Worst New Series of 2009
Jim Doom: Ultimate Comics: Avengers!
This series was so bad, I honestly thought Jeph Loeb was writing it. Seriously. I had started this entry complaining about Jeph Loeb some more when I went on wikipedia to do some fact checking and was reminded that Mark Millar was back to writing this series. My mind was blown. How could Ultimates 1 and Ultimates 2 be so good and this be so bad? It’s as if Loeb’s stink has permeated everything with an Ultimate adjective and now it won’t wash off my olfactory lobe.
Maybe the idea of having the Red Skull be Captain America’s illegitimate son was just too soap-operaish for me, or maybe it just reminded me too much of the awkward sexual undertones of Ultimates 3. The more I write about it, the more I’m starting to think that Mark Millar is just a new pen name for Ultimate Jeph Loeb.
Also, it’s $3.99.
Honorable mention: Adventure Comics. I thought this was supposed to be a Conor Kent story with LoSH backups. So far, it’s been some Conor stories, some accursed Superboy Prime stories (that were seriously among the worst crap I’ve read in years), maybe a Legion cameo and a whole lot of inconsistency. And it’s $3.99.
Doom DeLuise: Red Robin!
Man alive, this series stinks. It’s as if they took every interesting thing about Tim Drake, along with every interesting relationship he’s built over the course of the past twenty years of continuity that he’s been involved in, and threw it all into the toilet. What we were left with is this mopey, boring chump, who won’t give up on the idea that Bruce Wayne might still be alive, in spite of the fact that they found and buried a body. That’s some ace detective work there!
I mean, think about it. This entire series has been wrapped around Tim’s idea that Bruce is still alive out there somewhere, but he’s going off absolutely zero proof. Sure, Bruce is still alive, as they’re bringing him back in April in some mini-series, and Tim might eventually find him or something, but what’s motivating the fictional character of Tim Drake to ignore all the evidence and irrationally think that Bruce might still be out there somewhere? Nothing, because it’s stupid.
Here are the endless streams of yuck we don’t like to think about from previous years:
2008:
Jim Doom: X-Force
Doom DeLuise: Eternals
Fin Fang Doom: Titans2007:
Doom DeLuise: Mighty Avengers
Jim Doom: Avengers Classic
Fin Fang Doom: Countdown2006:
Doominator: newuniversal
Jim Doom: Batman Confidential
Doom DeLuise: Flash: The Fastest Man Alive
Fin Fang Doom: Nightwing (OYL)2005:
Fin Fang Doom: ASSBAR
Jim Doom: Anything All-Star
Jean-Claude Van Doom: Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos