The WORST Comic Book Stories EVER

Ok so a few weeks ago I did a post about some of the best comic book stories I've ever read. Now I'm going to do a post about some of the WORST comic book stories I've ever read and stories that you must stay away from. Here we go...

- One More Day (By J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada)

- Ultimatum (By Jeph Loeb and David Finch)

- Old Man Logan (By Mark Millar and Steve McNiven)

- Almost every New, Dark, Mighty Avengers issue written by Brian Michael Bendis (By Bendis and various)

- Battle for the Cowl (By Tony Daniel)

- Countdown to Final Crisis (By various)

- James Robinson's current JLA run (By James Robinson and Mark Bagley)

- Ultimate Fantastic Four#19-20 (By Mike Carey and Jae Lee)

- Ultimate Fantastic Four#21-32 (By Mark Millar and Greg Land)

- The Ultimates 3 (By Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureira)

- Ultimate War (By Mark Millar and Chris Bachalo)

- Batman R.I.P. (By Grant Morrison and Tony Daniel)

- Ultimate Power (By Brian Bendis, J. Michael Straczynski, Jeph Loeb, and Greg Land)

- Civil War (By Mark Millar and Steve McNiven)

- Every Amazing Spider-Man from the 90s (by various)

- Dark Reign: The List (By various)

- Tony Daniel's current Batman run (By Horse and Crap)

- Jeph Loeb's Hulk series (By Loeb and an array of excellent artists, unfortunately)

- Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's Fantastic Four run

- Kick-Ass (By Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.)

- Return of the Black Cat (By Joe Kelly and Mike McKone)

- Bob Gale's Amazing Spider-Man issues

- Zeb Wells' Amazing Spider-Man issues

- Fred Van Lente's Amazing Spider-Man issues

- Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth (By Victor Gischler and Bong Dazo) Only thing funny about this series is that it actually got published.

- Deadpool Team-Up (by various people who can't tell a good Deadpool story)

- Anything written and/or drawn by Rob Liefeld (your eyes will bleed)

- Absolute Power (By Aron E. Coleite and Mark Brooks)

- Captain America: Reborn (By Ed Brubaker, Bryan Hitch, and Butch Guice)

That's about all I can think of right now. Jeez. Look at this list! Look at all the pain comic books have given me! Poor Mark Millar :( All of these stories have been published in the past 15 years or so... I wonder why that is?

R.E.B.E.L.S.#13 REVIEW (The Agents of Atlas of the DCU)

Wow its been a long time since I did a review, so hopefully with this review I can get back on track. Here we go:

R.E.B.E.L.S.#13

Written by: Tony Bedard

Art by: Claude St. Aubin

Inks by: Scott Hanna

Cover by: Kalman Andrasofszky

Price: $2.99

Publisher: DC Comics

This has to be one of DC's most under appreciated books ever. I found out about this book through the Blackest Night ring promotion and through a couple review on the comic culture warrior youtube channel. I had doubts about whether I would like this book or not since I knew absolutely nothing about the characters in the book, but when I did read the book Bedard did a nice job summarizing what has happened with these characters and who they are (see R.E.B.E.L.S.#1 and 10).

Bedard does a really nice job making this an incredibly fun book to read and does a great job on making these characters enjoyable, easy to relate to and easy to care for. Bedard got me quickly emotionally invested into the characters which I found similar results in Green Lantern Corps and Invincible Iron Man, which I absolutely love. I love it when stories get you into the characters and make them easy to care for and when they're not just paper cut-out characters. Another great thing about this book is it is full of exciting and fun-filled space adventures. At times it feels a lot like a Star Wars, Star Trek, and/or Battlestar Galatica type of adventure and it is amazing. The level of imagination that goes into this book is incredible and it clearly shows throughout the book. The humor that is snuck into the book is also very interesting and funny. It always comes at the least expected times which shows that Bedard has great comedic timing.

