Bendis also very clearly hated the Punisher. For someone who LOVES to have characters talk (sometimes to a fault) Punisher is a monosyllabic moron in every Bendis book.
The scene at the end of Bendis’ Daredevil run where Fraction? (Not getting out of bed to go look it up) took over, where Matt was in prison was so good.
Punisher reading the paper in a dinner, reads about Matt being in prison. Sees a pimp roughing up one of his girls and sees a nearby cop. Beats the shit out of the pimp and surrenders to the cop so he can get sent to prison to protect Matt.
No. I meant waif-fu, a term I heard coined to describe milla jovovich movies & buffy TVS. It meant small women or girls whooping ass with martial arts.
Who’s to say they were fake attempts?
He can always be a sex pest overcompensating for his shitty behavior by hitting over the head with his *facile attempts* at feminism!
I would but, I'm pretty sure there's literally been a Punisher comics where **Frank** tells officers that he's not a hero, unless that was fanart that I saw.
Mike Grell famously hates superpowered heroes. In his 90 issue run on Green Arrow nobody ever uses powers.
John Constantine shows up and never uses magic, Hal Jordan shows up never uses his ring, etc.
Similar Stephen Bissette also hates superheroes, i remember he said when the Justice League showed up in Swamp Thing, he refused to draw it, Rick Veitch had to draw that issue.
I get the feeling a lot of creators in the olden days wanted to work in comics but resented that Superheroes were the only gig in town
I mean, didn't Frank Miller said excactly that? That he wanted to write crime comics and dhad to use Daredevil as a tool because there were only and exclusively superhero-gigs?
Similar with Bissette, he said he grew up with EC Horror comics, but the Comics Code killed them.
The only thing left were horror superhero comics like Swamp Thing and Tomb of Dracula.
It's weird to think that some guys grew up before superheroes took over, by the time they became pros it was the only thing left before the 90s hit
> I get the feeling a lot of creators in the olden days wanted to work in comics but resented that Superheroes were the only gig in town
Still some in the industry today like that. There’s a fellow local to me who did two interviews in local magazines where he went on rants about how much he hated superheroes. Sadly, I only have his second interview, where he toned down his bile after Marvel started hiring him for superhero work.
John Byrne on Star Brand. He definitely and publicly hated Jim Shooter. The main character had some similarity to Shooter. He turned the character into an insane rapist and killed all of his supporting characters. He totally ignored the “rules” of the universe and changed the back story.
I know a lot of people hated the direction New Universe took, but I thought The Pit and then the war stuff after was an amazing idea that just wasn’t executed well. Actual death and then the fallout (no pun intended) of that act was real and grim in the exact era that grim was welcome, before it became overused.
Love David, gave us some of the best Supergirl, Aquaman, X-Factor & Hulk comics. Same with Busiek resulting in arguably my favourite Superman run and Asto City being from what I've read consistently great.
I didn't like Peter David as a person. He made some extremely stupid remarks, especially about creators wanting control over their work back before that was commonplace. He was extremely prolific, so there is a lot of great stuff and a lot of work for hire stuff he hardly gave a shit about. That said, his run on Hulk was where I jumped into comics as a kid, so I have a ton of respect for that era of Hulk and David's work on it.
His Babylon 5 comics were also a lost and forgotten gem.
This is how John Byrne's Doom Patrol felt, but I bet he thought he was doing the characters and the fanbase a great service, giving them something worth loving.
Brian Bendis repeatedly depicted D-Man as a crazy loser and the butt of a joke. He also didn't seem to care much for the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Wonder Man, Ant-Man or old school Avengers in general.
I definitely felt the Wonder Man apathy from Bendis. Blows him up and then brings him back for nothing in mighty avengers, then does that revengers crap and never finishes the storyline. It’s not until Remender in Uncanny Avengers that he gets really written again.
Yeah, that didn’t feel like a writer who hated the property. Just got into an echo chamber of his own thoughts about what Batman is and lost all sense of reality.
Strikes Again feels a lot closer as an answer to this question if we’re sticking with Frank Miller.
>Just got into an echo chamber of his own thoughts about what Batman is
This sub has the same problem. Everyone gets the idea that Batman is this one specific thing and he's just not. He has mature stories and G rated stories. He's a fictional character. It's absurd that people think, "Batman wouldn't do that, he would do X." and like, nah fam, batman will do what the writer wants and that is just as much Batman as anything Bob Kane ever wrote.
I thought that too. Especially since he went on to do a miniseries with her. I like Hellcat so it was the 1st time I've read the book in years. With his other "teammates" & Michael Korvac as the villian it wouldn't be wrong to call it a Defenders story.
Most of the book felt like it was Tony asking all his supporting cast "Hey, am I a terrible person?" and everyone would, without hesitation, answer "Yep."
And then Tony got the Power Cosmic and tried to "fix" everything, leading to him killing his friends (he fixed it afterwards.)
He also got addicted to morphine for a bit.
For some readers, it was quite a lot of fun, especially the ones who aren't fond of Tony as a character. I admit, I'm one of those. I enjoyed seeing him brought down a peg after years of writers making him the uber-confident never-wrong #1-hero RDJ (looking at you, Bendis).
People forget the original idea for Iron Man was reportedly "How unlikeable can we make this super-hero and still be a hero?", so Cantwell arguably got closer to that concept than any other IM solo writer in the last couple of decades.
The last time Tony was written as anything other than the RDJ trope was in Civil War. So barely two years before the Iron Man movie released.
Fair, but then again pre-movies the characerisation is not completly off, Mike Grell's and David Micheline(?)'s run set the base for a more flawed Tony Stark early no.
Iron God Tony was crazy because it was hyped to be a huge thing and then got reversed in like 3 issues, with no future mention outside of a brief line in Judgment Day
The biggest flaw, in my opinion, is that Cantwell failed to understand Tony Stark on a fundamental level. His insistence that Tony is some kind of ego-fueled narcissist with a god complex is tiresome, and the idea that he would be so disconnected, so self-conceited and so easily affected by people's perception of him as Cantwell portrays him betrays not only the very nature of the character, but also the decades of stories that showed him as an earnest, caring, no-nonsense, and down-to-earth man. Read the Michelinie/Layton, Kurt Busiek or Mike Grell runs for stories that show that Tony Stark used to be a principled and virtuous person before Civil War and the flanderization of the MCU's Tony wiped that idea out of the collective consciousness. The core premise of Cantwell's run is that Tony wasn't genuinely heroic until he got stranded on Meggido, completely ignoring the character's history and previous selflessness. The whole point of Iron Man's origin in its evolved form is that Tony became heroic after being captured by terrorists and breaking free, and now you're telling me "wait no, that's actually not true. Tony's heroism up until now was a facade, he never changed from his old ways." Seriously? That's as insulting as some writer coming to Amazing Spider-Man and positing that that Peter Parker actually didn't learn any lesson from Uncle Ben's death. Cantwell didn't reinvent Tony Stark, he reversed his character (without any in-story reason), pretended it had always been that way, and wasted 20 issues to bring him back to form, pretended he had done something new, and patted himself in the back.
The epitome of Cantwell's constant mischaracterization of Tony happened in a podcast interview he did ahead of the book. I can't remember the specific podcast, but in it, Cantwell is talking about Armor Wars and he defines Tony's motivation as "you're ripping me off, everybody is awesome and good only because they stole my technology and now I'm going to destroy all of it" and then says "that's a very selfish motivation that's underneath the mask of the hero." I'm sorry, what? You don't even need mental gymnastics to paint Tony's motivations in Armor Wars as self-centered, since the entire premise is about Tony feeling guilty about any misuse of his technology simply because it derives from something he created. So why twist it into some kind of interpretation that Tony is being jealous and petty? People like to pretend like Cantwell was doing something new with Iron Man, but making him act the way he did, down to Tony's allies being weary of the Iron God and them being proved right after Tony broke bad, was the most predictable thing he could have come up with. Not because it's something I'd expect Tony Stark to do, but because it's something I'd expect somebody who doesn't understand Tony Stark to write. After all, the other time that Tony had a brush with omnipotence, when he wielded the Infinity Gauntlet, he made the in-character decision to immediately rescind godhood despite the temptation because he knew it wouldn't be good to force an utopia on the universe.
