The Worst character in comics

[Adventus]

This is a companion thread to the best Super in comics.

 

Who do you think is the worst Super in comics? In storyline, plot, back-story and ongoing story and character concept?

 

And I mean a regular ongoing character. Not someone who showed up for a few issues and was never seen again.

[MilkmanDan]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Cable is pretty awful. An extremely violent super-powerful telekinetic who can't really use his telekinesis because of a techno-organic virus that was engineered by his own clone and he carries around big guns and has a glowing eye for no real good reason and is the child of a major character and his dead former wife who was a clone of his first love who died then came back to life but wasn't really her and then died again and really was just in a pod under the water and came back and when the clone found out she became evil and the son was taken into the future to be raised by future selves of major character and real woman #1 and then came back to fight evil.

 

I think that pretty much captures it.

[Querysphinx]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

I think the question ought to be, which is the worst major character in comics, other than Cable, because Cable is the obvious number one choice.

[Psybolt]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

As a huge Spider-man fan, I have to say the Scarlet Spider. Still makes me want to murder something when I think about the Clone Saga garbage.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Cable is pretty awful. An extremely violent super-powerful telekinetic who can't really use his telekinesis because of a techno-organic virus that was engineered by his own clone and he carries around big guns and has a glowing eye for no real good reason and is the child of a major character and his dead former wife who was a clone of his first love who died then came back to life but wasn't really her and then died again and really was just in a pod under the water and came back and when the clone found out she became evil and the son was taken into the future to be raised by future selves of major character and real woman #1 and then came back to fight evil.

 

I think that pretty much captures it.

I was going to say Cable anyway, but I didn't realize just how bad it was. He's like the Platonic idea of awful.

[MilkmanDan]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

I forgot to mention "and was created and 'drawn' by Rob Liefeld".

[Cygnia]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Does Joe Quesada count as a character?

[DusterBoy]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Captain Britain. Bleuch!

 

Once more with the "British guy created by Yanks who have never been to Britain" and the only concept they can come up with is King Arthur - 'cos that's all they've ever heard of.

 

Captain America works because America (ie the US) is one country. Britain is four countries - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Britain is a "metanation".

 

A better concept would have been "John Bull" - the English version of Uncle Sam. Okay - he's meant to be British, but people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would see him as English. However, unlike Uncle sam, he is not a figure of authority (esp not the Authority).

[Cygnia]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Captain Britain. Bleuch!

 

Once more with the "British guy created by Yanks who have never been to Britain" and the only concept they can come up with is King Arthur - 'cos that's all they've ever heard of.

 

Captain America works because America (ie the US) is one country. Britain is four countries - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Britain is a "metanation".

 

A better concept would have been "John Bull" - the English version of Uncle Sam. Okay - he's meant to be British, but people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would see him as English. However, unlike Uncle sam, he is not a figure of authority (esp not the Authority).

 

Can a different writer save/fix the concept though? I've read that Paul Cornell will be working on a Captain Britain series and he IS English.

[Hermit]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

I think Union Jack has the cooler costume myself

 

And I've thought about it, and I still can't really top Cable for sheer suckiness.

[Doomed Prophet]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Good thing this isn't a poll... I think Cable would be running unopposed...

 

BTW: That's my pick too... Never cared for Cable, or what Liefield did to comics...

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Call me crazy, but I like both the Scarlet Spider and Cable. The problem with both of them is that they got in the way of the story that comics cannot bring themselves to tell. (How Peter/Mary Jane and Scott/Jean grew up.) Don't blame the characters; blame the industry, which for some reason thinks that comics characters can't have life cycles because we wouldn't identify with them any more.