The art really goes nicely with Bedard's script. It flows and adds a level of enjoyment to the book. The spaceship, character and costume designs are all very interesting and a treat for the eyes and again gives the book a nice space adventure feel to it. In just 2-3 months this book has quickly shot up to the list of comic books that I have to read every month. If you aren't reading this you should be. If you don't like it, that's fine. If you do like it, great! This is a book that needs more attention and more people buying the book. Like I said in the title: it's the Agents of Atlas of the DCU. I would hate to have this book meet the same fate as a few of my other favorite books such as, Agents of Atlas and Captain Britain and MI13, have meet.

Rating: A

ItsJustSomeRandomGeek's recommended comic book reading list

Do you think comics are dumb? Have you ever considered getting into reading comic books? Well I have a handy-dandy list of stories you should read. I guarantee that each story will change you're perception on comic books. I promise. So without further blah blah here's the list:

- If this be my destiny... (Amazing Spider-Man#31-33 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko)

- Dark Phoenix Saga (Uncanny X-Men#129-137 by Chris Claremont and John Bryne)

- Hobgoblin Saga (Amazing Spider-Man#238-239, 244-245, 249-251 by Roger Stern, John Romita, Jr., and John Romita, Sr.)

- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns#1-4 by Frank Miller)

- Daredevil: Born Again (Daredevil#227-233 by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli)

- Batman: Year One (Batman#404-407 by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli)

- Batgirl: Year One (Batgirl: Year One#1-9 by Scott Beatty, Chuck Dixon, and Marcos Martin)

- The Night Gwen Stacy Died (Amazing Spider-Man#121-122 by Gerry Conway and Gil Kane)

- Power and Responsibility (Ultimate Spider-Man#1-7 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley)

- Ultimate Clone Saga (Ultimate Spider-Man#97-105 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley)

- World's Most Wanted (Invincible Iron Man, current volume#8-19 by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca)

- Batman: The Killing Joke (Batman: The Killing Joke One-Shot by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland)

- Batman: Hush (Batman#608-619 by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee)

- Green Lantern: Rebirth (Green Lantern: Rebirth#1-6 by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver)

- Superman: Man of Steel (Man of Steel#1-6 by John Byrne)

- Wanted (Wanted#1-6 by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones)

- The Tomorrow People (Ultimate X-Men#1-6 by Mark Millar, Adam and Andy Kubert)

- The Death of Captain Stacy (Amazing Spider-Man#88-90 by Stan Lee, Gil Kane and John Romita, Sr.)

- Batman: A Death in the Family (Batman#426-429 by Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo)

- Batman: The Man Who Laughs (Batman: The Man Who Laughs One-Shot by Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke)

- Warren Ellis' run on Thunderbolts (Thunderbolts#110-121)

- Judd Winick's Batman issues (Batman#626-630, 634-641, 645-650, 687-691)

- Geoff Johns' ENTIRE run on Green Lantern (Green Lantern, current volume#1-current)

- Magnum Opus (Deadpool, current volume#8-9, Thunderbolts#130-131 by Daniel Way, Andy Diggle, Paco Medina, and Bong Dazo)

- Death of a Goblin (Ultimate Spider-Man#112-117 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen)

- Daredevil: The Man Without Fear (Daredevil: Man Without Fear#1-5 by Frank Miller and John Romita, Jr.)

That's all I think of right now. Any stories that YOU guys out there suggest that I read? I'm currently reading JLA/Avengers, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and other random back issues. I'm on the look out for Superman: Red Son, Birth of Venom, Pax Romana, and Blankets. I'll probably add more if any good stories come to mind.

My rebuttal to Tom Brevoort

As many of you are aware Marvel has announced that they will give out a Siege#3 Deadpool variant cover for every 50 covers of the DC titles that came with the lantern rings in November. In short I don't like this at all. It is a low blow and I'm amazed that DC hasn't striked back, but then again DC has more respect than Marvel. That's not what I'm ranting about now. What I'm about to talk about is how Tom Brevoort, the Executive Editor at Marvel, is responding to complaints. I am going to dissect this interview bit by bit. I will be pulling quotes and statements from the article. A link to the article can be found at the bottom of this post.

