I think that we're all fond of pointing out the failures of others, even if those people frequently produce art that we greatly admire. So yeah, let's ignore the volumes of entertaining craft that these visionaries have produced over the years and instead focus on the moments where they fall flat on their faces...

Frank Miller - I know a lot of people hate Dark Knight 2 and "the goddamn Batman." But, for me, I think the man's creative low was that Spawn/Batman crossover he did with Todd McFarlane years ago. That had absolutely no reason to exist at all.

Grant Morrison - I think his personal nadir was Kid Eternity. The story was nigh incomprehensible. It was also paired with artwork that was muddy and overburdened.

Alan Moore - I won't name any books he did where he failed despite his best efforts. I generally think it's better if somebody swings the bat and misses rather than not bother to try at all.

So yeah, I'll go with Alan Moore's utterly phoned in Image work. I wouldn't bother with anything he did on Spawn, Wildcats, or Youngblood. Yes, Alan Moore wrote Youngblood. With Rob Liefeld drawing it. No, don't even think about giving in to your morbid curiousity.

Garth Ennis - I actually forget the name of this one. It's some WWII comic that Garth Ennis wrote where he's trying to be silly and gross while depicting the atrocity of war at the same time. There's an openly gay soldier who keeps pretending to be mortally wounded in an attempt to get his commanding officer to give him a goodbye kiss. This one was really, really lazily written.

Bryan K. Vaughn - The Logan miniseries from a few years back. It actually wasn't terrible if you can overlook the old "Wolverine falls in love with a woman who's killed ten minutes later" bit. But yeah, he did that one for the money. Definitely.

Warren Ellis - A lot of his stuff is hit-or-miss. I liken Warren Ellis to a comic book version of Prince or Ryan Adams. His good stuff is really good, but he produces such a large volume of work that it inevitably affects the quality.

I consider his personal low point to be a miniseries called Down. It's about this policewoman who was raped a long time ago and now wants to shoot a bunch of gangsters. She shoots the gangsters until she gets to the head gangster. She then shoots him and becomes the head gangster. That's it. I got more drama out of playing Final Fight than reading this.

Dan Clowes - That whole Death Ray issue of Eightball. I don't even know what he was trying to do there. And it came out right after the Ice Haven issue, which I consider to be one of the best things he ever did.

Neal Adams - Neal Adams wrote and drew the first issue of Mr. T and the T-Force. I'm not kidding. Look it up. "That's a crack baby, fool !"

Anybody else wanna get in on this? Just name something you hated from a comic book person that you usually like.

Warren Ellis has never done anything bad and you know it. Take it back. *shakes fist*

Air Raid Robertson
Alan Moore - I won't name any books he did where he failed despite his best efforts. I generally think it's better if somebody swings the bat and misses rather than not bother to try at all.

So yeah, I'll go with Alan Moore's utterly phoned in Image work. I wouldn't bother with anything he did on Spawn, Wildcats, or Youngblood. Yes, Alan Moore wrote Youngblood. With Rob Liefeld drawing it. No, don't even think about giving in to your morbid curiousity.

Umm, actually, the Youngblood issues he did were NOT drawn by Liefeld, just published by his company. He might have been doing covers but I know the issues themselves were drawn by other people.

Air Raid Robertson
Garth Ennis - I actually forget the name of this one. It's some WWII comic that Garth Ennis wrote where he's trying to be silly and gross while depicting the atrocity of war at the same time. There's an openly gay soldier who keeps pretending to be mortally wounded in an attempt to get his commanding officer to give him a goodbye kiss. This one was really, really lazily written.

Adventures in the Rifle Brigade (which was followed by a sequel titled "Operation Bollock"). I found them both quite funny.

- - - - - - - -

Jeph Loeb.... everything he did with Tim Sale? = GOLD. Batman: Hush, with Jim Lee? Also gold.

...anything written for ultimate line? Urgh. Please burn it. Apparently his Batman/superman stuff wasn't great either and his Hulk is as much of a disaster as Ultimates 3... or so I heard.

Morrison.... Final Crisis. I managed to get through first two issues, at which point I gave up.

Robert Kirkman.... his run on Ultimate Xmen was pretty bad. I think his strenght is great character building he does, and you can't do that with already existing marvel/dc characters (that's why his creator owned books are good and his marvel books usually aren't).

umm... my brain's pretty empty at the minute...

oh, and it's Brian K. Vaughan, not Vaughn. It sounds the same but it's not written the same.

Hmm, let's see now...