Some counter-intuitive choices:

i) Superman/Doctor Strange/Spectre: "You know who would make a great protagonist in a serial drama? Someone omnipotent!"

ii) Aquaman/The Submariner: Cool character or not, useful powers or not, they're underwater. There's no bank robberies underwater. Heck, there aren't even any refrigerators, although credit both series' writers for coming up with alternatives. (I just thank Heavens that no-one seems to notice that Susan Storm is Namor's mistress [and Reed and Ben's beard], because I like her and she's stayed out of the fridge for 40 years.)

iii) The Phantom. "Thank Heavens us nice Black people have a White hero to defend us forever!"

[godjam]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

I also have to defend Cable and Scarlet Spider a little bit, after all SS is just Spider-Man without the back story weighing him down. How you can hate a character who is basically the SAME CHARACTER as Spidey puzzles me.

As for Cable, there are other X-Men who offend me even more:

 

BISHOP- What is this guy still doing here? Yey he saved the X-Men now kill him off already. I'm sick of him and his expert martial artist/ detective/ bounty hunter/ edgey X-Guy thing. District X tanked for a reason. And his power? 'Actually i can absorb massive amounts of raw energy- kinetic, electric or even psychic(?)'

and Havok for the simple reason that he's STILL got an inferiority complex about his big brother, oh and for treating Polaris, the woman he supposedly loves, like dirt.

 

Overall i'd agree that underwater people leave me kind of cold as character concepts, they're just too limited. Although hate Aquaman A LOT more than submariner. A lot more.

But for my money some of the Avengers are pretty dire- (Triathalon) and i know i might get some stick for this but here goes-Giant Man (Or Ant Man, or Yellow Jacket) the guy grows AND shrinks using something called Pym particles!! Come on, he's worth a mention.

 

GOJ

[Kirby]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

My personal preferences, in order:

1. Wolverine (modern)
   
2. Iron Man (Civil War junk)
   
3. Hulk
   
4. Batman - Jetix cartoon version
   

[wcw43921]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Even though the character was the basis for the Dark Champions genre, with apologies to Mr. Long, I say The Punisher is the worst. Not only is he a gun-wielding vigilante killer in a genre where such characters would--should--suffer the same fate as villains, he's a blatant plaigarism of Don Pendleton's character The Executioner. All Marvel did to create him was take Mack Bolan and put him in tights with a big skullface emblem. There's nowhere near as much similarity between Superman and Captain Marvel, as between The Demon With A Glass Hand and The Terminator, as there is between The Punisher and The Executioner.

 

To this day it surprises me that there wasn't a lawsuit, either by Pendleton or Pinnacle Books. Because they would have won, and The Punisher would be nothing more than a distasteful, insignificant memory.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

I was going to say that kid from JSA with the genie is pretty annoying, but yeah, Cable is just dumb. It's like he was created by a 12 year old to be the kewlest character ever. Cable's a freaking parody.

[MilkmanDan]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

I was going to say that kid from JSA with the genie is pretty annoying' date=' but yeah, Cable is just dumb. It's like he was created by a 12 year old to be the kewlest character ever. Cable's a freaking parody.[/quote']

 

They should change his name to c4b13!!!!1!1!1!!11!!

[Bloodstone]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Captain Britain. Bleuch!

 

Once more with the "British guy created by Yanks who have never been to Britain" and the only concept they can come up with is King Arthur - 'cos that's all they've ever heard of.

 

:face palm:

 

Chris Claremont created Captain Britain.

 

Care to venture a guess where this alleged Yank is from?

[Bloodstone]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

And I'd also like to defend some of the stuff Fabian Nicieza has done with Cable over the years, even if I really hated most of the crap they di wit him in the 90's.

 

Cable & Deadpool was a really fun series though

[Captain Obvious]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

And I'd also like to defend some of the stuff Fabian Nicieza has done with Cable over the years, even if I really hated most of the crap they di wit him in the 90's.

 

Cable & Deadpool was a really fun series though

 

I haven't read any of it, but hey, maybe you can polish a turd.

