Best And Worst Comic Stories

[tbondrage99 0]

I was wondering what everyone thinks the best story line has ever been in a comic and which is the worst.

 

My personal favorite has to be Batman: The Long Halloween, the least favorite is without a shadown of a doubt that god awful Spider-Man Clone Saga.

[algrim 0]

Best: X-men: Dark Phoenix Saga

Worst: DC's Zero Hour

[starvenger 0]

I'm going to exclude self-contained and non-continuity series, since otherwise you're looking at things like Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen et al., but it allows "event" stories like Crisis and Contest of Champions...

 

Best: I think X-Men from Giant-Size to around Fall of the Mutants is one of the best runs in comics, period, but I have a hard time picking just one storyline. I guess the Phoenix Saga stands out. Honourable mention to my guilty pleasure, Ellis' Stormwatch run.

 

Worst: I'd like to say the Clone saga, but to be honest it started out ok, and what really killed it for me was the fact that it kept going on and on and on. Well, that and the whole "Peter is the clone, Ben is the real deal" thing. So I'm gonna have to say Avengers Disassembled, which I think was a big clusterfuck.

[Special K 0]

I'm using Starvenger's creterium.

 

You know, Maximum Carnage was WAY worse than the Clone Saga. It's just the Clone Saga was longer.

 

I'll say my pick for best is, hmmm. Alan Moore's first storyline in Swamp Thing Swamp Thing learns he was never human, and kills. and Garth Ennis's first first storyline in Hellblazer. Of all the things that could've killed him, Constantine gets cancer from all the cigs he smokes.

[Guest Indy]

Best-Street Fighter from UDON. This is probebly better than the stuff from Japan.

 

Worst-Urg, Avengers Dissamble. Really, why kill of Hawkeye!? WHY HAWKEYE!? HE WAS THE BEST ONE!!!

[Special K 0]

*Sigh*, I haven't had use for them before but:

How do you do spoiler tags?

 

EDIT: I don't want to derail a good thread, but it'll add to my post if I'm able to mention the specific storyline without spoiling it.

[algrim 0]

Ditto. I want to know how to post spoiler tags.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

You simply bracket the stuff you want to be in spoiler text with [ spoiler ] and [/ spoiler ], only without the spaces.

 

Just like quoting, only not.

 

See?

[Mecha Mummy 0]

Best: Kingdom Come, Watchmen

 

Worst: The Clone Saga of Spider-Man, Get Kraven, Chuck Austen's X-Men: The Draco.

[algrim 0]

Many thanks, Metal Maniac for the quick tutorial. YO THE MAN.

[Renegade 0]

Other good stories that haven't been mentioned:

 

Spider-man: Death of Harry Osborn, Death of Aunt May and Death in the family.

Green Arrow: Archer's Quest

Batman: Dark Victory and Pushback (guilty pleasure)

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, Born Again and Hardcore.

 

Worst: Right now sins past.

[haws bah gawd 0]

Am I the only person who thought the entire Onslaught storyline from the mid 90's kicked all sorts of ass?

Juggernaut finding out Onslaught was Xavier, and discovering it was Onslaught that killed off the X-Men in Bishop's Future, and not Gambit sent chills down my spine the first time I read the story.

 

I also loved the Age of Apocalypse, as well as the Apocalypse storyline from the late 90's Wolverine being "killed", then the real Wolverine becoming Death, and Cyclops being killed off for a bit

 

I give the close saga my nod for worst story ever.

[pochorenella 0]

Can't make up my mind as to which one's are my favorite right now, so I'll just say whatever comes to mind:

 

Best: Daredevil Born Again

Worst: X-Men X-ecutioner's Song.

[starvenger 0]

I also loved the Age of Apocalypse, as well as the Apocalypse storyline from the late 90's Wolverine being "killed", then the real Wolverine becoming Death, and Cyclops being killed off for a bit

I agree AoA was pretty interesting. Probably the best crossover "event" of the Harras era, as the X-team were very cohesive and firing on all cylinders at the time. Also, reading Jim Trabold's column on IP, there were so many little things that they threw in there to make it fun for the reader that I missed the first time around.

 

Plus, pretty, shiny, precious chromium covers. We loves the precious chromium covers...

