Bad Characters: Superboy-Prime

Later this summer, DC is going to release a mini-series called "Legion of Three Worlds" which will have the key task of killing the Waid/Kitson version of the Legion, and double-killing the DnA version, because DC is determined to turn the clock back to 1983 whenever possible.

But wait, not only is the Legion of my youth going to be annihilated, it's going to be done by Super(Lawsuit-pending)-Prime, a terrible character.

You see, Superboy-Prime wasn't meant to be a villain, near as I can tell, he was put in the original Crisis because Superboy was about to be Byrned right out of canon, and Marv Wolfman figured, "Well, might as well give the character, or a close facsimile of him, one last spin."
Of course, then Geoff Johns said to himself, "Man, the best villain I can think of for my crisis is a whiny teenager, because everybody loves what Lucas is doing with Darth Vader in the new Star Wars movies!"

I mean, Superboy-Prime doesn't come off as menacing so much as kind of stupid:


For that matter, Superboy-Prime has managed to kill exactly one character that anyone cares about, and that was the Golden Age Superman, who had been effectively dead for twenty years anyway.

And it's not like he's become a better character in the interim:


Based on what the character has done so far, I can guess Legion of Three World will progress thusly:

Superboy-Prime: I want to go back to my home universe!
Cosmic Boy: Okay, but....
Superboy-Prime: You're ruining it! I'm going to Mega-Murder your universe into super-death!
(Superboy-Prime somehow removes the Threeboot and DnA Legions from continuity)
Geoff Johns: Take that anyone not alive in the Carter administration!*

*The restoration of the original continuity should in no way be construed to represent an acceptance of any Legion story written after 1987. Five Years Later, my ass.

Punching a Gift-horse in the Mouth

Boy, Tom Defalco, you wrote one of the Spider-man books during the Clone Saga, so, I must ask, is this really a road you want to go down, even in jest?

Top Ten Disatrous Debacles Done During Dan DiDio's....Leadership

There's been a lot of criticism leveled at Dan DiDio recently, what with Chuck Dixon getting fired, Grant Morrison's complaints about DC editors, and the fact that Final Crisis got thumped by Secret Invasion in terms of sales.

But, in fairness, it's not like these are the first problems that have come up since he's been in charge. Let's look back.

10. The Life and Death of Spoiler

He approved Spoiler getting tortured to death, and then allowed that to be retconned into her dying because long-time Batman ally Dr. Tompkins letting her die to prove a point. There's really no way where that isn't awful, and making all of it some sort of complicated deception which Batman appeared to be complicit (explained by his refusal to erect any sort of memorial in the Bat-Cave) doesn't exactly improve matters, though I guess it's nice she's alive.

9. Super-Delays

First of all, I really don't think there needs to be another Zod, because it's not like there's anything good or interesting about the character beyond his proclivity to demand opponents kneel before him. Second, if you're going to introduce a character that's only going to be around for one arc, you'd best make sure everyone else working on Superman books know that fact too.

8. Bad Cancellations

Any book that dies so Judd Winick's Titans may live is a martyr of the highest caliber.

7. Justice League of America

Emo-Tornado! The mind-shatteringly unintersting of Vixen's powers! The big three sitting around in a clubhouse deciding who's good enough to hang with them! And crossover after crossover after crossover! Probably not the best way to run your flagship team, but what do I know?

6. Wonder Woman Relaunch

Well, first they put Allan Heinberg on the book but he took over a year to produce five issues of decent, but hardly groundbreaking stories, well, story. Then Jodi Picoult came in, but was saddled with the ungodly (get it? GET IT?) mess that was Amazons Attack!. Not a good relaunch for a marquee character, but it could have been worse...

5. Flash: The Fastest Man Alive

In making Bart Allen the Flash, DC showed just how quickly a franchise can be practically wiped out by bad decisions. In a shocking twist of fate, stripping Bart Allen of all recognizable features and putting him the care of the writers from not-terribly successful Flash TV series of fifteen year prior didn't work too well. So, the decision was made to kill him, and bring back Wally West, and given the lead time involved in creating comics, this happened within a few months.

4. Superboy Prime

He's a shitty character, but I suppose he's good at gruesomely annihilating bad characters from the '90s.

3. Death! Death! Death!

Life insurance premiums for members of the JLI or Titans have never been higher.

2. DC Countdown

It's probably a good idea to, you know, actually be consistent with the series you're counting down to.

Also, if I were a Monitor, I don't think I'd be particularly scared that Kyle Rayner was watching me. What's he going to do? Angst me to death?