---

Bill Willingham - The War Games story line from Batman could have been a lot more, but the issues he wrote completely ruined everything in my opinion, mainly the suspense. Also, War Crimes.

Adam Beechen - Deciding Cassandra Cain needed to become a villian while obviously not doing any research into the character.

Mark Millar - Civil War. I don't think I need to go further.

Frank Miller - Dark Knight 2. I actually liked All Star Batman & Robin.

Grant Morrison - Batman and Son. Damian was annoying as all hell and that prose issue took me a little while to get through. #666 was the worst, with Damian not only as Batman but as this immortal who cannot be stopped by bullets who obviously has not learned anything his father tried to teach him? That's what we've got to look forward to? I did like RIP and Final Crisis though, but probably because I could actually follow it... eventually. That's the thing about Morrison's work, there's so much more to it.

Joe Quesada - One More Day. That is all.

J Michael Straczynski - Thor Volume 1. I want to burn it from my memory.

---

That's all I can think of at the moment.

woah wait...thor volume 1? what the hell? thor was great, JMS has done way worse stuff on spiderman. no one remember sins of the past, or when spiderman turned into a fucking literal spider?

i guess ill start with my idol...

Frank Miller-my least favorite stuff by frank would have to be his early marvel stuff, if only in the way that i think everything he has done after it has been substantially better and more meaningful. elektra lives again was when he started getting interesting. his daredevil stuff was typical comic book schlock.

Mark Millar- Old Man Logan and Civil War...just not a mcniven fan.


Jeph Loeb-Im of the mind that loeb is more interesting since hes done ulimates 3 and hulk. my least favorite story by him has to be daredevil:yellow. it was just a retelling of his origin that had been done before. without tim sale saving him, that book read like frank miller lite.

Grant Morrison- ive never been a morrison fan to begin with (hes much like frank miller to me...the people who like him defend him vehemently and the people who hate him dont get the love for him) but i really can NOT stand him on batman, especially after R.I.P.

Kaare Andrews-the dude has the coolest slickest art style ever, but Spider-Man Reign just ended on such a sour note for me.

Dark Knight Strikes again is evil....pure, pure evil.

harkovast
Dark Knight Strikes again is amazing genius....pure, pure genius.

fixed for you

"Umm, actually, the Youngblood issues he did were NOT drawn by Liefeld, just published by his company. He might have been doing covers but I know the issues themselves were drawn by other people."



Rob Liefeld did draw pieces of it. He didn't do the whole thing though. There were tons of other artists doing pages as well.

That actually made it worse. You'd get a couple of pages of Liefeld and then it would switch over to someone like Gil Kane. Then, after that, you'd go back to Liefeld.

Nick Guy are you being sarcastic?

dead serious 100% no sarcasm implied in that post whatsoever.

Harkovast, you should know by now that NickGuy is a shameless Frank Miller junkie. From what Ive gathered, he has yet to read a Frank Miller comic he hasn't loved.

And, actually, I found myself liking Dark Knight Strikes Again as well. It was intentionally obnoxious, but I somehow found that quality to be charming.

This was during a brief period where Frank Miller was merely flirting with self parody. On All-Star Batman and Robin, he and self-parody are married and have seven kids.

Interesting exercise. Finding what you hate from the guys whose work you love. So, let's see...
I'm a HUGE Walter Simonson fan, but the writing in Orion just had me rolling my eyes. With each successive issue he reached new levels of boredomness, and around six issues after Orion seemingly "killed" Darkseid it was pretty obvious he just lost control of the story. He tried to do something that was just too big, and couldn't rein it in once he set it loose.

And I know it can be argued that Simon Bisley has never had a nicely finished, polished style, but Batman/Lobo is just sloppy.

Air Raid Robertson
Harkovast, you should know by now that NickGuy is a shameless Frank Miller junkie. From what Ive gathered, he has yet to read a Frank Miller comic he hasn't loved.

And, actually, I found myself liking Dark Knight Strikes Again as well. It was intentionally obnoxious, but I somehow found that quality to be charming.

This was during a brief period where Frank Miller was merely flirting with self parody. On All-Star Batman and Robin, he and self-parody are married and have seven kids.

i love DK2 for how ahead of its time it really is. It's amazing, on the absolute-fucking-spot mockery of the internet and how they would react to the world having superheroes (superman fighting a monster robot in metropolis? who cares when the superchix are breaking up!) and just the absolute fever pitch narrative it builds to, and the parting shot at fanboys on the last page. ("youre blowing up your legacy." "its nothing, darling, junk. souveneirs. a robot tyrannosaur for gods sake. i was sentimental...back when i was old")

its something that i can see alot of people being like "its not my thing" or disliking it for the chunky art...but to say its miller's worse work is just straight up wrong. thats miller right in his DKR mode, just aiming at a different time.