"We heard from a number of retailers who got stuck with books chasing rings and decided to do something. We're not making any money on the deal, but we are helping our retailer partners during a tough economic time. Making sure that our retailers can keep the doors open if they tied up a lot of cash on inventory they can't move. We're doing this because we're in the business of selling content rather than Cracker Jack prizes. And we need retailers to be able to keep the lights on and afford to order next month's books. [Marvel won't be accepting trade-ins for unsold Dark Reign and The List books] because there, what we were selling and what the retailers were buying were the books. But DC can if they want to!"

Ok so I have several things that I'm having a problem with in this statement:

1. If you're a retailer and your stuck with certain books that you don't want anymore then put them in a sale bin or sell them for a buck a piece instead of following along with Marvel's dumb move.


2. Calling the lantern rings "Cracker Jack prizes" is stupid. Want to know what a cracker jack prize is Marvel? Paper Avengers ID cards and 2010 calenders. Personally I'd rather have a lantern ring instead of a stupid variant cover that won't be worth ANYTHING in the future.


3. Instead of being sent your competitors books why not have sent back the worthless mini-series that Marvel has shoved down people's throats? Need examples? Oh how about all those Dark Reign mini-series'? That's about 10 or 15 different books right there. Are you scared Marvel? Are you scared that DC might actually surpass you? Is that why you're demanding their books? Cause it sure seems like it.


4. Also DC won't do a stupid move like this. They actually have respect for their competition.

Originally Marvel was going to make brown Deadpool Corps rings to give away, but then they said that it would be too expensive. Are you kidding me Marvel? You have over half the market share, you have about 15 movies in development, you have thousands of other products such as clothes and toys and you're saying that making the rings will be too expensive? DC was able to make 8 different kinds of rings! And they don't have all the money that Marvel has.

Marvel what happened to you? Every day it seems like more and more of my love and respect for Marvel is being whittled away because of dumb decisions like this. Hey Marvel, if your goal was to force me to buy less of your books and buy more DC books then congratulations... Mission Accomplished. I've decided to only buy a few books from Marvel since they clearly don't need my money or care too much for the fans:

1. -Invincible Iron Man


2. -Fantastic Four


3. -Amazing Spider-Man (only when Dan Slott writes)


4. -Agents of Atl- oh yeah... they cancelled that book... I may buy Atlas vs. Avengers... it all depends on how much money I have.

Cool! I could use the extra money. I would totally boycott Marvel completely but then I'd be punishing the awesome creators at Marvel (i.e. Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, Jeff Parker, etc.) Marvel is shoo-ing me away... while DC has welcomed me with open arms.

Oh and Marvel... get your heads out of your wallets and start being more like what DC is like right now... you might learn a thing or two.

Click here for the full article!

Let me know what you think of this by leaving a comment! Thanks!

DC declares war on the Supermen!!!

That's right! Another comic book event heads our way! Yay or nay? I'm neither going to say 'yay' nor 'nay' because I'm not a big fan of Superman. He never really has been a personal favorite of mine. Although I did like John Bryne's Man of Steel and I'm liking Superman: Secret Origin right now, but other than that I haven't really cared much for Superman. I haven't read Superman: Red Son or the Geoff Johns/Gary Frank run of Action Comics, but I am on the lookout for those 'cause I've heard those stories are great.

So as you can probably guess that I have no idea where the Superman stories are right now... well... you're right, but DC editor Matt Idelson was asked if fans who aren't up to speed on the current Superman continuity will still enjoy the story and responded:

"Absolutely," Idelson says. "A big part of our jobs (editors and writers both) is to make sure we remember that any given issue of any book could be someone's first. With a big, loud story like this, we have to be doubly diligent to make sure this thing is accessible, from the Free Comic Book Day zero issue right through to the finale."

That's good news for me. This is probably going to be similar to my first exposure to Green Lantern, which was Blackest Night. When I first read BN I had no clue about any of the continuity, but I still enjoyed it immensely. But that caused me to go to book stores and buy all the back issues of stories to catch up and enjoy the story even more, which I may do ahead of time to enjoy War of the Supermen.

