Marvel story-arcs and events that screamed "ARRGGGGGGGH"

[Dr.Zar]

Captain America as a werwolf, Reed Richards "dies" and then returns, the "Heroes Reborn" abortion, Ben Reily, MAXIMUM CARNAGE, and countless other I could mention really made it difficult to be a marvel fan at one point.

Since Maximum Carnage is the biggest piece of Spidy-waste I've ever read next to Howard Mackie's insidious run, I thought I'd ask which Marvel Story-arcs wasted YOUR time and money?

Oh, and the Clone Saga is tolerable UNTIL post-Maximum Clonage, The Jackle was so underated and painfully underused.

[Cyber E.]

There is much in the terms of horrid stories from this writer, but Chuck Austen's The Draco in UNCANNY X-MEN. It can easily be one of the worst stories that Marvel has put out, not only because of its incoherent and non-sensible storyline but because of pencils that couldn't stay on model from issue to issue. It was just a train wreck that made me cry.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

There are plenty. Some people hated the Ms. Marvel pregnancy storyline in the Avengers back in the Jim Shooter era. I thought it deserved marks for its kookyness, but the reaction from the other team members was unacceptable writing. Carol has justifiably bitter feelings about the team for a long, long time until her "real" return back in the late 90s.

I hated everything about Spider-Man after the clone saga, from Peter striking MJ (WTF???) until the JMS era, which was back to "okay". The only glory days of Spidey since before the clone era has been on the big screen.

X-Men...or lord, how many storylines just sucked in the mutant books. Too many to count. Post Claremont X-Men was really horrible during the first few years after he FIRST left. Now everyone is trying to pick up the pieces.

Peter David's Hulk run dropped several eggs in the latter stages, which is too bad because his first 80 or so issues were really good. I still think Betty's death killed the book for me forever.

[Dr.Zar]

Peter David's Hulk run dropped several eggs in the latter stages, which is too bad because his first 80 or so issues were really good. I still think Betty's death killed the book for me forever.
Yeah, they hinted at her ressurection so many times and screwed us constantly, whilst Bruce Jones' Hulk comics were great for the first four story-arcs, he kept CONTINUING HIS CRAPPY STORYLINE, and it got worse and repetitive with every issue.

Grant Morrison's New X-Men run was a godsend, so is Wolverine, X-Static, and Exiles, but sadly, every other X-Book sucks completly.

[wolverine0815]

The ending of the story arc between Apoc and the 12 was horrible.:mad:

[Dr.Zar]

The ending of the story arc between Apoc and the 12 was horrible.:mad:
The artwork and the writing for "The Twelve" both made that story arc suffer greatly, it had no real finale

[EarthX]

Captain America as a werwolf, Reed Richards "dies" and then returns, the "Heroes Reborn" abortion, Ben Reily, MAXIMUM CARNAGE, and countless other I could mention really made it difficult to be a marvel fan at one point.

Since Maximum Carnage is the biggest piece of Spidy-waste I've ever read next to Howard Mackie's insidious run, I thought I'd ask which Marvel Story-arcs wasted YOUR time and money?The various flashbacks to that time in Busiek's Averngers run are just priceless because they are so authentic.

Every costume was bad, All the new members were crummy all the subplots were illconceived.

Just two panels of what passed for Avengers storytelling back then makes you roll your eyes and say "How did we survive?"

[Kathy Kane]

It's a small blip but special to me, when they screwed up Shatterstar, he was the coolest thing about X-Force for me.He is suposed to be the offspring of Dazzeler and Longshot. Then they decided to put to together a lame storyline for him. Suddenly Shatterstar was called Ben Russell, and he was just crazy, and he isn't from the future, and a lot of other stupid stuff happened. Shattstar left the team to live with his byfriend Rictor, if slash fiction stories are to be believed. Does anyone know what I'm talking about or was this all a bad dream.
In anycase for me the book went down hill from the there.

[krazymed]

Every X-men story after Age of Apocalypse. When death becomes a running joke, enough is enough...

[Sisto Kid]

Two words:

SPIDER CLONE. :rolleyes:

(If TZ had a smilie of a head puking, it would be of good use here.)

[shoujoaifan]

From what I heard, the beginning was good, back when they planned to keep Ben as a clone, the storyline was only to be a few months, and when the other clone Kaine showed up.

And it was an actual pick-me up compared to the darker days of when Peter was losing it due to the Chamelion using robots duplicates of his parents to make him think they were alive, so he loses it and calls himself "THE SPIDER" and acts like one.

Yes, I actually wrote and yes it actually happened :rolleyes: Even if clones isn't your cup of tea (something could be well written and I may not like becuase of whatever) you gotta admit it at least sounds better than the previous storylines.

