Biggest Disappointment of 2008
Jim Doom says: Legion of Super-Heroes!
I used to love this series. I hear it’s getting canceled. Maybe the superstar writer fondness for the original Legion has led to the current version getting less attention than they deserve from DC, but it’s not as if the title was some kind of hot property when Mark Waid and even Tony Bedard were writing it.
I have nothing against Jim Shooter, but I quickly lost all interest in what was once one of my favorite titles.
Honorable mentions:
The conclusion to Messiah CompleX: I was surprised at how much I got hooked by that crossover, but the way it ended was a huge disappointment. Cyclops became a bigger tool and Professor X disappeared and / or died again.
The conclusion to Secret Invasion: Bendis seemed to hand a gift-wrapped finale to his critics. Rather than leading readers into the heat of the battle, he yanked us out prior to the climax and then informed us of what happened through flashback dialogue.
Killing Batman: This would probably be #1 if it weren’t being done so well. I just don’t want Batman to die.
Doom DeLuise says: Green Lantern!
Last year, my favorite superhero was Green Lantern, hands down. Not just Hal, but the whole slew of ’em. After the Sinestro Corps War, I was super amped up for anything and everything GL, and, unfortunately, 2008 let me down, big time.
Instead of pushing forward with the War of Light, they retold the origin of Hal Jordan, adding some new stuff to further the future stories, but, for the most part, I found myself wishing I hadn’t bought the issues. It’s a testament to how much I loved the series in 2007 that I continued to buy it through the doldrums of 2008. Here’s what I had to say about it when the origin retelling was a few issues in:
“I’m bored as hell by Green Lantern. I read this story fifteen years ago. Oh, but there’s new stuff that we didn’t know about before? Whatever. That’s dumb, revisionist history.”
Fin Fang Doom says: Millar/Hitch on Fantastic Four!
The Ultimates was great, easily one of the best ten comic series of the last decade. The Ultimates 2 was good, although not nearly as good as the first. Fantastic Four isn’t bad, but it’s nowhere even close to the level of those first two.
Why haven’t Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch been able to make the FF as interesting as the Ultimates? The shipping schedule doesn’t help. I’m frankly not even sure if this started in 2008, because the monthly schedule Marvel promised this title would have hasn’t even come close to happening. And the stories, while epic, don’t feel like FF stories. The “saving the world” stuff is Avengers territory.
Maybe this is just another case of the FF being an inherently uninteresting concept that needs a creative team that truly understands the comic in order for it to work. Out of the ten years I’ve been reading the title, there’s been one creative team (Waid/Weiringo) that made me look forward to the Fantastic Four every month. I was hoping Millar/Hitch would be the second, but I guess that’s not going to happen.
Doominator says: Money!
I didn’t have enough money to buy any comics this year!
That’s my assessment of it, anyway. Doominator never actually said that.
And, here, for your reading pleasure, are our Biggest Disappointments of the past couple years:
2007:
Jim Doom: The Fall of the Super-Writers
Doominator: X-Men
Fin Fang Doom: X-Men: Endangered Species
Doom DeLuise: Countdown2006:
Jim Doom: Artists who don’t draw their own backgrounds
Doominator: X-Men: The Last Stand
Fin Fang Doom: Civil War
Doom DeLuise: Nightwing, Flash, and Ion