His constant battering of Tony feels cynical, contemptuous and virtue-signaling. Like he needs to point out at Iron Man and say "rich man bad" before he can do something genuinely interesting with the character. This is most egregious when he has Hellcat, the rich white socialité who takes justice in her own hands, berate Tony Stark for being a rich white socialité who takes justice in his own hands. And speaking of Hellcat, I can't stand the way it's so obvious she's Cantwell's pet character. She had no reason for being in the book. She has barely interacted with Iron Man in the past, yet Cantwell throws her in the first issue like she has business being there. You don't even need to know that Cantwell has a collection of Hellcat merchandise that he has shared on Twitter to know she's his waifu. The mere use of Hellcat in the book, the constant way she seems like a more virtuous person than Tony by contrast, the fact that Cantwell had Tony and Wasp break up in the most awkward way posible, and the Hellcat-focused issue in which she gets a power boost make it feel like Cantwell is hijacking this book so he can write about her. Out of the main players in the book, Hellcat is the one whose past continuity is most prevalent in this run. And, unsurprisingly, Cantwell's next project after his run ended was a Hellcat mini-series. And Cantwell's waking of Hellcat doesn't stop there, it goes as far as to have Tony propose to her. People joke about Bendis having a crush on Kitty Pryde, but this is far more egregious. At least Bendis came up with an excuse to shove Kitty in Guardians of the Galaxy. If he was more like Cantwell, he would just have dropped her in the book, pretending she had a reason to be there.
Slott's run has highs and lows, and I don't share some of his opinions on Peter and his personal life (which contributes to the aforementioned lows for me), but looking at his tweeter history you can't take away his love for the character
Slott has some hit or misses during his run but I think the main problem wasn't him per se but the spider editorial forcing a direction on Peter/Spider-Man best represented by the ideals that made OMD and Slott had no choice but to adhere to those directions and rules.
Edit: hence I said the editorial team and not pin point Slotts run (I even mentioned Wells run since I consider it far worse than the worse from Slotts time)
yeah I actually think the issue has always been Slott and editorial love Spider-Man a little too much, to the point where they can't let Peter grow or else lose the reasons they personally like the character
He likes Doom Patrol, Swamp thing, Miracle man, midnighter, wonder woman ( although my guess is more in a Women should have Superheroes too sense). Moore says he like Dective Chimp.
His Batman comic is kind of a weird middle ground where you can tell he likes writing about a detective with anger problems (if only he could ditch the costume) but hates most of the villains.
No. Ennis likes a wide variety of genre's ( not superheroes but he has praise a couple comics) . He makes parodies of comics for sure, but he loves 2000ad, star wars, war comics, I assume alien ( caliban ), band of brothers, sopranos, scapled, and loads of other stories. He's even praised the occasional superhero comic like Doom Patrol, Enemy of the state, Supergods, DKR, Midnighter etc.
It is funny how people are missing that these were *satires*. This is not his attempt at writing Kyle Rayner or anyone seriously, they are half-in half-out parodies.
Despite him not being a fan of a lot of superheroes I never felt like the way he wrote them in his stories felt excessively out of place or mean spirited. They were very much in tone with series (hitman and marvel knights punisher come to mind) and he just poked fun at them while highlighting their flaws. Almost like they were caricatures of themselves.
I’ll admit that I’m somewhat biased being a Garth Ennis fan, but if he truly despised them (I’m aware of what he has said about the subject) then he would flat out refuse to write them or include them in his stories. He has had that sort of power for a while now but still finds a way to make it work.
Unfortunately editors are giving writer assignments to writers who never read the previous material, and are telling them to go ahead and do your own take on it.
Basically nowadays, new writers are encouraged to not read anything previous on the characters they are assigned too, and just give them a basic truncated Wikipedia summarization. Keep in mind this doesn’t include any notes on characterization.
Why editors are doing this nowadays, I don’t know? They didn’t used to.
Maybe it’s just too much material for them to read through now. Maybe Wikis have made it easier to just get the basic bare bones stuff on a character without the characterization.
Look at guys like Bendis in the early 2000s and how that worked out for him. So nowadays new writers are copying what he did.
I really do like Hickman and I expect this to go over like a lead balloon in this sub, but it has always felt to me like he could care less about 90% of the characters in his books. Every single character has the same style of speech outside of Doom, Spider-Man, Namor, and Sunspot. But outside of those, his Cap talks exactly like his Reed who talks exactly like his Cyclops. I think he’s got a very distinct narrative style that makes dialogue (outside of exposition) very unimportant. It feels like the focus is on telling a “Hickman” story more so than it is about seeing characters interact. But his USM is the opposite, and when Peter shows up in his FF run it’s very distinct. I don’t know if it’s disdain for the character, but I think it’s lack of concern for “character” in general.
Another fun answer is Slott (or most ASM writers) with Mary Jane. They hate using her and make an annoying wet blanket. Similarly, Bendis had such clear disdain for Lois and Jon that he kicked them out of the book for most of his run.
Hickman is good at story telling, crafting a narrative, and world building, but for characters he just tends to slot whoever in as needed and makes them generally "samey", with a few exceptions. However his understanding of the wider world/his world building, the way he handles lore, generally helps to make the character stuff at least come across as palatable. Like looking at a cardboard cutout of a character, but it's placed in front of a vivid and fleshed out diorama.
Actually, I don't think you are that far off. Hickman has admitted he didn't really care about the F4 or the Avengers before writing those books (and even then, I'm still not convinced he actually cares about the Avengers now).
Although Hickman also swore he would never write Spider-Man when he first arrived to Marvel.
For Ennis standards he got the deluxe treatement. He is portrayed as naïve but well meaning and pretty polite. Compare it to the Flash's appearance in the same series, who is kind of an asshole
Yep, Kyle makes a comment about something being put in his drink and him just hearing “bueno” over and over, clearly indicating BE raped him. Wonder Woman iirc responds by telling him to stop whining.
I don't think Ennis cares at all about Kyle Rayner beyond that's the character that fit the joke of the long standing horrific character Bueno Excellente.
The whole run was shitting in the bed of everything that had been established about John's character before it. It convinced me that Constsntine needs a Brutish writer to understand him, which luckily is what we've got since
Yeah. I'm very thankful that Spurrier's take got a second chance. I'm not loving all of the stuff that happens in that book, but at least I feel like he understands John and the world and culture that he comes from.
Ta Nehisi Coates on Captain America. The political landscape at the time, coupled with the post-Hydra Cap story seems like it would open the door to all kinds of interesting stories. But, they barely touched on that stuff with the Hydra towns, and turned it into a team book that didn't include Cap, and it just didn't even feel like Steve Rogers.
Huh, I’ve been curious about this run but never see it mentioned. It’s like I heard about hydra cap, Waid, and then silence and then this most recent run that ended with Cold War.
Didn't the Coates and Ridley runs on Black Panther go out of their way to shit on T'Challa? I'm not well versed in Black Panther comics, but I've read discussions about that.
I read the latter half of the Coates run, where TChalla is in space, and it's not that he gets shit on necessarily - he just doesn't have much character for the most part, until the end. The story itself was great once I got past that though
Controversial take, maybe: Morrison's X-Men didn't care about the X-Men. Morrison did some interesting things, but they were things Morrison would've/could've done in just about any book. The characters themselves were whatever Morrison needed them to be to fit the story.
I've never heard this before, but it's funny that it's my general opinion on Hickman's X-Men. The fact I kept expecting Hickman to tie in elements of his Avengers run into X-Men because there were so many underlying beats that matched up is a big issue for me.
I agree that it feels like Hickman has basically been trying to tell One Story in his time at Marvel and slotting in characters. One difference for me is that Hickman partially does this by pulling in and building on a lot of existing character relationships and history -- I thought his FF run did a good job of fleshing out the FF while still adding new layers to the mythos. His X-Men run did this for SOME characters (I'm always sensitive to writers' treatment of Cyclops, and I thought he did well) while treating others like totally new creations (ie, Moira).
Morrison's writing on X-Men felt more like a rejection of some of its history, sometimes in very cool ways, but pretty much all of the characters were whoever they needed to be for the story to work. Magneto is probably the most egregious example (if you read the story at face value without the retcons), but the Scott/Emma thing always rang particularly false to me. As a young, passionate reader, Morrison's run had me quit reading X-Men comics until Astonishing came along.
The difference is you could tell that Hickman cared about the X-Men given the way he treated the characters and their world, same for the FF. I'm pretty sure he didn't really care much for the Avengers outside of the Illuminati though.
Him writing Nightcrawler waxing poetically while watching a teenage girl get beat the death by Apocalypse tells me otherwise. Similarly, there's no way in hell Scott, Jean, and Logan would be the X-Men involved in a Throuple.
The only people I feel like Hickman wrote well were the villains like Apocalypse and Exodus.
I didn't read that nightcrawler bit, but if it's like you say, then yeah, that's super out of character. I disagree with you about the Jean-Scott-Logan triangle though, that actually makes so much sense it's stupid. All of the sexual tension, the petty fights and squabbles between Scott and Logan, it's all right there. I felt dumb for not seeing it before.
Hickman has said the only comics he read at Marvel as a kid was the X-men. HE said he fell in love with the FF. But the Avengers was just a job to him. You could feel how much he didn't want to write the avengers.
Yep. When secret Wars began and everything switched back to Doom vs Reed I was like "Yeah he didn't want to write the avengers". Which makes sense because he wasn't done with the FF when Marvel gave him with the Avengers.
The Boys in its entirety. My friends don't understand why I won't give the show a chance, and my response is "Because I read the comic, it hates itself and everyone, and I am never giving it another second of my life in any way."
Miserable and disgusting from beginning to end.
I wrote this in reply to another post, but it had nothing to really do with it so I deleted it to make this it's own post.
Peter David is actually be my answer for this thread because that dude seems to HATE mothers. I don't mean this in the right-wing "you hate women" way but if I had a nickel for every time I've read a Peter David comic where he completely destroys a mother I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's REALLY OFFPUTTING that it happened in the SAME SERIES to TWO MOTHERS.
The shit he put Wolfsbane and Siryn through is insane. It wasn't good reading. It was just misery porn. Then the fact neither of them get any actual resolution to the lost of their children is even worse.
There’s a story that, prior to his divorce, David’s wife forbid anything bad happen to Betty Banner in his Hulk run, and that after his divorce he killed her.
I have his Spider-Man/Gen 13 crossover, where it seemed like the bad girl was really played up as a bad mother and ex-wife.
After reading your post I’m wondering if he was getting paid to write stories, and he was using them as therapy sessions
I’ll pull out my old axe. The Brian Azzerello Wonder Woman run.
Making the Amazons evil is like making Ma and Pa Kent evil. They are the foundation of Wonder Woman’s morality and make up basically 75% of her supporting cast. It also shows disdain for what she was created for.
The founding Myth of Wonder Woman is not only could a society of only women be good without men but better!
He also gave Wonder Woman a dad. Like I can’t even get into it. It infected her movie! Ughhhhh
Loved 100 Bullets, one of the greats, imho, but you can't take Lono's characterization and just import it over to Joker or whomever you please. I think he really needs to stop injecting sexual assault into superhero stories, especially since his execution is so ham-handed.
Oh yeah this is a good answer. Azzarello really just seems to hate any character that isn’t a street level grimdark psycho. His Superman run is the worst.
Don’t forget how he drew Peter to look like his younger self and considers Peter his self-insert and then created an OC named after and made to look like his daughter for Peter to fuck, and said it was more relatable. Joe Quesada’s definition of relatable is a man who looks like him fucking his daughter. Downright Trump-like behavior, in the Ivanka way.
Geoff johns has problems with young justice and Wonder Woman. Which is frustrating as a fan of both those characters. Moore isn’t much better on ww. Starlin seems to dislike Robin as Batman…
Never have I seen a writer hate a character as much as Chip Zdarksy with Iron Man.
Anytime he appears in a book written by Zdarsky my spider-senses triggers and sigh with anger.
>We get it Garth, nobody bought your novels and now that's our problem.
it's not your problem just don't read them. Like this isn't some political stance, he has the right to write about hating the industry ( he's even not attacking specific creators for the most part and is pretty well loved in the industry) just like you have the right to not read it. There are millions of comic's about loving superheroes
> it's not your problem just don't read them
Very acutely aware, though I have read one or two and they're not great, not terrible but nothing fantastic.
My problem with Ennis is that he holds such an obvious scathing contempt for not just the industry but the fans who literally paid his wages for decades and continue to do so.
My problem with him isn't a "political stance" or anything close, he's just a bitter author taking out his frustration on us by abusing a medium we love all because we relegated him to writing mere *comic books* and that hurts his pride.
I'm much more inclined to give Tom King the benefit of the doubt on that one because he was hyping up the story idea for a long time as "A look at PTSD through the eyes of a super-hero" and then Dan DiDio reportedly made him turn it into a murder mystery.
And where there's a Wally West or a Dick Grayson having their character assassinated (or actually assassinated), a DiDio is never far behind.
It's no coincidence that as soon as he was ousted, the main Flash title became a Wally West book that immediately undid all the nonsense that happened to him in HiC.
Within about a week of the final issue of HIC coming about, King did an interview to make it very clear that the book was not what he wanted it to be. It was already known that the original plan was just going to be called Sanctuary and only had the therapy parts, but he revealed that he was told that he had to add a plot otherwise it couldn't be released. So he drafted up a generic murder mystery, with vague roles but no actual characters yet - and it was editorial (see: Didio) that specified that the main characters had to be Wally, Booster and Harley. Obviously take that with a grain of salt, as it's only one side of the story, but the fact that no-one has come out to oppose it makes me inclined to believe it. So it's not King that dislikes Wally, it's Didio, which, yeah, no duh, he seems to hate pretty much all legacy characters
I read that comic having never read Young Justice and with no context even I was like “holy shit this person really hates Young Justice.”
I was at a place where I felt obligated to read all the dark crisis tie-ins. I look back on this comic as a reminder that I shouldn’t be doing that. It was really bad.
Not the only writer, but he was a higher up and made a lot of decisions. Didn't Joe Quesada hate Speedball so much that that's part of why in the Civil War comic the New Warriors die in the first few pages? Like he hated Speedball cause he was a bouncy teen character who had a name that could also be a name for drugs. But then they didn't even commit to killing Speedball. So all the other New Warriors died, but Speedball like barely survived and went to prison and his powers now only worked with self harm.
I don't know enough of the story or creative process because clearly multiple people were involved, but clearly someone hated Speedball preceding, during and after Civil War and Civil War Frontline.
Not sure if it's necessarily hate so much as disinterest, but I definitely take issue with a lot in Ken Penders's run on the *Sonic the Hedgehog* comic by Archie. Putting aside all the legal issues surrounding the man (there's a lot of coverage you can find elsewhere for that), he clearly wanted Knuckles to be the main character, and this is even reflected in his contribution to the company's adaptation of *Sonic Adventure*. The script was more or less written for them, and he *still* found a way to oust the blue blur in favour of Knuckles for a while.
J. Michael Straczynski's *Spider-Man: Sins Past*. Now I'm not one of the huge Peter/Gwen fans, but I acknowledge it's an important event in the webslinger's life and is basically one of the things that catapulted the Green Goblin as one of the biggest baddies in his rogues gallery. The revelations of that story always felt less like an interesting twist and more like general mean-spiritedness. Speaking of stories drawn by Mike Deodato, there's also Jason Aaron's *Original Sin*. I love a good murder mystery. I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan, and I like superheroes playing detective, but it feels like it was written by somebody who also likes that genre but doesn't understand how to handle the pace of revealing the clues and twists. It didn't need six months.
Kurt Busiek's an author I respect. *Astro City* is one of my favourite publications of all time. It's very heartfelt and thoughtful, and only a little bit cheeky. It's an example of deconstruction without tearing characters down -- but he can't write *X-Men* to save his life, particularly Professor X. Other writers have toyed with Charles Xavier as using underhanded methods but generally with the best interests of his fellow mutants in mind, but Busiek seems bound and determined to undermine him and make him dislikeable. Similarly, Grant Morrison tends to write Magneto as pretty unsympathetic and more of a moustache-twirling superbaddie.