Here's the big question: Do we really need another comic book event? Personally I am evented out (Blackest Night is a exception because it's so darn awesome). With the Marvel events such as Fall of the Hulks, Seige, Doomwar, X-Men: Second Coming, etc. coming out it's starting to become a bit too much with all the events, but you know darn well all the event books are going to be top sellers, so the companies will just keep bogging us down with events... We'll see how this all plays out because it's too early to critisize because at first I wasn't looking forward to Blackest Night, but now I love it. You just never know...

Click here to find out more!

Character of the Week: Larfleeze

Don't worry... I'm still sane and all the turkey I had last night hasn't altered my frame of mind. This week marks the return of the post: Character of the Week and the character of the week this week is... Larfleeze. I never thought I would EVER care for Larfleeze because I hated him in the Agent Orange storyline in Green Lantern, but this week Geoff Johns changed all that. In Green Lantern#48 Larfleeze is one of the highlights and in my opinion there is no better way to quickly get a reader emotionally invested in a character than have an issue or two devoted to a particular character. A lot of cool stuff happened with Larfleeze's character in GL#48 and some humorous stuff happens as well. With that I have a new favorite character! :)

Blackest Night#5 REVIEW (Most of the DC Universe... DIE!)

SOME SERIOUSLY MAJOR MAJOR AND I MEAN MAJOR SPOILERS ARE IN THIS REVIEW SO IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS ISSUE YET DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW.

Blackest Night#5

Writer: Geoff Johns

Artist: Ivan Reis w/ inks by Oclair Albert and Joe Prado

Price: $3.99

Publisher: DC Comics

A month ago after reading Issue#4 I asked myself, "How can this get any worse???" Well after reading this... Geoff Johns has easily shown us that it has gotten much, much worse. At the beginning Johns gets your hopes up by having all the Lantern Corps leaders in one place and you think, "Alright! Something good is going to happen!" So for a while you have a happy feeling but then Johns takes that away from you and plunges you back into the bad news. Not complaining... that's the sign of a good writer. So Nekron, the lord of the dead basically, has been risen by Black Hand. Nekron has risen all of Coast City, which is about 7 million people, and things don't look very good. So then a bunch of heroes and all of the Lantern Corps leaders come together and it looks like things are going to be fixed and well. But then... Bruce Wayne is risen from the grave. Then Nekron says that he has connections to everyone who has died and came back. Then commands those who have died and come back to life... (SPOILER!!!)... to die. So we're talking a huge amount of the heroes have just been killed and turned into black lanterns. Superman, Wonder Woman, Kid Flash, Green Arrow, Superboy, Animal Man, and others have died and Hal Jordan and Barry Allen are next...

I. Love. This. Series. I'm gonna come out and say it... this could possibly be the BEST event comic book EVER. Blackest Night is better than Secret Invasion, Civil War, and House of M combined... times five. Seriously if you aren't reading this series you need to go to your local comic book store and buy the issues that have come out so far. Now. You may be asking yourself, "Why does this guy love Blackest Night so much?" I love Blackest Night because it has you emotionally invested in all of the characters involved with the event. You care for them and wonder what's going to happen to them. Plus the heroes act like heroes. They don't bite people's heads off, or kill people, or rape anybody, etc. Geoff Johns knows how to torture the characters he writes and his fans, which is the sign of a good writer.

Ivan Reis' art is great. I would be remiss if I didn't praise his art. For what he does on this book he does really well. His art is spooky, creepy, etc. His art works nicely with the whole story of Blackest Night. The only complaint I have is that there are two inkers working on Reis' art. I understand that they have two inkers working on the art to get it out on the deadline. That's fine and I understand that, but a times the art looked different and a little inconsistant because both Oclair Albert and Joe Prado have different take on Reis' art, but that's just a minor complaint. Otherwise Blackest Night is my favorite book now and I can't wait to see the outcome of this story. DC has yet to disappoint me with this series, so DC: keep up the good work!

Rating: A

Green Lantern Corps#42 REVIEW (Another one bites the dust...)

