What's your least favorite DC story?

[acagle7]

Mine is Emerald Twilight. What's yours?

[Babylon23]

Emerald Twilight definitely ranks up there for me. It turned my favourite DC character into a raving lunatic.

[Kriminal]

Any and every "big event" story (crossover) that isn't Seven Soldiers.

[hondobrode]

Batman - No Man's Land

Azrael # 100 - the absolute worst, lamest, most poorly executed send off for a title / hero that I can remember.

Avengers Disassembled

The vast majority of X-Men stories from the last 10 years or so

Defenders by Busiek and Larsen

I'll think of more I'm sure

[dancj]

Millenium
Batman/Spawn: War Devil

[The Shadow]

Identity Crisis

The return of Red Hood in Batman

Superman by Azzurello

[Kevinroc]

DC Countdown.

[glennsim]

The issue of Wonder Woman where the entire issue is about Vanessa getting her period.

Sent me away from the series until Byrne came on.

[Heraclevs]

Superman Red/Superman Blue (90's version).
Millennium
Bloodlines
Genesis
JLA/WildCATS (for personal reasons)

[literally exaggerated]

Last Laugh.

[CaptMagellan]

Identity Crisis
Countdown
War Crimes
Edited to add: Graduation Day (that one was so bad I must have blocked it)

[titanfan]

Genesis
L.A.W. Mini-Series
Graduation Day

[We R. Venom]

Death of Superman

Dark Knight Returns

[Infernorhythm]

Armaggedon 2001. I loved it, but the ending was a letdown.

[Zero Hunter]

The last year of the Legion of Super Heroes right before the reboot culmulating with the End of an Era crossover between Legion of Super Heroes, Legionaries, and Valor. That stuff was so bad I was happy to see the reboot after it. They could have gone out with such great run considering they were going to start over fresh, but instead it was the worst year worth of stories ever. Crap on all levels, and the End of an Era wrap up was the capper of a crapatisic effort.

[Patience]

I've read through Emerald Twilight, Byrne's Wonder Woman, Genesis, Loeb's Supergirl, Byrne's horrifying flashback Flash story that used the Shade as a villain and set Robinson characterization back to the Silver Age, Dezago's Impulse, much of Kelly's JLA, and numerous other stories that had me rolling my eyes. These all get honorable mention. But everything paled in comparison to this one story during Ron Marz's Green Lantern that featured Jade.

It was right after Emerald Knights (which was a story I did like), and the depowered Jade got a power ring. I went "Yay!" because my naive teenaged brain thought she'd only been depowered to make her a proper Corps-type GL. Kyle goes into space for some silly reason. Meanwhile, Fatality, a Marz created villainess that Kyle has beaten several tiems by now starts targetting Jenny.

Jenny Haden-Scott. Jade. Who was born with powers. Who was the daugther of the first, best Green Lantern -- Alan Scott.

Jenny, who, although she now had to focus her will through a ring instead of directly from herself, still knew all of the tricks of the trade, and had had the ring long enough to adjust.

Jenny should have mopped the floor with Fatality. She should not have broken a sweat.

Instead, Jenny got schooled like kindergartener. She was beaten within an inch of her life and saved by the last minute return of her boyfriend -- a boy who (although I do like him and think that now he should be considered a veteran GL) still considered himself a Rookie, and had only been in the business maybe a tenth of the time she had.

Both my sister (A rabid Ron Marz fan until this story) and I stopped reading at that issue. Unfortunately, no one has been able to redeem the character of Jade for me.

[stealthwise]

Identity Crisis.

Gotham Central - "Half a Life"

[Andy S.]

Genesis

Zero Hour

[hondobrode]

Yeah, Genesis was seriously bad, tho I liked that Kurtzberg wave idea of whatever. The story was Byrne at his worst and the art was awful !

Bloodlines was even worse, if that's possible.

[LibrarianThorne]

Superman's powerup following Final Night.

[cactusmaac]

Some Elseworld story where Batman becomes a GL.