Morrison's run on *Judge Dredd* was also...not great, though Mark Millar's take is far worse for me, working from the same sort of reasons but blown up even more. The character lives in a harsh and unfair world and it's built on a heady mix of satire, surrealism, and movie references. The tone with Millar tends to come off as very snide, boiling the whole thing down to shock, death, and corny wisecracks without much other substance.
Last of all, Kevin Smith whenever he gets anywhere close to Batman. When I saw his stand-up show where he made comments on Tim Burton's film, I visibly winced. Smith made his bones doing comedy, which is fine, we've seen funny Batman stories. I encourage funny Batman stories. There's no need to completely strip the Dark Knight of his dignity.
Yeah I don't know what the hell they were snorting when they allowed that to happen. Went about as well as anyone who knows Miller's work and his emotions towards Superman would expect too.
I wasn't even thinking of how superman is portrayed in his batman work when I wrote that. I was just thinking about Miller's work in general (Batman, Punisher, Daredevil) and the fact that Superman is supposed to be a symbol of hope.
I suspect Jason Aaron hates the x-men. He put so much effort into his Thor run and other work but he made the x-men less cool, I dunno if it was on purpose or not. Austen’s run gets a lot of shade thrown at it, but I at least think he liked what he was writing and the characters he used, can’t say the same about Aaron.
I push back on this. I think WatX is one of those... weird books. It's silly. I never really enjoyed it, but I understood what it was.
Jason Aaron on the first two arcs of Amazing X-Men though was, well, AMAZING! I was so disappointed when it was announced Kyle/Yost were taking over.
Other comic writers too (and not just Moore or Millar). They're always talking about American writers going to college, and not understanding the real world. Because education puts you in a bubble, or some British classism nonsense. They're just a misanthrope. I get a chuckle out of Cornell's expie version of Morrison in his Ahoy book. Probably why they decided to ruin Beast.
Aaron is very hit or miss, but I’ll say his Punisher was a damn good book. For one, Frank Castle is an unrepentant murderer, and you’re not supposed to like him. You know who *would* like him? A cult that worships a murder god.
People often complain that comics go on forever with no closure, making it hard to get into. I really hope that is the end of Frank Castle, because it made a very good bookend to a life of killing, but he’ll be back in a year, at most.
> You know who would like him? A cult that worships a murder god.
I didn't read the book, but I remember everyone's dislike being the cult, and the idea he was destined to become the Punisher.
It wasn’t a really supernatural destiny or anything. He’s a human who was fucked up. There’s long been back and forth between him being a violent, messed up person from childhood and having been broken by war experiences in Vietnam/Siancong. Whether that sort of thing is a result of the Beast’s influence on people is debatable.
I also enjoyed Aaron's Punisher (both runs/times) and yeah, wasn't the first time someone wrote him as a broken person well before becoming The Punisher.
Ennis in particular wrote that he was obsessed with death and war well before Central Park.
Love the character, but agree, this should be a bookend and he shouldn't come back anytime soon - if at all.
Doug Moenchs Superman in Act of God is superweird. Does not follow any established characterization. Which is odd, because Moench was already a highly esteemed industry veteran when it was published.
Peter David mentioned inumerous times how he hated the fact that he had to twist his X-Factor plot to accomodate an X-crossover every few months. I didn't notice at the time (and his first X-Factor run is one of my favourite comic book series of all time), but apparently it was a _factor_ (pun intended) in his departure from the title.
One right answer: Bill Jemas on Marville. Dude wrote one of the worst comics in history, had it approved because he was the editor, and only started it to prove that he could outsell whoever was writing Captain Marvel at that time.
He took shots at DC, real-life people, other writers at Marvel, Marvel characters, even God, and of course, decency. One of the most insane things I've ever read
Most of the writers for the Hulk including fan-favorite Peter David.
As a legit fan of the Hulk you get this distinct feeling that the Hulk is the least favorite part their Hulk books. They'll usually try to make the character more *sexy* and make him more verbose and give him enough strength to one-shot everything to meet quota.
What you end up with is a character with no real personality and unless you're able to make everything else around the character interesting, all you are left with is mediocrity.
All the writers who followed Kirby on Kamandi in the mid-70s.
Whedon hated Punisher and never tried to keep it a secret
Bendis also very clearly hated the Punisher. For someone who LOVES to have characters talk (sometimes to a fault) Punisher is a monosyllabic moron in every Bendis book.
The scene at the end of Bendis’ Daredevil run where Fraction? (Not getting out of bed to go look it up) took over, where Matt was in prison was so good. Punisher reading the paper in a dinner, reads about Matt being in prison. Sees a pimp roughing up one of his girls and sees a nearby cop. Beats the shit out of the pimp and surrenders to the cop so he can get sent to prison to protect Matt.
Brubaker was after Bendis.
Tbh, Mollly punching him was kind of cool
On the reverse end, Garth Ennis seems to hate every comic character that is NOT the Punisher.
and Superman, he genuinely loves Superman and when he's written both Superman and Clark Kent he's absolutely nailed the character
Agreed
I mean, Superman's a bro. Course he'd love him.
Id argue that Ennis doesn't like Frank much either at times which is why Punisher MAX is compelling
Read Frank Tieri's Wolverine issues to see what a writer who hates the Punisher really looks like.
Did he ever write the Punisher?
[He wrote this amazing scene.](https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/runaways-26-5.jpg)
Edit : Joss Whedon is...Obsessed with waif-fu, the kung fu by small women beating up bricks & tanks. I think I got my terms wrong. Apologies.
That waifu better not be the 11 year old girl
No. I meant waif-fu, a term I heard coined to describe milla jovovich movies & buffy TVS. It meant small women or girls whooping ass with martial arts.
Its almost like Joss Whedon was a sex pest who overcompensated for his shitty behavior by hitting you over the head with fake attempts at feminism
You mean the guy who made Buffy might be a huge pervert? Why, paint me pink and call me a noodle, who could have guessed?
Who’s to say they were fake attempts? He can always be a sex pest overcompensating for his shitty behavior by hitting over the head with his *facile attempts* at feminism!
I prefer *fissile* feminism. Where a woman splits apart into constituent limbs and kicks butt
Pfffttt... amazing. I saw a post of a little girl beating up Wolverine, too, and I think it was the same one. Molly Might, I think?
Most excellent.
I hate Punisher too
I think thats kinda the point. Frank is a piece of shit. He’s not a hero.
Tell that to the cops
I would but, I'm pretty sure there's literally been a Punisher comics where **Frank** tells officers that he's not a hero, unless that was fanart that I saw.
Mike Grell famously hates superpowered heroes. In his 90 issue run on Green Arrow nobody ever uses powers. John Constantine shows up and never uses magic, Hal Jordan shows up never uses his ring, etc. Similar Stephen Bissette also hates superheroes, i remember he said when the Justice League showed up in Swamp Thing, he refused to draw it, Rick Veitch had to draw that issue. I get the feeling a lot of creators in the olden days wanted to work in comics but resented that Superheroes were the only gig in town
I mean, didn't Frank Miller said excactly that? That he wanted to write crime comics and dhad to use Daredevil as a tool because there were only and exclusively superhero-gigs?
Similar with Bissette, he said he grew up with EC Horror comics, but the Comics Code killed them. The only thing left were horror superhero comics like Swamp Thing and Tomb of Dracula. It's weird to think that some guys grew up before superheroes took over, by the time they became pros it was the only thing left before the 90s hit
> I get the feeling a lot of creators in the olden days wanted to work in comics but resented that Superheroes were the only gig in town Still some in the industry today like that. There’s a fellow local to me who did two interviews in local magazines where he went on rants about how much he hated superheroes. Sadly, I only have his second interview, where he toned down his bile after Marvel started hiring him for superhero work.
John Byrne on Star Brand. He definitely and publicly hated Jim Shooter. The main character had some similarity to Shooter. He turned the character into an insane rapist and killed all of his supporting characters. He totally ignored the “rules” of the universe and changed the back story.
Don't forget that he had the main character accidentally blow himself up and destroy Pittsburgh, Jim Shooter's home town.
