Just saw this post in the Gerry --



And it got me thinking -- what are the absolute worst stories for each major character at Marvel and DC that you've read? Remember, you should have read them -- for example, I've never read the Spider-Man Clone Saga, so I couldn't honestly vote for it.

Some heroes to get you started --

Superman
Batman
Spider-Man
Captain America
Green Lantern
Thor
Iron Man
Flash
X-Men
Justice League
Fantastic Four
Teen Titans

I can't think of any off the top of my head. Thanks.

Secret Wars...'nuff said.

I haven't read most of the stories that I hate.

More than such the story per se, it was the revelation of another X-Men team between the original team and All-New that forever tainted the X-Men canon that made it such a bone-headed decision. Someone call Mephisto.

Other bad decisions:

Superman - having Clark Kent reveal his identity to Lois Lane and then marry her. Way to suck the charm out of the concept, DC.

Superman - the story about Clark being having a subconscious power that makes people see Clark as different from Superman just didn't work and they were smart to never bring it up again.

Batman - the revelation that Bruce Wayne is not an only child. It was smart for DC no to revisit this idea back in the 1970s and dumb for them to embrace it New 52.

New Teen Titans - Having Dick ditch Robin might have been great for Nightwing fans, but it was one of several moves that killed the New Teen Titans. The book took a massive turn downhill after Dick and Wally left and the title never fully recovered because of it.

Spider-Man - Not a big fan of the character, but something about Peter Parker's real parents being CIA agents kinda takes the "every man" feel away from Peter.

Alpha Flight - Killing Guardian was a shocker and made for a good story, but it turns out that, despite what Byrne thought, Heather was not the glue that held the team together. Mac was.

Wasn't a good idea for Batman to leave the Outsiders either. AF and BatO both debuted the same month and strangely made similar choices that led to their wimpering away.

Avengers - Having Carol Danvers "fall in love" with a man she gave birth to and who raped her was probably one of the dumbest Marvel stories of all time. Claremont salvaged as best he could with what is one of the best, maybe THE best, Annuals ever, but he couldn't get rid of the stupid altogether.

Justice League - Detroit

X-Factor 1 - Bringing back Jean Gray was dumb enough, but for Scott Summers to accept it so easily and dump his wife and child made for one of the worst comic books ever.

I hated the story where Peter Parker made a deal with Mephisto.

Spider-Man: Sins Past, Clone Saga, One More Day.

Batman: the whole Damien Wayne thing and all the incomprehensible Morrison stuff that followed.

Superman: New 52 de-aging/costume change, Superman Blue (new lightning powers story from the 90s, not the Silver Age blue/red story)

X-Men: The 90s.

Secret Wars 2, or any other attempt to revisit the Beyonder.

Fantastic Four and Avengers never really hit rock bottom stories in all the ones I read. There were the "OK" stories and a few good runs. Obviously I've not read them all.

But Secret Wars was great. Without it I would never have gotten into Marvel comics at all. Maybe the story was silly and contrived, but it showcased ALL the characters and drew my interest.

The Spider-Man crossover event where Mary Jane's arm was broken in one comic, and magically better in the next.

It's really not incomprehensible at all.

That was in the clone saga.

Disagree from what I read of it, but OK then I'll use Seven Soldiers and Final Crisis for my incomprehensible Morrison comics that are bad and you should feel bad for liking.

The Ultimates 3...although i only read the first issue.

Final Crisis I'll give you. I've read it 3 or 4 times and there are a lot of things I still don't get.

What don't you understand about Morrison's Batman run? Maybe I could clear up some confusion.

Here's the first batch. This'll take up a few pages...

Love the Joe Mad art but he was all wrong for the Ultimates and Loeb is pure crap.

I think that Secret Invasion storyline was the worst Marvel thing I've ever read. It's what made me give up on Marvel altogether. There's nothing that would ever tempt me back. It was stupid in so many ways, and they totally dropped the ball on doing what could have been an in-story reboot for a lot characters. They had a good chance to actually start afresh and they wasted it. It was silly, clumsily written and ultimately dull.

I'd have to say that the worst DC thing I've ever read was the original COIE - there was all this great stuff they had, and they were literally destroying it in front of your eyes. I was amazed by all the things I had never read about before like the Marvel Family stuff, and things like Gorilla City....and they were showing all these amazing, heroic characters meet a horrible, unjust end. I was just finding out about this cool stuff in time for them to kill it off. I hated it.

The book continued to be great after that. Hell, the Judas Contract happened after that. The book went downhill when Perez left as artist/co-plotter.

Around 1993 or so, pretty much anything Marvel published was unreadable to me.

I think your timing is a little off -- Judas Contract was a long, slow-boiling story and Grayson was Robin for most of it. Somewhere in there he put on the costume, but Judas Contract was in its final surge. I associate the downturn after Judas Contract was over, which was pretty much the Grayson-as-Nightwing, Wally-gone era.

It was still good after Judas Contract. Trevor is right that Perez leaving was when the music died for the Titans.

I liked the post-Judas Contract a lot. I thought the wedding issue was wonderful, and the first arc of the Baxter series was kick-ass. I saw no drop in quality until Perez left, and that was just the stories (Garcia-Lopez followed him as artist, IIRC). The breakup of Starfire and Nightwing was where I started drifting away.