Worst Comic Books You've Ever Read

[BatNapalm]

This is such a hackneyed, entry-level opinion, but Rob Liefeld's shit from the 90's really is unreadable nonsense.

A large chunk of JMS' run on The Amazing Spider-Man in the early 2000s. The totem shit was a real clunker of an attempt to "expand the mythology" and Sin's Past with the rapidly aging Goblin babbies was easily one of the worst Spider-Man related things ever conceived. And that includes 3 Dev Adam, One More Day, and those bizarre Elsa videos on youtube.

Also, pretty much every issue of every comic where Tan Eng Huat did the artwork.

 

[Van Darkholme]

Did they ever fully drop that spider totem shit? I also remember the goblin babbies (pretty sure I even own the issues) and the impact they didn't make.
There were also some bizzare looking 3D modeled spider-man stories back then which looked like complete shit, think early rendered Playstation FMVs in terms of quality.

Edit: yeah here it is: https://trivto.deviantart.com/art/Digital-Modeling-of-Spider-Man-Quality-of-Life-324791966

Reminds me of Food Fight.

 

[RockVolnutt]

Did they ever fully drop that spider totem shit? I also remember the goblin babbies (pretty sure I even own the issues) and the impact they didn't make.

Depends what you consider a "drop". The concept is brought up again for Spider-Verse in 2012 but all it really means is "Person who has spider powers regardless of origin". It's absent in Peter's comics as it's irrelevant now. If you count that power-up he had in The Other, that was a big thing in Scarlet Spider (Kaine) and Silk, both of which are cancelled. The current Scarlet Spider is Ben Reilly and unrelated to that.

 

[Antipathy]

Does Sonichu count?

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Did they ever fully drop that spider totem shit? I also remember the goblin babbies (pretty sure I even own the issues) and the impact they didn't make.
There were also some bizzare looking 3D modeled spider-man stories back then which looked like complete shit, think early rendered Playstation FMVs in terms of quality.

Edit: yeah here it is: https://trivto.deviantart.com/art/Digital-Modeling-of-Spider-Man-Quality-of-Life-324791966

Reminds me of Food Fight.

This looks horrible, especially for 2002 standards. I'd argue the Raimi film had better CGI, and that too looks horribly dated.

 

[Hummingbird]

This is such a hackneyed, entry-level opinion, but Rob Liefeld's shit from the 90's really is unreadable nonsense.

A large chunk of JMS' run on The Amazing Spider-Man in the early 2000s. The totem shit was a real clunker of an attempt to "expand the mythology" and Sin's Past with the rapidly aging Goblin babbies was easily one of the worst Spider-Man related things ever conceived. And that includes 3 Dev Adam, One More Day, and those bizarre Elsa videos on youtube.

Also, pretty much every issue of every comic where Tan Eng Huat did the artwork.

Though I really liked the idea of having Peter get a job as a teacher (he can't do freelance photos of Spidey all the time) to help the community he grew up in.

As for new stuff, Mariko Tamaki's run on Hulk is pretty bad. She doesn't get the character of She-Hulk, the first part of the run is Jennifer angsting (the author really doesn't get PTSD, either) with little happening and now it's trying to be more "funny".

Then there's the Iceman comic which proves that just because you get an author with matching labels as the main character doesn't mean they will do a good job. The author doesn't get Bobby, gay men, good jokes or good writing.

 

[ShittyRecolor]

Though I really liked the idea of having Peter get a job as a teacher (he can't do freelance photos of Spidey all the time) to help the community he grew up in.

As for new stuff, Mariko Tamaki's run on Hulk is pretty bad. She doesn't get the character of She-Hulk, the first part of the run is Jennifer angsting (the author really doesn't get PTSD, either) with little happening and now it's trying to be more "funny".

Then there's the Iceman comic which proves that just because you get an author with matching labels as the main character doesn't mean they will do a good job. The author doesn't get Bobby, gay men, good jokes or good writing.

Tamaki's Hulk is what you get when someone who's only ever written YA garbage starring paper thin teenage self-inserts is tasked with writing a competent, highly accomplished adult woman in her late twenties\early thirties. It's really off putting reading Jennifer Walters, who is supposed to be this multifaceted, confident person, take a break of "adulting" and indulge in "self care" after reading mean comments like a spoiled brat who never had to deal with those mean bullies before. And didn't it took like several issues for her to almost kinda sorta hulk out?