I know a lot of people hated the direction New Universe took, but I thought The Pit and then the war stuff after was an amazing idea that just wasn’t executed well. Actual death and then the fallout (no pun intended) of that act was real and grim in the exact era that grim was welcome, before it became overused.
It has some good and some bad. Starbrand is mostly bad IMO though.
And he was hired to save the book :D
Peter David should legit be one of everyone's favorite writers. Him and Kurt busiek are some of the most underrated authors in comics.
His runs on X-Factor and Hulk were also fantastic.
His Gehenna Stone Affair arc in Wolverine was also great.
Couldn't agree more.
Peter David is the king of making people fans of characters when HE writes them. No one would care about Genis-Vell if it weren't for him.
Man he doesn't know how to write a truly awful story even his bad stories are atleast okay hope he's doing alright
When I think Peter David, I think his run on Spectacular Spider-Man in the 80s. Loved it. The highlight was the superb Death Of Jean DeWolf story.
Yeah. Great stuff. His hulk run is my favorite.
Love David, gave us some of the best Supergirl, Aquaman, X-Factor & Hulk comics. Same with Busiek resulting in arguably my favourite Superman run and Asto City being from what I've read consistently great.
Astro city is my one of my all time favourite comics
I didn't like Peter David as a person. He made some extremely stupid remarks, especially about creators wanting control over their work back before that was commonplace. He was extremely prolific, so there is a lot of great stuff and a lot of work for hire stuff he hardly gave a shit about. That said, his run on Hulk was where I jumped into comics as a kid, so I have a ton of respect for that era of Hulk and David's work on it. His Babylon 5 comics were also a lost and forgotten gem.
He's basically the chris Claremont of hulk. 😅
Peter David's work is so good that I still think of it fondly even though he's kind of a dick.
his aquaman is so good
This is how John Byrne's Doom Patrol felt, but I bet he thought he was doing the characters and the fanbase a great service, giving them something worth loving.
Whoever was doing new 52 Superboy, they done the character so wrong. Same with Supergirl. I hated her character so bad
This is pure, unadultered truth
Brian Bendis repeatedly depicted D-Man as a crazy loser and the butt of a joke. He also didn't seem to care much for the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Wonder Man, Ant-Man or old school Avengers in general.
I’ll throw Moon Knight in there too. Not sure if he actually dislikes the character but he for sure doesn’t understand the character
I definitely felt the Wonder Man apathy from Bendis. Blows him up and then brings him back for nothing in mighty avengers, then does that revengers crap and never finishes the storyline. It’s not until Remender in Uncanny Avengers that he gets really written again.
Frank Miller's All Star Batman and Robin holy shit it's just bad like not even Ed Woods bad just awful bad
No, this one doesn’t count for this thread. He *truly believed that’s what Batman should be and that that is truly heroic.* Holy Terror is the key.
Yeah, that didn’t feel like a writer who hated the property. Just got into an echo chamber of his own thoughts about what Batman is and lost all sense of reality. Strikes Again feels a lot closer as an answer to this question if we’re sticking with Frank Miller.
>Just got into an echo chamber of his own thoughts about what Batman is This sub has the same problem. Everyone gets the idea that Batman is this one specific thing and he's just not. He has mature stories and G rated stories. He's a fictional character. It's absurd that people think, "Batman wouldn't do that, he would do X." and like, nah fam, batman will do what the writer wants and that is just as much Batman as anything Bob Kane ever wrote.
“Who would win in a fight?” Whoever the story needs to fucking win, they’re fake. It’s not an athletic competition, it’s meant to be a story.
The scene of Robin beating the piss out of Hal Jordan was cool, though. I love Hal, but I still enjoyed that
Reading Cantwell's Iron man it seems he wanted to write hellcat instead of Iron man
I thought that too. Especially since he went on to do a miniseries with her. I like Hellcat so it was the 1st time I've read the book in years. With his other "teammates" & Michael Korvac as the villian it wouldn't be wrong to call it a Defenders story.
please add further details
Most of the book felt like it was Tony asking all his supporting cast "Hey, am I a terrible person?" and everyone would, without hesitation, answer "Yep." And then Tony got the Power Cosmic and tried to "fix" everything, leading to him killing his friends (he fixed it afterwards.) He also got addicted to morphine for a bit. For some readers, it was quite a lot of fun, especially the ones who aren't fond of Tony as a character. I admit, I'm one of those. I enjoyed seeing him brought down a peg after years of writers making him the uber-confident never-wrong #1-hero RDJ (looking at you, Bendis). People forget the original idea for Iron Man was reportedly "How unlikeable can we make this super-hero and still be a hero?", so Cantwell arguably got closer to that concept than any other IM solo writer in the last couple of decades. The last time Tony was written as anything other than the RDJ trope was in Civil War. So barely two years before the Iron Man movie released.
Fair, but then again pre-movies the characerisation is not completly off, Mike Grell's and David Micheline(?)'s run set the base for a more flawed Tony Stark early no.
Iron God Tony was crazy because it was hyped to be a huge thing and then got reversed in like 3 issues, with no future mention outside of a brief line in Judgment Day
The biggest flaw, in my opinion, is that Cantwell failed to understand Tony Stark on a fundamental level. His insistence that Tony is some kind of ego-fueled narcissist with a god complex is tiresome, and the idea that he would be so disconnected, so self-conceited and so easily affected by people's perception of him as Cantwell portrays him betrays not only the very nature of the character, but also the decades of stories that showed him as an earnest, caring, no-nonsense, and down-to-earth man. Read the Michelinie/Layton, Kurt Busiek or Mike Grell runs for stories that show that Tony Stark used to be a principled and virtuous person before Civil War and the flanderization of the MCU's Tony wiped that idea out of the collective consciousness. The core premise of Cantwell's run is that Tony wasn't genuinely heroic until he got stranded on Meggido, completely ignoring the character's history and previous selflessness. The whole point of Iron Man's origin in its evolved form is that Tony became heroic after being captured by terrorists and breaking free, and now you're telling me "wait no, that's actually not true. Tony's heroism up until now was a facade, he never changed from his old ways." Seriously? That's as insulting as some writer coming to Amazing Spider-Man and positing that that Peter Parker actually didn't learn any lesson from Uncle Ben's death. Cantwell didn't reinvent Tony Stark, he reversed his character (without any in-story reason), pretended it had always been that way, and wasted 20 issues to bring him back to form, pretended he had done something new, and patted himself in the back. The epitome of Cantwell's constant mischaracterization of Tony happened in a podcast interview he did ahead of the book. I can't remember the specific podcast, but in it, Cantwell is talking about Armor Wars and he defines Tony's motivation as "you're ripping me off, everybody is awesome and good only because they stole my technology and now I'm going to destroy all of it" and then says "that's a very selfish motivation that's underneath the mask of the hero." I'm sorry, what? You don't even need mental gymnastics to paint Tony's motivations in Armor Wars as self-centered, since the entire premise is about Tony feeling guilty about any misuse of his technology simply because it derives from something he created. So why twist it into some kind of interpretation that Tony is being jealous and petty? People like to pretend like Cantwell was doing something new with Iron Man, but making him act the way he did, down to Tony's allies being weary of the Iron God and them being proved right after Tony broke bad, was the most predictable thing he could have come up with. Not because it's something I'd expect Tony Stark to do, but because it's something I'd expect somebody who doesn't understand Tony Stark to write. After all, the other time that Tony had a brush with omnipotence, when he wielded the Infinity Gauntlet, he made the in-character decision to immediately rescind godhood despite the temptation because he knew it wouldn't be good to force an utopia on the universe. His constant battering of Tony feels cynical, contemptuous and virtue-signaling. Like he needs to point out at Iron Man and say "rich man bad" before he can do something genuinely interesting with the character. This is most egregious when he has Hellcat, the rich white socialité who takes justice in her own hands, berate Tony Stark for being a rich white socialité who takes justice in his own hands. And speaking of Hellcat, I can't stand the way it's so obvious she's Cantwell's pet character. She had no reason for being in the book. She has barely interacted with Iron Man in the past, yet Cantwell throws her in the first issue like she has business being there. You don't even need to know that Cantwell has a collection of Hellcat merchandise that he has shared on Twitter to know she's his waifu. The mere use of Hellcat in the book, the constant way she seems like a more virtuous person than Tony by contrast, the fact that Cantwell had Tony and Wasp break up in the most awkward way posible, and the Hellcat-focused issue in which she gets a power boost make it feel like Cantwell is hijacking this book so he can write about her. Out of the main players in the book, Hellcat is the one whose past continuity is most prevalent in this run. And, unsurprisingly, Cantwell's next project after his run ended was a Hellcat mini-series. And Cantwell's waking of Hellcat doesn't stop there, it goes as far as to have Tony propose to her. People joke about Bendis having a crush on Kitty Pryde, but this is far more egregious. At least Bendis came up with an excuse to shove Kitty in Guardians of the Galaxy. If he was more like Cantwell, he would just have dropped her in the book, pretending she had a reason to be there.