When they decided what a GREAT idea it would to be to have Ben be the orinigal, stretch the storyline for YEARS, add MORE clones, some with considerable "airtime" and no characterization, and knock off Baby May, then its time for this idiot to concede :p




But at least we got Baby May outta of it, who later got her own series :D

[Sisto Kid]

Oh, yes, and who can forget that short time that the Marvel Knights guys (in a well-intentioned-but-wrong-headed move, yes, I'm being nice) tried to turn The Punisher into a supernatural character? :rolleyes: Well, I haven't forgotten, but I've been trying to. ;)

Frank Castle does NOT deal with ghosts and goblins, a la Doctor Strange. He is a cold-blooded vigilante killer who kills criminals mercilessly because "he hates the fact that they're alive." (to quote Garth Ennis.)

Thank goodness that they realized their mistake and brought Garth in to bring him back to his "kill-em-all-let-God-sort-em-out" roots. :evil:

[theodoreLogan]

Thank goodness that they realized their mistake and brought Garth in to bring him back to his "kill-em-all-let-God-sort-em-out" roots. :evil:
AMEN...The MAX series is F(MAX Readers ONLY)ing awesome! Let's hope it stays that way.

[theodoreLogan]

...Does anyone remember the NEW Fantastic Four?

[theodoreLogan]

How about the X-Babies? and although Longshot is cool...the world could have done without Mojo. Heck, Dazzler on roller-skates? Kitty Pride's codename is...Sprite? (with a twist of lemon and lime?) Nightcrawler in a relationship with someone he considered his sister (amanda sefton)?

Betsy used to be a blonde british chick who was the sister of Captain Britain, then she gets purple hair...but that's not all! Later she is turned into an Asian assassin and finds out that her originial body still exists with the assassin Kwannon's personality inhabiting it! Then Kwannon dies from the legacy virus, betsy gets her powers and everybody forgets it ever happens before she loses her life to sabretooth, her soul to the crimson dawn, her heart to Warren Worthington (and then Neal Sharra, simultaneously), before Claremont kills her in issue two of X-treme X-men! :sweat:

The X-men Universe is filled with laughable plots!

PS: And Don't get me started on that weak-a** plot involving The Neo!:mad:

[Sisto Kid]

How about the X-Babies? and although Longshot is cool...the world could have done without Mojo. Heck, Dazzler on roller-skates? Kitty Pride's codename is...Sprite? (with a twist of lemon and lime?) Nightcrawler in a relationship with someone he considered his sister (amanda sefton)?

Betsy used to be a blonde british chick who was the sister of Captain Britain, then she gets purple hair...but that's not all! Later she is turned into an Asian assassin and finds out that her originial body still exists with the assassin Kwannon's personality inhabiting it! Then Kwannon dies from the legacy virus, betsy gets her powers and everybody forgets it ever happens before she loses her life to sabretooth, her soul to the crimson dawn, her heart to Warren Worthington (and then Neal Sharra, simultaneously), before Claremont kills her in issue two of X-treme X-men! :sweat:

The X-men Universe is filled with laughable plots!

PS: And Don't get me started on that weak-a** plot involving The Neo!:mad:


Damn, theodore...I thought I had put all those stinkers out of my mind! Five years of therapy for nothing!!! Thanks a lot!!! :p j/k

Seriously, I think that from the early 90's to now the prevailing wisdom at the X-offices has been: "You know guys, as long as we can keep killer artists on the payroll, we could write the X-Men as (insert stupid/insane/all-of-the-above story line here) and the book would still sell! So why don't we? Ha ha ha!!!" :evil:

For me, the "X-Universe bad plot" kicker had to be the whole "Joseph/Magneto; Is he or isn't he?" story line. Thank god Joseph turned out NOT to be, but...yeeesshh. I can't say I remembered how they explained his appearance, or how he got Magneto's powers (I think it was another clone thing...Marvel seemed to have clones on the brain at the time :rolleyes: )I'm just glad they got rid of him.

Anyway, my two cents. :shrug:

[theodoreLogan]

For me, the "X-Universe bad plot" kicker had to be the whole "Joseph/Magneto; Is he or isn't he?" story line. Thank god Joseph turned out NOT to be, but...yeeesshh. I can't say I remembered how they explained his appearance, or how he got Magneto's powers (I think it was another clone thing...Marvel seemed to have clones on the brain at the time :rolleyes: )I'm just glad they got rid of him.
HAHAHA...I had forgotten about that one. I try to own them all anyway though...the X-men were my first, and I'll stick with them through good times and bad!!!! The only good thing from that whole catastrophe was Madureira's artwork...*drool* (maybe that's just me):anime:

[Reed Richards]

spiderman, wolverine, ghost rider and Gray Hulk. They rox0red as a team.





...Does anyone remember the NEW Fantastic Four?

[Marvel_Knight]

Uhhhh.....which NEW FF? Well some Marvels I think really suck was Peter Parker: Spider-Man after the "Return of the Green Goblin" story (which was OK) and before the newer "Spectacular". The stories were just lame. A few issues of X-treme. I don't remember the stories, I just remember that they stunk.:sad:

[Kathy Kane]

For me, the "X-Universe bad plot" kicker had to be the whole "Joseph/Magneto; Is he or isn't he?" story line. Thank god Joseph turned out NOT to be, but...yeeesshh. I can't say I remembered how they explained his appearance, or how he got Magneto's powers (I think it was another clone thing...Marvel seemed to have clones on the brain at the time :rolleyes: )I'm just glad they got rid of him.:shrug:
I never understood that storyline, what was the point? Also around this time there was the new x-men (Cannonball,Maggot,Cecila Reyes and I think Joseph)
I hated them! All those charicters. Especially Maggot what a stupid power and charicter, origin ARGGH everything.

