Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

Worst...Writing...Ever.

Page: 1 2(3)4 5 6 7

14:26 / 30.09.05

Anarchic memes are steadily infecting the noosphere as I vomit blood as a critical response to Anarky.

"Sure, he breaks the law, but what he really wants is to save the world... and maybe he's right."

14:34 / 30.09.05

Was it Larry Hama who wrote the Batman NML story people were berating ?

LARRY HAMA! Can't believe I totally forgot him for this. I don't know if he wrote that Batman story; cause I avoided everything he ever worked on/had something to do with/was walking around that neighbourhood when it was written after I read his run on Generation X.

There is an issue where one of the kids (Synch if I am not mistaken) teaches the reader to give money to bullies. Yeah! That would teach them! EAT BENJAMINS, YOU BASTARDS!

But the champ of crap is the issue where Larry explains the secret origin of Penance. Before Hama, Penance was just this autistic girl from Rumania who served as food to the mutant vampire known as Emplate until she was rescued by Gen X. As far as mutants go, that is enough story. NOT TO HAMA! You see, there was another girl mutant called M. M was an 18 years old girl who was formed by two nine years old twin girls who became a more powerful mutant when they went Voltron with each other.

According to Hama, M was not the real M! *GASP* The twin girls who formed M were actually the real M's little sisters, and they just had the extremely convenient power of joining up to become a mutant who was just exactly like their sister and had the exact same powers. The real M had been kidnapped by Emplate and magically transformed into Penance by the power of crap writing. The twin girls didn't want to see their daddy cry, so they joined up to form the girl who was just exactly like their sister and pretended to be M ALL THE TIME. Apparently neither the sisters or Hama thought that the father was going to wonder where their little twins dissapeared to, specially after he sent M to live in Emma Frosts mansion at the begining of the series. If he never wondered, he deserves a world's shittiest dad mug for father's day.

Anyway, at the end of the day, they managed to transform Penance back to M, and she acted and talked just like the fake M. In fact, she knew and remembered everything the fake M did. THERE WAS NO DIFFERENCE! The only difference is that Penance no longer existed and became the only character ever to be erased from a book by her own origin story.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:38 / 30.09.05

Until Xorn.

Haus of Mystery

14:49 / 30.09.05

That's the name of my new prog-rock triple album.

15:18 / 30.09.05

Well, I maintain there’s a couple good bits in 1602 – the templar treasure=thor’s hammer bit made me grin, and the Captain America reveal was good (it’s, like, the real captain America thrown through time) (oh yeah, spoilers)

Buuut the risible bits far outweighed those, and it’s certainly not seemly to tussle with barbebrethren over gaiman’s rep., and sincerest apologies for occasions when I may have done this in the past, to one and all.

Sometimes on a Friday, I can be nice.

08:19 / 02.10.05

dear lord, did anyone read millar's final issue of wolverine? i'm a couple weeks late on this but oh my god1!1 hold on to your pants: german concentration camp, wolverine's there, and um, seriously, there's a bit where a guard goes to the commandant 'sir, someone has survived the gas chamber', and the next page is a splash of wolverine standing all hard and mutant surrounded by piles of dead gassed bodies! i mean, shit!

obviously even millar was aware that this could be a bit contentious (not so much so that he threw the idea in the bin of course), so he takes a text page at the end to say 'calm down liberals and softies, i showed the story to eisner just afore he died and he dint mind', cus, y'know, eisner died in a gas chamber so his word on what's offensive about representations of the holocaust can't be questioned...

13:16 / 02.10.05

eisner died in a gas chamber so his word on what's offensive about representations of the holocaust can't be questioned...

I believe all the people that actually died in gas chambers are beyond caring about Wolverine at this point, so Millar can't ask them.

On the other hand, while Eisner is jewish, the fact that he didn't find anything wrong in that scene, doesn't mean others will find it as innocuous as he did.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

16:34 / 02.10.05

Erm, what's the problem here, it wasn't just Jews that were gassed, or have I missed your point?

17:07 / 02.10.05

Oh c'mon you're being a little girl Gumbitch it was just a bad story with a pretty badly written Bush swipe.

18:00 / 02.10.05

Erm, what's the problem here, it wasn't just Jews that were gassed, or have I missed your point?

Don't you think that invoking one of history's most hideous acts of mass murder, solely to establish your protagonist's badass 'ardman too-tough-to-die credentials is a bit... well... tasteless?

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

19:01 / 02.10.05

If that was the point of the story, then yes...

(To be fair, I was horribly afraid that Wolverine would start clawing people up and kicking ass.)

...but given that Wolveine is pretty much a generic "ghost" in what is very much a ghost-story. Eh.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

19:17 / 02.10.05

Millar's last Wolverine story would have been good if:

a) It wasn't a Wolverine story
b) It was in a 60's or early 70's issue of Creepy or Eerie
c) The last panel would have shown that there wasn't really a survivor and it was the Commander's guilt

and
d) It was 6 to 8 pages.