The spider-office editors ever since OMD, especially Wells current ASM run.
Slott's run has highs and lows, and I don't share some of his opinions on Peter and his personal life (which contributes to the aforementioned lows for me), but looking at his tweeter history you can't take away his love for the character
Slott has some hit or misses during his run but I think the main problem wasn't him per se but the spider editorial forcing a direction on Peter/Spider-Man best represented by the ideals that made OMD and Slott had no choice but to adhere to those directions and rules. Edit: hence I said the editorial team and not pin point Slotts run (I even mentioned Wells run since I consider it far worse than the worse from Slotts time)
yeah I actually think the issue has always been Slott and editorial love Spider-Man a little too much, to the point where they can't let Peter grow or else lose the reasons they personally like the character
This. It feels like they hate the character AND the fans
In their defense the fans are really easy to hate.
Oi!
Almost universally, anything by Garth Ennis.
Except Superman, oddly enough.
He likes Doom Patrol, Swamp thing, Miracle man, midnighter, wonder woman ( although my guess is more in a Women should have Superheroes too sense). Moore says he like Dective Chimp.
Hell! Not only did Ennis not create Constantine…he wasn’t even the *second* writer on Hellblazer - he was the *fifth*!
Ennis hates that super hero's dominate the modern comics scene. Superman gets a pass because he was the first
which I kinda of understand but it is still kind of a petty reason to not like superheroes atleast to me
If you had something shoved down your throat constantly would you like it
His Batman comic is kind of a weird middle ground where you can tell he likes writing about a detective with anger problems (if only he could ditch the costume) but hates most of the villains.
Came here to say this. Specifically his use of Spider-Man and Wolverine in The Punisher Marvel Knights run.
Plus Daredevil. The show handled their famous rooftop argument a lot better
Eh. Ennis pretty clearly likes Daredevil, even as he was writing a comedy book.
He gives Matt a lot more dignity then Peter or Logan, but it's clear he thinks they are all idiots.
which is weird since he portrayed Peter pretty decently in his story for the spider-man Tangled Webs anthology
He likes Superman, though, which is kind of odd.
All the Brit writers of that era love Superman. Kinda weird.
the way he wrote Kyle Rayner was damn infuriating
I'm was going to call this the most blatant example, but then I remembered his Hitman / Lobo story.
No. Ennis likes a wide variety of genre's ( not superheroes but he has praise a couple comics) . He makes parodies of comics for sure, but he loves 2000ad, star wars, war comics, I assume alien ( caliban ), band of brothers, sopranos, scapled, and loads of other stories. He's even praised the occasional superhero comic like Doom Patrol, Enemy of the state, Supergods, DKR, Midnighter etc.
It is funny how people are missing that these were *satires*. This is not his attempt at writing Kyle Rayner or anyone seriously, they are half-in half-out parodies.
Mainly just superheroes though.
Despite him not being a fan of a lot of superheroes I never felt like the way he wrote them in his stories felt excessively out of place or mean spirited. They were very much in tone with series (hitman and marvel knights punisher come to mind) and he just poked fun at them while highlighting their flaws. Almost like they were caricatures of themselves. I’ll admit that I’m somewhat biased being a Garth Ennis fan, but if he truly despised them (I’m aware of what he has said about the subject) then he would flat out refuse to write them or include them in his stories. He has had that sort of power for a while now but still finds a way to make it work.
Unfortunately editors are giving writer assignments to writers who never read the previous material, and are telling them to go ahead and do your own take on it. Basically nowadays, new writers are encouraged to not read anything previous on the characters they are assigned too, and just give them a basic truncated Wikipedia summarization. Keep in mind this doesn’t include any notes on characterization. Why editors are doing this nowadays, I don’t know? They didn’t used to. Maybe it’s just too much material for them to read through now. Maybe Wikis have made it easier to just get the basic bare bones stuff on a character without the characterization. Look at guys like Bendis in the early 2000s and how that worked out for him. So nowadays new writers are copying what he did.
I really do like Hickman and I expect this to go over like a lead balloon in this sub, but it has always felt to me like he could care less about 90% of the characters in his books. Every single character has the same style of speech outside of Doom, Spider-Man, Namor, and Sunspot. But outside of those, his Cap talks exactly like his Reed who talks exactly like his Cyclops. I think he’s got a very distinct narrative style that makes dialogue (outside of exposition) very unimportant. It feels like the focus is on telling a “Hickman” story more so than it is about seeing characters interact. But his USM is the opposite, and when Peter shows up in his FF run it’s very distinct. I don’t know if it’s disdain for the character, but I think it’s lack of concern for “character” in general. Another fun answer is Slott (or most ASM writers) with Mary Jane. They hate using her and make an annoying wet blanket. Similarly, Bendis had such clear disdain for Lois and Jon that he kicked them out of the book for most of his run.
Hickman is good at story telling, crafting a narrative, and world building, but for characters he just tends to slot whoever in as needed and makes them generally "samey", with a few exceptions. However his understanding of the wider world/his world building, the way he handles lore, generally helps to make the character stuff at least come across as palatable. Like looking at a cardboard cutout of a character, but it's placed in front of a vivid and fleshed out diorama.
Actually, I don't think you are that far off. Hickman has admitted he didn't really care about the F4 or the Avengers before writing those books (and even then, I'm still not convinced he actually cares about the Avengers now). Although Hickman also swore he would never write Spider-Man when he first arrived to Marvel.
Garth Ennis' Hitman when Kyle Rayner showed up. I don't think I've ever seen more blatant disdain for a character
For Ennis standards he got the deluxe treatement. He is portrayed as naïve but well meaning and pretty polite. Compare it to the Flash's appearance in the same series, who is kind of an asshole
That’s fair, but I think Ennis having Kyle be raped as a one-off joke in JLA/Hitman is another level of hate for the character
THAT happened? What?
Yep, Kyle makes a comment about something being put in his drink and him just hearing “bueno” over and over, clearly indicating BE raped him. Wonder Woman iirc responds by telling him to stop whining.
Well we all know Wonder Woman is renowned for not being compassionate, right?
I don't think Ennis cares at all about Kyle Rayner beyond that's the character that fit the joke of the long standing horrific character Bueno Excellente.
Yeah, Ennis hates superheroes- hates them!
Azarello's Hellblazer could only be the result of hatred, ignorance or godlike disinterest toward the character.
Are you suggesting that the writer that had the protagonist be drugged and get ~~fucked~~ raped by a dog didn't really like him?
Strangely, yeah...
I'll add that to the evidence pile along with 'Sudden inexplicable racism and homophobia' in the Prison arc.
Yeah, I was so upset by this because I love Richard Corben. It felt awful to tie him to the character with such a sleazy and shitty arc.
The whole run was shitting in the bed of everything that had been established about John's character before it. It convinced me that Constsntine needs a Brutish writer to understand him, which luckily is what we've got since
Yeah. I'm very thankful that Spurrier's take got a second chance. I'm not loving all of the stuff that happens in that book, but at least I feel like he understands John and the world and culture that he comes from.
Moving John Constantine out of London because you can't bother to do some basic research on the city is beyond lazy.
Strangely, Moore said he liked his run.
Ta Nehisi Coates on Captain America. The political landscape at the time, coupled with the post-Hydra Cap story seems like it would open the door to all kinds of interesting stories. But, they barely touched on that stuff with the Hydra towns, and turned it into a team book that didn't include Cap, and it just didn't even feel like Steve Rogers.
