Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Comics that have ended your interest in characters

Captain Marvel is no longer a character I have any interest in following a scene where she immolates/microwaves a dog. (Next Wave #1)

Likewise, Arsenal/Speedy is a character I'll not go near any time soon following the atrocious Rise of Arsenal.

Are there any other examples, where you just decided you'd had enough of a character?

Hal Jordan becoming psychotic perhaps? Superman executing criminals?

aww come on ... we confirmed that was just a crack head moment by the writer. She seems to be back in Mighty Avengers.

I am with you on Hal and Speedy ... but I was never fans to begin with. But the scene where Speedy kills a cat while on drugs ... is just too much.

I'm glad I didn't see the scene with Monica killing the dog.


Morrisson ruined a lot of great X-Men for me ... Professor X turned into a murderer of his twin twice over ... once strangling her in the womb and secondly icing her with a bullet through the head.

I mean ... those arent even creative ways or series of events to lead to a death.

Not to mention it contradicts like 50 years of character development.


And Morrisson killed and revived Jean Grey three times ... (2 times) and then created this multi dimensional Phoenix tribe ... when before the Phoenix was a prime ... only one in the multiverse.


I just picked up the New Gods Omnibus One which has Superman in it ... Superman used to be smart! Clark Kent was a capable reporter!

There are so many of these stories now though.

There are no characters I'd dismiss forever just because of a few pages/panels of bad writing.

Bad writers, OTOH...

Good point.

Definitely with cleome on this. I usually don't blame characters for bad writing.

Tinya's meltdown at the end of this last run, where Sun Boy gets killed and eaten, and she seems concerned that it makes her look like a bad leader, is, IMO, pure character assassination, and it doesn't make me dislike Tinya, just be incredibly disappointed in Paul Levitz.

That said, pretty much every appearance of Brainy since the boneheaded decision to make him act just like Vril Dox, has led to a large downgrade in my love of that character. (Although I still like AU versions of him that aren't enormous jerks, like the Animated Brainy or the Superboy's Legion Brainy.)

I'd also mention Reed Richards, as of his decision during Civil War to sent supervillain 'cape-killers' after his wife, brother-in-law and best friend because they basically had a political disagreement, but I never really liked him anyway, so my opinion of him really didn't change much, other than him finally being outed as the supervillain-in-disguise I always thought he was.

I'm going with an unpopular one here: Kurt Busiek dredging up Hank Pym's past sins, for which Pym had repented many times over and was trying to move on with his life, just because Busiek couldn't think of anything more interesting to write. And then Busiek wrapping it all up by pretending that it was OK for Pym to be Yellowjacket...NO, just NO!

Then Brian Bendis turning Hawkeye into a sexist backstabbing bloodthirsty jerk and rapist. That's why I even refuse to read Matt Fraction's Hawkeye, despite all the praise it's earned.

wait, what? When did Hawkeye do that?!??!

I'm still turned off Hank Pym, I liked him before they revisited all his past junk.

Plus the Ultimates Hank and Janet had an even more graphic and brutal retelling. and then Wasp got eaten by the Blob. A character going out like that is hard image to get our of your head.

[snip]



Animated Brainy had some flaws, for sure. Sometimes he was a jerk, but I think the writers were aware of this, even if some of his more worshipful fans were not. Since he starts out the series looking, oh, about twelve years old, I also think some of his flaws are easier to forgive. I tend to be harsher on depictions of adults who constantly behave like children, and nobody in-universe or out seems to have a real problem with it.

I've also noticed a depressing phenomenon (not just in comics fandom, mind you) where fans are MUCH harsher on flawed female characters than flawed male characters. It's especially sad to see women/girl fans do this. Each and every time a female character does something awkward or asinine, no matter how minor, there's a tirade against her. But male characters do crappy, sometimes outright horrible things and it's all tee hee hee that lovable rogue tee hee.

I stopped posting on a couple of fan spaces because this was giving me so many gray hairs. I just couldn't deal with it anymore.

Yeah, I toyed with making it a bad writer's thread

I agree that no one is irredeemable* but it would take something exceptional to make me go anywhere near those characters. When I think of them, those are the moments that come to mind. They would probably have to appear in a team book that I really wanted to collect, but even then.

John Stewart in Cosmic Odyssey is another example. Responsible for the death of a planet. Every time I see the character, that's what I think of. Retcons or reboots don;t get in the way of that.