Some reasons that I hated DK2
(spoilers ahead)

DK2 suffered from very very poor story telling.
Robin turned into a mutant because batman rejected him for being gay is a silly story line, but the way it gets tacked on at the end as an after thought is amatuerish and I expect better from Frank Miller.
I laughed at loud at the feeble attempts to make robins new "joker" identity scarey (thats a spoiler, but dont worry, nothing can lower your enjoyment of this crappy comic any more then you would feel from reading it anyway!). They have him kill super heroes to prove hes dangerous, but he kills guys like The Creeper (who I learned on batman the animated series is like freekazoid) and some loser with a Shield! Hes killing the D listers that dont even get their own comic series! Joke heroes who not only have I never heard of but dont even feature in the rest of the comic so I never get to find out any more about them! Not that I cared!
How does all this nonsense about Robin tie into the main story? answer- Not at all, its utterly irrelevant nonsense with a slightly creepy homophobic after taste.
Batman wont take a life and apparantly wont tolerate a gay in his Batcave (which is ironic right there! Batman was always the hero I thought most likely to be gay...but I digress).
Half the story is hundreds of random bozo heroes (and as I mentioned, most of whome are real D listers, like Plastic Man, Who can turn into a toilet?) showing up, demonstrating their power and then basically doing nothing else. No characterisation , just a parade of name dropping for the fan boys. At one point some old guy super hero shows up and hardly gets any dialogue then gets crushed to death without me having any idea who he was or why I was supposed to care.
And whats with Brainiac? I thought he was an alien super computer! He looks like a freaky frog and talks like someone you might chat with down the pub!

Lex Luther looks like a shaved gorilla (as wide as he is tall!) and at one point captures Batman near the end of the book. How? I don't know, it never says. The start of one chapter just declares that it happened. It reminds me of when little kids write stories and cant be bothered with explaining things so just say "and then they were all captured" or something.

It was disjointed, poorly drawn, confusing and had nothing to say.
Frank Miller gets an F on this one with a message saying "must try harder" in red ink and a note home to his parents.

oh boy...*cracks knuckles*

harkovast
Some reasons that I hated DK2
(spoilers ahead)

DK2 suffered from very very poor story telling.

eh...theres not one type of storytelling. the storytelling style in DK2 is very frenetic and all over the place...much like the internet, which miller is heavily mocking.

Robin turned into a mutant because batman rejected him for being gay is a silly story line,

thats opinion.

but the way it gets tacked on at the end as an after thought is amatuerish and I expect better from Frank Miller.
I laughed at loud at the feeble attempts to make robins new "joker" identity scarey. They have him kill super heroes to prove hes dangerous, but he kills guys like The Creeper (who I learned on batman the animated series is like freekazoid) and some loser with a Shield!

theres actually a TON of symbolism with the robin/joker. for instance, when hes in the sewer, hes wearing mr mxyptlk's outfit. when he kills this "loser with a shield" (who is the Guardian, and who robin/joker even SAYS "youre a lame-ass. you've ALWAYS been a lame-ass". the average comic fan isnt supposed to know who he is, or care. that is the whole POINT.) hes wearing saturn lad's costume. When he kills the creeper (who is a steve ditko creation) he is wearing spider-man's boots (another ditko creation)

Hes killing the D listers that dont even get their own comic series! Joke heroes who not only have I never heard of but dont even feature in the rest of the comic so I never get to find out any more about them! Not that I cared!

miller here is poking fun at fanboys through the robin/joker. no one cares about the guardian or the creeper, but if DC killed them off, fanboys would rise in a violent rage. he's TRYING to piss you off. miller is a very irreverent writer, and he always has been. he doesnt give a flying fuck how comics have been done...he makes iconoclasts and then breaks them, because he can.

How does all this nonsense about Robin tie into the main story? answer- Not at all, its utterly irrelevant nonsense with a slightly creepy homophobic after taste.

i dont see the homophobic vibe in the robin. he doesnt say he loves batman in a sexual way...he was like a father to him. and as to how this doesnt tie into the main story? REALLY? you never read DKR? The whole back and forth between jim gordon and bruce wayne in the beginning?