[JasonX 0]

Am I the only person who thought the entire Onslaught storyline from the mid 90's kicked all sorts of ass?

Juggernaut finding out Onslaught was Xavier, and discovering it was Onslaught that killed off the X-Men in Bishop's Future, and not Gambit sent chills down my spine the first time I read the story.

 

I also loved the Age of Apocalypse, as well as the Apocalypse storyline from the late 90's Wolverine being "killed", then the real Wolverine becoming Death, and Cyclops being killed off for a bit

 

I give the close saga my nod for worst story ever.

Onslaught has aged horribly especially given how:

 

1. The entire story was written on the fly with no one knowing who or what Onslaught was going to be until four months before the crossover began, when Mark Waid suggested Onslaught be Xavier and even then no one giving the story any sort of logic save for Xavier going nutso and everyone fighting him...

 

2. The shitty way they resolved the X-Traitor story by nonsensically making it Xavier instead of Gambit, like it was originally intended

 

3. The entire storyline being hijacked by the suits and the ending changed so as to make it serve as the launching vehicle for Heroes Reborn

[Guest JMA]

Best stories: Kingdom Come, Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns

 

Worst stories: The Spider-Man Clone Saga (it got TOO convoluted)

[tbondrage99 0]

Im glad to see The Clone saga is getting no love

[Sass 0]

Best stories:

 

Most of Marvel's books the from the 60's to the 80's.

 

Worst stories:

 

Many of Marvel's books from 1995 to the present.

 

DC has been too schizo over the past 20 years to churn out a consistent crop of great books. There have been many good stories but the crap outweighs the good. The latest story in Identity Crisis being a prime example of DC's poor story pay-offs (this can also be applied to Marvel as well).

 

Dark Horse comics in the late 80's and early 90's deserves an honorable mention for having many great stories and characters coming out during this time. So does Miracleman, which still holds up well today.

[JasonX 0]

Best stories:

 

Most of Marvel's books the from the 60's to the 80's.

 

Worst stories:

 

Many of Marvel's books from 1995 to the present.

 

DC has been too schizo over the past 20 years to churn out a consistent crop of great books.  There have been many good stories but the crap outweighs the good.  The latest story in Identity Crisis being a prime example of DC's poor story pay-offs (this can also be applied to Marvel as well).

 

Dark Horse comics in the late 80's and early 90's deserves an honorable mention for having many great stories and characters coming out during this time.  So does Miracleman, which still holds up well today.

ID Crisis's problem is mainly that it requires you to be a big fan of the JLA circa the 1970s/early 1980s/REALLY HATE Batman to truly GET the series, especially with regards to the big reveal which involves a major but utterly forgettable plot point regarding the Atom in order to work.

 

Spoiler Space for IDC #7:

 

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The entire climax is totally and utterly dependant on the reader knowing about the Atom's personal life and the early 80s Sword of Atom series, which had Atom's ex turn evil and dump him for another man.

[Sass 0]

I long for the days when comics would use the "see issue #124 for details" but then that would hinder most hack writers from following simple continuity. Comics need good *editors* today, not more writers.

 

IC had no hope to succeed. It could not turn one of the heroes bad since DC is *still* reeling from turning GL into a bad guy. Fans won't accept that. The only hope was to turn one of the 3rd stringer villains into a major baddie with an impressive showdown against the JLA where he/she holds their own well. But that would have needed at least an 8th issue to impress people with and the chances of that succeeding would have been slim.

 

This entire story was just jerk off for Meltzer. IC gave me some hope but things became convoluted by the time Deathstroke got beaten down. This was the first time I had expectations for a story do well in a couple years and it turned out to be a letdown.

 

But I digress.

 

Another *really* bad story:

 

The Crossing.

 

This is one of the worst stories Marvel ever did. Ever. It's just so tremendously damning to read as a comic book fan. I can't stress this enough. I know people who still bring this up as the reason for why they stopped buying comics. It helped ruin what was left of the Iron Man franchise and dragged the Avengers name through the mud until Onslaught stuck the final nail in the coffin.

[JasonX 0]

I long for the days when comics would use the "see issue #124 for details" but then that would hinder most hack writers from following simple continuity.  Comics need good *editors* today, not more writers.