[Gingold]

Genesis
Knightfall
Bloodlines
Emerald Twilight
L.A.W.
Judgment Day

[Apathy Boy]

MILLENNIUM - the story was bad enough, but the grossly stereotypical New Guardians put it over the top.

Runner-up: THE KINGDOM - a promising first issue followed-up by a bunch of pointless tie-ins and a limp ending. It wanted to change the DCU forever, in the most wishy-washy way ever.

[mohammedali]

Last Laugh.
Dude, how can you say that?

Mohammed Ali

[Hellpop]

A few came right to mind, but it wasn't long before I targeted my hated enemy: Dan Jurgen's post- Giffen/ DeMatteis JUSTICE LEAGUE. He clearly had no feel for the book or the characters, but it was so popular that he was obligated to keep it tied to the previous run. It was an excruciatingly bad comic under any circumstances, but made all the worse as it bastardized one of my all- time favorite books. Just painful.

Of course, my short list also includes ZERO HOUR and THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN, which leads me to boldly proclaim that Dan Jurgens is the worst writer ever to work regularly in mainstream comics.

By the way, I'm glad so many people nominated IDENTITY CRISIS. I personally find it abhorrant (though Rags' artwork, sadly, is gorgeous).

[celluloid_droid]

All that stuff where Azrael was Batman kicked ass when I was like, 12.

I grew up.

[da noble savage]

THE KINGDOM

and rebirth

Altough the kingdom wasn't that bad it's just that compared to kingdom come it was crap.

[the4thpip]

Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day.

[Zenith23]

Infinite Crisis, Issue 7 is the most stupid comic ever published.

[brundlefly]

Emerald Twilight definitely ranks up there for me. It turned my favourite DC character into a raving lunatic.

I'll go with SUPERMAN/BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES, which did the same thing for mine.

And I echo The Shadow's hate for the unwelcome resurrection of Jason Todd in Winnick's UNDER THE HOOD.

[Ontir]

"the Death of Superman" Crap from first to last.

[Joe Acro]

I think I'll say Infinite Crisis. I've never anything else that is that much a work of crap.

[Kara Zor El]

The Bloodlines crossover storyline that was in the annuals in the early 90's. Same year as Reign of the Supermen. Just pointless garbage aimed at giving us a new generation of DC heroes and villains.

The worlds Colide crossover between DC and Milestone in 94
It featured a meeting between Metropolis-based superheroes from the DC Universe and Dakota-based superheroes from the Dakotaverse.
Although the crossover had no lasting consequences in DC continuity (DC's Zero Hour event cancelled everything before out), it was remembered by Milestone's superheroes.

[Buried Alien]

GENESIS, 'nuff said.

There's a reason why this is one of the very few DC crossovers of the past twenty years not to be collected into a TPB. Even the completists would likely make an exception and pass on this one.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[David Atkins]

Green Lantern: REBIRTH. :mad:

Our Worlds at War. :mad:

[Scarlet Speedster]

Millennium
Armegeddon 2001
most of the "Bloodlines" annuals
Emerald Twilight
The dreadful fill-ins that succeeded Johns' "Rogues War" and unceremoniously ended The Flash vol. 2

[Eliseu Gouveia]

"Immortal Beloved" (Action Comics #761) - Superman and Wonder Woman spend 1,000 years in Asgard fighting demons.

What else can I say about this story that I haven´t said already?

[newscott]

Batman - No Man's Land

Azrael # 100 - the absolute worst, lamest, most poorly executed send off for a title / hero that I can remember.

Avengers Disassembled

The vast majority of X-Men stories from the last 10 years or so

Defenders by Busiek and Larsen

I'll think of more I'm sure

Really? I liked No Man's Land. I was first exposed to it in Greg Rucka's novelization, which was very enjoyable, and then found the comics also quite interesting.

[Gozwald73]

The "Trinity" crossover between Green Lantern, Darkstars, and L.E.G.I.O.N.

It was soooooooooooooooooooo bad!

[the4thpip]

The Bloodlines crossover storyline that was in the annuals in the early 90's. Same year as Reign of the Supermen. Just pointless garbage aimed at giving us a new generation of DC heroes and villains.