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS! READ AHEAD WITH CAUTION IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS ISSUE YET! FOR THOSE WHO READ THIS ISSUE... I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE REVIEW!
Green Lantern Corps#42

Writer: Peter J. Tomasi

Artist: Patrick Gleason w/ inks by Rebecca Buchman and Tom Nguyen

Price: $2.99

Publisher: DC Comics

Peter J. Tomasi sure knows how to torture the characters and the fans doesn't he? Tomasi gets you quickly emotionally invested in the characters and then he breaks your heart when bad things happen to your favorite characters, which is the sign of a good writer. Throughout the whole issue the Green Lanterns keep getting pummeled with bad news after bad news after bad news. First the Black Lanterns all gather to destroy the green lantern power battery. When I saw that double splash-page of all the Black Lanterns heading towards the power battery I said, "Holy $#%^! How are the good guys gonna get out of this?" The remaining good guys fight off the black lanterns and it's pretty cool. Then... Tomasi does something I didn't see coming at all... I'll talk about that later on.

Patrick Gleason continues to show that he is one of the best artists out there. All of the splash-pages and battle scenes are drawn beautifully. I hope Gleason stays on GLC for a looooooong time because he's in my Top 5 current artists right now. I can't say anything about the art other than what I've already said.

Now for the part that EVERYONE will be talking about. So towards the end of the book Kyle Rayner takes the alpha lantern battery and this attracts a lot of the black lanterns. Then the detonation of the power battery is activated, killing Rayner and thousands (hopefully) of black lanterns. This scene broke my heart because Kyle Rayner was just starting to be one of my favorite characters. I even cried a little... We're only halfway through Blackest Night guys... it's only gonna get worse from here unfortunately. That aside... Rayner's death is one of the better deaths I've seen in comic books in a long time. He didn't die in vain at all and was a true hero. I can hardly wait for the next issue to come and see the reactions of especially Gardner and Soranik. We all know Gardners reaction is going to have some anger in it...

Rating: A

Reasons to Love Comic Books: Strong Portrayal of Female Characters

Heh heh… I love that picture. For those of you who have been following this blog since the very beginning or know me personally really well will know that I hate it when women comic book characters are treated inferior by men comic book characters. I know I keep talking about this but it really is a topic that must be made more aware of in the comic book community and as much as I love Brian Michael Bendis’ work he has recently been letting me down because of his unfair portrayal of women characters. I’m not saying this problem should be completly erased in comics, although that would be nice, but it needs to happen way less often. This problem wasn’t brought to my attention until I watched an episode of Comic Culture Warrior on Youtube. They complained about how Bendis and other comic book writers as well were not respecting women as well as they should be. They brought up New Avengers#35. The issue were Tigra is beaten/raped by the Hood, while being filmed live to a secret lair of guy super villains. I immeadiatly grabbed my copy of New Avengers#35 and re-read that part and thought, “Oh. My. God. I have been completely blind to this whole problem”. So I continued to re-read some of Bendis’ stuff and it was horrifying to see what he was doing. Again I really have a lot of respect for Bendis (not so much after what he said about Wonder Woman) and he is one of my many inspirations (I want to be a comic book writer when I grow up).

Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of writers out there who write female comic book characters really well. For example:
-Matt Fraction when he writes Emma Frost, Pepper Potts, and Maria Hill. Heck, even Black Widow.
-Greg Rucka when he writes ANY female character.
-Chris Claremont also writes female characters as well
-Gail Simone when she writes Wonder Woman

There are many others that I’m forgetting, but still these three writers are amazing. Don’t get me wrong I like guy comic book characters as well. I like female and male characters equally. I still don’t understand why some of the Top-Selling books are the books that commonly cruel towards women characters. What if a girl tried reading a comic book for the first time in her life and then sees the Sentry ripping Morganna Le Fay’s head off? I would love to see more girls reading comic books (I’d be thrilled), but because of the junk that some writers do that may not happen. If you guys have no respect for Wonder Woman or Batwoman do yourself a favor and buy Gail Simone’s run on Wonder Woman and Greg Rucka’s current run on Detective Comics and his run on Wonder Woman he did a while back.

Again this is just my opinion and others as well. If you disagree with me I will respect that. Thanks for bearing with me and listening to me with an open mind (hopefully).