I'm not sure if this counts, but in the early 90s, there was a special edition Spider-Man comic that featured Ghost Rider in (of all exotic locations) Toronto, Canada.
It started off bad (Spidey swinging ABOVE the world's tallest free standing structure), and quickly got worse.
There was not a single supervillain. Instead there were a few thugs, and kids not wearing helmets while on their bikes. The main conflict of this comic was that some Canadian kids weren't wearing safety gear.
So, Ghost Rider rides in, and THREATENED the kids. I believe the quote is, "Wear your helmets, or I'll be seeing you REAL SOON!"

Chris (From Canada... home of evil helmetless kids, and Weapon X.)

One of those Phantom Stranger origin stories you hated so much was written by a man named Alan Moore. It's in his "Best of" compilation. He also wrote something called "Watchmen" ... maybe you heard of it?

It was over the course of three issues, but my vote goes to The Muppets Take Manhattan miniseries. Like most Marvel adaptations, it was terrible, but in this case using a silent and sedentary medium to adapt a musical with familiarly-voiced characters and familiar actors is just plain asinine. And Only the Muppet Babies are allowed to have legs, dammit!!!

PS. I neglected to mention it was also a MUSICAL IN COMIC BOOK FORM!!!

Go crawl back under the rock Alan Moore lives under so you can firmly re-attach your lips to his asshole, fantard. We don't need that bullshit Moore worship.

Anyway . . . worst single issue comic I've ever read. That one issue of Ultimatum where Blob eats the Wasp. I mean, I've read some shit comics in my day, seen all kinds of excesses from the '80s and '90s, but I got to give it to Loeb.

Okay I did mention it, I have a bad short term memory.

The Life of Pope John Paul II from Marvel Comics, 1982

Why? This is the comic book equivalent of watching paint dry. It was put out by MARVEL and not by some no name independent company. At least they could have had Pope JP kicking some devil ass. I'd rather read Jack Chick propaganda pamphlets than this boring, unnecessary comic. Marvel should be ashamed for releasing this and I should be ashamed for actually owning it. Admittedly though, I bought it from the bargain bin for the shear novelty of owning this slap in the face to comic readers of all ages.

I remember that comic - they handed it out to us when I was in junior high in Winnipeg. It was essentially a message comic, using superheroes to convey the message that you should wear a bike helmet.

Of course, Ghost Rider never wore a bike helmet, so there was kind of a mixed message there.

Darren MacLennan

I don't know how I got it or why but the one that springs to mind is the one shot of Godzilla vs. Barkley. I'm pretty sure it was based on the Nike commercials from 1992 and it featured an absolutely bat-shit insane plot. Godzilla returns from the depths and destroys and Japanese freighter. Meanwhile in Los Angeles a young boy named Matthew and his grandfather attempt to meet Charles Barkley while he's filming a commercial (for Nike, of course) but are turned away by his douchebag of an agent. They dejectedly walk off and head to the beach, at just the moment the only survivor of the freighter washes ashore. He tells them that Godzilla is coming and Matthew decides the only man who can stop Godzilla is Barkley (I would have thought Shaq since he knows Shaq Fu but whatever). Before he runs off to find Barkley, since he's "...Earth's greatest warrior! Only he can stop Godzilla!", Matthew's grandpappy gives him a silver dollar that he says is magical. Matt breaks his way through Barkley's entourage and tries to convince him to fight Godzilla. Barkley reacts how you would think and says hells naw. Matt then challenges Barkley to a game of basketball and if Matt wins than Barkley has to fight Godzilla. Barkley agrees and Matt flips him the coin to see who will get the ball first. The coin turns out to really be magical as it causes Barkley to grow to skyscraper heights. After this development Barkley decides he can take on Godzilla after all and goes to meet the green guy in the middle of Los Angeles. After a quick and pointless fist fight Barkley convinces Godzilla to play him in a game of basketball because, "It's a little known fact that Godzilla is a sucker for b-ball!". They head to an old military base in the desert and Barkley turns a space shuttle launch tower into a basketball hoop. An epic game is played until Godzilla turns into a poor sport and melts the ball because he's losing. Barkley then gets him a pair of Nikes and tells him to practice up and "...you could maybe get a try-out with the Bulls, one of those second-rate teams". Barkley returns to LA, shrinks back to normal size and returns the coin to Matt. As far as we know Godzilla is still shooting hoops in the desert. Thanks Dark Horse!

The first issue of Top Ten post-Alan Moore. I refuse to look up the writer's name. He is dead to me. Or should be. He took a great comic full of complex characters and turned it into really shitty fanfiction. Seriously. Starts out with everyone happily paired up, moves into taking the teamed officers and pairing them up with their exact opposite in an attempt to be wacky? I don't know. Ends it by ruining an enigmatic character that may or may not have existed. It blew. I actually physically threw it across the room from me and refused to touch it again.

I submit this story:

After briefly explaining the origins of Storm, Spider-Man, and Luke Cage (all on one page, directly behind the cover) it is made aware that teen/kid smoking is on the rise in New York City. This is done by a dastardly villain known as Smokescreen. His power? To shoot second hand smoke at kids to get them to smoke or at one point subdue superheroes in a cloud of noxious gas. Storm was knocked out by a highly potent cloud of the secondhand smoke.

I don't really remember how it ended, but all in all Spider-Man, Cage, and Storm taught me the perils of smoking and peer pressure and sending that evil pusher Smokescreen to jail. However, now thinking back on it that, what an odd team to defeat such a lame enemy.

Hmm.. "Watchmen"? Nope, doesn't ring a bell. Is it any good nate?

Watchmensch. I didn't read it, per se, I flipped through it at the comic shop. Seriously, "Dr Manhattan" is created by getting covered in blue paint. Stupid.

Also, up there in shittiness, was the issue when the X-Men moved to San Francisco. I think is was X-Men #500. Who's bright idea was it to assume that California would be safe for mutants just because its safe for homosexuals. I just don't give a shit anymore.

It would be too easy for me to dig up one of the dozens of public service/commercial tie-in comics DC and Marvel has punished us with (Superman meets The Quik Bunny, Spider-Man and Power Pack look back on young Peter Parker being fondled, The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man, Superman and the Radio Shack Whiz Kids, The Avengers meet David Letterman, etc.) or mini-series like Secret Wars 2 (where we get to see Spider-Man teach the Beyonder how to take a shit - it wasn't as awesome as it sounds, believe me)so I'll stick to "canon" comic book series with long running titles.

Among the worst - one of those old creaky Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen comics (don't ask for the issue number, I have no idea and don't care to know)from the early 1960's. In this particular "adventure", Superman decides to teach Jimmy Olsen a lesson in humility or some other trite shit, and fakes Jimmy's mother's death, with Jimmy's mother happily participating in the "lesson". We get to see Jimmy go through the many stages of grief when one loses a loved one, and then on the last page Superman reveals his cruel joke and flies good ol' mom back, with her fat ass resting on Superman's hand as he goes for the landing. I guess the added insult, if you're so inclined to stretch your imagination, is that Superman is boffing Jimmy's mom. Or maybe not. But she looked too damn comfortable resting her ass in the palm of that big blue dickhead.

Fuck Superman, Jimmy Olsen's fat ass mother, and the DC writers for making this kind of shit up, especially considering that this comic was made back when young kids were the target audience. They ban comics with morality lessons like the EC Comics (where only the truly despicable got theirs), yet let douchbags like Superman use something like death to fuck around with the emotions of his so called "Pal", a teenager who's biggest crime was being slightly annoying. None of us need a "Pal" like that. Fuck you, 1960's Superman. Fucking asshole, I hope you choke on a kryptonite turd.

