Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Top 5 Comic Series you regretted buying in the last year

We might as well make this the all negative, lets vent, 'how did we get tricked into buying that crap?' thread!

(1) Countdown - horribly executed, totally driven by marketing and making no sense, each issue feels like DC is kicking me in the face and laughing. Countdown makes DC of 2007 feel like Marvel Comics of 1989, but slightly worse.

(2) Amazing Spider-Man - JMS writing Spider-Man, Iron Man and Reed Richards is akin to Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfawitz starring in 'Easy Rider'. Analyze that metahpor as you like.

(3) Robin - its amazing how every twenty issues Robin gets a new supporting cast, new school he's going to and a new person in his life that ends up dead. He's been to like 8 high schools and hasn't even made it out of his sophmore year yet. Now Chuck Dixon is returning and I must consider re-adding it after dropping it from my list for the 7th time.

(4) Fantastic Four - every issue felt like Joe Q and JMS were crushing my soul, while spitting on Jack Kirby's grave and torturing Stan Lee. I even considered pulling a 'Punisher' on the Marvel Offices. Reed as pro-McCarthy. Really? Don't you get the entire metaphor for the F.F.?

(5) The Outsiders - I don't think I've ever seen a comic book go from something that was pretty interesting to becoming possibly the worst comic of 2007 so fast. Reading Outsiders left me feeling like I just woke up in one of those Nightmare in Elm St. movies. I felt dazed and drugged, and for the first time in my life, I considered that perhaps I'd already died...and somehow ended up in hell.

Go ahead, lambast the comics you were suckered into buying in 2007. Don't hold back!

HEROES FOR HIRE- I had such high hopes for this, too, after the DAUGHTERS O/T DRAGON mini-series, but spinning it out of SNIVEL BORE killed any momentum GrayPo had from DotD, and Tushi... meh.

AQUAMAN: SWORD of ATLANTIS- The OYL books were pretty miserable, excepting CATWOMAN. Losing Guice killed this book for me.

EXILES- Claremont. 'Nuff said. And I'd been with the title since the beginning, excepting the Austen issues.

OMEGA FLIGHT, GA:Y1, BLACK ADAM:TDA, COUNTDOWN TO ADVENTURE/MYSTERY/SEARCH FOR RAY PALMER, INFINITY INC, X-MEN- DIE BY THE SWORD- Mini's I ordered the first issue for at 50-75% off... and still felt ripped off.

COUNTDOWN- Just not that good... I expected better after 52.

THOR- Olivier's art couldn't save this for me.

Uncanny X-Men -- I still can't get over what a stinker that over-extended Shi'ar story was.

Wonder Man (LS) -- Peter David, one of my favorite writers, going through the motions. Even the appearances of Beast and Ms. Marvel couldn't save it. What a letdown.

Omega Men (LS) -- It started out promisingly, but then got really bad. Considering how much I've enjoyed some other DC space opera books from the recent past (Rann/Thanagar War, Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps), I expected better.

Fantastic Four -- I actually liked the Pre-Snivel Bore issues, but once the Snivel Bore tie-ins started...ugh.

Cable/Deadpool (the recent issues, following Cable's temporary "death" and the announcement of the book's iminent cancellation) -- It just feels like Nicieza doesn't care anymore, not that I blame him.

OMEGA MEN ....couldn't finish it.

MYSTERY IN SPACE ....ditto.

SUPERGIRL ...with the exception of the recent Bedard issues (title now officially dropped)

MS. MARVEL ...dropped after # 16.

I buy relatively few titles, so I can't actually come up with five;

EXILES. Man, they've *never* recovered from losing Morph, Blink, Nocturne and Mimic (sure, Blink is back and Morph is kinda-sorta still around, but it isn't enough. They had magic, and it's gone now.).

I'm still forcing myself to buy SUPERGIRL & THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, but mostly out of product loyalty. I have zero interest in the threeboot at this point, and knowing it's on the short list to die an ignominous death doesn't fill me with a burning desire to keep spending money 'waiting for it to get better.'