[Marvel_Knight]

Blame Joe Madureira my friend:shrug:

[Knightmare]

My thoughts


Maximum Carnage, this is happened right as I was seriously getting into comics at the it didn't bother me at how, these it still dosen't bother me, because I've seen alot worst over the years.


The Jospeh storyline in X-Men didn't bother me, I like the character, but the way they rapped it up sucked almost as bad as the Spider-Man reboot.

The Clone Saga, started out but was dragged out for way too long, and Ben Riely shouldn't havew died and whoever decided to bring back Norman Osbourne should be shot.

There've been alot of ideas at Marvel that looked good on paper, but were horriblly exicuted.

[Sisto Kid]

The Clone Saga, started out but was dragged out for way too long, and Ben Riely shouldn't havew died and whoever decided to bring back Norman Osbourne should be shot.

There've been alot of ideas at Marvel that looked good on paper, but were horriblly exicuted.


I disagree with you about Ben Riley, Knight. I think there was only one place for him to go, and that was the big dirt-nap, but that's strictly IMHO.

But I AGREE with you about Norman Osborn coming back. As far as I'm concerned, he never even should have gotten killed all those years ago. Could you imagine if DC allowed the Joker to be killed in this way?

But if he was gonna die, he should have STAYED dead. Yes, I know, in comics that's asking too much. Still...

[Fett One]

But I AGREE with you about Norman Osborn coming back. As far as I'm concerned, he never even should have gotten killed all those years ago. Could you imagine if DC allowed the Joker to be killed in this way?

But if he was gonna die, he should have STAYED dead. Yes, I know, in comics that's asking too much. Still...The funny thing about bringing him back to life is that it created atleast one plot hole (i'm only aware of one) which I recently just found out about. I recently brought the Contest of Champions 1 TPB. It contains a two part story from the West Coast/East Coast Avenger Annuals involving the Grandmaster. He created a bunch of bombs that would destroy the universe and the Avengers tried to stop him. As such the Grandmaster made an army which was made up of heros and villians that have died. The Green Goblin was one the people in his army. If the Green Goblin had never died then he couldn't have been apart of that army. This is just one plot hole that it had created but I'm curios if there are only more.

As for bad storylines, Uncanny Xmen has had quite a few in the last couple of years. That whole storyline with the Church of Humanity, or what ever it was called, was just bad. Who ever heard of deadly communion wafers?

[EddieTheEditor]

The Spider-Clone saga, Hulk's "Hide in Plain Sight", and the post-Gerber HTD comics.

[Spider-Man]

Cuck Austen's run on Uncanny X-Men has definitely been one of the worst thing Marvel has done in the past few years. His first arc was actually good, but it quickly spiralled downhill during that "Dominant Species" arc and has never recovered. The fact that Marvel is keeping him on a major X-Men title just baffles the mind. That's the most recent scream-worthy Marvel mess-up. I think we can all agree that the "Spider-Clone" arc will go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes Marvel ever made.

[Jon T]

The funny thing about bringing him back to life is that it created atleast one plot hole (i'm only aware of one) which I recently just found out about. I recently brought the Contest of Champions 1 TPB. It contains a two part story from the West Coast/East Coast Avenger Annuals involving the Grandmaster. He created a bunch of bombs that would destroy the universe and the Avengers tried to stop him. As such the Grandmaster made an army which was made up of heros and villians that have died. The Green Goblin was one the people in his army.
I remember this point being raised before somewhere, and the most reasonable explanations were that this could have been an illusion created by the Grandmaster or that the Green Goblin in this case was Bart Hamilton (Green Goblin III from ASM #176-180), who was and still is dead. Of course, the writer's intent was undoubtedly that this was Norman as the Goblin, but since he isn't named there is at least a possible get-out clause.:)

As for Marvel's worst storyline? I really disliked the "Power & Responsibility" crossover that formally re-introduced Spidey's clone Ben Reilly to the comics. It wasn't Ben himself that annoyed me, just that story and its lame characters like Judas Traveller. I mean here we have a (very hyped up at the time) villain whose background was a complete mystery...even to the writers! They just made things up for this guy on the fly and no one ever had any idea as to what to make of him. Another great decision from mid-90s Marvel! Also for bad writing (as far as Spidey is concerned) check out Howard Mackie's later runs on Amazing & Peter Parker, ill-conceived characters and forever-dangling plot threads galore. And for the worst writing ever, anything by Terry Kavanagh who was evidentially a much better editor than writer, and yet was amazingly prolific at his time at Marvel, despite the extraordinarily low quality of his stories.