1. One Year Later

Well, let's see, it fucked up Aquaman, put the final nail in the coffin for Hawkman, and generally did more harm than good to pretty much every book in the line. But other than that it worked out great.

Neverending Crisis

There's a chance that Final Crisis is going to be really good, and there's a chance that it could help cause the entire market to come crasing down.

Also, to all fans of the current Legion of Superheroes....well, I suggest really enjoying these next few issues.

Wonder Woman Sucks, Part Two

Anyway, to finish up my examination of Wonder Woman in the Post-Crisis era, I now come to a long period of half-finished ideas.



The Eric Luke Run
Issues: #139-153, 157-160

In this run, Luke introduces the Wonderdome (a new base that eventually becomes sentient and falls in love with Wonder Woman) and a villain called Dr. Poison. Yeah, it's not-so-good.

The Phil Jimenez Run
Issues: #164-188

I guess this isn't that bad a run, but it's not really that good. Although this run does include the coming of democracy to Paradise Island, which seems like it kind of misses the point, in the sense that if there's one place where you shouldn't even try to worry about underlying origins of political power, it's a secluded island populated solely by a race of magical women.

Also, Jimenez brings back some supporting characters from other writers' stories in an attempt to make a supporting cast that isn't wholly transitory. He doesn't succeed.

The Greg Rucka Run
Issues: #195-226

I probably didn't like Rucka's Wonder Woman as much as everyone else, but I did think it was pretty good....right up until it got fatally derailed by the build-up to Final Crisis, and that was that.

I Can Prove Wonder Woman Sucks Part 1

Wonder Woman has been considered one of DC's "Big Three" for a long time. I always thought that putting her up on a pedastal with Superman and Batman was kind of ridiculous, and the result of historical accident more than anything else (because Wonder Woman survived the fifties intact).

The main problem is that she's a pretty hopeless character. Basically, the farther we've gone from the '40s, the worse her origin has become. Ultimately, she's a paradox from the Megaman school of "Fight, Megaman, for everlasting peace." She's supposed to be an incredible warrior sent to "Man's World" (Another aspect that isn't aging particularly well) in order to preach the value of peace. Of course, she spends most of her time engaging in fisticuffs with criminals, so...uh...maybe not the best ambassador for peace.

But, more to the point, look at the quality of the comic book itself, from the beginning of v2 to the present day:

The George Perez years:
Issues (v2) #1-#62
After the first Crisis, DC decided to revamp several of their books, including Wonder Woman, like Superman, it was determined that the character was best served by starting over, and the revamp worked well, at least in the sense that Wonder Woman became a marginally usuable character that some people actually cared about, as opposed to a title that was hanging on primarily because of inertia.

Ironically, I imagine that a lot of this run has been retconned out of continuity because the stories involved Wonder Woman coming to Man's World for the first time, and thus removing her status as a founder of the JLA, which has since been explicitly restored by Meltzer, so he could bring us issue after pulse-pounding issue of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman sitting around a table and acting like jerks.

Still, 'twas a fine run, and it seemed like maybe Wonder Woman didn't have to be awful...of course, that led to...

The Bill Messner Loebs Run:
Issues #63-100


...And that's when the train started going off the rails. Now, Bill Loebs has done some good work, like his version of the Flash, which was the crucial transition from the Baron uber-jerk Wally West to the Mark Waid run.

The most memorable thing about this run was that Wonder Woman was stripped of her uniform in a convolutated scheme involvong prophecies, rigged contests, and terrible, terrible costumes. It wasn't good, and it certainly wasn't helped by the art which, in fairness, was typical for that time.

But things got worse...

The John Byrne Run
Issues #101-136
It's a John Byrne book make after 1988, that's really all you need to know.

But, in a more specific sense, Byrne kills Wonder Woman, creates a new Wonder Girl, muddies the origin of the old Wonder Girl, tries to retcon Wonder Woman back into the Golden Age, and makes my head hurt.

I guess most of these initiatives were done with the best of intentions, but none of them came off particularly well. As in, I'm not actually sure which, if any, of these comics are still in continuity.

Join me next as I review the many, many aborted runs that followed Byrne.

Bad Characters: Northwind

This is the amazing origin of Northwind from Infinity Inc. v1 #1 (March 1984), he was created by Roy Thomas and Jerry Ordway, which goes to show that terrible characters can be made by anyone:

Depending on your view of the world, Northwind is either the product of a truly disturbing union of man and bird-woman or....

Well, that or Roy Thomas was twenty years ahead of his time.