Every yin has a yang, and I’ve already shared my thoughts on the best of 2012, so here are some of my opinions on the worst stuff that came out this year.
Avengers Vs X-Men: Despite being a fanboy’s dream premise and doing extremely well in sales, this crossover event hit all the wrong notes. The rotating creative teams (especially writers) provided no continuity and gave a mismatched jumble of storyline and character development (or lack thereof). Rotating writers works for TV because there is a show-runner with a single vision, but AVX seemed to be lacking such a key component. The final pay-off of the stretched out series really did very little except set up Marvel Now!, which I suppose was the intent anyway.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance: Holy cow this is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, let alone comic book movies. The plot is awful, the acting is over the top, and the soundtrack makes me long for a bad thrash metal opening band at Lee’s Palace. I am fairly certain that Nick Cage was actually possessed while making this movie.
Moving the G.I. Joe movie: Double middle fingers to you studios for adding completely unnecessary 3D and making me wait almost a year for ninja battles. I am happy to see history repeating itself in that fan outrage at killing off Duke necessitated a change (the previous animated movie was overdubbed to bring Duke back to life as well). Really, this just seems like a desperate move cash-grab, and if I have any choice in the matter I will be seeing the movie in 2D. Yo Joe!
Action Comics: I really struggled with this one and almost didn’t put it on the list. I like Action Comics. Grant Morrison has been doing some interesting things with the book, but it should be way better and the flagship title of the New 52. Instead it sort of takes place 5 years before all of the New 52 and Morrison is just allowed to play in his little sandbox without worrying about the regular continuity of the New 52 proper. The stories seem to jump all over the place and the weird Legion story that interrupted the first Brainiac arc was pretty lackluster and was only there so the regular artist could catch up. I suppose I just hold Grant Morrison and his Superman stories to a higher standard, so that is why I placed Action on the worst list. C’mon, this is the same guy who gave us All-Star Superman! This book should be better.
Those are my thoughts on the things that drove me bat-guano this year. What soured you?
G.I. Joe Retaliation was a huge mis-step by everybody involved. I think it killed any kind of buzz that was being felt in the G.I. Joe Community. The toyline sucked due to lacking articulation and spring loaded weapons.
The other problem for G.I. Joe was the cancellation of a great cartoon (G.I. Joe Renegades) in favour of the movie. The movie gets pushed back and there has been a G.I. Joe vacuum in the marketplace for 9 months. This must be one of the biggest blunders for the property ever… and that’s taking into account something called Cobra-La and turning Cobra Commander into a snake.
I hope the movie does well in 2013, if not that may be the death of G.I. Joe.
G.I. Joe can never die. Eco Warriors didn’t kill it. Manimals didn’t kill it. Sgt Savage didn’t kill it.
But that stuff didn’t make it better. The problem with G.I. Joe now is the amount of reboots the property has gone through. In the 80’s there were three ongoing continuities (comics, cartoon and toys). Now there’s the movies, toys, comics and animated series (2 versions, Resolute and Renegades). It’s hard to keep them straight because each version is made for a different fan. I would like one vision, and stick with it. Stop jerking us around. It’s tough for the hardcore collector’s like myself, or new fans to the brand.
Nice article. I wasn’t so much disappointed with AvX. It turned out to be exactly what I was expecting, a long, drawn out cash grab. I was a little disappointed that they killed Professor X…again (spoiler!), but on the plus side I’m enjoying the new X men series.
I watched the new Ghost Rider film for about 20 minutes before I turned it off. Again, this was exactly what I was expecting. I’m not a Nic Cage fan, and even though I like Ghost Rider, let’s face it, he really is a D-list character. He can’t maintain his own series, let alone a film. He shines best as a supporting guest star, my personal favourite being his guest appearance for two issues in the 90’s Spider-Man issues.
Movies get moved around more often than we realize, specifically for competition reasons. What I heard was that the studio didn’t want to go head to head with Dark Knight Rises and it makes sense, but moving it from a mid-summer release to an late spring release may be a good thing. Personally I hated the last movie and have no hope for Retaliation.
I had high hopes for the Watchmen series and although I don’t dislike them, I was hoping for more. Ultimately I was left asking myself if these were stories that needed to be told, and for me the answer was no. I learned nothing new that I didn’t already know from the ’86 Watchmen. I think that says more about the original work than it does about these issues. They weren’t bad, I just don’t think they were necessary.
Dark Knight Rises was one of the biggest let downs this year. That’s all I have to say about that.
Court of the Owls started off strong but felt it fizzled at the end. I hate when publishers spread a semi-decent story across multiple titles. The story suffers. I’ve rarely seen it work and it’s such a blatant cash grab.
That’s all I can think about off the top of my head…
I know someone on the advertising team for GI Joe and the whole thing is a disaster. They are adding more Channing Tatum because he’s a big star now and adding 3D for the Asian market. Huge missteps all around!
I would like to throw out the titles of Magic Mike and Total Recall as worst movies of the year. Resident Evil was up there, but my god was Magic Mike a steaming turd of a movie.