Omega Flight -- I mainly bought it for Beta Ray Bill, but the art was a mess and it was essentially one big fight scene.

World War III -- speaking of one big fight scenes (but this one had postcard backdrops from around the world - whoopee!)

Civil War -- put the "ug" in "ugly" (and I'm not talking about the artwork)

Thunderbolts -- I kept buying this for way longer than I should have because I liked the team from their last title.

The Goddamn All-Star Batman -- crazy much?

Lots of great mentions that I forgot or just didn't quite seem as bad as the five I picked (though close). Agree with all yours Drake, which I also bought and felt cheated with.

One I completely forgot about was Supergirl, as many pointed out. Supergirl's history since her re-introduction has been atrocious. Why even bring her back at all if this was the route they'd take? Outrageous.

Omega Flight -- don't know what I was thinking, that was not Alpha Flight

World War III -- God awful; there's just no excuse

Amazon Attacks -- I should've known better than to even give it a shot...

Countdown -- I stuck with it for Piper (seriously my favorite Flash supporting character) but not even that could save the lack of storyline

JLA Classified -- strong start... but it's seriously boring now

Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis ~ If you can't come up with anything better than this, why reboot in the first place?

Outsiders ~ "From bad to worse" can't even begin to describe what's been happening with this book.

Supergirl ~ We've had how many different Kara's...just in this series? This book reads like an anthology instead of a series...and a pretty bad anthology at that. As if you collected the worst stories ever written by some B level writers, having nothing to tie them together thematically except for the blond lead character with the multiple personalities.

New XMen ~ This wasn't so bad until House of M. Then they killed off most of the interesting students and dumped the rest of them into hell.

Nightwing ~ Even the arrival of Marv Wolfman on this title hasn't been able to recapture my interest. I keep buying in the hopes that it will start to really improve but I'm still not feeling it although I will admit that the last few issues have been at least passable.

Countdown--total crap, but I keep buying for LSH appearances, I'm a craphead!

WWIII- terrible and pockfiller for DC

Teen Titans-what the hell was going on in that book???

New Avengers-was there a point?

Justice League of America-boring (I did like the Lightning Saga though)

JLA, JSA, and Titans all seem to have lost their way for me. I'll keep buying loyally, but I sure hope they find their voices soon.

COUNTDOWN - Pretty awful, all the way around. I'm only buying it now because I'm such a Legion completeist.

UNCLE SAM and the FREEDOM FIGHTERS - Lots of cool ideas poorly executed. Only my 1970s love of the FF keeps my buying

BLACK COAT: OR GIVE ME DEATH - I actually liked the first mini, and the first issue of this series. I just with the rest of the issues I paid for would come out.

THOR - Took a chance, dropped it after the plotless first issue.

WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPER-HERO? - Poor Stan Lee has really lost his touch.

AQUAMAN: SWORD OF ATLANTIS - I really like the first few OYL issue, and might have like them more if it had been a true reimaging, without the ties to the previous Aquaman. But when Busiek Guice left, the series crashed hard.

ANTHEM - as with Black Coat, still waiting for the issue I ordered to come out.

FLASH, THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE - About the worst DC book ever. I dropped it after two issues.

SHAZAM: MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL - Only bad in that I was expecting so much more. Could not live up to the hype I had built up in my own mind.

MYSTERY IN SPACE/TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED - Found both unreadable. Only stuck with Tales for the Infectuous Lass x-over.

ASTRO CITY - Used to love the book, but the schedule became so erratic that I just gave up.

NIGHTWING - Jumped on with Marv Wolfman. Was truly underwhelmed.

BLUE BEETLE - Has high hopes, it just never grabbed me.

And, so things aren't all negative, here are my favorite titles over the last year:
Captain America, Action Comics, Superman, The Spirit, Justice Society of America, The Goon, Brave and the Bold, Justice, The Order, Booster Gold, Metal Men, and all those beautiful, beautiful Showcase books

This thread makes me glad I resist the urge to reconnect with old faves.

Thank you, all.

The only series I partially regretted was WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY.

