightly paranoid Batman, but huh-whu? And that opening splash! Close-up of a screaming ape. Pu-leeze. I've seen more compelling splashes in 'Muppet Babies'. The capper's got to be the two-and-a-half page flashback/lynchpin of the story. Amateur, fanfic, beard droolings.

END SPOILER


The only way to salvage the experience was to pretend that the big ape was a symbol of Byrne's seething hatred of all he surveys and work outward from there in a psycho-dynamic stylee. Cliff Steele as the hardened shell of emotionless strength. Rita as uncontrollable Woman, too large to satisfy. Etc.

Ahhh.


Faith restored.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
06:23 / 28.09.05
Hmmm, I'm going to nominate the Sim-ster for the characters of the Roach and the Albino in the first few phonebooks of Cerebus. Though possibly slightly amusing the first few times they turn up, by the time of around halfway through High Society their presence usually signals that the story is going to grind to a halt for a while so Sim can take the piss out of comic characters a bit more. Although I have to reread the books in question, I can't recall that the Secret Holy Wars Spider Roach actually does anything does he?
 
 
admiral sausage
08:24 / 28.09.05
The Authority: more Kev, or whatever its called.

Garth ennis' being "funny" (Sorry about the"" couldn't help it)

"I'm a vagina !" hahah ah , no, stop it Garth your killing me. I think he probably could have fitted some more swearing in there if he really tried. The artwork looks like Carlos equerza did it when he was drunk. Avoid.
 
 
Quantum
10:30 / 28.09.05
I was hoping for some examples of bad writing (thank you Phex, that was loathsomely delicious!) rather than just pointing at bad comics. Which is easy. Ooh look! Luke Perry and Jason Priestley's WILD Adventure! You see? Easy.

Oh, Dave Sims, you misogynistic self indulgent fuckwad, let me get some of the tat 10p Cerebus with your essays on Islam in the back and post them on Barbelith. Maybe we could have a Sims/Claremont contest...
 
 
_Boboss
10:34 / 28.09.05
i think i may have mentioned this before: shadowhawk, by jim valintino. number 17 or thereabouts. it’s a 1963 crossover, so presumably comes with some kind of approval from mr. moore himself.

Some background: so shadowhawk is an early image comic, but valentino is supposedly a step-up the critical ladder from liefeld. lee. portacio et al. but really, he just gets forgotten because it’s so damn easy to slag those others. His art and writing is easily in the same embarrassingly-bad league. shadowhawk is his image hi-concept – basically a character who’s a cross between batman, the punisher, and marvel’s dark age badboi darkhawk. Shadowhawk is different to those luminaries for the following reasons:

1. He’s black. (maybe darkhawk was black too I dunno. I dunno if valentino’s black fro that matter, nor do I give one)
2. He has an almost sexual fetish for breaking spines – seriously, lots of first person captions describing in loving detail which vertebrae he’s crushing. Slowly. With my knuckles. It’s good to hear them scream etc.
3. He’s HIV+ , so mind you don’t stab him and lick the blade, slimeball.

So the avengers-alikes (tomorrow syndicate maybe?) from moore’s 1963 universe take a trip to the image universe. They meet shadowhawk and much is made of their contrasting approaches to costumed neighbourhood watch schemes. There’s a baddie. he’s an evil biologist. With a time machine. What’s he working on?

Basically, shadowhawk and the avengers win, but the biologist escapes. To avoid it all being destroyed, he injects himself with a sample of his own deadly virus (see where we’re going yet?) Where does he escape? To 1963: a small village in Africa. The final panels are him eyeing up the local ladies, smiling as he plots his revenge against shadowhawk: oh yes - he’s gonna AIDS them all right up and allow history to take its course.

That’s right. The baddie invents human immuno-deficiency virus and starts spreading it around the world to get back at shadowhawk, an imaginary spine-snappin armoured vigilante. I think this is in pretty bad taste, and the script pencils etc is as bad as anything you might imagine. I may have some of the above details wrong (I haven’t been able to read the issue a second time), but I swear that’s the gist, and has my vote as the most poorly-written comic I’ve ever read.
 
 
Ganesh
11:14 / 28.09.05
The Authority: more Kev, or whatever its called.

Garth ennis' being "funny"


Have to second this as the worst comics writing I've read of late. "I'm a vagina!" Oh, my sides...
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:39 / 28.09.05
Ah, Shadowhawk. Every issue was the same. Someone - often from another lame Image comic - would try to take him down, and they'd say "You're a criminal!"

And he'd say "No I'm not, I'm a hero!"

And they'd say "You break people's spines!"

And he'd say "They deserve it!"

But every issue, after the fighting, he'd sit in the dark and wonder if maybe breaking spines was wrong.

In the issue where he dies - the one before a new Shadowhawk is born! - he beats up Hawk's Shadow (Shadowhawk's arch-nemesis was a a white supremacist called Hawk's Shadow) and then nearly breaks his spine, but stops because he now realises that it's WRONG to do that!

That scene has a monologue in caption boxes going "You place your knee on his back. You haven't broken anyone's back for some time.*" -and the asterisk is for a footnote: [Since issue #7]. And then he stands up and it's like "In the rising, you are victorious. You realise now, it was wrong. You were wrong."

QUALITY.
 
 
_Boboss
11:50 / 28.09.05
yeah sorry, that should say 'second person'* captions in my post above. this was touted as being the strip's original feature att the time i think

(*i've probably got that wrong too haven't I? third person?)
 
 
ZF!
11:53 / 28.09.05
Oh, oh, while we're on Ennis, I liked his "Preacher" stuff, but his "Goddess" was full of cringeworthy dialogue. Sorry Quantum, can't think of any off the bat, but mayhaps I'll track it down and post some.

Z
 
 
Lord Morgue
13:09 / 28.09.05
Louise Simonson. Any New Mutants issue where she had them continuing and finishing each other's sentences off like Huey, Dewie and Louie.

John Harkness. Well, Steve Englehart, anyway. She-Thing my ass.

Tom DeFalco. Alicia the Skrull. I'm stopping right here because the girl next door, my own brother-in-law, and some asshole on the net who DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I LOOK LIKE, have all called me "Fat Comic Book Shop Guy" from The Simpsons. And that was before I started wearing the ponytail. Now I'm going back to MY store, where I dispense the sarcasm.
 
 
admiral sausage
13:11 / 28.09.05
I think that Ennis' default mode is this kind of violent/sexual/scatalogical humor usually mixed with material copied out of old issues of Soldier of Fortune magazine., which is fine in small doses, but he seems to be doing this all of the time now. I really liked Preacher when it started but stopped buying it during the middle bit, all that stuff with the Meat man ?Also liked his run on Hell Blazer.

http://www.buzzscope.com/reviews.php?id=4842
 
 
Triplets
13:19 / 28.09.05
Petey, I will buy all of your Shadowhawk comics.

All.of.them.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:33 / 28.09.05
I don't own any, but I know a man who does.
 
 
Quantum
16:42 / 28.09.05
Shadowhawk you say... my my, that does sound frickin' bad. Gumbitch, I'll swap you fifty 10p comix for a single issue of that, seriously- meet you anywhere in town we won't be seen by respectable folk; i've got some hilarious tat (Cerebus, 'Dr Blink Superhero Shrink' and a million other unknowns) and piles of it. I must have Shadowhawk...

Can anyone beat that?
 
  

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