Ahhh, but it gave us Hitman!

[ducklord]

For my money, a DCU story (as opposed to, say, an Elseworlds) gets on my bottom 10 list if it:

1. Is, from a purely technical perspective, not very good. Panels that don't flow, clunky dialogue, internal inconsistensies, that sort of thing.
2. Features established characters that are acting wildly out-of-character. Pacifists becoming murderers, Muslims kneeling before a cross, Superman using profanity, and so on.
3. Has such lasting repurcussions that I can't mentally white it out because it keeps. Getting. Thrown. In. My. Face.

As such, my "Bad, Bad DCU Story" list is pretty short. Identity Crisis doen't make it, because, technically speaking, it's a reasonably well-assembled tale (that never should have been told). Byrne's Genesis doesn't make the list because almost everyone at DC seemed content to ignore it as soon as it was written.

Here's a few that continue to irk me:

Graduation Day
Result-driven writing at its worst. Nonsensical fights, characters acting dummer than a sack of hammers, and two of the dumbest deaths ever. Teen Titans may be a solid book, but it'll always have the stank of this dumb, dumb story on it.

Batgirl: Suddenly Psycho
Okay, maybe THIS is result-driven writing at its worst. I mean, there are probably at least a dozen ways one could plausibly get Batgirl from "near-mute heroic ultimate fighter who's pathlogically unwilling to kill" to "crazy chatty leader of League of Assassins who kills without a thought." Why choose the one path that not only makes no sense, but is actually contradicted by comics published during the previous six months? Grrrrrr.

Armageddon 2001 #2
The rest of the story is actually pretty good. But the hastily-rewritten ending, changing Monarch's identity from Captain Atom to Hawk, should ALWAYS be singled out for special attention. Even today, the scars of this stupid atupid maneuver echo throughout fandom, as every rescheduled event comic produces unwarranted speculation that the writers are "going back and changing the ending."

Grouchy,
Mike

[Bored at 3:00AM]

The godawful Justice League crossover from the early nineties where Ice gets killed in a pointless stupid death was lamer than lame. That's around when they tried to retcon in freakin' Triumpth as the JLA's founder. Ugh.

Yes, behold the world's greatest super-heroes were formed by a bad 90s Image character. Sure.

This is when I finally gave up the ghost of Giffen & DeMatties and dropped the Justice League books after a long slow decline in quality.

[Autonomy]

Nightwing until this month?

and as much as I dont want to hate Infinite Crisis, if a comic makes me go back and re-read because I thought it might get better the second time around... is not a good sign.

[Metamorpho]

Obsidian Age
Our Worlds at War

[Metamorpho]

Forgive me . Double Post

[Cassius6303]

Bloodlines for me. To me, it sums up everything that was bad about '90's comics.

Knightfall is close behind it, tho.

Death of Superman isn't on my list as we received the 'Funeral for a Friend' arc, which I found much more interesting than the actual Death and 'Return' of Superman.

Jamie

[CapFan]

Identity Crisis

Same here.

[Kara Zor El]

Ahhh, but it gave us Hitman!
But he could have arrived some other way. One gem in a mountain of crap!

[phantom1592]

Worlds at war. Just seemed dumb. And something that big shouldn't have been swept under the rug like it was.

Emerald Twilight. Ruin a perfectly good hero for nothing.

Bloodlines. Never saw anything good come from that.

[Gozwald73]

Final Night, Zero Hour, One Million - all very smelly

[kel25]

Oddly enough I loved Emerald Twilight and consider it one of the very few times that Hal has been interesting to me. Although I understand why people hate it because DC is currently doing the same thing with one of my favorite heros, Batgirl.

Lately there has been a lot of things caused by the Superboy punch that really bothers me. Same goes for a lot of the crap from all of DC’s big mega crossovers. With all the sludge DC has been oozing out and claiming is a good story it’s really hard to narrow it down to just one.

So I will go with Bruce Jones very short, thank God, run on Nightwing.