*presumably except some characters in mark Waid's Irredeemable

See, the only John Stewart I know is the one in the cartoons. No way am I going to let some comic I've never even read (and likely never will read; planetary deaths don't do it for me) start harshing my cartoon buzz.

He raped the Scarlet Witch while she was hiding out in Latveria and didn't know who she was anymore. This was in New Avengers #26. Then, in Children's Crusade, they retconned that Wanda as being a robot, as if that made it all better.

I wish I'd not read it either

Psylocke.

I was a huge fan of the British princess want to be warrior.

That was like HER WHOLE CHARACTER! And Chris Claremont did this to her ... basically completed he character. (even though he created her) She had nowhere to grow or struggle from there.

Plus ... it would be a whole lot easier on the eyes if there were some more actual Asian (or Latin for that matter) characters who weren't just around to be annoying like Sunfire (whom I happen to love despite). But there just arent many AT ALL ... and then Psylocke ... its just gross.

Not to mention there are lots of actual British Asian women who are available to have super powers.

this is nothing new or surprising though ... everyone knows the problem with Psylocke ... but I was actually a big fan of hers before.

Fanfic Lady's eyes were burned, so that mine might be spared.

Gah! Suddenly I feel ever-so-slightly better about the recent Legion fiasco. At least there were no rapist heroes in it, so far as I know.

I didn't know that about Hawkeye either. What were they thinking? Is there a trend with bow and arrow heroes?

Speaking of which, a writer I still have issues with is Grell's treatment of Black Canary, way back.

I much preferred the original Betsy Braddock from her Captain Britain days and early X-Men appearances. Everything else is either tasteless or a continuity nightmare.

Fabian Nicieza, to his credit, tried to fix the queasy racial transformation sh*t with Psylcoke during his X-Men run, only for some incompetent assistant editors to turn it into a big continuity fustercluck.

Was that the Sisterhood of Evil arc where she was to be transfered back but .... at the end ... she chose to the the Asian one saying that was the real her.

White people can learn martial arts too Betsy!

I remember they didn't address her bionic eyes ... of her original body. did they .... idr.

I was so into that story arc ... until the final issue ... (I was so excited for where it was going!!!) and it didn't turn out how I expected. Dazzler almost vaporized Betsy's old body!

It wasn't the Sisterhood of Evil arc, it was the Revanche arc from around 1992. Nicieza intended for Revanche to be the real Betsy, and the fake Betsy to be a puppet of Matsuo Tsurayaba. Presumably she would have rebelled and then gone off on her own.

oh you're talking about the original Revanche story.

I'm talking about the more recent one where the Red Queen and Spiral bring back an animated Betsy body .... and they seem to be leading to a transfer ... but then in some sort of psychic culmination ... where Betsy views herself as the ethnic Japanese Psylocke .... I think the Anglo British body gets blasted to dust.

She has some self esteem issues I think. oh yeah ... and that swim suit costume.

She's just a gross character now. She reminds me of Miley Cyrus swinging around in jersey cotton.

Miley dosnt even get her whites their whitest.

I think Matt Fraction wrote the Sisterhood of Evil arc. He's hit or miss, Fraction is.

yeah. it was fun ... even good ... until the end ... I felt like I was scammed. The story really felt like it was leading to a transfer back whether people prefer that or not.

Rise of Arsenal started the death knell of any interest I had in Black Canary because of how she handled Roy's grief.

Learning about her slut shaming Green Arrow's rape just permanently glued her to my list of characters I wish would die, die, DIE.

I definitely prefer the Silver & Bronze Age Brainy to the manipulative SOB he is nowadays.

I definitely am less interested in Captain Marvel with the whole make Billy the wizard and Freddy Cap version.

I have not bought a Spider-Man proper comic (save one Annual due to it's Untold Tales stories) since JMS destroyed everything that the character stood for by having him make a deal with Mephisto. No matter how they try to retcon it out of existence (which was just a way to try and placate people like me), JMS took a crap all over the character...not to mention what he did to Gwen Staceys memory. That almost took me out of the Spidey universe...but the One More Day thing finally pushed me over the edge.

Thankfully, I have Essentials and my collection to read about the real Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

I liked Freddy as Cap because he had some of the best Golden Age covers. His original adventures were very serious, which earns him respect with modern day writers. Though I understand how you feel; I avoided DC during the events of Final Crisis because of their treatment of the New Gods.