What are your biggest gripes with comic books?

-$4 price tag on Marvel comics. I can understand it for indie though

-No story progress; Red Lanterns #1-12 is a great example of this. 12 issues in I felt like it only took 2 steps forward. Eventually I dropped it.

-Too many major events right after another

• Too many books surrounding big characters (Batman, Superman, etc.) which leads to:
• Creative teams placed on big characters who don't understand the characters.
• Some writers needing to remind me, for some reason, who the character is that I'm reading about.
• New 52. It's very hit and miss, but for the most part I can live with it. Several retcons drive me insane though.
• Crossover event spamming just to boost sales of books that people wouldn't normally buy.

The soap opera.

Double-shipping and how most women in comic books are presented as just a bit of T&A.

@callsignneptune said:

Double-shipping and how most women in comic books are presented as just a bit of T&A.

Actually, I'm going to double down on this. It's become increasingly common for creators to write females poorly, and this isn't just in comics. I think what best exemplifies this is Scott Lobdell's interpretation of Starfire as asserting her freedom and individuality by sleeping with whoever she wants; this has become a bit of a cop-out for creators in all media genres and a stereotype that many of them play into.

This also leads to another gripe I have: not enough female creators. :/

@Reignmaker said:

The soap opera.

Definitely agree with this, especially when it starts overloading the story line.

@Exia009 said:

This also leads to another gripe I have: not enough female creators. :/

I agree. I don't see too many female writers for comics (other than Marjorie Liu) and it's a bit disappointing to me. I would like to see more female writers in comics.

Inconstant character portrayal through writing.

@logy5000: I think you're mis-remembering, because the DoS TPB is a lot more than 20 pages. Unless you got completely ripped off buying just the last issue of the event (which probably had a cover price of $1.95 or something).

@gravitypress said:

Inconstant character portrayal through writing.

This is something that annoys me in comics to no end. I have to wonder why some of the writers won't at least at the past stories that feature the characters they are writing about before they write the story.

@Rabbitearsblog: I wish writers would do research.

@Vance Astro said:

The lack of diversity as far as exposure, popularity & usage

Which leads to

@Billy Batson said:

@Crash_Recovery said:

Failure to reach outside of the existing customer base.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner.
BB

1. Changing the artist mid issue.
2. Character deaths that have no meaning.
3. Retcons that are simply convenient.
4. Characters that are over exposed or not enough.

My biggest gripe with comic books right now is the cost of single issues. I am very hesitant to throw down $3.99 to give a new book a try.

@Lone_Wolf_and_Cub said:

Price. This is why this medium is slowly dying out.

@Girth said:

1. Changing the artist mid issue.
2. Character deaths that have no meaning.
3. Retcons that are simply convenient.
4. Characters that are over exposed or not enough.

Agree with all of this, especially with the issue of overexposed and underexposed characters.

1. Rising price

2. No rise in the length of a book.

I know this is the nature of print right now but I want to be able to support lesser known books but I can't because all of the other books that I really like have risen to $3.99.

BRING BACK MINI ISSUES! I think half of the New 52 would work better as a mini series. Man you know how awesome it would be if DC got the creative teams of Before Watchmen, and used them on mini series for The Question, Doom Patrol, Power Girl, Checkmate, or The Outsiders?

price, character undevelopment, bad writing, bad artistry,

@Rabbitearsblog said:

@Girth said:

1. Changing the artist mid issue.
2. Character deaths that have no meaning.
3. Retcons that are simply convenient.
4. Characters that are over exposed or not enough.

Agree with all of this, especially with the issue of overexposed and underexposed characters.

I agree wolverine and batman just don't appear enough

Deaths should mean that whoever's dying stays dead.

@FatihBATMAN said:

Deaths should mean that whoever's dying stays dead.

Agree.

@kingsloth sarcastic or :P?

@Vance Astro said:

1. The over-saturation of comics about the same team or character. 2. The Lack of consistency between writers 3. The "Who is He\She?" Gimmick 4. Team Books that focus on less than half the team 5. The lack of diversity as far as exposure, popularity & usage 6. Legacy characters 7. Pointless rectons and no retcons where needed 8. Joke characters that get placed in serious books and situations 9. Sacrifice of realism for "It's a comic" logic 10. Building up suspense via promos and solicits and then failing to deliver

I agree with everything else, but what do you mean with these two points?

@Vance Astro said:

1. The over-saturation of comics about the same team or character. 2. The Lack of consistency between writers 3. The "Who is He\She?" Gimmick 4. Team Books that focus on less than half the team 5. The lack of diversity as far as exposure, popularity & usage 6. Legacy characters 7. Pointless rectons and no retcons where needed 8. Joke characters that get placed in serious books and situations 9. Sacrifice of realism for "It's a comic" logic 10. Building up suspense via promos and solicits and then failing to deliver

I agree with everything else, but what do you mean with these two points?