Ok try this one on

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/2/26700/667438-capta1_super.jpg

Ok basically I got this comic as a kid because I has Asthma and to cheer me up and all the other poor kids who could hold a cat or smoke like the rest of the cool kids, Captain America would fight the monster that gives you asthma.

It starts out with a a bunch of imps attack a kid, these imps all cause asthma because they breathe smoke, or cause pet fur to form and alot of other wild and crazy crap.

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/alergn.htm#allergen

just incase you really care.

The story ends up breaking down into a tale where the kid who can't breathe helps Captain America because they cause Cap to not be able to breath, also the moral of the story is to accept who you are, because back when he was plain Steve Rodgers Captain America has Asthma.

So yeah the moral of the story is to accept who you are, really coming from a guy who basically went into a suicide machine to change everything about him including his asthma, why not have Paris Hilton tell me about the joys of reading?

Jesus, Nate, please tell us you're being ironic. If you're one of those toadies who thinks every cocktail napkin Moore ever scribbled on should be hung in the friggin' Louvre, let me direct you to his novel, "The Voice of the Fire," which reads like he finally managed to crawl completely up his own ass. At least the first chapter does. I haven't been sick, sad, or bored enough to crack it again. In fact, you can have my copy if you like. So you can while away the hours lovingly wanking into its pages, whispering "Alan... Alan... Alan...".

That being said, I've got no single issue memory worthy of mention. So, carry on...

Any thing written by Tony Isabella could go on this list from Black Lightning to Ghost Rider. Yes, he was the one who made Johnny Blaze a born-again Christian and no longer Satan's Ghost Rider. Sweet Christmas is that stupid. But honestly you ask for a single issue and well that is easy. Amazing Spider-man 545, the finale of "One More Day".

You have to understand that I have been a life long Spidey fan and well we could go into the Clone "Saga" aka fucking garbage. Or even Straczynski's addition of the ninja bastard twins of Norman Osborn and Gwen Stacy buuuuuut nothing is quite as bad or as fucking retarded as the end of "One More Day".

You see to ret-con Spidey and make people buy more comics they decided to end his marriage in the comic story line. Now here are the ways and reasons that is a fucking horrible story.

Mephisto wants to trade Pete and MJ's marriage for Aunt May's life. Why? Because true love is so rare and all. What? Huh? FUCK!!! Why would Mephisto care? He is the Marvel's version of the DEVIL! Spidey would make a deal with the DEVIL!?! When did Petey become dumber than a kid in Special Ed? And why oh why would he just want to erase their marriage? Why not have Spider-man work for him? I mean it worked for Tony Stark but hey that is why we had to come this ret-con crossroads right?

Now I do not know who out there is married or at least in a serious relationship but to give it up as if it never happened is a lot to ask. So much so in the fact that with the ominous tone and all of giving it up and not knowing what was gonna happen seems to me a leap of faith. More of a leap than a guy with spider powers and that is sayin something!

You know what? Fuck it! Go read this story and if you are even slightly a Spidey fan then you will be depressed. Not because the story is sad itself but the fact that it is a cheap and shitty way out of a storyline and shits on about TWENTY YEARS of stories! I am done talking about it I just wanna forget it all. Where is Mephisto?

"Hey Mephisto. I will trade you my turkey sandwich to make me forget this stupid fucking nonsense!"

I'd have to say any story by Jack Chick...although...nvm.

This isn't for the contest, but Joss had to change a lot for the pilot of Dollhouse. Therefore it's not as good as it could have been. I think it will get better, since he has to build up to what he was originally going to do. Fox still sucks.

In response to y2jbrak: Mary-Jane was a bitch and Peter's better off without her. She should've been shot instead of May (which would've been better than ret-conning stuff). Oh and Sins Past was the best ASM arc ever.

Crazybus you funny mofo! Yeah even THAT would have been more of a story that milking the old tired ass Aunt May shit!

spazweez, if that is an open offer to take that Alan Moore book I would love to have it. I bet it is terrible but I have read enough of Moore's stuff to try it out. And as for the Phantom Stranger book, it actually was pretty good all the way around. I mean not as book for a kid on a sick day but if you like the Phantom Stranger it is a really cool book.

You see the Stranger never had an origin until that book. And btw, the Moore story is the coolest one in the book. The whole point of it was to kinda let the fans pick which origin they liked the best. So yeah, on its own it makes for shit reading but if you knew who the character was then you could dig it. Even if you didn't, its still better than anything Todd McFarland has ever written.

"Alan...Alan...Alan..." LMFAO

P.S. Sins Pasts best arc ever...You are hilarious! Seriously!?! Bet you like Scott Lobdell too. Please tell me you are kidding.

the worse comic i read was an issue of uncanny x-men where the x-men were taken prisoner and controlled by a robot thing named nanny during their time down under. and Colluses asks Havok why did he kill Storm . hate the issue it was stupid to me.

This is a comic i personally never owned, but instead read online thanks to a wonderful collector that scanned each page in to share the total failure that was this comic. Its one of the few comics ever recalled by DC, i am talking about Elseworlds the 80 page giant.

Some of the "great" stories this issue contained was about Superman as a baby, being babysat, and climbing into a microwave to get nuked and drinking milk from a cow's udder.

Now that was honestly the only story from that comic i remembered now almost 6+ years after i first read it online, but thanks to the gods of Wiki, heres a list of some of the other highlights from the same issue

Rockumentary: Reporter Dinah Drake gives the behind-the-scenes history of the most famous music producer of all time, Lex Luthor.

The Vigilantes of Apartment 3-B: Sexy roommates Dinah Drake and Barbara Gordon are Black Canary and Batgirl, and when they're not dealing with crime they're dealing with their love live

Batman with Eve in The Garden of Evil: Adam dons the mask of Batman to protect his lover Eve from the Joker-faced Serpent in the Garden of Eden.

Superman in President Abraham (Brainiac) Lincoln Vs. Clark Kent, Metallo: Kal-El is found by the Booth Family, and tries to kill the president.

Batman with Robin, the Squid Wonder: Batman fights crime under the sea.

Luthor's Daughter, Wonder Woman: Lex Luthor goes back in time and becomes Wonder Woman's father.
Menace of the Gorilla-Explorer: Christopher Grodd Columbus of Gorilla City discovers America.

Liberte, Egalite, Metallica: The Metal Men fight for the people during the French Revolution.

Dark Night of the Golden Kingdom: A parody of the famous Elseworlds tale Kingdom Come. Batman is dead and Superman left the Earth twenty years ago, partially because he is tired and he cannot stand the beeping of Jimmy Olsen's watch. It is now up to Aquahawk, Martian Manhuntress, Negative Woman, and Green Canary to fight against the composite Joker-Luthor

And to show you that i am not crazy and makeing this up

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/300/

Go read some of the comic there yourself and i think you will see how this issue was so bad that it might even have been a little bit good.

Uncanny X-Men number 1. I have no idea how a successful, multi-million dollar franchise was born from such a terrible comic. I know that Kirby is amazing and that Stan Lee is a pioneer. The issue is a priceless gem as far as collector value goes... but it is so absolutely excruciating that I could barely finish the thing.