 

[Done]

Well, outside that, I thought Identity Crisis was a big blow. Dark, depressing, dour, bad art...I guess I'm just salty since I used to like Ralph Dibny back in the day.

Weird, I liked back then because I read it mostly as a (okay-ish) murder novel.. But I think that the concept of heroes committing the sin of wiping villains's minds wasn't utilized to its full potential (IMO, it was done far better in Flash: Rogue War), and the violent shit Jean committed to Sue was excessive and unneeded, not to mention that Loring's motives were ill-conceived.

With all that said, I honestly don't see what was wrong with the art. It was above average IMO.

 

[GethN7]

Civil War.

It was what happened when you try to hamfistedely force Marvel characters to punch each other in the face over an issue mired in political crap, then turned into cancer when you have a ton of different writers shoehorning their politics into it, character plausibility and even overall canon be damned, and the resultant mess just leaves everyone looking like assholes.

It should've served as a dire warning against doing that in later stuff, but did Marvel listen?

NOPE!

 

[Hummingbird]

Tamaki's Hulk is what you get when someone who's only ever written YA garbage starring paper thing teenage self-inserts is tasked with writing a competent, highly accomplished adult woman in her late twenties\early thirties. It's really off putting readin Jennifer Walters, who is supposed to be this multifaceted, confident person, take a break of "adulting" and indulge in "self care" after reading mean comments like a spoiled brat who never had to deal with those mean bullies before. And didn't it took like several issue for her to almost kinda sorta hulk out?

With the new lighter and "humorous" parts, I wonder if she's trying to catch the spirit of John Byrne's run of She-Hulk and failed. But she probably has no idea about it.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

Civil War.

It was what happened when you try to hamfistedely force Marvel characters to punch each other in the face over an issue mired in political crap, then turned into cancer when you have a ton of different writers shoehorning their politics into it, character plausibility and even overall canon be damned, and the resultant mess just leaves everyone looking like assholes.

It should've served as a dire warning against doing that in later stuff, but did Marvel listen?

NOPE!

The problem with the Civil War arc is it's built entirely around a group of people disagreeing with Captain America. This kills its plausibility right away because you know Cap is Always Right, because if he wasn't then he wouldn't be Captain America. Anyone who actually fucking stops and says "No, Cap, you are incorrect and have the wrong idea about this" is obviously a myopic moron.

 

[GethN7]

The problem with the Civil War arc is it's built entirely around a group of people disagreeing with Captain America. This kills its plausibility right away because you know Cap is Always Right, because if he wasn't then he wouldn't be Captain America. Anyone who actually fucking stops and says "No, Cap, you are incorrect and have the wrong idea about this" is obviously a myopic moron.

Keep in mind disagreeing with him isn't a total "ok, it's bullshit" proposition, but the way they did it certainly was.

He represents the ideals of America, where you are allowed to have a differing point of view of things by law, so disagreeing with him isn't inherently bad nor invalidates the moral conflict by default.

Proving him right that your argument is bullshit, especially in the hideous way Civil War did it, then it's certainly a "who thought this crap was a good idea?" thing.

 

[RockVolnutt]

Then there's the Iceman comic which proves that just because you get an author with matching labels as the main character doesn't mean they will do a good job. The author doesn't get Bobby, gay men, good jokes or good writing.

Clearly it's because Bobby is not actually gay. Joking aside, I'm still hoping some writer caves in and reveals him as bisexual with the cartoonishly gay phase being him overcompensating. He comes off as the gay equivalent of closeted men who go on about how straight they are (they exist). I haven't seen much support of it lately especially after Bendis became an enemy in the eyes of SJWs so everyone acts like they retroactively hate it.

Keep in mind disagreeing with him isn't a total "ok, it's bullshit" proposition, but the way they did it certainly was.

He represents the ideals of America, where you are allowed to have a differing point of view of things by law, so disagreeing with him isn't inherently bad nor invalidates the moral conflict by default.

Proving him right that your argument is bullshit, especially in the hideous way Civil War did it, then it's certainly a "who thought this crap was a good idea?" thing.

Only thing I "liked" about Civil War was it ending on Cap realizing the fighting was stupid.

