Step right up, folks, step right up! Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, today at ComicsAlliance, it’s a clear leer at the end of the year as Chris Sims brings you the comics trends we don’t want to see in the Two-Ought-Ten!
You’ll thrill as a rank amateur tells professionals and publishers what they’re doing wrong!
You’ll chill as the man of the hour with the glower of power reminds you of Spider-Man/Black Cat, quite possibly the worst comic book of the decade!
You’ll will yourself to keep going as the comments devolve almost immediately into a pedantic discussion of what defines a decade based on one–that’s right, sir, ONE!–throwaway line in the introduction!
It’s a ComicsAlliance post that took the help of two–yes TWO–brave souls from the Comics Blogger Internet, the Oxnard Swamp-Creature Mike Sterling and the Wild Woman of Borneo, Kalinara! They could face the triumph and terror on the other side of that hyperlink, ladies and gentlemen, but can YOU?
You, sir! With the hat! You seem like a big brave man! Dare you face this calvacade of madness? Then step right up for the price of one thin mouse click, but be warned! Patrons will NOT be seated after the first paragraph!
Man, I hope Batman heckles the living shit out of Clark re: his kryptonite-embedded watch.
(And a hearty “Amen” re: the “no more `damaged women’ in 2010” resolution.)
I’m just glad Kyle’s still around. And I don’t see him and Soranik (needed to copy-and-paste) as The Love To End All Loves. Kyle just needed a big-ass Deus Ex Macchina to revive him, and a Star Sapphire poking in his chest was it.
And as a sketch collector, I like the “I need to get the hole filled” “explanation” from Power Girl, only because artists could fill it with different insignias and alter her costume accordingly. Put a Bat-symbol on her, then watch her become Bat Power Girl, which would be like the current Batgirl except *ahem* more mature. Story-wise? Yeah, that’s a bit of a stretch, even with Palmiotti writing that.
I agree with all of those. Seriously, no complaints or additions needed.
Let me say that I am enjoying the Comic Alliance articles a great deal.
I agree 100% with that entire article.
Except for Madog. I think he should be kept around, but only to poke his head out of the foliage at unexpected times, mutter “Booyeah”, and then just as silently disappear. He can do that every few months or so.
This is what that panel has convinced me Madog is good for.
Oddly enough, I am actually wearing a hat.
Excellent article. Reading about the comics is often more fun than reading the comics.
Funny, I posted about what I don’t like about comics on a decade discussion board earlier today. Newton’s third law apparently applies to the internet.
Agreed on all points except one- as much as “Spider-Man/Black Cat” sucked, it isn’t the worst book of the decade…hell, considering his recent Batman minis, it isn’t even the worst book written by Kevin Smith.
Worst book of the decade has to be “Ultimatum”. It had atrocious writing built around pointless gruesome violence that would make even Geoff Johns say “dude, what the fuck”. It took Marvel’s most accessible book for tweens and young teens (USM) and tied it into a story where the Blob chews the entrails out of the Wasp’s corpse (and forget the “Core Marvel Universe” bullshit, that doesn’t belong in ANY form of fiction outside of Jeph Loeb’s fevered murder-porn masturbation fantasies). Spider-Man/Black Cat was bad, but Ultimatum was BEYOND bad…it’s the kind of comic that makes me want to close up the longboxes and just give up.
You know, Roger Ebert once said in a review of a Hulk Hogan movie- I think is was “Suburban Commando”, but it might have been “Santa With Muscles”- that he never thought he would get to the point that he wouldn’t want to watch movies anymore, but that film was so wretchedly awful, it made Ebert want to just quit watching films. “Ultimatum” ASPIRES to be the “Suburban Commando” of comic books.
Oddly, I just read the Ultimatum hardback (checked out from the library) this afternoon.
My conclusion: Jeph Loeb no longer writes anything but dung.
I was sure I had read the name of the article as “Comic TRADES we don’t want to see…” and thought it seemed like an oddly specific and restrictive topic for a post. Like it was just going to be bad comics from 2009 that hadn’t been published as a trade yet.
U Mad?
Ten more interesting ways to give female characters depth, just off the top of my head:
1) Holds undergrad degree in literature;
2) Defaulted on student loans;
3) Loving relationship with parents, both of whom are still alive: argues with mom sometimes.
4) Visited a foreign country in high school, still keeps in touch with pen pal on the internet;
5) Played varsity basketball;
6) Expert on fine cheeses, enjoys wine now and then;
7) Reviewed music for the college paper; fed up with all music-based villains.
8) Addicted to America’s Top Model;
9) Has healthy self esteem and won’t put up with mopey, whiny people;
10) Total nerd-crush on Wil Wheaton.
You’re welcome, comics.
Kyles love is so strong that he get’s brought back from the dead eh? I guess Ralph and Sue just didn’t ‘want’ it bad enough.
“Except for Madog. I think he should be kept around, but only to poke his head out of the foliage at unexpected times, mutter “Booyeahâ€, and then just as silently disappears. He can do that every few months or so.
This is what that panel has convinced me Madog is good for.”
If this was the sum of Magog’s involvement in the DC universe from here on out, he would be my new favorite character. “Less is More”, as they say.
Did you write this post after the decade-counting kerfuffle in the comments over there, or are you just psychic (aka can guess ahead of time what stupid little thing is going to trigger SIWOTI syndrome)?
I think you can predict that the internet will be pedantic about stuff. Though everyones outrage in the comments is correct (the decade ends when the common prefix ends, decades are a modern way of splitting up time periods, so Chris’s comment doesnt quite make sense) it is of course, totally irrelevent.
God bless you internet, trying to convince people of stuff they dont want to know since the 90s.
1) The CEO of my company is FDR’s grandson.
2) I have never seen him and Magog in the same place at the same time.
Hm….
Poor Chaselon, who died a page before Kyle. Clearly, nobody loved him enough to want him alive.
I think the problem of The Greatest Love Of All is more specific, and worse, than the “forced overcharacterization” you describe it as.
Somehow we live in a world where the great characterization work Mark Waid did on the Rogues has been undone, and everyone loves it, but Waid’s worst storytelling tic, The Greatest Love Of All That Conquers Death, has become his lasting contribution to comics storytelling.
Well, along with Magog, the character who was supposed to be a subtle-as-a-brick commentary on everything that was awful about 90s comics who has somehow managed to turn half of DC’s proudest traditionalist heroic team into X-Force.
(For the record: I really liked that Power Girl bit. It should never be referred to again; it shouldn’t become a recurring thing. But right then and there it worked so well that I’d exempt it from the Barry’s-bowtie rule.)
Gaaaaaagh I hate that Power Girl bit as much as I hate anything in comics.
Way more than Tarot.
More than Anita Blake, even.