WORLD WAR III - Gotta agree with everyone here. DC said they needed more issues to flesh out this big event, yet amazingly the one issue of 52 was enough to tell the needed story.

WONDER WOMAN - I only started buying her with Rucka's run. This was too much of a change for me. I didn't even notice (or care) that they didn't even finish thei first story arc.

JLA - Things would have to get a whole lot worse for me to drop this title. But did it really take the JLA 7 issues to take down Solomon Grundy?

And that's it. I actually like most of what I'm buying. I'm absolutely loving JSA, Booster Gold, Shadowpact and Fables. I'm even enjoying LSH and Countdown (as well as all of the various spin-offs). I'm digging the Sinestro Corps, and loved the first arc for Brave & Bold. Guess I'm liking more than I don't like.

Countdown, just Countdown, I eventually realized at 28 that I just didn't care anymore.

I don't buy as many books as I used to so when they let me down it's a real burn. Know what I mean?

Mystery In Space was one of my favorite non-super hero books as a kid and I really looked forward to a new anthology Sci-Fi book from DC. Ok, Captain Comet can be cool but I could have done without the recycling of old Vanth Dreadstar material.
It was a snoozer.


Sinestro Corps Cool comic, I did like it but as a company wide x-over series? I can't figure out what comics it's in (other than GL) nor how many issues of what titles and what the spinoffs are. This is more confusing than Marvel's X-plosion back in the day. Wtf? I'm not going to buy 13 different comics every week to catch a Green Lantern story. I'm not that big a fan.
I'll wait for the graphic novels and get 'em on ebay.

Countdown Will this thing never end? Like Portfolio Boy the completist in me keeps me buying it mainly because of KK and Una but I want to know something more about this deus ex machina disease he contracted and a reason to give a damn about this version of Trips. What's she doing in the 21st century, why, which one is she, where's she from?
It's getting harder and harder to care.

..at this rate when Final Crisis eventually happens the real crisis will be in DC's sales.

Supergirl
heh heh heh
What's left to be said?

Unlike apparently everybody else in the so-called DC Nation I found Brave and Bold to be almost unreadable. I bought it up to the LSH appearance and I'm happy to drop it like a hot banyo fruit...actually that's not true, I bought the Wonder Woman/Power Girl issue too and found it to be a waste of trees and precious ink. I regret it deeply and wish I'd given that money to charity.

YK, I also thought that while Brave & Bold looked really pretty, the story wasn't exactly knocking my socks off. Its not in my worst though (I'd rate it as a a solid C+ effort, made a 'B-' by Perez).

Is it too late to add Infinity, Inc. to my list? What is this mag trying to accomplish, really? I'm dropping it and Countdown ASAP. I'm gunna have to rely on y'all to tell me if anything important happens to Una and Karate Kid. Meanwhile, I'm picking up Action.

TITANS went really from nowhere to even more downhill in this Titans East storyline - quit it...

X-MEN - I only bought #200 but that was already too much, what a shambles this franchise is (and how ugly the art...)

JLA - confused me so I dropped it after four issues only to come back for the Lightning Saga... has to do very good to keep me now...

NEW AVENGERS - went totally downhill after Civil War (which I liked until the bad ending came around), will soon be dropping it

52 - crazy worm creature ends up jumping around in the Multiverse, EATING (!!!!!!!) reality and thus recreating (by sheer coincidence!!!!!) the Wildstorm universe, the Kingdom Come Earth, Fawcett Universe..... What were they thinking?????

The more often I am writing about the 52 ending, the more agitated I get... what a big heap of crap!

Wow. I'm surprised to see Mystery In Space listed so many times. It was a highlight of the last year for me. I fell in love with the work of Shane Davis, always enjoy Starlin, and really got into the story.

Top five regrets:

1) WWIII

2) Devi

3) Amazons Attack

4) Teen Titans

5) Robin

SINESTRO CORPS is only running in GREEN LANTERN, GREEN LANTERN CORPS and a series of SINESTRO CORPS one-shots. Now that's the way I prefer my crossovers!!!