The stories that shouldn't have been

Fredrik Martinsson

Formerly known as Ultimate Warrior
Joined
Dec 1, 2004
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What stories would you want to be erased from the comic history and forever forgotten?

I can come up with three on top of my head:

The Clone Saga (OK, Kaine worked but the rest of the story plained sucked)
Secret Wars II
Secret Wars III (Fantastic Four v1 #319)

Post yours, don't be shy.
 
Heroes Reborn. There's just no way around it. Onslaught was just about the biggest thing to happen to the Marvel universe and they basically wiped it clean except for a few things. Stupid.
 
From my "Avengers centric" background:

#1 -- Disassembled. BMB wants to write Avengers but wants a different line-up? Fine, just do it. Tons of precedent for that. Don't destroy what came before because you can or because it's kind of fun and naughty and then call it "artistic integrity", because it ain't EITHER.

#2 -- All of Avengers Volume #2 aka "the Liefeld year" (more "Heroes Reborn" whining)
 
Again, Spider-dork in me must bring up:

Maximum Carnage - 14 whole issues of crossed over Spider-titles within the span of three months just to tell a pointless story about symbiotes, demonic entities, Infinity War rejects and insane asylum escapees on a mass murdering rampage? Dumb, dumb, dumb and moreso because the Comics Code Authority prevented editorial from fully depicting enough violence to at least make the story entertaining on a pure sensationalist level.

Clone Sage - The less said, the better.

Torment - Yes, Todd McFarlane does some unique storytelling with a distinctive visual style. Can he write Spider-Man? Sadly, no. This is just Toddy shoehorning his brooding overwrought narratives in the worst way possible, although it's a pretty telling sign of what Spawn would eventually come to be.
 
In retrospect, the clone saga wasn't half-bad just ill-conceived...
Now, the Gathering of Five, Final Chapter, and the Stalker storyline need to be noncanonized very quickly.
Honestly, if it wasn't so damn important to history [ARGH Venom!], I'd throw Secret Wars 1 out of canon too, it was god awful.
 
ourchair said:
Again, Spider-dork in me must bring up:

Maximum Carnage - 14 whole issues of crossed over Spider-titles within the span of three months just to tell a pointless story about symbiotes, demonic entities, Infinity War rejects and insane asylum escapees on a mass murdering rampage? Dumb, dumb, dumb and moreso because the Comics Code Authority prevented editorial from fully depicting enough violence to at least make the story entertaining on a pure sensationalist level.
.

I hope you get eaten by a pteradactyl, MAXIMUM CARNAGE RULES :rockon:
 
Ultxon said:
In retrospect, the clone saga wasn't half-bad just ill-conceived...
To be fair, I agree with you on that. An ill-conceived storyline that is not a patently bad idea, but it ran on for WAAAAAAAY too long to the point where there was just no right way to resolve it. And when editorial allows a storyline to run long enough to get so convoluted, then something is seriously wrong. It was a problem that just spun itself out of control.
 
Rhyo said:
#1 -- Disassembled. BMB wants to write Avengers but wants a different line-up? Fine, just do it. Tons of precedent for that. Don't destroy what came before because you can or because it's kind of fun and naughty and then call it "artistic integrity", because it ain't EITHER.

Disassembled goes on my list for the same reasons. I totally agree. Y'know what makes me most mad about Disassembled? From a writer who helped create the Ultimate universe because of the fact most 616 books require an encyclopaedic knowledge of the universe to understand, and this must be changed because it's just bad writing and bad for sales and audiences, from a writer who believes this, comes a four-issue arc which, unless you have read 20 years of Avengers history makes absolutely no sense in any way whatsoever. It is, in fact, an idea for a story Bendis wrote down and had Strange tell to the audience, instead of actually writing the damn story.

As for my other "never should've been done" I'd put in my list (in no order):

Hush by Loeb and Lee.
Daredevil: Yellow by Loeb and Sale.
Spider-Man: Blue by Loeb and Sale.
Ultimate Fantastic Four #1-6 by Millar, Bendis, and Kubert.
Ultimate Spider-Man arcs: Geldoff, Carnage, Superstars, Hobgoblin. All by Bendis and Bagley.
Dark Knight Strikes Again by Miller.
The Punisher #9 by Ron Zimmer and someone else.

All these are books I'm seriously considering selling, the only thing stopping me being it would mess up my collection. And that's an excuse that gets flimsier and flimsier.
 
Oh! Another one I forgot.

Secret War by Bendis and Dell'Otto.

Here's an idea, lets have a Marvel mini-series that involves the majority of the Marvel U and call it Secret War but have it nothing to do with the original Secret War. It's not marketing, it's "art". Balls it is.

Also, let's have another great idea. What's up with all these techno-villains? How do they keep their techno-gizmoes running? They'd cost so much money, and robbing a bank wouldn't get them enough money. So... someone must be funding them! Latveria! This makes them terrorists.

Well, no it doesn't. First of all, terrorists don't rob banks in brightly coloured costumes with advanced weapons technology as this sensationalistic nonsense would have us believe, but rather they would use such technology to just kill lots and lots of people quickly and easily. Secondly, every single one of these villains has said in every story they appear in, where they got their armour (found it, made it, stole it) and how they keep it running. In most cases the robbing of the bank was to keep their suits running. So Bendis took all these wonderful villains with techno-origins, used a nice buzz-word of the day (well, if it wasn't terrorists, they'd all have a nervous breakdown) to turn them all into troops for an unstoppable evil and a pawn in a much larger game of world domination. I call this "a comic about a comic"... or nonsense.