[BeastieRunner]

Infinite Crisis
Identity Crisis
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Return of Superman
Whatever it was called when Batman came back . . . Knightquest? I forget.
Jason Todd Returns as the Red Hood

I am kind of against destroying things and bringing people back it seems.

[Gozwald73]

Infinite Crisis
Identity Crisis
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Return of Superman
Whatever it was called when Batman came back . . . Knightquest? I forget.
Jason Todd Returns as the Red Hood

I am kind of against destroying things and bringing people back it seems.

It's okay - you're not the only one

[Paragon]

Crisis on Infinite Earths.

This was a very good story with very good art, but it is my ‘least favorite’ due to the effect it had.

1) Destroyed the multiverse, a truly magnificent concept.
2) Killed Barry Allen, who was at the time my favorite character.
3) Put us on the path to a continuity situation that is still causing problems 20 years later.

[David Atkins]

Green Lantern: REBIRTH. :mad:

Our Worlds at War. :mad:

Yeah, I have to add it.

Infinite Crisis. :mad:

[Saturn Girl]

Titans Hunt and Evil Lesbian Raven with the Titans Seeds. That's when Wolfman's Titans totally jumped the shark and I stopped reading comics altogether for about a decade.

[Thnikkaman]

I'd nominate pretty much anything Gerard Jones wrote in the 90s. Let's see, we've got...

* Every bit of Hal Jordan's character development being written off as a result of something called "ergono".

* Issues of Justice League Europe where the characters spend half the issue yammering about whatever philosophy book Jones had on his mind at the time.

* The JLI taking on retarded hillbillies from outer space.

* Obsidian goes emo! Not just mopey... he was literally cutting himself!

* EVERYBODY turns gay!

* El Diablo gets chicken feet!

* The characters we actually give a damn about constantly pushed aside for the likes of "Erewhon", "Maya", "Civet", "Yazz", and other random agglomerations of syllables.

Read some of that dreck and suddenly "Flash: Fastest Man Alive" looks fairly readable.

[The Scribe]

Defenders by Busiek and Larsen


:eek: Blasphemy!!! :mad:


Identity Crisis

The return of Red Hood in Batman

Winter Solider

Batman fighting Darkseid. I'm not sure what issue.

[Krypton King]

Dark Knight Strikes Again, the worst comic book story I have ever read.

[hondobrode]

Worlds at war. Just seemed dumb. And something that big shouldn't have been swept under the rug like it was.

Apparently I was the only fanboy in the world that not only liked Our Worlds At War (I even loved the name of it and its homage to the Silver Age military comic of the same name) but loved it. I'm still looking forward to the return of Imperiex !

[dupersuper]

I'll add my vote for L.A.W. I got it because the justice league were in it, but GOD was it dull.

[shyguy]

Superman: Day of Doom. Wherein Dan Jurgens writes the worst Superman comic I've ever read in my life.

Countdown to Infinite Crisis/Rann-Thanagar War/Infinite Crisis. Grouping these together since they're basically all parts of one big "story." That story being a textbook example of how not to write superhero comics.

Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman. I'm hesitant to group any particular issues together as a "story," as this trite and boring collection of books meanders through various plotlines for something like two years, but insofar as it contains a narrative at all, it's the most glaring case of a writer completely misunderstanding everything about the character he's writing for that I've ever seen.

[Augusto]

Genesis, Zero Hour.

I liked Rebirth. It gave us again Hal Jordan.http://www.smileyhut.com/happy/clap3.gif (http://www.smileyhut.com)

[Ilash]

Nothing comes close (well, okay, maybe Millenium) to the excruciating crimes done to Justice League America AFTER Jurgens left, as well as the later issues of Justice League International and (*shudder*) Extreme Justice. Jurgens run wasn't great but I really liked the Destiny storyline and he generally had his moments on the book. After that though, it went from pretty bad to unreadably, offensively horrible.

And just to defend Dan Jurgens in general, yeah, I know some of his stuff has been rather less than good but I really do like a sizable portion of his Superman run.