Stan Lee's hyperbolic and over-exposed writing really did the story a disservice. The best example was Jean Grey was running and there was a hole in the ground and apparently she was running so fast that she didn't have time to change her course... BUT! She did have time to think (and I'm paraphrasing)"Oh no! There is a hole in the way, I don't have time to avoid it! I know! I'll use my marvelously mental mutant ability to move this log to cover the hole!"

Holy hell that was awful. I love Stan Lee for coming up with those ideas (which that fact, some would debate). But, those first few issues of X-men, were abominable.

Usually the 100th issue of a comic book indicates a magazine that has managed a fairly successful and popular run.

Then there's "The Adventures of Bob Hope", published by DC Comics. In the 100th issue, Hope's nephew (yes, the Bob Hope of Film and Oscar Hosting fame) "Super-Hip" is elected President of the United States. Super-Hip is way hipper than all of the Beatles, sings better than three of them (who *can't* sing better than Ringo? Even the Cookie Monster sings better than Ringo - but I disgress)even if he looks like a young version of Hope with blond hair. Of course, there's a crisis right away, when the Staff of Benedict Arnold High School takes exception to his election.

The staff, it might surprise you to learn, are monsters from the old days of Universal Pictures. You know, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolfman and such. Of course, they aren't the Universal monsters. After all, Frank N. Stein is just the Gym Couch, and not a monster. Kinda. Sorta.

Yes, the 100th issue. There were 99 previous stories to this one. And 9 more before the comic was canceled.

I still wonder why I never turned to hard drugs.

Worst comic I ever read. The one time crossover of Archie vs. the Punisher.
Archie.
The Punisher.
In fucking Riverdale. And at the end they tell us that there might be another one, because Jughead is secretly evil.

I'm submitting the NASH comic put out by Image in the late 90's at the pinnacle of his wrestling career in WCW. It's locked away in storage somewhere, so I don't have it on hand, but I know Wrestlecrap.com did a write-up of it years ago.

@jfiemmpa: Archie Vs. The Punisher was fucking awesome. It didn't compromise either of the respective characters and makes for a fun read.

The worst comic book I ever read had nothin to do with story but everything to do with false adverstising, GiJoe #55. The cover leads you to believe they are going to show you the faces of Snake Eyes,Cobra Commander, and Destro. Now to a 10 year old boy this was life fucking shattering news. In actuality they show their faces..to other people in the comic! All you see is a fucking shadow. Yo fucking Joe!

PS: Destro is forever in my mind black and always will be.

Yeah, guys, give up Zach's got this one nailed. Charles Barkley has a basketball game as to whether he'll fight Godzilla? Then he gets turns into a giant during the coin toss he decides to fight Godzilla.

Wait what? Does this mean if he by some miracle lost the basketball game, he'd have fought Godzilla in all his 6ft ish glory?

And where did he get nikes in Godzilla's size?

My vote goes to issue #1 of Spider-Man. You know, the comic where they let Todd McFarlane do the art AND the writing? Well, he eventually improved, but his first foray into writing comic book stories was not an encouraging one. It was so vain, ridiculous, and pompous, it read like it was written by a hyperactive teen that was off his meds. It featured a phrase that would appear in the next four issues (this was the start of a five-issue story arc), and that was 'RISE ABOVE IT ALL!!' This was put on the second page of each issue, because, it's clever and artistic and stuff. Why? Because Todd McFarlane says it is, damn it!
The story itself is about the Lizard eating people because he's hungry I guess. It features painfully bad dialogue that turns Peter Parker into a smug, egotistical prick (like the author, maybe?) The fact that the art is good somehow makes the whole package stink more.
I wish I could say the other four issues of the 'Torment' story arc were any better, but they weren't. At all. He seemed to think he was re-creating 'Kraven's Last Hunt' which is nearly as offensive as it is silly. Sure, his writing (marginally) improved with time, but his first effort stank enough to make you wonder what Marvel was thinking. Oh wait, I know what they were thinking: "$$$"

OK folks, I have to pull out the big guns here... LITERALLY.

Yes my friends, I am talking about Rob Liefeld's Captain America #1 (although frankly the whole thing was a sham).

This was in my rebirth of getting into comics and also is the reason I stopped reading them.

So first off we have the rebirth of Captain America from the visionary that brought us guns that would make the guys who design the swords for Squenix games LOL. The genius that brought us deformed anatomies to further confuse the adolecent reader base. Yes Rob Liefeld was put in charge of bringing back THE Marvel superhero to his rightfull place on the pull lists across the country.

From the Captain's ever changing shield dimensions where in one battle alone it went from roughly 10"-5' and back again, to the sharp noses and toes of nearly everyone. Or maybe you were a fan of the millions of visable lines in the skin or veins in his subjects, even at rest. Unless they were female, then they had enormous boobs and a 6" waist...

You could hardly take the story seriously, much less the heralded return of America's greatest hero when everything about the book was so damn poorly put together. But of course the coup de gras was the introduction of this image on the comic reading community:

http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r59/kingpsyz/yikes.jpg

Now that's entertainment folks...

Rob since you don't have fatboy sizes for the shirts I still think some todler sizes would rock the house, my baby is cool enough to wear one I think.

I should also note he had an ASSist from the Heroes liveblog fans favorite person Jeff Loeb...

The worst comic book of all time? Gotta be Superman vs. Muhammed Ali. If ever there was a case of celebrity ball-sack-polishing in comic form, this was it. As if Ali needed the ego-boost, DC fed that ego by putting out a comic in which he beat Superman in a boxing match. Of course, Superman was fighting under a red-sun lamp or some other such bullshit that was supposed to make it "even" but was really just an excuse to avoid making a celebrity look like a putz and prevent the fanboys from screaming bloody murder. I grew up during the peak of Ali's career. I didn't find him charming or entertaining or clever. I just thought he was a loud-mouthed douche. And then they forced me to witness his runamok ego-tripping in the one environment where I thought I could escape him: the comic book store. Fuck you, DC.

Yeah, I gotta agree with Elrond in that Spider Man #1 was garbage. I remember the word "advantageous" was used over and over again, so much so that Keith Giffen mocked Todd in one of the Ambush Bug specials where he suggested some artists don't think they need writers, like pretty much all the founders of Image Comics.

I recall some of the worst comics at that time were Youngblood. Leifield can't draw, can't write, can't meet a deadline. I fail to see how this guy keeps getting work.

The worst one for me was Spawn vs. Batman. Two of the best talents in the comic industry team up and give us..a steaming crap-heap. Batman says "punk" a lot, and Spawn gets his ass kicked 30 or 40 more times than usual. I couldn't be more disappointed if I somehow caught anthrax from the pages of the book. At least I would have gotten something out of it.

Alan Moore is not perfect. I read his Smax series and it was a huge waste of money, and I was not all that impressed with Promethea. That being said, I think he has been one of the most consistently good writers in the business.

Oh. My. God!

I had that Phantom Stranger comic. And I had the same reaction to it. Phantom What? Wandering Jew? WTF?!!!

Very, very weird thing to thrust upon a kid. (And by 'thrust upon' I mean, "buy me this thing with the trippy cover, gramps.")

Y'know, I actually saw a sketch online somewhere (I think it was an official, pre-inking drawing or some such) of the Liefeld Cap panel shown above, revealing the figure posture behind the shield. It turned out that he had somewhat plausible (well..."more" plausible, anyway. At least by the standards of his art) anatomy, but he's actually in one of those hideous swayback-centerfold-struts favored by 90s superheroines. The perspective was still wonky, but he wasn't quite just a——

Okay, everything I just tried to figuratively compare that Liefeld picture to sounded way more perverse than I was comfortable with. Gah.

