Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities What's the Worst Comic Out There That You Made the Mistake of Buying

Avengers: X-Sanction #1
(Cable hunts down the Avengers ... bizarro nonsense ... and ridiculously violent)

I read about half ... then skimmed ... saw Cable shoot an imprisoned Captain America in the head (sort of ... the panel went black) ... then put it down, I felt dirty and used, It turned me off the rest of the series and the upcoming X-Men versus Avengers event.

Ernie Colon's terrible comic called Manimal or something like that. (No connection with the TV show, as it preceded same by several years.) Some American Jewish dude gets werewolf-y superpowers because his parents were experimented on by Nazis or some crap like that. So he kills Nazis who have reintegrated into U.S. society under a new name. In a truly tasteful and Sensitive New Age Anti-Nazi moment, a gorgeous girl stops by Our Hero's apartment long enough to jump in the sack with him (for no apparent reason), and gets gunned down stark naked by a Nazi ten minutes later. (When you're less sensitive and more sadistic than the Bond-verse about the way you're treating women and their sexuality, Ernie Dude, you really need some damn therapy.)

I hope Ernie Colon was thoroughly ashamed of this faux political, utterly useless and shallow, crude piece of garbage. Twenty plus years later, I still wish I could have my two bucks back. Everything about it reeked. And I hope Deni Loubert at Renegade is still thoroughly ashamed of herself for publishing it, too.

:rolleyes:

With the exception of Mr. Punch (okay, but not Best GN ever) I have yet to read a single Neil Gaiman work that didn't make me want to bash my own skull in with a 2X4.

For me:

Justice League: Cry for Justice. Especially at the end where Green Arrow kills Prometheus and says "justice". the whole story is a mess of bad writing.

Blackest Night and Brightest Day: Both went on for far too long.

Youngblood. Pure and simple.

The first issue of Savage Hawkman. After reading it I immediately sent an e-mail to my CBS to take the book off my pull list. Ditto the new Blackhawk book.

I think he's one of those writers who's a lot better at self-promotion than at actual writing.

I didn't get past the first issue. I may possibly hate Blackest Night #1 even more than I hate any issue of Sandman. Even the A Game of You arc, which made me physically ill.

You didn't like "A Game of You"? Can I ask why?

I'm not sounding snide, I'm really curious.

I didn't like it because I felt Gaiman was patronizing toward both women and transwomen, especially the latter. Transwomen have it hard enough without some pretentious writer portraying them as unstable, insecure victims. Also, I hated Thessaly the witch. She's not only transphobic, she's also indirectly responsible for the death of Wanda, but no one ever calls her on it. Granted, that's very realistic, but it's more realism than I'm personally looking for from fantasy comic books.

Look at it this way. Thessaly's a pretty cold, miserable person. She's the last of her people and she's essentially an immortal, and the only time she realizes she may have made a mistake was after she protected the person who put Morpheus's death in gear.

She's kind of like Hank Hill's war veteran dad Cotton on King of the Hill.

Or did I make a skewed observation.

I never watched King of the Hill, so I couldn't say.

I haven't read any of her appearances beyond that one arc, but there was nothing there that made Thessaly's coldness and moroseness compelling to me, and I count that as a failure on Gaiman's part as a writer.

Brigade

Oddly, I have mentioned this comic before on this board in the 'weirdest comic' thread. A friend gave me a hardbound copy containing the entire series, but I had bought a copy of the first issue myself some time earlier. It was called "Black Kiss". It turned out to be hardcore vampire porn and the vampire had a look-alike, pre-op, transgendered lackey. I will say no more on this subject.

Thassaly's not supposed to be a likable character though, which is exactly why she's the kind of girl Morpheus would fall for and then mope over when she does exactly what you'd expect her too. No character is given entirely short shrift though and she is a bit more sympathetic in Kindly Ones/the Wake, even though she's still horribly frustrating and wrong.

pretty bad indeed. It was like .... some off brand random comics I used to pick up at the flea market in the early 80s .... or watching the 60s Fantastic Four cartoon.

Unlikable is fine. Unintersting and lacking in entertainment value, I can do without. As I've said before, I haven't read Sandman beyond that arc, and don't ever plan to.

Uninteresting and lacking in entertainment value... you just described Cheshire...

Can we be best friends forever?

Absolutely!

Just found this thread. My answer...Twilight, the prestige-format miniseries by Howard Chaykin featuring twisted versions of the old DC sci-fi characters. Horrible.

I'm a Sandman fan, but everyone has a right to their own tastes and opinions. However, I can't see that Thessaly in "A Game of You" is trans-phobic. She needed menstrual blood for her spell. Wanda, however feminine she may be by some modern definitions, can't produce that. That's "trans-phobic"?

It's been years since I read that story. All I remember is that Thessaly didn't let Wanda come along on the journey and said something to the effect of "You're not a real woman." This led indirectly to Wanda's death. Did Thessaly actually state clearly that Wanda's inability to produce menstural blood made it an impossibility for her to go on the journey? If so, then I think you have a point. I still hate that story, though.

I'm rather certain that the menstrual blood (or "moon's blood", as they poetically called it) was an important part of what Thessaly was doing, because she was calling on powers from a moon goddess.

Still, I'll readily admit it wasn't the best Sandman story.

That could be. What I get just about every single time I open one of his comics is an overwhelming sense of needless padding, staleness, and major self-congratulation. Also, I think his stories have some really effed up ideas about women. Well, that's true of a lot of writers, and he's certainly more subtle about it than, say, R.Crumb. But still. I get the feeling from some feminist fan spaces that you can't even BE a female comics fan without kneeling before the Sandman shrine. And I've tried and it's never gonna' happen.

I think that was part of the point, though. A Game of You is about identity, including sexual identity, and Wanda's gender plays a huge role in that. She's not physically a woman, so gets excluded, but she *IS* a woman when Death takes her. It's supposed to make you think about what makes us who we are, our physical nature, our self-perception or the perception of others? That's why the endign throws all perception out the window. Like Barbie, Wanda's in a transition, but obviously in a much more physical sense. The ending is so touching I still think about it all the time. Certainly my favorite Sandman arc.

Cleome, I agree 100%, especially about the self-congratulation.

Dave, I think it's been clear long before this discussion that you and I generally have different ideas of what makes good entertainment. So let's leave it at that.

"Cry For Justice" was pretty horrid.

Something else else truly horrible was "Iron Fist" -- before Matt Fraction worked his magic, there was a mini drawn by some anime wannabe hack - pretty awful dreck.