 

IC had no hope to succeed.  It could not turn one of the heroes bad since DC is *still* reeling from turning GL into a bad guy.  Fans won't accept that.  The only hope was to turn one of the 3rd stringer villains into a major baddie with an impressive showdown against the JLA where he/she holds their own well.  But that would have needed at least an 8th issue to impress people with and the chances of that succeeding would have been slim.

 

This entire story was just jerk off for Meltzer.  IC gave me some hope but things became convoluted by the time Deathstroke got beaten down.  This was the first time I had expectations for a story do well in a couple years and it turned out to be a letdown. 

 

But I digress.

 

Another *really* bad story:

 

The Crossing.

 

This is one of the worst stories Marvel ever did.  Ever.  It's just so tremendously damning to read as a comic book fan.  I can't stress this enough.  I know people who still bring this up as the reason for why they stopped buying comics.  It helped ruin what was left of the Iron Man franchise and dragged the Avengers name through the mud until Onslaught stuck the final nail in the coffin.

RE IDC; it could have been worse, IE they fall back on fucking Lex Luthor to be the killer instead of him being a huge red herring.

 

That being said, the main reason the ending is being dumped upon is the anti-continuity brigade is pissy that they had to know about the Atom's backstory in order to get the killer's motivation. And Meltzer is slightly to blame too, for the way that he wrote the book assuming that people would see Jean and automatically recognize her as the evil cunt from hell who fucked another guy while married to Atom and then tormented Atom so badly in the divorce trial that Atom ended up spending years in a subatomic state just to escape the cunt....

 

As for Crossing; the story was actually pretty good UP UNTIL they introduced teen Tony.

 

It defied logic especially since given everything going on at the time that rather than fucking up the time stream to get a teenage version of Tony Stark that they SHOULD HAVE use the machine to go back in time and rescue fucking Reed Richards and Doctor Fucking Doom from exploding!!!!!

 

This fucked up the story, though the final issue was somewhat redeemable with Kang and Mantis kicking everyone's asses and the sureal image of the Avengers trying to save Mantis's soul through TENTACLE RAPE!!!!!

[Sass 0]

Iron Man turning bad was *really* bad. The book was readable until adult Stark was revealed as the mind raped killer that Mantis seduced and Kang controlled. The premise was okay. It got rid of Gilgamesh and Yellowjacket 2 but killing off Jarvis would have been something solid instead of killing off the Ogre nanny. But the damage that the Crossing did to Iron Man was severe. Like I said, I still know many people to this day who turned on comics because of how Marvel "GL'ed" Iron Man, which came about just a year after GL went AWOL from the GL Corps. Poor timing. Crappy storyline resolution. Young Stark was such a slap in the face to fans, ala replacing older Hal for the younger Rayner.

 

The storyline should have tied into the FF brining back Richards with Doom tagging along as a surprise. That would have been a much more satisfying conclusion. At least Marvel could have bilked fans for both books with a decent pay-off, something the company has been unable to do for years.

 

IC did *not* need the old Atom or 1st series JLA books to make the book work. Jean just needed to have a stronger build-up given to her when she made her re-appearance in issue #2 and the story would not have suffered. The old Atom series could have been brought up in the "see Sword of the Atom series" in IC so fans could go back and see what Jean was all about but there was no mention like that in the book. Make fans care about her by giving them some insight into her past. At least Meltzer turned Jean into the psycho bitch she should have been made into earlier. Still, the killer's ID was a letdown anyways. It was wasted on a bit character who should have seen the killer push given to someone else, like...Mr.Element (I kid, but the point still stands).

[pochorenella 0]

My God, how could I forget "The Crossing?"

 

Insanely bad story that totally fucked up my favorite comic-book character (Iron Man) and left the Avengers a complete mess. But unlike other people, I truly believe the Avengers and Iron Man were salvaged with their respective relaunches (specially the awesome Busiek-Perez run), even though to this day I believe nobody has fully explained the return of grown-up Tony.

[Kurt Angle Mark 0]

For Best Story I would like to recommend to everyone the best mini-series this year

 

DC:The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke

 

The story is set in the 1950's as the silver age of heroes make their debut and unite to stop a threat that could destroy the world. This book will blow you away, there are just too many moments for me to list.

 

The First Trade collecting the first three issues comes out this week and if you got $20 bucks to spare I recommend you check it out.