Well then ranchoth, this will scar you for life:
http://liefeldweakness.ytmnd.com/

Dollhouse was EPIC WIN tonight. Told ya so, guys.

Anyway. I actually have the distinction of OWNING that public-service Spider-Man/Power Pack comic about child abuse. I still have it, in fact... Long story short, it was free, I was seven, and back then ANY comic was a good comic. I didn't really comprehend what it meant that Peter Parker's new friend the creepy old guy wanted to touch him in "special places". Years later when I dug it out and read it again, I bemoaned the sad fact that nobody had ever once wanted to touch my "special places", creepy old dude or not.

Oh, you want more than that? Fine then. I also have one of the something like four issues Marvel ran of the Captain Planet comic back when that show was popular (a strange, backward time, to be sure).

And I also have a Superman Elseworlds annual that basically reenacts the Jungle Book with Supes as Mowgli. Yes, this actually exists.

Heroes online graphic novel #128 - Puppet with no Strings.
This is the story of how Doyle the puppeteer (both in his profession and his power) suddenly wanted to be a good guy after previously being portrayed as a creepy as fuck possible rapist, and how he meets up with Claire in that week's episode, asking her for help after previously forcing Claire and her two mothers into a game of Russian Roulette. Also, the artwork is fucking atrocious. I can do better than that, and the best I can do is shitty stick figures.

It was a simpler time. Eartha Kitt was still alive and kicking in a series of Old Navy commercials. Halle Berry had yet to ruin her career with an ill-advised movie called Catwoman. And Jim Balent had just left DC Comics, leaving a 77 issue run on Catwoman to go into business writing and drawing his own "empowering" bisexual witch porn.

Yes, it was a pretty good time to be a fan of Catwoman. Or so you'd think... had you not been one of the poor unfortunates who read Catwoman #80

In order for this issue to work at all, you have to believe four equally impossible things happened in the previous issue.

1. The Gotham City Police Department was able to catch Catwoman without Batman's help.

2. Instead of using one of her many aliases or fake IDs, Catwoman is booked under her real name - Selina Kyle.

3. Instead of using her small fortune of ill-gotten gains to hire the best lawyers money can buy to post bail, Catwoman agrees to be represented by a court-provided free public defender.

4. Instead of waiting on a trial and trying to drag things out for as long as possible while waiting for an opportunity to escape or to find a way to clear her name, Catwoman pushes her public defender to try and plea bargain in exchange for a Guilty Plea.

Pretty stupid, right? But why - I hear you ask rhetorically - aren't you nominating that issue?

Because as bad as #79 is, #80 is even worse! Because this is the issue where Catwoman actually goes to prison, is singled out as fresh meat by the warden AND the prisoners and everything goes all Chained Heat with Selina Kyle as Linda Blair.

Let me ask you all: What is the first thing to come to mind why you hear the name Catwoman? Just think of the name… Cat plus Woman. Obviously, we are dealing with a woman who is very cat like; both in body and personality. Someone agile, cunning, graceful and fiercely independent.

A dedicated Bat-fan would say you were right on the money. You could even ask a non-comic reader and they would probably be familiar enough with the character to give a similar description. Even the comic-illiterate would probably support that conclusion.

Explain to me then why, through the better part of this comic shows hardened thief Selina Kyle crying and getting her ass kicked while insisting that she is innocent and shouldn't be there?

As for the artwork, I must only pay a complement to Staz Johnson. Because it takes some kind of talent to be able to depict a prison shower fight scene in a book that bares the Comics Code Authority sticker.

Yes, that's right. Fulfilling the list of Women In Prison movie cliches, Selina gets into a six-page long naked, soaking-wet catfight (pardon the pun) and the issue ends with her being thrown, still naked, into solitary confinement.

Thankfully, nobody who was involved with this mess seems to have been allowed to keep their job. A Google-Search reveals that Bronwyn Carlton has apparently quit writing comics to become a radio-host and Staz Johnson seems to be living off off the commissions he can get from whoever will order one on his website.

And, oh yes, it seems Staz Johnson is also one of the artists on the HEROES on-line comic.

I own quite a few of the comics already mentioned. Hunted them down especially because they were wackadoo and HAD to be seen. Superman punches Ali? Whee! Punisher goes to Riverdale? Oh yeah baby! Superbaby in a microwave? Sublime!

But no. True awfulness, like true evil, is not spectacular. It is banal. It is rote and bland and careless and half-assed. It does fail because it tries too hard - it just doesn't even try at all.

Case in point: the recent "Tron" comic by SLG. Never heard of it? You never will again, either. It is no one's favorite comic, not even the fecalphiles who love a good shitty comic. It isn't pleasingly bad in any way. It is simply disappointing in every way and on every level.

First off: April 2006? GREAT timing for a Tron comic. Long after the movie, well after the sequel videogame, and way before the sequel movie. Oh, and the sixth and final issue of the mini? Dated September 2008. Yeah, over two years. But it always takes a long time to squeeze out the soft smelly ones, right?

Art was wretched from the git-go, but after two issues of over-Photoshopped ugliness they swapped out artists and handed the thankless task of illustrating a pointless and unengaging script to a new guy. Obviously they didn't do it because he was better or faster, but because he was cheaper.

Or maybe the first artist just refused to go on when the story took a twist that said "fuck you, readers!" With issue #3, "Tron" became yet another tired-ass "Alice in Wonderland" homage, with a literal white rabbit and everything. Why? Because the comic was being written and edited by the same team that creates those pseudo-goth wankathons that SLG is more famous for spewing out. "Little Gloomy", "Lenore", and "Gloomcookie".

Hey, way to screw the Tron fans, guys. Let the emo dicks get all artsy-fartsy about it. Hey, it's a static depiction of an animated medium, so why even TRY to depict any action? Just let everyone talk talk talk talk TALK TALK TALK. Hey, why not have a lot of scenes set during sessions of therapy? Emo kids love therapy, so probably Tron fans do too.

Jeez, I hope I haven't made it sound any good at all. To repeat: there is nothing entertainingly bad about "Tron: Ghost in the Machine". It is just FAIL across the board. No joy to be had on any level, ironic or otherwise.

Legion of Super-Heroes 50. It's not what was solicited. The writer is not who was solicited. The writer was so ashamed of his work-for-a-fuck that he/she/it used a pseudonym (Justin Thyme) so the readers couldn't sue. Artist was not who was solicited either. It may be that Ramon did the best he could in the time he was given. To call the art 'rushed'
is too kind.

And the big finale this was to be? Nowhere to be seen.
Issue 49 set the story completely differently. The end of 49 was leading to a finale as 'one of our own is the villan'. Said person is not in issue 50 at all.

50 was solicited as a double size finale. Where did the pages disappear? It was barely normal size.

And the last pages: return from the dead and a marriage!
This when we were led to believe that planets would explode and the universe be saved.

Alright, good list so far.

I saw Ultimatum on here, which by far is THE worst comic of all time. But I didn't buy it. Wanna know why? Because I read Ultimates VOL 3 and swore to never EVER read another Loeb comment for the rest of my life. Here's why:

-The comic starts off with the whole gang, hanging around watching a sex tape with Tony Stark banging the hell out of their ex/dead teammate Black Widow on a 100 inch tv screen. With comments like, "How come this is in such good quality?"

