In the Comics Universe, there are moments in which one witness a superhero achieve a certain act once and after some eventful re-runs of those acts, the plot becomes monotonous. So, to avoid these monotonous phase writers, cook up some mind-boggling theories, to keep the readers interested and engaged. Many a time these bold and unscripted takes at scripts plays in favor of the writer, but the majority of the time they don’t. The other times, where the plan backfires are the times that we will be discussing in this article. There are certain arcs of the Marvel narrative, that the readers have wished that the writers would have never published it in the first place. Here are 10 comic book story arcs fans hated.
Amazons Attack
This issue of the DC comics revolved around the plot of Wonder Woman being captured and detained by the US government. Diana’s mother Hippolyta saw her imprisonment as an act of war. Which in turn forced the Queen of Themyscira to launch an attack of Amazonians on US soil. As a plot the synapsis of the narrative is okay. But the real shocker comes in when the Amazonians are seen invading the US capitol and slaying innocent civilians across the land including children. Because of such a cruel act, readers were already assuming that Hippolyta would redeem herself, as she has been taken over by some evil spirit or was being mind-controlled by some villain.
But that was not the case, in the Storyline, Hippolyta’s behavior was of her own accord, which kind of ruined the entire comic. To make matters worse Wonder Woman does not appear in the entire issue, except at the beginning of the issue to when she was captured.
All-Star Batman & Robin
In the year 2005, DC launched a special issue of the caped crusader called ‘All-Star Batman & Robin’. With visionary writer Frank Miller and fan-favorite artist Kim Lee at the helm of the project, great things were expected from them. But Miller managed to screw the whole thing left right and center. The issue opened with the caped crusader introducing himself as “the goddamned Batman”. This was just one of the many screwups to come in the series.
Batman kidnaps Robin, punches him in the face, and leaves him in the bat cave to fend for himself and forcing him to live on rats. Wanna know the worst plot in the issue? Batman has sex with Black Canary while a biker gang that was murdered burns in the background. Another plot within the issue witnesses Batman paint himself yellow, just to beat Green Lantern to a bloody pulp. Several other plots point out the poor taste that Frank Miller had for the caped crusader and his fans, to turn action comics into his bitch.
Xorn gets retconned
In the X-Men narrative, the 2001 X-Men Annual, we witnessed the arrival of a mutant called Xorn. Xorn’s mutation caused his brain to develop into a star, forcing him to keep on a specially designed helmet at all times to prevent any harm coming to anyone who may be within his vicinity. X-Men takes Xorn into their ranks, believing him to be an empathetic man. But during the Planet X saga, Xorn reveals himself to be none other than Magneto and the specially designed helmet was to keep any telepathic user out of his head.
However, the plot veers off from its destination when Magneto starts wreaking havoc across the city and also kills Jean Grey in the process. Only to later sacrifice himself to Cassandra Nova’s attack on the mutant island of Genosha, in an attempt to save it. Now Marvel Comics has been known to revive dead characters back to life and could not kill the only worthy nemesis of X-Men, what is the end verdict? Is the killed Magneto a fake? An illusion? A clone? Well, he is not any of the latter, he was Xorn imitating to be Magneto, imitating to be Xorn.
Countdown
52 was a weekly issue, revolving around the plot about Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman taking a time off for a year. Even though, the then Editor, really appreciated the idea, Dan DiDio hated the whole idea about superheroes taking a leave. As a result, Dan DiDio came up with a follow-up series called “52 done right”, but it was not even close to the original plot. The plot of the story was so inconsistent, that the average reader would have had to read every single line of the comics. And still not understand a single plot that entailed in the issue and its link to the original plot.
Ultimates 3
Although the modern take at the Marvel reboot, Ultimate Marvel was a success, it was ultimately canceled for a sheer drop of quality. It is in issue 3 of the Ultimate Marvel, where things started going south once the lead writer Mark Millar was replaced by Jeph Loeb. In simple terms every plot in the issue was absurd, starting with Wolverine is revealed to be Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver’s biological father.
Wolverine made fun of Hawkeye’s murdered family. Captain America pretends to be Black Panther and it is never revealed why. Ultron talks about vibrators. A sex tape of Tony and Black Widow gets leaked and the Ultimates put it on full display on a massive screen. The story makes the weirdest turn when Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver start committing incest and now Captain America who is Ultron in disguise is commenting on it, only to shut down by Wasp, calling him old schooled. Unfortunately, these were not even close to the worst that Ultimates had to offer.
Ultimatum
Ultimates may have been the first sign of the dwindling quality of the Ultimate universe, but Ultimatum was the final nail in the coffin. The saga starts with Magneto switching the gravitational poles of the earth, causing a massive apocalyptic event on earth that results in millions of deaths. In the series, it was certain that a few big names will be buried off. But the resulting plot witnessed the demise of over 30 main characters from the marvel narrative, including characters like Wolverine, Cyclops, Angel, Doctor Strange, Nightcrawler, and many more. What is worse is the way these heroes meet their demise. Doctor Strange’s head burst like a pimple. Blob devours Wasp and Hank bites off Blob’s head to avenge her daughter. Jeph Loeb tried so hard to tell a story, that he overdid every aspect of the narrative into the worst nightmare ever.
Heroes in Crisis
Wally West took up the mantle of the Scarlet Speedster, after his mentor Barry Allen dies in the first issue of Crisis. But after a few decades, Barry makes a return, and while the readers assumed that Wally West would still assume his role as they would not just remove him from the plot. Just because Barry is back, DC did worse. When the new 52 was launched, Wally West was erased from existence as if he never existed. For half a decade Wally was nowhere to be seen until he was reintroduced in DC rebirth, which got fans excited.
However, the excitement turned to horror when in the crisis storyline all the heroes were killed off including Wally. And just to make the fans angrier, it was Wally who killed the heroes and placed a dead body as dead Wally to throw off his scent. But, guess that was not the worst of all, the higher-ups at DC decided to redeem Wally and transformed him into Doctor Manhattan, throwing the little bit of sense out of the window.
Heroes Reborn
Along with Spider-Man and X-Men, there were other comics like Iron man, Captain America, and Avengers who were doing good back in the ’90s. To counter this trend, the characters were killed in an onslaught saga and later relaunched in an alternate universe. Marvel rehired artists and image creators, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld, to reboot these characters under a new banner called Heroes Reborn. The new issues were ridiculed by fans and critics alike, even though the storyline was bland and the dialogues vague, it wasn’t either one as the source of criticism. But rather the drawings of the characters in the issue, with big arms and tiny noses the issue had become the center of a joke. Marvel soon realized their mistake and reincorporated all the characters back into the main continuity.
One More Day
The plot revolved around Spider-Man making a deal with Mephisto to spare the life o his aunt may, who was shot by Kingpin after peters identity is revealed after the events of the Civil War. The demon agrees to create an alternate reality just for his aunt, in return for his marriage with Mary Jane Watson, and adds in another favor of erasing the revelation of Spider-Man’s identity from everyone’s minds, if he was to agree. What worse defying logic and sense Peter and Mary Jane agree to the terms.
Secret Empire
The Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 witnessed Captain America, in actual reality turning out to be an agent of Hydra right from the beginning. This absurd gimmick was mauled by several fans and was not seen or taken as a mere comic narrative. Through the storyline, it was unveiled that this Captain America was brought in contact with the evil cosmic cube, but it was not revealed till the very end making the readers believe that Steve Rogers betrayed his teammates. By the time the readers learn of the truth, they are already too angry with Captain America to care about the reason.