 

Here is the cover for the first trade

 

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=33764

[Guest KitsonGT]

My God, how could I forget "The Crossing?"

 

Insanely bad story that totally fucked up my favorite comic-book character (Iron Man) and left the Avengers a complete mess. But unlike other people, I truly believe the Avengers and Iron Man were salvaged with their respective relaunches (specially the awesome Busiek-Perez run), even though to this day I believe nobody has fully explained the return of grown-up Tony.

In one of the Busiek/Perez annuals (I believe it was 2000, with the Triune/Pym stuff), there was a mini-story where Duane the Liason was e-mailing Jarvis these questions, along with the formation of Cap's shield and the rebirth of the Wasp. The official answer was that when Franklin Richards recreated the heroes, he created them as he knew them. There was a cutscene of Stark saying "My God, the memories of three people are in my head." They tried to dig up the original Tony's corpse, and found nothing, so Iron Man is multiple Tony's in one head. Also, Hawkeye doesn't need a hearing aid anymore.

[Guest PlatinumBoy]

Iron Man turning bad was *really* bad.  The book was readable until adult Stark was revealed as the mind raped killer that Mantis seduced and Kang controlled.  The premise was okay.  It got rid of Gilgamesh and Yellowjacket 2 but killing off Jarvis would have been something solid instead of killing off the Ogre nanny.  But the damage that the Crossing did to Iron Man was severe.  Like I said, I still know many people to this day who turned on comics because of how Marvel "GL'ed" Iron Man, which came about just a year after GL went AWOL from the GL Corps.  Poor timing.  Crappy storyline resolution.  Young Stark was such a slap in the face to fans, ala replacing older Hal for the younger Rayner.

 

The storyline should have tied into the FF brining back Richards with Doom tagging along as a surprise.  That would have been a much more satisfying conclusion.  At least Marvel could have bilked fans for both books with a decent pay-off, something the company has been unable to do for years.

 

IC did *not* need the old Atom or 1st series JLA books to make the book work.  Jean just needed to have a stronger build-up given to her when she made her re-appearance in issue #2 and the story would not have suffered.  The old Atom series could have been brought up in the "see Sword of the Atom series" in IC so fans could go back and see what Jean was all about but there was no mention like that in the book.  Make fans care about her by giving them some insight into her past.  At least Meltzer turned Jean into the psycho bitch she should have been made into earlier.  Still, the killer's ID was a letdown anyways.  It was wasted on a bit character who should have seen the killer push given to someone else, like...Mr.Element (I kid, but the point still stands).

Something cool though that Identity Crisis did give us is an evil Flash and an evil Atom if the writers choose to use them. It's doubtful, but I could see Luthor or someone making a "JLA rivals" team with Jean, Boomerang's son, Zod (or someone similar), Prometheus, etc. etc.

 

 

Edited to say: And to fit the question, some answers.

 

Worst: For these I'll stick to series--not short stories like Watchmen/Kingdom Come (which would come in best)

 

I've said it before, but Magneto's return in Ultimate X-Men was stupid. The Clone Saga of course. I always HATED how Optimus Prime died in Transformers; at least Megatron went out like a badass. Add in some generic crossover shit Marvel did that forced a young teen to have to spend 1,000 dollars a month it seemed to follow the Mutant books over at Marvel.

 

Best: Morrison's run on JLA where they fought The Shaggy Man and Amazo and stuff was fun. Moore's runs on Supreme and Swamp Thing. Busiek bringing Avengers back was fun stuff as well. The X-Men series where Magneto returned (Fatal Attraction?) was what got me into comics, so I'd have to say that for personal reasons. Also, my favorite three Old School Marvel comics to buy... Byrne's Fantastic Four run, Avengers in the mid 70's (with Beast, Korvac, etc. etc.) and Walt's Thor run.