-Hawkeye going around saying he'll kill everyone. Pretty much total complete different characters what were established in the past two volumes.

-Good old incest "hinting" dialogue between Quicksliver and Scarlet Witch which is as subtle as a freight train. "Yes, I bang my sister in the ass." Subtle. Loeb obviously reads FFF here.

-Venom shows up. Sure. Why not?! Hurls Captain America a hundred miles away. The fight is filled with witty, hip comments that are along of the lines of, "Cool." "Eat this!" "That's hot."

-Oh and somehow Captain America has all the time in the world to change out of his uniform and into a Black Panther uniform. Which still, doesn't make any sense.

In closing: Fuck you Loeb. With one issue you almost completely ruined comics for me. One issue! What happened to "Long Halloween," Loeb?! I mean I tried to get past the Superman/Batman Loeb. Even the Batman pimp slap to Darkseid I dealt with. But never again, will I ever, give my hard earned money to that man. This closes my single worst comic I have ever read. Thank you.

http://carloslepew.blogspot.com/2008/06/worst-comics-in-history-1.html

Star Wars 48: The Third Law:

I've read many, many comics in my life. Therefore the amount of suckiness to pass in front of my eyes is. well, massive. I love Star Wars and I love comics... unfortunately lots of times that's not a happy marriage

This old 80s comics has to filed under the folder "If you thought the prequels were bad...".

The plot goes like pretty much like this:

Princes Leia, the droids and some count fly to, let's call it Planet Switzerland to try getting a loan to buy new X-wing space ships. See, princess Leia is on a business trip. Let me repeat this... the rebel Alliance, an underground group is trying to secure a loan, in the open, using the royal crown jewels of Alderaan as collateral... this is as bad as all the political babble in the prequels... it's downright stupid. Not the kind of Star Wars you want to read about age 7.

Just in customs they see a guy in one of those "Total Recall" x-rays machines getting gunned down by the police for trying to smuggle gold out of the planet. This guys take their customs seriously...

To make matters worse, daddy, and by that I mean Darth Vader, happens to be in Planet Switzerland too, trying to secure another loan for the Empire or some shit like that, maybe he was on a holiday. Strangely enough Vader ponces around with an entourage of 3 freaks.

In Planet Switzerland all citizens are obliged to carry firearms, although is totally forbidden for non-citizens, those are some of those 3 laws that the episode refers too.

So Vader and his minions spend long time trying to kill the viceroy or count or whatever his title is by... making the fat minion jump on top of Leia's car, using telekinesis to blow the fella away in a weapons demonstration and by turning one of henchmen into a poisonous butterfly. Butterfly guy, a Dracula lookalike, gets spotted by 3po, who happens to know shitloads about butterflies, is up to r2 to spray the bitch and princess Leia steps on the the poor fella.
Dear Vader, couldn't you just force-choke the asshole?, asked little Carlos, age 7 while reading the comic

The twist comes when Vader ambushes the guys and kills the viceroy with his lightsabre, only to discover that the viceroy is a robot. It all gets filmed by R2 and the rebels proceed to try to blackmail Vader. Because, you see, this was their plan all along, the robot was going to be discovered in customs, they were counting on vader to kill the guy once the loan was secured.

But oh, cruel destiny, Vader's plan then gets discovered.... he has stolen the Alderaan crown jewels, that was his intention since the very beginning. Darth Vader, scourge of the Jedi, the most dangerous man in the known universe, wanted to steal some jewels. This is all shades of wrong.

To add insult to injury, this was written by Larry Hama, the best Wolverine scribe ever and the man that turned G.I. Joe into an actually good comic.

In conclusion, this comic is awesomely terrible, so bad that is worth reading just once.

Worst single issue ever has got to be Detective Comics #577, which is part of the Year Two storyline. As far as sequels to a good original go, Batman: Year Two makes Highlander II: The Quickening look like The Godfather II. However, this issue stands out as a corn-flecked turd amongst turds for two simple reasons:

#1: Batman wields a handgun. Yes. A handgun. Apparently, this villain, The Reaper, is too much for him after one confrontation, so Bruce decides to totally jettison one of the bedrock foundations of his existence. However, he still will not kill, so that makes it okay. Because gun violence doesn't have to be fatal. But wait...it gets worse. It's not just A handgun; It's the handgun that killed his parents! That'd be like the Disciples using the means of Christ's death as a symbol for their religion...oh, wait a minute...OK, so in that case it worked, but the issue gets even worse when...

#2: Batman teams up with Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents! Told you it was worse. This would be akin to opening up an issue of Marvel Team-Up starring Captain America and Hitler, or an issue of The Brave and The Bold with Dogs and Cats fighting side by side. And in this same very issue, Joe Chill kills again (albeit a guy threatening Batman with a grenade), and what does Batman do? He sternly reprimands him, "That wasn't necessary." For chrissakes, Bruce, why not just dig up Thomas and Martha and let Chill violate their corpses with Ace the Bat-Hound while you're at it. (Fuck. I feel like I've just inspired another FFF entry..."Ace The Bat-Hound was in heat one night while wandering the Gotham Cemetery...").

Mike Barr and Todd McFarlane are the writer and artist responsible for this reprehensible piece of shit. And in case you were wondering, Chill is eventually killed by the Reaper. No wonder DC keeps re-doing its continuity. I would bear a thousand Crises to wipe this misbegotten stain from Batman's history.

Since this specifies one shot comics, I am going to have to go with Superman VS Dracula. Sounds like it should actually be pretty cool. Then you read it. Dracula invited Lois Lane and Clark Kent out to his castle for some interview, and then he hypnotizes Lois. Why? Because he wanted Superman to show up so he could turn him into a vampire. Now I have read some nice fights against Drac in comics, but this one goes like this. Drac bites Superman, starts to drain him, then Drac starts freaking out and explodes. Why, cause supermans blood stores sunlight. So there you have it. Supes blood kills vampires. Supes then picks up Lois and they fly away. I read this expecting an awesome fight like I have seen between the Xmen and Dracula, and there have been some nice fights there, but no the whole thing was drac seducing lois then biting supes. What a rip.

Marvel Team-Up: Aunt May and Franklin Richards vs. Galactus

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=marvel%20%22aunt%20may%22%20%22golden%20oldie%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Aunt May is invested with the Power Cosmic, becomes Golden Oldie and saves Earth by hooking Galactus on Twinkies then having Space Bakers make a Giant Space Twinkie to placate his endless hunger.

What do I win?

The Elektra Omnibus?

The New Titans, issue #93, December 1992.

This is DC's Teen Titans

In the future a shape shifting chick dates Dick Grayson.

She comes to the present and finds Dick with Starfire or more aptly Nightwing with Starfire.

The future shapeshifter changes into to starfire and to humilate her poses for a dirty magazine called eXXXpose. (Oh and the middle 3 pages of this comic were all ads for Titans toys)

So for some reason or another dick grayson dresses up as a pedaphile an goes out on a date with starfire.

And the future girl, you ask? not dealt with.

Did i mention 3 pages were devoted to a segment called teeny titans?

So all in all this comic could be summarized as a mix of comic porn, child like versions of the titans, sell out, and an awful plot.

this is the cover

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/1/15776/316077-4014-123837-1-the-new-titans_medium.jpg

Sadly, Dollhouse still sucked!!!

Not something I've read personally, but this review of the Doom comic has always been a favorite of mine. It makes me feel the pain second-hand. And then I got to experience it first-hand, because while searching for the link to the review, I found the comic has been put online.