It was a filler horror story shoved into a super-hero book and padded to 22 pages.

19:50 / 02.10.05

Erm, what's the problem here, it wasn't just Jews that were gassed, or have I missed your point?

Well, I believe gays and gypsies also ended up in death camps during that time, but no. What I was trying to say is that Eisner does not represent all the Jewish people in the world, so his good word won't stop other people from being righteously pissed off at that Wolverine comic.

Phex: Dorset Doom

20:08 / 02.10.05

Maybe this should go into the DC Universe questions thread, but someone bought up Anarky so it can go here:
What's the deal with:
1) Anarky being the Joker's son. Perhaps. I always have a hard time imagining the Joker having any sex whatsoever (okay, so I don't spend my time imagining what comics characters are like in bed, but anyway...) so what's the deal with this, did Alan Grant explain it? Who's the mother?
2) What's the little urchin up to these days? Distributing photocopied leaflets on campus? Listening to System of a Down? Posting on Barbelith?

20:31 / 02.10.05

As far as proving the characters 'tough fucker who wen through some heavy shit and came out the other end when others did not' goes, with Wolverine: Well, it worked for Magneto, didn't it?
And you know someone's now going to come along and fanboy anal retentive connect-the-dots plug the two of them into one concentration camp story, maybe clear up Mags name and ethnicity, just because.... and, yes, no matter what else is done, that story might become my vote for 'most abysmal tripe' recently read in a comic.
And, while I'm in posty-mode and not looking at the whole thread, anybody throw in 'Identity Crisis' yet? Which is horrible only because the first issue was decently atmosphered and it got really illogical and not so good as it went along. It made itself look bad.

21:15 / 02.10.05

I'm sure someone around here said Identity Crisis was good. If only I could remember who that was...

Phex: Dorset Doom

21:41 / 02.10.05

It probably wasn't me but I do think that Identity Crisis had some wonderful moments (I'm thinking particularly of the part where Batman asks his dead parents to take care of Jack Drake and Sue Dibny, that was really sweet)
Back to bad writing, or in this case a really bad concept: John Walsh from 'America's Most Wanted's cameo in The Outsiders (#17-19). I normally dig the Outsiders, the art is usually great and the book itself can do the dark ambiguous heroes with emotional problems better than most, but the John Walsh thing just came right out of leftfield into a story about a child prostitution ring (it was Nightwing's idea, 'cos apparently the protege of the world's greatest detective can't y'know detect anything that isn't on national television)

21:55 / 02.10.05

I had a right royal strop about 1602, and I have no idea why. I think was exceptionally drunk, iirc.

That's prolly the baddest thing I've read recently. Fly and Haus do the parody much better, though. My meek defense of the whole 'and if a man might be a devil, yea, and one who doth dare, he might indeed be said to be a daring devil' bit is that maybe there was a notion that not just the same old fat-and-beardeds might be reading, and thus they might need to be hit over the head with a hammer with some stuff. No excuse really, though. Stick the boot in.

Re: X-Force killing, yeah, Cable shot Masque in the face. But mostly they just hung around outdoors in Phoenix, Arizona being moody (hah! I remember reading James Proudstar aka Warpath aka Thunderbird II aka Pridewalker doing precisely that during Fatal Attractions - #25, fact fans, going 'Porno for Pyros - you know how I zone out on them', and thinking 'oh, I shan't like that band then.') and got attacked instead of being inside a nice house in Westchester, getting attacked.

I checked out Alan Grant's franchise stuff on CBDB a while back, and a really sizeable portion of it involves the unlikely plot twist of the hero, be they Batman or Punisher, going to Scotland. Think it was him used to run that Moniaive festival, which a pair of callow roleplaying youths (myself et best pal) attended a few years back, and it was guff.

Anyway, here's Nick Fury in the world's most terrifyingly hard country:

I fucking bet that ish starts with him playing golf.

22:12 / 02.10.05

Decrescent Daytripper said:
And you know someone's now going to come along and fanboy anal retentive connect-the-dots plug the two of them into one concentration camp story, maybe clear up Mags name and ethnicity, just because.... and, yes, no matter what else is done, that story might become my vote for 'most abysmal tripe' recently read in a comic.

I think the Magneto connection was done in the story...there was an offhand allusion to "that story of the young boy who tore apart a tank" or something along those lines. Small world, isn't it?

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

00:34 / 03.10.05

Yeah, they did ref Mags in that story. There's also a lot of "ohhhh, look at the parallels between the rise of the Nazi regime and America post 9/11". I still don't see it as offensive. No more offensive than the begining of the X-Men movie. I don't think the Eisner postscript was there so Eisner could be the representitive of all Jews... I think he it was there so a) Millar could namedrop Eisner or b) so Millar could reminice about the time he worked together on a story with one of the legends of the medium. My take changes depending on how cynical I'm feelin'.