[Checkmate]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Even though the character was the basis for the Dark Champions genre' date=' with apologies to Mr. Long, I say [b']The Punisher[/b] is the worst. Not only is he a gun-wielding vigilante killer in a genre where such characters would--should--suffer the same fate as villains, he's a blatant plaigarism of Don Pendleton's character The Executioner. All Marvel did to create him was take Mack Bolan and put him in tights with a big skullface emblem. There's nowhere near as much similarity between Superman and Captain Marvel, as between The Demon With A Glass Hand and The Terminator, as there is between The Punisher and The Executioner.

 

To this day it surprises me that there wasn't a lawsuit, either by Pendleton or Pinnacle Books. Because they would have won, and The Punisher would be nothing more than a distasteful, insignificant memory.

Besides both being in Viet Nam, and both carry guns, I see VERY little that makes these guys similar at all. Personality, motivation, tactics, teachers, everything is pretty much different...That is of course assuming things haven't changed since I read comics.

 

To answer the original question: Current Iron Man. Besides the whole Civil War fiasco, why does there even need to be any other superheroes on the planet? The armor makes him stronger than Thor, he can create a force field that can withstand a nuke, absorb any energy shot at him, I mean he has a 10,000pt VPP, pretty much makes everyone else useless.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

To answer the original question: Current Iron Man. Besides the whole Civil War fiasco' date=' why does there even need to be any other superheroes on the planet? ...[/quote']

Iron Man needs someone to fight. Duh.

[gmurie]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

My vote for ALL TIME WORST is Spawn. This month Spawn wakes up and has breakfast! I once heard a rumor that Todd McFarlane bragged that he could put the panels of Spawn together in any order he liked and the fans of the comic were so dumb they wouldn't notice.

 

I have two additional TYPES of characters that I don't like:

 

Witchblade, Fathom, Power Girl, Red Sonja, and a few others of that ilk. The comics that have covers that are blatantly aimed at 13 year old boys. Look! BOOBIES! BOOOOOBIES!

 

Spawn, Punisher, Cable, and any character that is shown carting around several guns the size of sign posts and kills people for no comprehensible reason other than to prove that he's tough.

 

As often as not I find myself loathing established characters that I'd normally like because writers shift them over to one of those two types. I hate almost everything Image has ever done with the exception of the early run of Savage Dragon, but Spawn has a special place of loathing in my heart.

[godjam]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

Yeah!

Damn i forgot all about Spawn and Savage Dragon, Good One!

I never, ever understood why people went crazy about Spawn, the idea of his origin was okay but the best thing about the comic was the two cops- i forget there names.

Andthe best Savage Dragon title ever done was the mini-series done by Jason Pearson - it was the first thing that i read with SD in, it actually read like a super-cop story-i.e edgy, witty and intelligent. Then i went and read all the Eric Larson stuff and it wasn't half as good.

 

There does seem to be a genuine problem when artists get to make up their own characters and get to run with them, both examples above disappeared up their own a** after about...12-20 issues, I'm estimating.

[Checkmate]

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

...but Spawn has a special place of loathing in my heart.

My first introduction to Spawn was when Image first came out they had a comic called Shadowhawk. There was a limited series where you could write in and guess which character was actually Shadowhawk.

 

Shadowhawk (a Batman type character with armor that broke people's back, yeah, yeah typical Image) was tracking down an arsonist. Spawn appears on the building right behind Shadowhawk and says something to the effect of:

 

"If you are after the arsonist, find him. If you are the arsonist, we dance"

 

Shadowhawk says something like I'll find him and Spawn says "End it tonight" and jumps off a building. When he leaves Shadowhawk thinks about how spooky that guy was.

 

Now typing all that out, and looking back on how Image really was, it sounds pretty cheesy, but at the time, I thought it was the coolest thing. I thought it was cool that "Psycho-Batman" thought someone else was spooky.

 

I got a couple of Spawn comics and was promptly disappointed, but for two whole panels, I thought he was the coolest ever.