[converge241 0]

Crisis on Infinite Earths has been and will probably remain my favorite/best comic book story ever

 

others:

Byrnes FF, Superman and West Coast avengers runs, the Giffen/Demattis Justice League run, morrison Doom Patrol and Milligan Shade right before Vertigo got its name, New XMen E is for Extinction, the original Books of Magic mini-series, Arkham Asylum, The Golden Age, Watchmen, a bunch of others im forgetting

 

i cant think of a good worst..i mean ive read a lot of crap but cant pinpoint what i would want to label as worst..ill just highlight some recent stuff that was very, very disapointing:

azarrello and Lee's Superman run

Avengers Dissasembled

Dark Knight sequel

[Guest PlatinumBoy]

Crisis on Infinite Earths has been and will probably remain my favorite/best comic book story ever

 

others:

Byrnes FF, Superman and West Coast avengers runs, the Giffen/Demattis Justice League run, morrison Doom Patrol and Milligan Shade right before Vertigo got its name, New XMen E is for Extinction, the original Books of Magic mini-series, Arkham Asylum, The Golden Age, Watchmen, a bunch of others im forgetting

 

i cant think of a good worst..i mean ive read a lot of crap but cant pinpoint what i would want to label as worst..ill just highlight some recent stuff that was very, very disapointing:

azarrello and Lee's Superman run

Avengers Dissasembled

Dark Knight sequel

As for Crisis, it's one of my favorite Xmas memories ever. Junior year in high school (Winter of 2000 for those keeping track), my Mom got me a Mad Magazine compilation for Xmas along with lots of other stuff, turned out I had already bought it for myself a few months ago. Then, I get sick around New Years. She returns the Mad book and returns home with Crisis in TPB. It made up for the suckyness of missing New Years, as I sat down and was amazed at how many characters they managed to fit in there and make it work.

 

Also... Hawk and Dove are brothers. Yet in Dark Knight Strikes Back... they are gay lovers. Yea.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Best: The Death of Superman, Maximum Carnage

Worst: when they turned Superman into the shitty Super Electric Man

[Guest PlatinumBoy]

Best: The Death of Superman, Maximum Carnage

Worst: when they turned Superman into the shitty Super Electric Man

As a kid I loved me some Death of Superman and Return of Superman. Those got me through tons of car rides as a youngun... espically the HUGE Return of Superman. I still like Death--I love the "JLA throws all their energy right at Doomsday and he just laughs it off" scene, and lots of other stuff... but the few problems I have are common ones.

 

1) The gas station explosion. I can see this hurting Superman because of Doomsday already hurting him... but come on. It did WAY too much damage to Superman and Maxima it seems. Still a somewhat cool visual with Superman and Maxima totalled and Doomsday still in it.

 

2) Ice not dying. I know. I know. It's comics. Hulk's swatted Black Panther before, Shaggy Man punched Batman, Green Arrow was thrown through a brick chimney, and Wolverine can survive shots from Class 100 folks. But... no one of these were people who put down SUPERMAN. He punched her straight in the ribs. Unless he likes just playing with heroes and hurting them (my rationalization of it even since then) this should have killed her.

 

3) Worse than Ice not dying: Booster Gold not dying. The guy got a car door slammed on his neck by a guy who juggles skyscrapers.

 

4) Worse than both of these times 1000. Blue Beetle living. I love the guy. Beetle is one of the best cheeseball heroes ever. Besides, if it wasn't for him we wouldn't have NITE OWL in Watchmen--the hero of all pudgy Jewish bankers. Even in comic book land, getting your FACE slammed through steel pipes and into cement should decapitate you. Espically when your a normal human getting slugged by a guy who swats away Darkseid. Also Ice... it's good you want to save Beetle, but why not let the strongest standing leauge member fight Doomsday... the one who can provide a decent fight aganist Superman level foes?

 

5) Superman's strategy. It was an epic fight. However, why oh why didn't Superman just chuck him into orbit. He knew Doomsday didn't fly. Just leave him floating in space until you get better or get better help than a bunch of jobbers. Once again I love Beetle and Booster Gold and those guys, but for back up it would be the Marvel equivalent of Ultron and Loki coming to your city to cause havoc and the only heroes showing up be the Great Lake Avengers or The Power Pack coming to save the day when you expected Thor. Just plant Doomsday in space for a while, wait till someone like Captain Marvel, a better Green Lantern than Guy (Hal or Alan), Wonder Woman, Dr. Fate, Orion, etc. etc. can help you.

 

I still like the book though. As a kid I would always read it and wonder what kind of destruction Doomsday would cause in the Marvel world? Figured most of the Avengers, X-folk, and Fantastic Four would be dead before Surfer, Thor, Hulk, or Warlock or someone figured out a way to stop Doomsday.