It appears I am early enough (or obscure enough) to nominate Sonic Live as the worst 1-off comic.

Yes, Sonic the Hedgehog had/still has two comic books monthly, but way back in the day something terrible happened. On an ego trip EVEN GREATER than that of McFarlane (above) one of the editors of the book decided to do a (well its not a self-insertion..but) book with HIS OWN KIDS as the stars. Yeah he took like some photos and then drew Sonic in the background for something like the worlds' ugliest mary-sue fanfic.

The horribility of the comic can't just be described, you need to look at it so here's this link

http://www.sonicgear.org/TextPages/LiveRant.html

But don't press it if you like Sonic, you'll only become furious. The book wasn't part of the main series per se (it was a special) but it has absolutely everything you don't want to see: bored kids, the fact that the comic book people never even saw a Sonic game, the fact that Archie comics HQ couldn't comprehend internet use, and if that wasn't enough for your $2.50 finally some delicious revisionist-history racism!

(yeah they changed SonicTeam (a bunch of Japanese dudes if you didn't know) into two randomly named white guys for no apparent reason)

My number one worst comic has to be Final Crisis: Secret Origin. I said to myself "Finally, we'll get to see the origin of the mysterious, world-shattering Libra!"

What I got was a pile of reprints and shit. First, we learn his SUPER SECRET ORIGIN. His mom died when the pharmacist fucked up the medication measurement on A SCALE (BECAUSE YOU GUYS HOW COOL WOULD THE SYMBOLISM BE). First of all, how are we to believe that they didn't just have fucking pills by this point? If the DCU's sliding timeline means it was say 20 years ago, that makes it the 80s. THEY HAD FUCKING PILLS IN THE EIGHTIES. Then, his dad turns to alcoholism and beats him, so he gets a telescope (?) and looks at the stars with it. Then in college, his professor is Ted Knight (BECAUSE YOU GUYS WHAT IF HE LIKES STARS AND STARMAN TEACHES HIM THAT WOULD BE COOL) and he steals the plans for the Cosmic Rod. Somehow, a device that allows you to fly and shoot energy blasts is reverse engineered into a device to take half the energy of anything (BECAUSE OF THE SCALES. HERE COMES THE SYMBOLISM, AM I RIGHT GUYS?) and make it his. This becomes basically a remake of the old comic he first appeared in, complete with corny Silver Age "witty" banter. Libra somehow absorbs half the universe's energy, because that makes PERFECT FUCKING SENSE. Even for the Silver Age... come on. Something vague and Morrison-y happens, and he shows up on Apokalips with Darkseid, presumably because the writer was drunk and said "Shit, this was supposed to be a Final Crisis tie-in!" So Libra gets his staff and suit (and apparently some competence) and goes off to current day Earth to beat up the Justice League and give everyone mind control helmets, like you do.

Worst. Origin. Ever. Worse than Phantom Stranger the Jesus-Puncher.

A spider-man one-shot where he defeated electro with the help of a bunch of canadian hockey kids who electro had hooked on drugs... or something. They knocked out electro with a slap-shot.

Now I know I'm not gonna win cause that Golden Oldie one is the worst thing I've ever heard of. This was just the worst one I've personally read.

@Zortt1

AHHHHH!!!

I HAVE that Spider-Man/Storm/Luke Cage (then Power Man) one-shot. It was a grade-school handout. It's boxed in a closet at my parents' house. Holy crap.

Make that two votes for (against) Smokescreen.

I have never seen or read a bad comic book. Even the issue of Archie that my grandparents bought me, where Archie dressed up as a giant dove in an effort to bring peace to Riverdale, only to see the parade float he was on lose a wheel and then catch fire and... oh, who am I kidding. Archie is Satan, in a less cool way.

Oh, and Dollhouse was the best non-Lost hour of television I've seen in 5 years. Whedon, baby, Whedon.

THANK YOU, Matt!

Easy - the worst comic ever was the horrendous Marty Pasko issue of Superman where the entire story tried to explain why no one could see through the Clark Kent disguise.

You see, Clark Kent's glasses have some magic psychic-enhancing properties that project Superman's mental image of Clark through the glasses to everyone who looks at him. Thus they don't see Superman wearing glasses, they see a shlubby looking mild-mannered balding loser.

How this managed to work across the airwaves and through the TV sets tuned to Clark's newscast (he worked in TV at the time) may or may not have been explained in the comic. If it was, it was either explained so badly that I;ve forgotten it, or perhaps I've blocked it out to prevent further trauma.

I realize that I just could have stopped at "Marty Pasko issue" and probably won, but I felt I had to share the details of the sheer loathsomeness of this pathetic fail of a story.

For anyone intrigued enough and full of sufficient self-hatred, check out Superman #330.

@y2jbrak -- I maaay have exaggerated to make a point. :-) I've usually got a lot of books going at the same time, so stuff often gets set aside for awhile. But to start a book and then just give it away? Doesn't compute, sorry. It's a hard-wired DNA thing. Maybe when I'm done with it, okay? I'll drop a line. Eventually. (Besides, there's an outside chance the other eleven chapters are brilliant. At the end of the day, I do agree with the other poster who said Moore generally hits more than he misses.)

Ultimate X-Men #92.

Right after Brian K. Vaughan (who's an awesome writer) had a stint on this, the comic got stuck with Robert Kirkman, who proceeded to run it into the ground. Through his entire run on the comic, Kirkman contributed nothing but idiotic ideas and ran the characters in the most ridiculous directions.

The worst example of this all came together in this issue, though.

The comic starts off with Angel dead. Dazzler, who's in love with the guy, breaks down into tears. Kirkman then decides that Wolverine should step in, because he's tough and macho. Wolvie then tells Dazzler to snap out of it, or he'll carve up Angel's corpse into little pieces.

......

In the very next panel, Wolvie apologises and tells Dazzler that what he actually means is that there's no use mourning, blah blah blah, but by that point the damage has already been done; he sounds like a bigger douche than normal. None of the other characters seem to object to this, and quickly give an "Okay team, let's do this!" moment. So, what just happened? Are the characters all suffering from short-term memory loss or something? No, just really, REALLY bad writing!

So, the team all get together and charge out for another battle with Apocalypse. Now, this is set in the Ultimates universe, so things are a little different here. In the usual universe, Apocalypse has things like, well, personality. In this series though, he has one desire; destroy the world. For... well, for no reason. Because he's evil, I guess. So he's busy rampaging through New York wrecking stuff, kicking around the Fantastic Four (who are in this comic for a crossover bit which contributes NOTHING to the story at all; they're just kinda there, in the background) for a while.

Then, he unleashes his power; he can control mutants and manipulate their powers! Okay, that's a pretty cool idea; different from his usual, but still cool. Let's see where they go with this idea...

It goes nowhere. In fact, it means the characters start attacking each other, forcing truly awful dialogue like "Apocalypse is controlling me! You'll have to knock me out somehow!". I thought we'd seen the end of crappy dialogue like that in the 1970s. But no, this comic came out last year and that's still the best that Kirkman can come up with.

By the end of the issue, two big mysterious blokes dressed in armour turn up. In the next issue you find out that they're Xavier and Cable, but by this point the reader just doesn't care anymore. At the very end of this story arc, Phoenix changes history so that none of this ever happened; but with an issue like this, it'd probably be better if the READER could change history so that they'd never have to read it in the first place.

