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Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Superheroes I Hate

I'm feeling a bit negative today, I don't know why. I only read the comics I know will be good, so it's not that. Just a mood thing. My man period.

But I'm going to feed my own negativity and finally post the superheroes I hate. I've been wanting to rant about this for a while. It's embarrassingly nerdy and petty, but, by gum, it's what I feel. So here we go.

1. Green Arrow/Hawkeye: brash "iconoclast" with a bow and arrow. I hate that. It's stupid. Swords are cool in certain situations even in modern times. But bows and arrows are dumb in a superhero setting. And why do the guys who shoot them have the same stupid personality? Oh, they clash with authority! That's so awesome! Except they clash with authority in ways only authority-fearing nerds could imagine. "OOOH BOOTS ON THE TABLE!" I hate these stupid characters.

2. Photon/Captain Marvel/Pulsar/Whatever: Nobody with Jerry Curl should ever be seen again, let alone be called "Captain Marvel." This stupid character seems to have a rabid cult following that I'll never understand. Bland character, stupid powers, awful costume, is there anything appealing about this character at all? The answer is no. She is stupid.

3. Wally West: Ultimate Mary Sue character, to get ubernerdier. He was once a square mid-west guy, even conservative. Then he was a money-loving womanizer. But then Mark Waid wrote him (pretty well, mind you) and he became Mark Waid. Geoff Johns gets him and he's a blue collar workaday guy. He works on that cartoon as a comic relief fellow, and that's kind of how Morrison seemed to use him. But the fact is he's so bland that every writer has to put some part of himself into him. Also, running fast is a stupid super power. And "speedster" is a stupid word that I often can't believe even exists. Because Barry Allen was in the JLA then all the sudden every superhero universe needs a bunch of dorks who run fast. It's stupid. I hate it.

4. Now that you mention it, I pretty much hate all the Wolfman-era Titans. Even if they were neat before, he turned them into whiney soap opera characters and they've never recovered. Dick Grayson, ugh. Raven, zzzzz. Cyborg, snicker. Starfire ROLLEYES. Arsenal, plop. (I don't know what that last part meant.) But look at them, they're all these touchy feely talk about your emotions types and it makes me want to cut off my anus. I hate them, mostly because as the cartoon and cartoony comic has shown us, these could be fun characters, if only Marv Wolfman never decided to write soap opera Marvel stuff at DC.

5. Jean Grey: Stay dead, crapface.

That's it for now. I'm sure I actually hate a lot more of them. Discuss why I'm right.

13 Love Letters:

Blogger Bill Reed said...

Hmm... I like Wally.

12:07 PM

 
Blogger Derek Ash said...

I never understood why Green Arrow or Hawkeye didn't die in their very first adventures. You're not talking about Batman (Powerless vigilante but with a mind like Sherlock-fucking-Holmes, more martial arts training than god, gadgets out the ass, etc.) You're talking about a jackass with a bow and arrow. The guys over at Suspension of Disbeliefhave proven how, time and time again, all the artists who work on these characters have no fuckingclue how archery works, and the fact is, the way it should work is this:

Shoot an arrow at Darkseid, get killed.
Shoot an arrow at Absorbing Man, get killed.
Shoot an arrow at Lex Luthor, get killed.
Shoot an arrow at Batroc the Leaper, GET FUCKING KILLED.

Archery as a super power has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

Green Arrow:"Uh... Green Lantern could you stop using your all-powerful ring to defeat legions upon legions of super-villains? You're spoiling my shot, and I'd like to take out the only supervillain I'm fit to fight, 'Throws Rocks at Things Man' and you're sort of in mu line-of-sight with all our actual ass-kicking. Hey, wanna go on an introspective road-trip after this?"

Green Lantern: "Sigh. Okay Ollie."

12:48 PM

 
Blogger Markus said...

IMHO archers are Robin Hood clones and holdovers from the comic code days when a gun carrying superhero was still a problem.
That said, the concept itself is fine with me as long as it's not just "archery". Archery + gadgeteer works nicely IMO and I'm still waiting for one of them getting the equivalent of the new boomerang's speed powers, i.e. something like 10 arrows a second or somesuch. That also might make them more viable next to Green Latern.

4:18 PM

 
Blogger Alex! said...

This is the best post idea ever.

I will copy you like a lame-o soon, and I hope Paul follows in my plagiaristic footsteps.

First on my chopping block?

That sonuvabitch Mister Terriffic.

Both of them.

Oh yes.

-a

5:02 PM

 
Blogger T. said...

Have you read my rantings on the Titans before, because if not it's pretty eerie how much you've read my mind. The Marvel soap opera hysterics wouldn't have been so bad if Wolfman also remembered to put in the Marvel high-powered beatdowns of supervillains. But Wolfman created a superteam with all the melodramatic elements of Marvel comics, but totally unable to kick anyone's ass or intimidate anyone.

7:37 PM

 
Blogger Mr. Rice said...

I haven't, actually, T. But it shows you are an intelligent man of discerning taste.

Who's the Titans big villain? Deathstroke. Frickin' Deathstroke. A guy who's good at fighting and wearing really stupid outfits and screwing teenage girls. Lame.

And Markus, if they had super speed or something, there's probably a thousand more useful things someone could do rather than shoot goddam arrows at someone else.

7:40 PM

 
Blogger Mr. Rice said...

I definitely preferred the trick arrows silver age Green Arrow, but he hasn't been that character in a long time. He grew a beard and got "meaningful" which I guess means "awkwardly unrealistic trying to be realistic."

7:45 PM

 
Blogger Ed said...

A few examples: the boxing glove arrow, vine arrow, fountain pen arrow, bolo arrow, cocoon arrow and acetylene arrow.

At first, I read that as "raccoon arrows," and I thought it was brilliant. There's nothing better than shooting woodland creatures at muggers.

What do I hate... hmmm. I probably can't work up enough passion to actively hate a specific character. But if your only power is that you have wings, you're not a superhero. You're just half-bird and rather awkward looking. Like, if Nightcrawler's only power was blue fur, tail and weird fingers, it would mean his superpowers would consist of looking weird, typing ten words per minute, and hiding things behind his back and/or hanging from trees.

8:44 PM

 
Blogger Ragnell said...

I'm with you on the Wolfman Titans. Marv Wolfman is the only reason that gawds-awful Donna Troy keeps coming back to life.

I mean, it's a joy to see her die, but is it really worth bringing her back?

1:37 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great post Joe. It's "Jheri-Curl" by the way. But while we're on the topic of Avengers with white costumes, I always hated Starfox. What exactly was his power anyway? Besides standing around and looking effeminate? The Avengers had such a low threshold for admission.

Oh, and any post-1990 X-Man. Bishop, Gambit, Cable, etc. can all eat it.

2:04 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Super-speed always seemed cool to me. Go anywhere easily. Gte shit done fast. Beat your wife AND kids during commercial breaks. Now, that's a useful super power.

2:22 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, what are his powers again? Do they ever even say? Oh, he can fly, apparently, and, um, shoot..."blasts" from his hands. Well hell, I can do THAT. So what's the big deal?

And what about his origin? The words "wha huh?" come to mind...yes, Captain Atom = irritating as shit. I never got this, and I'm not sure I ever want to. Also why are his boots one colour and his gloves another? Something to do with that alien spacecraft (or whatever) that the military found and then, um...BLEW UP? With him sitting in it? As an experiment? Oh my God, when you look at it in print it just stops making ANY kind of sense...

4:42 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ha, ha! Orangecoke, you scare me a little.

12:11 PM

 

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