 

[UnclePhil]

Holy Terror: Holy shit. Tried to write a paragraph describing everything wrong with this. Can't paint with proper words. Must resort to terse sentence fragments. The incoherent art. Frank Miller's descent into mental illness. The terrible attempts at Photoshopping the characters into Not-Batman, Not-Catwoman and Not-Jim Gordon to avert a last-day-before-deadline PR crisis. Jesus, this was bad. It might be the worst comic in history, and I have read through Sonichu.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight: It's the first comic I've ever attempted where I couldn't comprehend anything happening on the pages - at least Holy Terror just looked like shit. Not only was the artwork bad (those noses are the stuff of legends), Whedon's insistence on referencing bit characters from early seasons made it all the worse, since I had to guess who the surprise cameos were supposed to be. When I finally read the full synopsis on Wikipedia, no surprise there, the storyline was awful too.

 

[Irwin M. Felcher]

Weird hot naked clone chicks hatch out of eggs on a mission to kill every woman and fuck every man in a small American town. Also, the town is encased in a giant dome/sphere, making escape impossible. Also, a single human sperm cell the size of a blue whale has nested in the cornfield and shoots lasers at anyone who gets too close. And then it tries to get deep.

 

[Hui]

Sounds like the writer has been reading manga.

 

[GentlemanFaggot]

Civil War.

It was what happened when you try to hamfistedely force Marvel characters to punch each other in the face over an issue mired in political crap, then turned into cancer when you have a ton of different writers shoehorning their politics into it, character plausibility and even overall canon be damned, and the resultant mess just leaves everyone looking like assholes.

It should've served as a dire warning against doing that in later stuff, but did Marvel listen?

NOPE!

TRIGGER WARNING

Spoiler

I remember back when the above pages were what I considered to be the worst pages ever written in a comic. I didn't know it was just setting the stage for current Marvel.

Remember: Cap was wrong because he doesn't have a Myspace account.

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

Marville isn't just the worst comic I've ever read: it's a pretty good runner for worst comic ever. It started as a Marvel veep's attempt to show up Joe Quesada's writing through a "satire" of superheroes (that involves Hal Turner's time-travelling son as a very bad attempt at a Superman parody) as part of a bet on who could write a better-selling comic. As it became increasingly clear that he was going to lose, the series turned into a paint-by-numbers of every lame move a series can possibly do to try and boost readership (cheesecake cover? Check. Going Cosmic? Check. Pretentious pseudo-philosophy? Check. Cramming Wolverine in? Check.)
The penultimate issue is an angry author tract about how no one in the comics industry appreciates his genius writing, and the final issue is a sales pitch for his new imprint (which essentially functioned as an attempt to take his ball and go home). It is an abomination on virtually every level. It's best point is the fact that the art doesn't make you want to kill yourself a la Liefield.

 

[Jaimas]

If we're considering all comics from big publishers, then Marville cinches it with the force of a thermonuclear device. The Ultimate Warrior's horrible comic series is terrible, but it's also hilarious because of what incomprehensible nonsense it is.

For a long time, I'd argue my worst is the Spider-Man's Clone Saga. As in, the entire Clone Saga. With origins in 1975 and stretching almost a decade (from 1988 to 1996), the entire thing is such a legendary shit-show that everyone remotely associated with Spider-Man - writers, editors, fans, and even Marvel as a whole - try to pretend the entire thing never happened. I could try to surmise the events of the entire thing in bullet-point format and it would easily go on for six pages.

Nowadays though? Squirrel Girl's 2016-2017 run. Unequivocally the worst.

This is such a hackneyed, entry-level opinion, but Rob Liefeld's shit from the 90's really is unreadable nonsense.

A large chunk of JMS' run on The Amazing Spider-Man in the early 2000s. The totem shit was a real clunker of an attempt to "expand the mythology" and Sin's Past with the rapidly aging Goblin babbies was easily one of the worst Spider-Man related things ever conceived. And that includes 3 Dev Adam, One More Day, and those bizarre Elsa videos on youtube.

Also, pretty much every issue of every comic where Tan Eng Huat did the artwork.

Liefeld's an awful artist, but he did do some interesting ideas before he completely lost his shit. Shame few of them panned out, because some of them were ridiculously competent and in the hands of anyone else could have made for some damned good stories.

 

[Jonas]

Nowadays though? Squirrel Girl's 2016-2017 run. Unequivocally the worst.

no one was even remotely interested in it cause the art style was so bad.

not even the tumblr crowd who they were appealing to was into it. seriously, who would fucking spend their money on this?