There's lots of really awful moments in this story arc; Wolverine's decision to gut Bishop while the team watch on and do nothing, the pointless idea of writing it all out of history for no good reason, the general rank stupidity of the dialogue and crappiness of the overall story. The way that characters act completely out of character for no reason and nobody seems to even notice. But if I had to choose one issue that best sums it up, it's the one with Wolverine threatening to chop up Angel's body in an attempt to snap grieving Dazzler back to action.

Amazing Spider-Man #267: "When Cometh The Commuter"

Peter Parker, with his secret identity of Spider-Man is a wallcrawling, crime stopping...well...vigilante. He's fought Wolverine, Iron Man, Thanos, Kraven, Rhino, Chameleon, etc. And for the most part, came out okay. This all means very little when you can't take down a NORMAL FUCKING GUY! I'm ashamed to say this is a Peter David written issue where Peter, science nerd extraordinaire is fooled by a guy who takes a mannequin hostage with a fake gun. The rest of the issue points out how this loser "The Commuter"'s life is better than Peter's because he lives in the suburbs. Peter is after him because what he does for a living, apprently, is loot stores and lie to his wife about it. His only powers: blind luck and a thorough knowledge of the mass transit system in New York City. Hey, that's pretty impressive. But should it give him the ability to defeat Spider-Man?

I guess it should. Peter demonstrates that though he can swing around New York, doing flips and shit, with nary an injury, he can't even climb a fucking tree properly if you take him out of the city.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that the cover looked kinda cool, with Spider-Man trainsurfing. This is just one of the moments in the book where Spider-Man will show that he can't even use public transportation correctly. He'll be kicked off the bus, he'll be frisked by an off duty cop. He gets tackled for jumping the turnstile at the subway? WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO SPIDER-MAN?

I remeber distinctly that they showed "The Commuter" getting some at home from his wife Mona while Peter was snoring his Spider-Ass off in his apartment. This was the single worst stand alone issue for me because I dearly love Spider-Man, and to make a regular man the bad guy, they went out of their way to make Peter dumb as possible.

FAIL!
http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/amazing-spider-man/267-1.jpg
Cover:

I've heard a lot about the Spider-man PSA comics over the years, both the child abuse and the "About A Gun" three-part story. But DC was in on it too, only focusing on less sensational problems to warn people about.

A family (mom, two kids, and their dog) is on a road trip and the kids refuse to put on their seat-belts. Somehow, the kids then end up in a on a highway in a fairy-tale world with Supergirl. They meet up with Humpty Dumpty, who also doesn't want to wear his seat-belt. This results in him cracking up again when he gets in a fender bender. This leads to a run-in with the Big Bad Wolf, who is a truck driver suffering from road rage.

Also, they get a ride at some point from The Old Lady Who Lived In A Shoe and an entire page is devoted to showing everyone in the shoe (yes, she lives and drives in a shoe) buckling up in close-up. Literally, they show The Little Old Lady, all of her children, the two main kids, their dog, and even Supergirl in seperate frames. Those last two bothered me even when I first read this around the age of ten. The dog obviously has no thumbs, so can't grab/hold things, but Supergirl buckles up. She's indestructible, but that doesn't apply to wrecks? Maybe if she was doing it to set a good example, but the joke is that The Little Old Lady is a bad driver, so scares everyone into buckling up. Supergirl's face is just as frightened as everyone else's.

Anyway, they eventually get to a show that been hyped the whole comic without being explained what it is. It turns out to be The Incredible Crash Test Dummies. Yes, the Crash Test Dummies who had a tv show, not the "MMMM MMMM" band. The whole show is the Dummies driving into a brick wall to show what happens when you don't wear your seat-belt. This drives the crowd crazy, and the kids promise to always wear their seat-belts. Then, they wake up back in their car and buckle up. I don't blame the writer. I would put the blame of this acid-trip onto the characters, too.

My pick is actually a tie between a recent comics tragedy, and an older evil that still rears its head. In no particular order:

I don't need to go into detail... You all know that Amazing Spider-Man "One More Day" was shit. It was insulting in the same way that the Battlestar Galactica ending is insulting: "It's magic. We don't have to explain how it works."

As outlined by many others, the device of Mephisto "erasing" Peter's marriage, and his being unmasked was a slap in the face. Suddenly we had a Peter Parker who was acting like a selfish dick, and a Mary Jane who was only ever his live-in girlfriend until an undetermined recent event. We had a Norman Osborn who didn't know Spider-Man's identity. We had Pete living at home with Aunt May again. We had Harry Osborn back from the dead (although that was, eventually, sufficiently explained). We had Pete as the luckless loser again, and the only member of the New Avengers whose identity is a secret to all the other members of the team (even though they all knew it just last week).

It sucked, because it took all the storylines we were into, as fans, and threw them away. Just dumped them in mid-story and started something new, with a new "version" of Spider-Man that sort of resembled the one we'd already seen plenty of in the 60s, 70s and 80s. One More Day wanted me to accept that Pete would have turned out the same if he only lived with MJ, and it wanted me to accept that his unmasking (which was supposed to "stick around") was undone magically only a few months (or days in comic time) after doing it.

In Marvel's defense, though, the Brand New Day team did a good job fixing the pain of One More Day's clunky, insulting story by giving us a great run of Spider-Man stories that were very tight and cohesive. While I still won't buy another Amazing Spider-Man comic (and I have a collection dating back to the early 70s) I will read them in the bookstore when I see them, and I leave the possibility of purchasing open if they REALLY impress me.

The second awful comic was the awful, horrible introduction of Rob Liefeld to one of my favorites: The New Mutants. What was once a great comic about being outcast teenagers and heroes turned into a badly-drawn crapfest in which Liefeld's characters took precedent over the book's regulars. I credit Rob Liefeld with killing the New Mutants run... And instead of taking him out behind the Marvel shed and putting him out of our misery, what does Marvel do? They turn my beloved New Mutants into crappy 90s antiheroes X-Force.

Gag me.

All the regulars were gone. A bunch of new, crappy heroes came in (Shatterstar? Really?) and the New Mutants were no more.

Fuck you, Rob Liefeld. Fuck you very much.

I'm reading the titular comic in question, "Secret Origins," issue #10, dated Jan. 1987 after finding it in a timely released torrent. I'm only four pages in, and I'm already finding it abhorent with it's obvious use of parallels between the "Subway Angels," (a rip-off of 80's style Neighbourhood Watch gangs with an attitude) going down into underground New York to find new recruits vs. Ertigan the Angel trying to win support in Heaven for a rebellion against God pre. Satan getting cast into Hell. "Angels" and "angels?" Rebelling? Going into the hellish "underground?" That's only four pages. That's a short amount of time to get so far, far up one's ass.

The fact that Phantom Stranger is dressed in a blue suit with a flowing cap and gold clasp and chain walking around the streets of New York at night and no one seems to notice, or care, or mug him for said gold clasp is quite astonishing.

There's been a recurring trend in comics for decades now with writers involving the homeless and "Chuds" in their stories. It goes beyond the Morlocks in X-Men. I once read a hardcover Spider-Man novel featuring Venom (which is probably still in my possesion somewhere), which is centred entirely around Chuds. I can also remmber a Venom mini-series where he goes underground and becomes some sort of protector of the Chuds. Then there's Spwan, (*shudder*) who's the protect of all these bums in whatever the hell that alley was called. The common theme is how the writers build up some kind of sympathy for the plight of the homeless, then instill a sense in you that you should put your comic down and take to the streets to help these poor, innocent people... who will probably stab you. Now, this is a noble ideal: but it's an ideal firmly imbedded in one's ass. The writers, thusly, -if they can even be called that- have their own heads in their asses.