If it had been Swamp Thing hanging out at the crucifixion, no one would be batting an eye.

Regrettable Juvenilia

06:27 / 03.10.05

(I'm thinking particularly of the part where Batman asks his dead parents to take care of Jack Drake and Sue Dibny, that was really sweet)

Sweet Eustace fuckChrist. Are you making that up? It seems this 'Identity Crisis' business was much worse than even I suspected.

Anyway, what makes Millar's Wolverine-in-a-death-camp story so grebt is that even though he must have figured out that he basically can't die, Wolverine doesn't decide to actually do anything good like kill Nazis directly or help people escape the camp. He just keeps 'haunting' the Nazis until they are overwhelmed with TEH GUILT. Well done Millar for a mature and emotionally resonant comic that touches on real world issues.

07:44 / 03.10.05

thing is, those are some of the smallest birds scotland has to offer...

Don't you think that invoking one of history's most hideous acts of mass murder, solely to establish your protagonist's badass 'ardman too-tough-to-die credentials is a bit... well... tasteless?

thank you

Haus of Mystery

12:04 / 03.10.05

Next issue: Wolverine handles the thorny problem of....paedophilia!

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:20 / 03.10.05

Much in the same successful way that Spawn handled dads who beat up their kids, I imagine. Now there's a contender, eh?

Haus of Mystery

12:35 / 03.10.05

Ohh fuck. Remember the child killing ice-cream man, who ended up DEAD! STUFFED FULL OF ICE CREAM SCOOPS and LOLLY STICKS!!! Then went to HELL???? (Thanks Alan Moore!)
Now that was social consciousness.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:31 / 03.10.05

The Filthy Lore Of Jack Weird Don't you think that invoking one of history's most hideous acts of mass murder, solely to establish your protagonist's badass 'ardman too-tough-to-die credentials is a bit... well... tasteless?

Whereas Magneto wanting to kill/enslave all humanity because of what the Nazis did to his family was okay? What about all the Nazi supervillains like the Red Skull and the half-cyborg guy who've survived to fight Marvel heroes? What about mid-Nineties Marvel thinking it a clever idea to introduce a supervillain called Holocaust? What about the fact that no real time in the Marvel Universe seems to have been given to hunting down and killing the Incredible Hulk despite his killing thousands? What about the fact that Charles Xavier seemed happy to have intergalactic cuddles with a woman who ordered the murder of 99% of another race? Mark Millar has written some crap in his time but he wouldn't be the only one on the stand.

14:40 / 03.10.05

child killing ice-cream man

Holy shit I'd forgotton all about that...

14:45 / 03.10.05

none of those things actually happened in our world here though did they?

The Natural Way

15:00 / 03.10.05

Yes they did.

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:13 / 03.10.05

I'd forgotten all about Jack Fear's essay: 'Why Magneto wanting to kill/enslave all humanity because of what the Nazis did to his family was okay, yep, fine by me, no problem at all with that'.

15:52 / 03.10.05

How would Wolverine handle pedophilia? Delicately?

And would it have a footnote explaining his bonding with a fourteen year old Jubilee was in no way totally fucking dodge city?

22:13 / 03.10.05

Yeah, maybe he'd *do something* to the pedophiles involving A SINGLE CLAW. That would be cool, hur hurh.

But on the topic of Mr. Millar, how about his first run on The Authority? No quotes, as they're in boxes 100 kms away, but the gist is "no, these guys deal with REAL WORLD problems", and to support this you get the scene where they drop the Indonesian President into a mob of angry Timorese peasants to be torn limb from limb. Okay, it may be simplistic but it is talking about real world politics, so fair enough. But pretty quickly the whole stupid thing ends up being about the bad superheroes fighting the good superheroes(complet with the trademark Millar "every hero in the whole fucking world versus every other one in a whole bunch of trainspotting double-page fight scenes), and the baddies are all thinly-veiled avengers clones so that we can snicker while the Black Panther begs for his life and giant-man gets his legs blown off. And then the whole "rape Apollo in the ass because he's gay" subplot that is resolved by the ass-raper (who's the thinly-veiled captain america clone, so it's even funnyer, see, cos CAP'S GAY) getting fucked in the arse by The Midnighter and a JACKHAMMER, and the ass-raper's buddy who isn't really Thor, getting his morning star SHOVED UP HIS ARSE. hur-hurh.

Geeeeeenius...

23:04 / 03.10.05

It's all about the bumsex with Millar.

04:28 / 04.10.05

yes the potential for humour with the bumsex is infinite. it's inherently funny! because BUMS are inherently funny. huhr hur

07:09 / 04.10.05

But scary too: having one's bumhole penetrated is, for Millar, TEH WORST THING IN THE WORLD EVAR!!!!1!!!

So terrible, in fact, that it's hard for him not to make reference to it.

Page: 1 2(3)4 5 6 7