Stupidest Comic Book Moments
Seriously, why was Peter Parker such a man-child in this storyline? For someone who is supposed to be greater than Captain America in heroism, Marvel's supposed greatest hero makes a deal with the devil (Mephisto). Why? Because he can't live without Aunt May? Sorry to be heartless, but that's a dumb reason. Several superheroes have lost loved ones right in front of them and don't mope around trying to revive them.
In addition, it's easy to see why a lot of comic fans felt betrayed by this moment (and storyline). It reversed Peter's struggles and personality, and his marriage with Mary Jane Watson is left out like it's nothing. Spider-Man was supposed to be the superhero equivalent of a "Coming-of-Age" genre, but I guess Marvel wants him to appeal to kids more. Just pathetic...
So, in one storyline set in the future, Mary Jane Watson dies. Was she killed by a rogue villain or some illness? No, she was killed by Spider-Man, albeit unintentionally. How? Because Peter Parker had sex with her, and it turns out his sperm is laced with radioactivity from being bitten by the super-spider.
What was the writer thinking? Was radioactive semen even a good idea to begin with? On top of that, this was supposed to be some dark, edgy storyline set in the future. Ugh!
I feel so bad for Dick Grayson in this storyline. And Batman isn't Batman. He physically abuses Dick and treats him like a third-class citizen, even criticizing Alfred for being kind to the boy. He also addresses himself as "The Goddamn Batman," which has since become a meme.
Worst of all, this storyline (in All-Star Batman and Robin) was written by Frank Miller, the author of The Dark Knight Returns (aka the best Batman story ever made).
Widely seen as one of the worst Superman comics ever made, Superman: At Earth's End (AEE), much like Spider-Man: Reign, attempted to cash in on the huge success of The Dark Knight Returns (all three are deconstructionist stories about elderly superheroes thrust back into action with gritty, dark elements).
The story, however, is filled with absolute nonsense and rampant stupid moments. The pinnacle of this is the famous scene where a white-bearded Superman with waning powers battles two clones of Adolf Hitler, who stole Batman's body to make superhuman bat-mutants. All of this happens while Superman wields a ridiculous multi-cylinder minigun that's bigger than his entire body. This scene is utter nonsense and perfectly summarizes everything wrong with comics in the '80s and '90s.
Honestly, this was just unnecessary. Civil War was amazing, but this feels like an attempt to cash in, as it was coincidentally written when Captain America: Civil War was in cinemas. There were some interesting concepts, but the storyline was simply not good.
Additionally, the character deaths that happen aren't interesting. Do comic book deaths even matter at this point? Captain Marvel is really unlikeable. I mean, I was on Team Cap in the original Civil War, but here I'm definitely on Team Iron Man. Carol Danvers was a complete jerk in this.
The Clone Saga was a Spider-Man story about Spidey battling a clone of himself. The story was only intended to run for about half a year, but because it was bringing in so much money, the publishers encouraged the authors to keep the story running as long as possible.
What resulted was a story originally meant to last under a year being stretched into an arc that ran for two full years. The story, of course, fell apart as the authors continued trying more and more to needlessly extend it.
Carnage survives and kills more people because Spider-Man stopped Agent Venom from killing him.
This marked the point when comics stopped being entertaining and began to turn dark just for the sake of being dark. In other words, no point.