Secondly, if you're trying to retell Paradise Lost, and you're not John Milton, or an English teacher teaching their class about John Milton, you probably shouldn't attempt it. You also probably shouldn't add small "b"-List super heroes like Phantom Stranger and Ertigan the Demon to the story as well.

Further proof of bad writing is immediately evident on the second pannel, which features the word: "jive." I realize this is written in 1987, but still... but still.

Beyond that, the artwork is commendable, especially for the title page. The moody subways setting adjacent to pages of Heaven show a broad range. It nearly redeems the subject matter at hand.

All in all, it looks like Alan Moore was trying to stuff 20 gallons of shit into a one gallon milk jug.

For me i would have to say the comic book where squirrel girl makes her first appearance. Now, im a long time huge fan of Dr. Doom. He's a bad ass, he took on the beyonder by himself in the secret wars, and won. Then blew everyone up because they opposed him. Steve Ditko on the other hand decided to have the infamous leader of latveria defeated by an army of squirrels. It's one of the most ridiculous things ive ever read.

Lets see, squirrel girl posses the powers of a fucking squirrel and can communicate with them. Id much rather see aquaman take out Doom with an army of clown fish. But no! a fucking army of squirrels.

My friend and i always fight over Doom because he's a huge Reed Richards fan, and he always can counter any of my points with "yeah, but Reed was never taken down by squirrel girl."

This just goes to show that writers enjoy fucking with Doom, and it breaks my heart.

Lobo Paramilitery christmas special. Lobo the intergalactic bounty hunter is hired by the Easter Bunny to take out Santa Claus. Lobo kills everyone one of Santa's elves who are all armed with tiny guns. Ends with a Lobo/Santa knife fight (Where Santa actually refers to himself as "Mr. Machete"). Worst Lobo comic ever. Second worse is where Lobo tries to quit smoking.

'Corpse, thank you for saying that about BSG; that ending was amazingly bad. How are thirty thousand city bred people supposed to become farmers and hunter-gatherers overnight? How many of those people would have actually gone along with the idea of destroying their ships after running for four years? Wouldn't some of them want to keep the ships in case something Bad happened?

I don't mind the mystic aspects so much, they have been hinted at for some time. But the ending was so much shit and I really do think that series was highly over rated.

Ah shit, I forgot to put in a spoiler alert. :( I apologize to anyone who read my post and got pissed off. That was very uncool of me.

Two words... four elephants... one terrible spoof...

"Power Pachyderms"

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/powerpachyderms.htm

The worst single comic book I've ever read in my life was X-Men #1 from 1963. Despite the fact that it was written by Stan Lee and Drawn by Jack Kirby it is complete and utter crap. The thing that makes this issue stand out among any other comic I can think of is because this little turd nugget will set you back anywhere from $4,000 to $10,000. Most shitty issues you can usually pull out of a twenty-five cent box if you're ever looking for a cheap laugh...or something to keep by the toilet in case you ever run out of toilet paper. We all know why it's so expensive. Because it's fucking X-Men number 1. But a comic as bad as this one being worth so much is like claiming your famous because your adopted brother is an Emmy award winning actor. We don't care what your fucking last name is you are still a world class looser. If I never read this comic and bought it for several thousand dollars I would have found the asshole that sold it to me and beat him with a pillowcase full of doorknobs after lighting his house on fire by using a gasoline soaked X-Men #1. Save your money folks and use your hard earned money to buy all the blow, hookers, and debauchery you can afford on a Vegas vacation. You could come back with a fortune you made gambling or a nasty rash on your cock that you have to somehow explain to your pregnant wife you left at home. But either way it will still be better than buying an X-Men #1 from 1963 written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Jack Kirby.

Also it was before Kirby Dots bitches!

Worst comic I read as a kid was Spider-man #100. I was so excited about the #100 issue that I practically camped out at the local 7-11. Then what happens, Spider-man grows 4 extra arms. Before I knew what a WTF?! moment was, I had a WTF?! moment. I was 8 and I knew this was crap. There is suspension of disbelief (proportionate strength of a spider) than there are four extra arms.

Worst comic I've ever read actually came out this week.

Ultimatum #3

I rarely facepalm whilst reading comics, but this was terrible. Basically, Jeph Loeb killing off characters in meaningless way.

Oh, and Hank Pym bites the Blob's head off. :(

Not exactly a single issue, but Nightwing #107-#117 was the Devin Grayson run that nearly made me not only give up on one of my favorite characters within the DC Universe, I almost gave up on life.

This woman (and I use that term very loosely, since she's clearly of the devil) decided that she needed to take Dick Grayson, a character that's been established since 19-fucking-40 into a new unnecessary direction, by making him not Nightwing. Voided Nightwing, but didn't make him anything new. He was just fighting crime, nameless, in Gotham, instead of, oh I don't know, continuing to fight crime, as Nightwing, in Gotham.

Not only did she decide his Nightwing costume wasn't good enough (which I think was Nightwing #113) and gave him another one that was practically identical to the first one, except black and red instead of black and blue, but she also needed him to go undercover and join the mob using the alias DICK FUCKING GRAYSON. He joined the mob and didn't bother actually going undercover! But then she managed to fucktard it up further by making it so Dick Grayson, a man who has fought crime since he was 12 years old, is in need of a cold shower after doing some evil. He even teams up with Deathstroke- the main enemy of the Teen Titans, the team Dick Grayson founded.

And this whole mess started when she had Nightwing raped by Tarantula, some random chick he was dating.

She got the God-delivered boot from the book, and was replaced by the equally godawful Bruce Jones run, but not before running to anyone who would listen and blaming the whole thing on DC editors and "Infinite Crisis." Which I might have even bought, had she not also mentioned that she felt Dick Grayson was bisexual (because she herself is also bisexual and knows these things) and was going to delve into that, had the wind not been rightfully removed from her sails.

"Crack Whore Detective."

I kid you not, it was a single issue--I hope to god it was a single issue--where the lead had to find out who was shooting people in the head and then skullfucking them. To do this, she went around giving blowjobs for...well, a whole lot of panels...until she found the person sufficiently poorly endowed to work with the hole left by the caliber of bullet being used.

I read it a good ten years ago, and I am still not fully recovered.

The worst comic I've ever read is Ultimates 3. The issue where Wolverine tells us he's SCarlet Witch's dad (issue 3, I think), where we have the scene of Magneto getting angry at the door, while naked Wolverine (we see his ass in this panel, thank you Mad. -.-)tryes to jump him to kill him or something and Magneto just glows pink or red or something and throws him with his magnet powers downhill and he never could get back to finish his sex with Magda. After that, we find that's not true, that Maggs is Wanda's dad, or something, I really don't know... And the best scene is the cliffhanger from the previous issue where Wolverine appears and there's a caption with ''2 seconds earlier'' WTF, Loeb... -.-

UrsulaV...

PLEASE tell me you have a copy of Crack Whore Detective. I WILL BUY IT FROM YOU.

Yeah, The Muppets Take Manhattan comic was bad. Really bad. But it wasn't as bad as the new comic Boom Studios is putting out. The art is even *worse*. If you can believe it. The writing sucks. I mean, if it's supposed to represent the Muppets in their glory days, then their glory days weren't all that...glorious. Sometimes it just don't pay to beat a dead frog...