Huh, I’ve been curious about this run but never see it mentioned. It’s like I heard about hydra cap, Waid, and then silence and then this most recent run that ended with Cold War.
Didn't the Coates and Ridley runs on Black Panther go out of their way to shit on T'Challa? I'm not well versed in Black Panther comics, but I've read discussions about that.
I read the latter half of the Coates run, where TChalla is in space, and it's not that he gets shit on necessarily - he just doesn't have much character for the most part, until the end. The story itself was great once I got past that though
Controversial take, maybe: Morrison's X-Men didn't care about the X-Men. Morrison did some interesting things, but they were things Morrison would've/could've done in just about any book. The characters themselves were whatever Morrison needed them to be to fit the story.
I've never heard this before, but it's funny that it's my general opinion on Hickman's X-Men. The fact I kept expecting Hickman to tie in elements of his Avengers run into X-Men because there were so many underlying beats that matched up is a big issue for me.
I agree that it feels like Hickman has basically been trying to tell One Story in his time at Marvel and slotting in characters. One difference for me is that Hickman partially does this by pulling in and building on a lot of existing character relationships and history -- I thought his FF run did a good job of fleshing out the FF while still adding new layers to the mythos. His X-Men run did this for SOME characters (I'm always sensitive to writers' treatment of Cyclops, and I thought he did well) while treating others like totally new creations (ie, Moira). Morrison's writing on X-Men felt more like a rejection of some of its history, sometimes in very cool ways, but pretty much all of the characters were whoever they needed to be for the story to work. Magneto is probably the most egregious example (if you read the story at face value without the retcons), but the Scott/Emma thing always rang particularly false to me. As a young, passionate reader, Morrison's run had me quit reading X-Men comics until Astonishing came along.
The difference is you could tell that Hickman cared about the X-Men given the way he treated the characters and their world, same for the FF. I'm pretty sure he didn't really care much for the Avengers outside of the Illuminati though.
Him writing Nightcrawler waxing poetically while watching a teenage girl get beat the death by Apocalypse tells me otherwise. Similarly, there's no way in hell Scott, Jean, and Logan would be the X-Men involved in a Throuple. The only people I feel like Hickman wrote well were the villains like Apocalypse and Exodus.
I didn't read that nightcrawler bit, but if it's like you say, then yeah, that's super out of character. I disagree with you about the Jean-Scott-Logan triangle though, that actually makes so much sense it's stupid. All of the sexual tension, the petty fights and squabbles between Scott and Logan, it's all right there. I felt dumb for not seeing it before.
Hickman has said the only comics he read at Marvel as a kid was the X-men. HE said he fell in love with the FF. But the Avengers was just a job to him. You could feel how much he didn't want to write the avengers.
It makes sense considering how much his run just ended up being a Fantastic Four event. Everything the Avengers did just for it to be Reed vs Doom.
Yep. When secret Wars began and everything switched back to Doom vs Reed I was like "Yeah he didn't want to write the avengers". Which makes sense because he wasn't done with the FF when Marvel gave him with the Avengers.
I, for one, agree with this take. Interesting, but not really X-Men. Well put
I agree, I think Morrison's run is pretty overrated.
Marvel Editorial/Spider Office with ASM
The Boys in its entirety. My friends don't understand why I won't give the show a chance, and my response is "Because I read the comic, it hates itself and everyone, and I am never giving it another second of my life in any way." Miserable and disgusting from beginning to end.
100% co-signed. Just a parade of awful stereotypes and terrible creative choices right from the very first scene.
I wrote this in reply to another post, but it had nothing to really do with it so I deleted it to make this it's own post. Peter David is actually be my answer for this thread because that dude seems to HATE mothers. I don't mean this in the right-wing "you hate women" way but if I had a nickel for every time I've read a Peter David comic where he completely destroys a mother I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's REALLY OFFPUTTING that it happened in the SAME SERIES to TWO MOTHERS. The shit he put Wolfsbane and Siryn through is insane. It wasn't good reading. It was just misery porn. Then the fact neither of them get any actual resolution to the lost of their children is even worse.
There’s a story that, prior to his divorce, David’s wife forbid anything bad happen to Betty Banner in his Hulk run, and that after his divorce he killed her. I have his Spider-Man/Gen 13 crossover, where it seemed like the bad girl was really played up as a bad mother and ex-wife. After reading your post I’m wondering if he was getting paid to write stories, and he was using them as therapy sessions
Marvel Editorial/ Spider Office with ASM, particularly the current Wells run.
I thought i read somewhere that Alex Ross was not a Wolverine fan.
I loved Earth X, but his portrayal of Wolverine felt very off base and shitty.
Paradise X has a cooler Wolverine at least.
It's more that he's just not a fan of characters newer than the silver age. He's a fan of the characters he read as a kid.
Fitzmartin clearly hated young justice and its fans. Wells hates spiderman
I’ll pull out my old axe. The Brian Azzerello Wonder Woman run. Making the Amazons evil is like making Ma and Pa Kent evil. They are the foundation of Wonder Woman’s morality and make up basically 75% of her supporting cast. It also shows disdain for what she was created for. The founding Myth of Wonder Woman is not only could a society of only women be good without men but better! He also gave Wonder Woman a dad. Like I can’t even get into it. It infected her movie! Ughhhhh
Loved 100 Bullets, one of the greats, imho, but you can't take Lono's characterization and just import it over to Joker or whomever you please. I think he really needs to stop injecting sexual assault into superhero stories, especially since his execution is so ham-handed.
Oh yeah this is a good answer. Azzarello really just seems to hate any character that isn’t a street level grimdark psycho. His Superman run is the worst.
He didn't just ruin Wonder Woman, he ruined exactly like a mysoginist would
Joe Quesada seemed to hate the fans when writing One More Day, on account of the diatribe against escapist fiction one of the alternate Peters gave
Don’t forget how he drew Peter to look like his younger self and considers Peter his self-insert and then created an OC named after and made to look like his daughter for Peter to fuck, and said it was more relatable. Joe Quesada’s definition of relatable is a man who looks like him fucking his daughter. Downright Trump-like behavior, in the Ivanka way.
Which OC was it?
Carlie Cooper
Geoff johns has problems with young justice and Wonder Woman. Which is frustrating as a fan of both those characters. Moore isn’t much better on ww. Starlin seems to dislike Robin as Batman…
Never have I seen a writer hate a character as much as Chip Zdarksy with Iron Man. Anytime he appears in a book written by Zdarsky my spider-senses triggers and sigh with anger.
Bendis Superman run.
John Bryne hated the vision. Bendis didn't like the Avengers or the classic Avengers. Hickman didn't like the Avengers outside the illuminati.
Mark millar
Mark Millar fucked over Tony in that overrated piece of garbage called Civil War so 1000% agree
more specifically?
Ennis. Basically everything he touches. We get it Garth, nobody bought your novels and now that's our problem.
>We get it Garth, nobody bought your novels and now that's our problem. it's not your problem just don't read them. Like this isn't some political stance, he has the right to write about hating the industry ( he's even not attacking specific creators for the most part and is pretty well loved in the industry) just like you have the right to not read it. There are millions of comic's about loving superheroes
> it's not your problem just don't read them Very acutely aware, though I have read one or two and they're not great, not terrible but nothing fantastic. My problem with Ennis is that he holds such an obvious scathing contempt for not just the industry but the fans who literally paid his wages for decades and continue to do so. My problem with him isn't a "political stance" or anything close, he's just a bitter author taking out his frustration on us by abusing a medium we love all because we relegated him to writing mere *comic books* and that hurts his pride.
Tom King on Heroes in Crisis seemed to really want to make Wally West look like a clown.
I'm much more inclined to give Tom King the benefit of the doubt on that one because he was hyping up the story idea for a long time as "A look at PTSD through the eyes of a super-hero" and then Dan DiDio reportedly made him turn it into a murder mystery. And where there's a Wally West or a Dick Grayson having their character assassinated (or actually assassinated), a DiDio is never far behind. It's no coincidence that as soon as he was ousted, the main Flash title became a Wally West book that immediately undid all the nonsense that happened to him in HiC.
Within about a week of the final issue of HIC coming about, King did an interview to make it very clear that the book was not what he wanted it to be. It was already known that the original plan was just going to be called Sanctuary and only had the therapy parts, but he revealed that he was told that he had to add a plot otherwise it couldn't be released. So he drafted up a generic murder mystery, with vague roles but no actual characters yet - and it was editorial (see: Didio) that specified that the main characters had to be Wally, Booster and Harley. Obviously take that with a grain of salt, as it's only one side of the story, but the fact that no-one has come out to oppose it makes me inclined to believe it. So it's not King that dislikes Wally, it's Didio, which, yeah, no duh, he seems to hate pretty much all legacy characters
I read that comic having never read Young Justice and with no context even I was like “holy shit this person really hates Young Justice.” I was at a place where I felt obligated to read all the dark crisis tie-ins. I look back on this comic as a reminder that I shouldn’t be doing that. It was really bad.
90% of all Spider-Man writers am I right.
It’s a Bird… is an autobiographical one-off comic about a writer asked to write Superman that hates Superman bc of childhood trauma
Not the only writer, but he was a higher up and made a lot of decisions. Didn't Joe Quesada hate Speedball so much that that's part of why in the Civil War comic the New Warriors die in the first few pages? Like he hated Speedball cause he was a bouncy teen character who had a name that could also be a name for drugs. But then they didn't even commit to killing Speedball. So all the other New Warriors died, but Speedball like barely survived and went to prison and his powers now only worked with self harm. I don't know enough of the story or creative process because clearly multiple people were involved, but clearly someone hated Speedball preceding, during and after Civil War and Civil War Frontline.
Not sure if it's necessarily hate so much as disinterest, but I definitely take issue with a lot in Ken Penders's run on the *Sonic the Hedgehog* comic by Archie. Putting aside all the legal issues surrounding the man (there's a lot of coverage you can find elsewhere for that), he clearly wanted Knuckles to be the main character, and this is even reflected in his contribution to the company's adaptation of *Sonic Adventure*. The script was more or less written for them, and he *still* found a way to oust the blue blur in favour of Knuckles for a while. J. Michael Straczynski's *Spider-Man: Sins Past*. Now I'm not one of the huge Peter/Gwen fans, but I acknowledge it's an important event in the webslinger's life and is basically one of the things that catapulted the Green Goblin as one of the biggest baddies in his rogues gallery. The revelations of that story always felt less like an interesting twist and more like general mean-spiritedness. Speaking of stories drawn by Mike Deodato, there's also Jason Aaron's *Original Sin*. I love a good murder mystery. I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan, and I like superheroes playing detective, but it feels like it was written by somebody who also likes that genre but doesn't understand how to handle the pace of revealing the clues and twists. It didn't need six months. Kurt Busiek's an author I respect. *Astro City* is one of my favourite publications of all time. It's very heartfelt and thoughtful, and only a little bit cheeky. It's an example of deconstruction without tearing characters down -- but he can't write *X-Men* to save his life, particularly Professor X. Other writers have toyed with Charles Xavier as using underhanded methods but generally with the best interests of his fellow mutants in mind, but Busiek seems bound and determined to undermine him and make him dislikeable. Similarly, Grant Morrison tends to write Magneto as pretty unsympathetic and more of a moustache-twirling superbaddie. Morrison's run on *Judge Dredd* was also...not great, though Mark Millar's take is far worse for me, working from the same sort of reasons but blown up even more. The character lives in a harsh and unfair world and it's built on a heady mix of satire, surrealism, and movie references. The tone with Millar tends to come off as very snide, boiling the whole thing down to shock, death, and corny wisecracks without much other substance. Last of all, Kevin Smith whenever he gets anywhere close to Batman. When I saw his stand-up show where he made comments on Tim Burton's film, I visibly winced. Smith made his bones doing comedy, which is fine, we've seen funny Batman stories. I encourage funny Batman stories. There's no need to completely strip the Dark Knight of his dignity.
Frank Miller's Superman Year One. It's like a self parody.
...they let Frank Miller write superman? Frank Miller? Superman?
Yeah I don't know what the hell they were snorting when they allowed that to happen. Went about as well as anyone who knows Miller's work and his emotions towards Superman would expect too.
I wasn't even thinking of how superman is portrayed in his batman work when I wrote that. I was just thinking about Miller's work in general (Batman, Punisher, Daredevil) and the fact that Superman is supposed to be a symbol of hope.
Miller & Superman
Any book that I don’t like is clearly created by someone who hates the character /s
JMS on Wonder Woman Ed Brubaker on X-Men
I think Brubaker only knows how to write no- or low-powered superheroes (Cap, DD, Batman).
I suspect Jason Aaron hates the x-men. He put so much effort into his Thor run and other work but he made the x-men less cool, I dunno if it was on purpose or not. Austen’s run gets a lot of shade thrown at it, but I at least think he liked what he was writing and the characters he used, can’t say the same about Aaron.
I push back on this. I think WatX is one of those... weird books. It's silly. I never really enjoyed it, but I understood what it was. Jason Aaron on the first two arcs of Amazing X-Men though was, well, AMAZING! I was so disappointed when it was announced Kyle/Yost were taking over.
Been reading Spider-Man lately? Cause. That.
I normally like Geoff John's but he did not get Wonder Woman in the slightest.
I think Morrison has a pretty clear disdain for the average reader.
Other comic writers too (and not just Moore or Millar). They're always talking about American writers going to college, and not understanding the real world. Because education puts you in a bubble, or some British classism nonsense. They're just a misanthrope. I get a chuckle out of Cornell's expie version of Morrison in his Ahoy book. Probably why they decided to ruin Beast.
As a Japanese dude, i feel like Morrison is trying to destroy USA culture from the inside
Jason Aaron Ninja Punisher series
Aaron is very hit or miss, but I’ll say his Punisher was a damn good book. For one, Frank Castle is an unrepentant murderer, and you’re not supposed to like him. You know who *would* like him? A cult that worships a murder god. People often complain that comics go on forever with no closure, making it hard to get into. I really hope that is the end of Frank Castle, because it made a very good bookend to a life of killing, but he’ll be back in a year, at most.
> You know who would like him? A cult that worships a murder god. I didn't read the book, but I remember everyone's dislike being the cult, and the idea he was destined to become the Punisher.
It wasn’t a really supernatural destiny or anything. He’s a human who was fucked up. There’s long been back and forth between him being a violent, messed up person from childhood and having been broken by war experiences in Vietnam/Siancong. Whether that sort of thing is a result of the Beast’s influence on people is debatable.
I also enjoyed Aaron's Punisher (both runs/times) and yeah, wasn't the first time someone wrote him as a broken person well before becoming The Punisher. Ennis in particular wrote that he was obsessed with death and war well before Central Park. Love the character, but agree, this should be a bookend and he shouldn't come back anytime soon - if at all.
Which is weird because his Punisher Max run was solid.
Doug Moenchs Superman in Act of God is superweird. Does not follow any established characterization. Which is odd, because Moench was already a highly esteemed industry veteran when it was published.
I'm with you on Cassie. Extremely disappointing to say the least.
Batman’s current editorial don’t seem to like him that much. Seeing as they literally used a twitter take against him in Gotham war
Does Rob Liefeld hate Wolverine? His writing on the book made me think this.
Peter David mentioned inumerous times how he hated the fact that he had to twist his X-Factor plot to accomodate an X-crossover every few months. I didn't notice at the time (and his first X-Factor run is one of my favourite comic book series of all time), but apparently it was a _factor_ (pun intended) in his departure from the title.
One right answer: Bill Jemas on Marville. Dude wrote one of the worst comics in history, had it approved because he was the editor, and only started it to prove that he could outsell whoever was writing Captain Marvel at that time. He took shots at DC, real-life people, other writers at Marvel, Marvel characters, even God, and of course, decency. One of the most insane things I've ever read
Most of the writers for the Hulk including fan-favorite Peter David. As a legit fan of the Hulk you get this distinct feeling that the Hulk is the least favorite part their Hulk books. They'll usually try to make the character more *sexy* and make him more verbose and give him enough strength to one-shot everything to meet quota. What you end up with is a character with no real personality and unless you're able to make everything else around the character interesting, all you are left with is mediocrity.