I'd could ***** about almost all the ones I've listed, except UFF #1-6 simply because it wasn't that[/b] bad. But the rest, I can't stand and found it offensive that with one hand, these writers can act like they're masters of their craft and with another produce garbage that is only readible by the fanboy elite they continually claim are doing the medium no favours.
 
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Bass said:
Oh! Another one I forgot.

Secret War by Bendis and Dell'Otto.

Here's an idea, lets have a Marvel mini-series that involves the majority of the Marvel U and call it Secret War but have it nothing to do with the original Secret War. It's not marketing, it's "art". Balls it is.

Also, let's have another great idea. What's up with all these techno-villains? How do they keep their techno-gizmoes running? They'd cost so much money, and robbing a bank wouldn't get them enough money. So... someone must be funding them! Latveria! This makes them terrorists.

Well, no it doesn't. First of all, terrorists don't rob banks in brightly coloured costumes with advanced weapons technology as this sensationalistic nonsense would have us believe, but rather they would use such technology to just kill lots and lots of people quickly and easily. Secondly, every single one of these villains has said in every story they appear in, where they got their armour (found it, made it, stole it) and how they keep it running. In most cases the robbing of the bank was to keep their suits running. So Bendis took all these wonderful villains with techno-origins, used a nice buzz-word of the day (well, if it wasn't terrorists, they'd all have a nervous breakdown) to turn them all into troops for an unstoppable evil and a pawn in a much larger game of world domination. I call this "a comic about a comic"... or nonsense.
Wow....

This may just me, but -->I<-- think you can't be anymore wrong... :roll:
 
I could have said it was all a secret plot to unleash the all-powerful mongoose upon the world so that it could turn all our livestock into pork-cows in an attempt to confuse our tastebuds for world domination.

That would've been more wrong.
 
Bass said:
Ultimate Fantastic Four #1-6 by Millar, Bendis, and Kubert

Sadly, the more I think about it, the more I agree. It was a mistake to tie it into the N-Zone and not do something more similar to what they are doing in the movie. That could still be done and have them be young(er).

Bass said:
and call it Secret War but have it nothing to do with the original Secret War.

Yeah, that's such a terrible thing.

:sure:
 
UltimateE said:
Yeah, that's such a terrible thing.

:sure:

Basically, what happened was there is a big Marvel event in mini-series form which is supposed to tie to all corners of Marvel Earth. They call it Secret War. This makes it sound like it's somehow related to the original Secret War because it has a similar genre and... hey, the same name. Yet it doesn't have anything to do with the original.

And then they pretend that it has nothing to do with marketing. That's what wound me up. Not that it's called "Secret War" so much as it's called that for marketing purposes, and at the same time, these marketing purposes don't exist.

Basically, I really disliked Secret War for a number of reasons, and this was just one of them.
 
Bass said:
Basically, what happened was there is a big Marvel event in mini-series form which is supposed to tie to all corners of Marvel Earth. They call it Secret War. This makes it sound like it's somehow related to the original Secret War because it has a similar genre and... hey, the same name. Yet it doesn't have anything to do with the original.

They were very clear when it was announced that it didn't have anything to do with the original though (which was Secret Wars, not War - minor but worth pointing out).

Bass said:
And then they pretend that it has nothing to do with marketing. That's what wound me up. Not that it's called "Secret War" so much as it's called that for marketing purposes, and at the same time, these marketing purposes don't exist.

I gotta say that I believe them, given the general, very widespread disdain for Secret Wars. In fact, I would bet that there was some reluctance to call it that because of bad associations to Secret Wars.
 
Ok, why it's called 'Secret War' is an obvious thing, whether you've read the comic or not. But to say it sucks because of the title and how it doesn't relate to the original Secret Wars? That's just something that doesn't make any sense what-so-ever. And who cares whether this had to do with marketing or not? Why shoudl that matter at all with buying the mini? Honestly, can't people just judge how they like something by the material they read/see rather than all those other factors that don't come important when it comes to saying why or why not you like something...
 
Bass said:
Hush by Loeb and Lee.

You really think that HUSH should have never been done? I thought it was really good, you know for the first time Batman didnt know who it was and for once he really got his a** kicked.
 
René said:
You really think that HUSH should have never been done? I thought it was really good, you know for the first time Batman didnt know who it was and for once he really got his a** kicked.

The problem I had was that Loeb didn't seem to know who Hush was either.
 
You do got a pointer there to have (SPOILER)...... The Riddler be the one that was behind Hush was pretty lame. But I would like to see Tommy again.
 
icemastertron said:
Ok, why it's called 'Secret War' is an obvious thing, whether you've read the comic or not. But to say it sucks because of the title and how it doesn't relate to the original Secret Wars? That's just something that doesn't make any sense what-so-ever. And who cares whether this had to do with marketing or not? Why shoudl that matter at all with buying the mini? Honestly, can't people just judge how they like something by the material they read/see rather than all those other factors that don't come important when it comes to saying why or why not you like something...

I'm quite aware that they said, "it has nothing to do with Secret Wars" in the marketing, but they still called it that, knowing full well that it would seem to be tied into it.

I'd like to point out that this was one reason of why I didn't like Secret War, not the main one. I'm not saying that the title is why the books sucks. I just thought I'd state my disdain for the marketing around the name.

I don't judge a book wholly by its cover. I picked up the first two issues of Secret War, found it to be no more than sensationalistic nonsense and gave up on it.
 

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