OK, I agree with these too. I do think that legacy characters (I personally call them "spinoff characters") can work well if given a different niche than the original, though.

@Prodigy P said:

OK, I agree with these too. I do think that legacy characters (I personally call them "spinoff characters") can work well if given a different niche than the original, though.

I agree.

1) i'm personally not a fan of the alternate universes ( i.e. having 3 or 4 different versions of superman in one comic)

2) introducing mythological gods into comics (where do they stand on the power scale, ares often looses to WW, and he lost to sentry, but he's supposed to be up there with the other gods)

3) having beings as powerful as galactus

4) infinity guantlet, anti-life equation = bringing a gun to a fist fight

@chalksharksaid:

1. Drawing stories out unnecessarily to fill trades.
2. Inability of current artists to maintain monthly schedules.
3. Inability of current artists to complete entire comic, necessitating back-up features.
4. Constantly shuffling creative teams.
5. Canceling titles within months of their debut, before they ever have a chance of finding an audience, let alone building one.
6. Awesome cover art hiding inferior hack art interiors
7. Everything DC is doing.

Tell us how you really feel. :-)

@Chronus said:

1. Cluttered universes filled with unnecessary history and characters
2. Terrible retcons
3. Changing awesome writers and/or artists without not-so-awesome writers and/or artists
4. Lack of proper character development
5. Important characters never seem to fully die

These all apply to DC and Marvel.

@Timandm said:

1. Sliding timeline - it's stupid and makes no sense. Let the characters age and have lives...
2. Broken continuity. - Just stop doing it. write the stories and leave them alone. No more retcons...
3. Death is a joke in comics - There is no impact when a character dies because not, except Uncle Ben, really dies. They all come back... all the time. Death is practically a requirement for an X-man.
4. Constantly changing power levels of characters...
5. Dramatic sudden changes in character's personality.

@ALFMutant said:

1. 3.99$/comic
2. The New 52
3. Meaning of a death in this industry
4. Continuity
5. Events

Much agreed.

@lorbo: Writing. This is the heart of the matter.

@sagejonathan said:

-$4 price tag on Marvel comics. I can understand it for indie though

-No story progress; Red Lanterns #1-12 is a great example of this. 12 issues in I felt like it only took 2 steps forward. Eventually I dropped it.

-Too many major events right after another

Yeah, I was really let down by that series. Around the time they introduced Rankorr or whatever his name is, it really went downhill. I was looking forward to getting more info behind Atrocitus and the Red Lantern Corps, but that went nowhere fast.

I'm with all of these, really, especially consistency (continuity), meaningful writing, character development, and the like.

@Queso6p4 said:

Yeah, I was really let down by that series. Around the time they introduced Rankorr or whatever his name is, it really went downhill. I was looking forward to getting more info behind Atrocitus and the Red Lantern Corps, but that went nowhere fast.

I'm with all of these, really, especially consistency (continuity), meaningful writing, character development, and the like.

I agree that consistency, writing and character development is really important to the stories and I often get annoyed whenever these elements are ignored.

No Closure. Joker slips away . . . Red Skull sneaks out in the confusion . . . Annihilus is reborn. . . etc. Due to the nature of ongoing comics, there is never (very rarely) any closure. Nothing can be definite and there always has to be a back door. It's like the cheesy 'B' horror movies where they always leave room for 7th installment in the series. I definitely understand why they do it as they are in a universe that don't age, but it would just be nice to have closure. Annihilation was a fantastic story. Huge war that ended only when Richard Rider killed Annihilus. Great and wonderful ending. The universe is saved and the threat is destroyed. Then the epilogue shows him being reborn and the triumph that you should feel after such a story is diminished.

I also don't like the power progression for heavy hitters. Every time they beat someone, they have to face a bigger threat, and then a bigger one, and so on and so on. Eventually, you get characters that have so much power, that you basically need deus ex machina or extreme plot devices just to beat them or show a weakness. Once Thor lifts the Midgard Serpent or Supes pulls part of the planet, how is anything they do that is strength related a challenge? It becomes like DBZ where he goes from fighting in a martial arts tourney on earth to being able to destroy a planet/solar system.

@Rabbitearsblog said:

@Queso6p4 said:

Yeah, I was really let down by that series. Around the time they introduced Rankorr or whatever his name is, it really went downhill. I was looking forward to getting more info behind Atrocitus and the Red Lantern Corps, but that went nowhere fast.

I'm with all of these, really, especially consistency (continuity), meaningful writing, character development, and the like.

