Worst Ongoing Series of 2008
Doom DeLuise says: The Flash!
I’m not sure if this series has been any good in the past couple years, at all, but this year it was so bad that I actually dropped it. This coming from a guy who’s such a huge Flash fan that he even stuck with it through Bart’s awful run, no pun intended.
Wally West’s kids developed super powers, and it became this stupid little Flash Family Happy Hour, and it was freaking atrocious. It seems like every single issue was just the two kids getting in over their heads and having Wally bail them out, followed by a couple pages of Wally and his wife talking about how they don’t know where the kids got their powers or how stable they are.
What a snooze-fest.
The good news for the Scarlet Speedster is that Geoff Johns is going to be writing a Flash story in 2009. You may have heard about it. It sounds pretty badass.
Oh, and, technically, I think this Flash series is over now, as of the last week of the year. Beats me. I don’t pay enough attention to know these things.
Honorable Mention: Nightwing
I thought this baby was getting better for awhile there, but it’s still pretty bad. Thankfully, it’s getting the boot here soon. How hard is it to write a decent Dick Grayson story? I mean, seriously, he’s so much fun, it seems like it’d be hard to screw up.
Jim Doom says: Justice League of America!
It’s hard picking a worst series, since the cost of comics makes it so easy to just not buy what is awful. I dropped this book in 2007 after Dwayne McDuffie’s embarrassingly bad debut. One might ask, “Well then, how can you possibly say it’s the worst of 2008?” Well, dear reader, occasionally in 2008, I would pick up an issue because I had some comics budget dollars that would otherwise go unspent. An issue of JLA was our Book of Doom one week this past year.
And every time I peeked back into this series to see what I was missing, I closed the issue upon completion and realized the answer to that question is, “A stupid comic.”
Honorable mention: The Goon
I’ve lost so much love for the Goon, and it probably falls on deaf ears (or eyes) here because I’m like a broken record about it. And the fact I keep buying the blasted book surely has to keep it out of the top spot.
Fin Fang Doom says: Thunderbolts!
Out of all the titles I read a significant number of issues of in 2008, Thunderbolts has got to be the worst. I’ve gone on and on before about how Warren Ellis has changed the title so much from its original concept that it’s virtually unrecognizable, but after he left the series it got even worse. New writer Christos Gage was decent, but he was hampered significantly by terrible art and a forced Secret Invasion crossover. The title’s not any better now than it was under Ellis, and now nobody cares about it because Ellis isn’t writing it anymore.
Here’s what we thought were the Worst Ongoing Series in years past:
2007:
Doominator: Justice League of America
Fin Fang Doom: Exiles
Doom DeLuise: Justice League of America
Jim Doom: Justice League of America2006:
Jim Doom: Nightwing
Doom DeLuise: Nightwing
Fin Fang Doom: Hawkgirl
Doominator: ASSBAR
I couldn’t agree more on Nightwing and JLA. Why aren’t writers and editors caring about these books? Justice league should have the “A” team on it at all times, and Nightwing isn’t some flash in the pan character either. Sometimes a book just sucks and readers are getting it. But Justice League should have a focus and plan for stories and plots to develope down the road, “like a successful title normally does” Not be the drop off of unused characters and kick off for each cross-over.