"spoken to Dick lately?"
"not for 7 years, Jim. you know that."
"still huh? thats a damn shame"

Batman wont take a life and apparantly wont tolerate a gay in his Batcave (which is ironic right there! Batman was always the hero I thought most likely to be gay...but I digress).

again...what?

Half the story is hundreds of random bozo heroes (and as I mentioned, most of whome are real D listers, like Plastic Man, Who can turn into a toilet?)

miller has said that this book was a "celebration of the superhero" he wanted this book to be nonsensical, brightly colored...garish, glaring...much like a 1960s comic must have looked to a young miller. and as for plastic man...where have you been? do you not know anything about plastic man? he can do ANYTHING



which has always been something miller has praised. Control is the enemy in millers works...if you look back through his works, those who disregard the rules and do what they want are the most powerful

300-the spartans
DKR-batman beats superman because superman allows himself to conform...and batman wont conform. we also see this at the end of DK2...when superman finally stops bending his knee to the bad guys, his power jumps tenfold. and also hawkman's son, who doesnt care about "playing nice" and smashes luthors face in with a mace. "you little shit! do you know who i AM?" *smash*

showing up, demonstrating their power and then basically doing nothing else. No characterisation , just a parade of name dropping for the fan boys. At one point some old guy super hero shows up and hardly gets any dialogue then gets crushed to death without me having any idea who he was or why I was supposed to care.

you seriously dont know who these guys are? shazam? captain marvel? the problem here seems to me that you should maybe check out some other comics to truly appreciate the context miller is working with here. this book is chock full of comic book references.

And whats with Brainiac? I thought he was an alien super computer! He looks like a freaky frog and talks like someone you might chat with down the pub!

Lex Luther looks like a shaved gorilla (as wide as he is tall!) and at one point captures Batman near the end of the book. How? I don't know, it never says. The start of one chapter just declares that it happened. It reminds me of when little kids write stories and cant be bothered with explaining things so just say "and then they were all captured" or something.

you act like this NEVER HAPPENS IN COMICS EVER. this is a matter of taste here. Theres plenty of other moments in DK2 where it happens. an action scene of batman getting captured is not important or relevant to the overall message.

as far as luthors looks. all i can say is...caricature. this is an old guy, this isnt lex luthor fromt he superman cartoon. miller has drawn him here as a hulking giant with huge kirby esque hands and feet. this is bigfoot cartooning at its best here. you arent supposed to like luthor, you are supposed to hate him. and miller pushes that to an extreme with luthor.

It was disjointed, poorly drawn, confusing and had nothing to say.

it was saying a ton, you just chose to ignore it, or didnt understand it, or werent listening. pick one.

Frank Miller gets an F on this one with a message saying "must try harder" in red ink and a note home to his parents.

this is miller at his finest. A+ to infinity.

like i said, if you didnt like the art, i can see it. thats really just taste. i can explain why it was done, but if you dont like it then you dont like it. but this is FAR from being a bad story.

i guess this is how i feel about DK2 summed up pretty much
As his peers grow older, Frank Miller just gets younger. DK2 is drawn with the energy and confidence of a teenager who knows in his heart that he's BETTER than Frank Miller, and he's ready to take the world by storm. This book is a startling, befuddling accomplishment. I love it.

fanboy fight

edit: i personally could get into dk2.

"hmm what's going on? what's this? i don't know. i can't tell what is going on. not buying it."

Oh boy! Another internet arguement over DK2!

As if we didn't get enough of that when the blasted thing came out.

Regardless of which, I'd like to point out that Kyle Baker's run on Plastic Man kicked ass. He's pretty much the only guy to handle Plas who is worthy of anything better than cleaning up Jack Cole's eraser crumbs.

Well, I think Gil Kane drew Plas for a little bit too. It looked really weird though.

Jeph Loeb: I really liked his early run with Batman/Superman, but after the "Absolute Power" arc, things went downhill for me...I never picked Batman/Superman again after "With a Vengeance".

Kurt Busiek: While I'm a huge fan of Busiek's work (Specially "Superman: Secret Identity") I didn't liked his run in "Trinity" and Wonder Woman...

Alan Moore: I really didn't liked "Lost Girls"...It was just shock value with a thick coat of pretenciousness...

Grant Morrison: I was really disapointed with "Batman RIP".

Frank Miller: Honestly, I think that DK2 gets more bash than it's deserved...It's true that is not on the same league with other Miller's Batman stories like Year One or DKR, but it's OK as some sort of self-parody...However, All-Star Batman is just one wallbanger, specially if you compare it with All-Star Superman...Besides, is a waste of Jim Lee's talents...