What are the most notable examples of not "getting" the concept of the comic?

[Babylon23]

The New Gods concepts have definitely been grossly mishandled by a lot of writers (Walt Simonson and Mark Evanier are good examples of how to do things the right way):
- JM DeMatteis' attempts to link Darkseid to the Lords of Chaos in Forever People in the 80's completely missed the point of Darkseid as an representation of repressive order.
- Starlin's attempts to explain the Anti-Life Equation in Cosmic Odyssey failed miserably.
- Morrison and others depiction of Orion as a kind of cosmic Wolverine who flies off the handle all the time, as opposed to Kirby's Orion, who always fought to repress that side of his nature.
- Any writer who has Darksied constantly fighting battles on his own. In New Gods, Darkseid worked almost exclusively through underlings, as a master planner and manipulator. Getting sucker punched by Superman isn't how Darkseid operates.
- Any writer who jobs Kalibak out to their hero. Kalibak is meant to be a God of Rage, a guy who fought Orion to numerous standstills in the original series.

Some other good examples:
- Fate: Melt down Dr. Fate's helmet and give it to a grim 'n gritty character. Just awful.

- The current depiction of Iron Man in Civil War. Somewhere along the line, Marvel decided that Futurist=meglomaniacal supervillain. Tony Stark was always an optimist, working to use his technology to benefit humanity. Now he clones teammates and arrests and imprisons heroes without trial. However, I'm willing to reserve judgment on this one until Civil War is over. Marvel could always reveal that a supervillain is behind it all.

- Bendis' depiction of the Scarlet Witch completely misses the point of the character, and turned her into a bad plot device. He obviously has no understanding of the nature of her powers or her actual personality.

[berk]

The New Gods concepts have definitely been grossly mishandled by a lot of writers (Walt Simonson and Mark Evanier are good examples of how to do things the right way):
- JM DeMatteis' attempts to link Darkseid to the Lords of Chaos in Forever People in the 80's completely missed the point of Darkseid as an representation of repressive order.
- Starlin's attempts to explain the Anti-Life Equation in Cosmic Odyssey failed miserably.
- Morrison and others depiction of Orion as a kind of cosmic Wolverine who flies off the handle all the time, as opposed to Kirby's Orion, who always fought to repress that side of his nature.
- Any writer who has Darksied constantly fighting battles on his own. In New Gods, Darkseid worked almost exclusively through underlings, as a master planner and manipulator. Getting sucker punched by Superman isn't how Darkseid operates.
- Any writer who jobs Kalibak out to their hero. Kalibak is meant to be a God of Rage, a guy who fought Orion to numerous standstills in the original series.

Have to agree with all of this. I think the recent news that Starlin is going to have another crack at them makes it clear that DC isn't really serious about making any meaningful changes in how the concept has been handled ever since they pulled the rug from under Kirby, way back in the day. Too bad: I had actually been getting my hopes up for a brief moment there; how foolish of me.

[John Nowak]

John Byrne. Football hero Clark Kent.

Honestly, this is one of those things where I could go either way. Clark Kent's been all over the map. Sometimes Clark's been a pretty tough SOB in his own right (the radio show had Clark, as Clark, beat up an an armed man. Jimmy Olsen was impressed, but not astonished) and sometimes he's been depicted as an utter wimp.

Personally, I prefer a tougher Clark. The "cowardly civilian identity" is more Zorro's and the Scarlet Pimpernel's schtick.