I agree that consistency, writing and character development is really important to the stories and I often get annoyed whenever these elements are ignored.

With comics nowadays, it's really hard to avoid this as a lot of these characters have been around for decades, and the industry hasn't really changed all that much, which isn't good for us. It's hard to know where to start addressing these things as readers as there are obviously a lot of things we can do to help remedy this, but it's hard to unite and be consistent. Case in point, over in the comics group on gameinformer I made a "Creator Correspondence" thread where we talk about and share our experiences with writing to creative teams. Only one other person has really participated and made the pledge to write one letter a month. One a month isn't that hard, but I digress. Do we start creating on our own works, assail the perceived misuse of editorial discretion, boycott displeasing titles, asinine creators, and tell the creative teams why we're doing so (as did the last letter in Captain Marvel #10)? As fans/readers, and a good number of us as creators, we deserve to have stuff that we like to read. Then again, there's obviously no pleasing everyone all the time. Sorry, I'm just rambling now. : /

@Cap10nate said:

No Closure. Joker slips away . . . Red Skull sneaks out in the confusion . . . Annihilus is reborn. . . etc. Due to the nature of ongoing comics, there is never (very rarely) any closure. Nothing can be definite and there always has to be a back door. It's like the cheesy 'B' horror movies where they always leave room for 7th installment in the series. I definitely understand why they do it as they are in a universe that don't age, but it would just be nice to have closure. Annihilation was a fantastic story. Huge war that ended only when Richard Rider killed Annihilus. Great and wonderful ending. The universe is saved and the threat is destroyed. Then the epilogue shows him being reborn and the triumph that you should feel after such a story is diminished.

I also don't like the power progression for heavy hitters. Every time they beat someone, they have to face a bigger threat, and then a bigger one, and so on and so on. Eventually, you get characters that have so much power, that you basically need deus ex machina or extreme plot devices just to beat them or show a weakness. Once Thor lifts the Midgard Serpent or Supes pulls part of the planet, how is anything they do that is strength related a challenge? It becomes like DBZ where he goes from fighting in a martial arts tourney on earth to being able to destroy a planet/solar system.

Heh. Very interesting response, and I mean that,especially with the DBZ reference. Closure is a really loaded word (aren't they all?) that encompasses quite a bit, but even when using it to refer to the Annihilation story you mentioned, any sense of it was cheapened and undermined. That's no good.

I remember watching DBZ and wondering how some of the characters went from being measly little shrimps to being so powerful that they were causing scouters to explode, and why Goku could just be perpetually wished back to life. That last one made things seem pretty pointless. Also, that whole thing of "the less Sayan blood you have in you the stronger you are" never made any sense to me at all.

What's with the New 52 Hate?

I actually like it, I read DC when it was already during Final Crisis, so I had a hard time knowing who's who. New 52 may have removed some key elements from the past, but I find it quite good.

Anyway.

1. Over exposure of a character (Looking at you Wolverine)

2. Under exposure of some characters

3. Well............... DC removing Wally and Stephanie from existence was kinda a dick move.

4. Huge Events that starts out interesting, then kills you with its long dragged out story, that makes little to no changes to the continuity.

Yeah it's pretty stupid (My list) but I don't really gripe much, I rely on the Internet Reviews to fill me in details.

@Cap10nate said:

No Closure. Joker slips away . . . Red Skull sneaks out in the confusion . . . Annihilus is reborn. . . etc. Due to the nature of ongoing comics, there is never (very rarely) any closure. Nothing can be definite and there always has to be a back door. It's like the cheesy 'B' horror movies where they always leave room for 7th installment in the series. I definitely understand why they do it as they are in a universe that don't age, but it would just be nice to have closure. Annihilation was a fantastic story. Huge war that ended only when Richard Rider killed Annihilus. Great and wonderful ending. The universe is saved and the threat is destroyed. Then the epilogue shows him being reborn and the triumph that you should feel after such a story is diminished.

I also don't like the power progression for heavy hitters. Every time they beat someone, they have to face a bigger threat, and then a bigger one, and so on and so on. Eventually, you get characters that have so much power, that you basically need deus ex machina or extreme plot devices just to beat them or show a weakness. Once Thor lifts the Midgard Serpent or Supes pulls part of the planet, how is anything they do that is strength related a challenge? It becomes like DBZ where he goes from fighting in a martial arts tourney on earth to being able to destroy a planet/solar system.

I agree about having no closure in some of the story arcs. Usually whenever they leave the ending of one story open, they sometimes don't go back to that particular storyline and we're left wondering what ever happened in that storyline.

Writer douchebaggery

Ennis hates wolverine

Loeb derailed Ultimates (f*ck you and your family too)