The Worst Comics of 2015 (So Far)

Oy, what a year! Some great comics have been published in 2015 but also plenty of super-stinky stuff too! Here’s a list of comics to steer clear of. 

Also, like my other piece about the best comics of 2015 (so far), this is going to focus on comics published this year rather than books I read this year but were published before 2015. 

It might change as there’s three more months of comics to go before year’s end but these are pretty terrible - gotta be extra-bad to beat these! The links throughout will lead you to my full reviews of the titles. 

10. Deep State by Justin Jordan and Ariela Kristantina

Remember The X-Files? Justin Jordan sure does and rewrites the series with a new title: Deep State! And it’s total garbage from start to finish. I don’t understand how a creator can put together something awesome like the Luther Strode series and turn around and dump out something as bad as Deep State. But there we go - he did. 

http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 

9. The Sculptor by Scott McCloud

Never read anything by Scott McCloud before but I was looking forward to this one. Published by SelfMadeHero (First Second in the states) who usually put out good books, I heard nothing but good things… and then I read it. Whiny douchebag artiste falls for manic pixie dream girl in a by-the-numbers indie-romance. Quite why it was so acclaimed, I have no idea because it was truly awful.

http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 

8. Ghost Fleet, Volume 1: Deadhead by Donnie Cates and Daniel Warren Johnson

It’s unclear what this one was about. Secret lorries transporting something get attacked by some people and then one guy survives while his partner gets promoted and revenge happens. Uh… ok? It sucked! 

http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 

7. Manga

Two mangas in particular: Shiba Inuko-San by Uzu and Recorder and Randsell, Volume 1 by Meme Higashiya. The first is about a dog in a schoolgirl’s outfit whom nobody calls out as being a dog in a schoolgirl’s outfit. The second is about a child who has the body of a man. I wanted to rip my eyes out rather than read these two monstrosities. Inane doesn’t even begin to cover this reading experience. It taught me never again to request manga from Netgalley! 

Shiba Inuko-San: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Recorder and Randsell, Volume 1: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 

6. Valiant

What the hell has happened to Valiant? I remember just a couple years ago adoring their books. Robert Venditti’s XO Manowar was unstoppable, Fred Van Lente’s Archer and Armstrong was great, Quantum and Woody was superb, even Unity wasn’t bad. This last year, maybe year and a half though… pee-yew! 

XO Manowar has taken a nose-dive in quality (around the time Venditti began to work for DC… hmm…) while event books like The Valiant were complete garbage. Ivar Timewalker is for some reason getting good reviews in the press - if that’s the best Valiant have to offer, well… I’ve already given up on Valiant, so there’s no end to that sentence. Disappointing though, as I used to love this label. 

Ivar Timewalker, Volume 1: Making History:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
The Valiant: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
XO Manowar, Volume 8: Enter Armorines:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 

5. The Motorcycle Samurai, Volume 1: A Fiery Demise

It’s sort of a futuristic western about someone with a skull helmet on a motorcycle and the politics of the small town the bounty hunter winds up in. Chris Sheridan can’t write, can’t draw, and this comic was torture to get through. 

http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 

4. Ballistic 

Grant Morrison called it his favourite comic of 2014 AND Darick Robertson drew the sucka. Why was it so crappy then?! Some guy called Adam Egypt Mortimer wrote the script - that awful, incomprehensible script! I can see why Morrison loved it because it was so bonkers but, yikes, it was gibberish. 

http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 

3. Image

The company that puts out the best comics also publishes quite a few turkeys as well - oddly, by some of the industry’s best recognised names. Chew, Volume 10 was the last straw for me - I’d been a supporter of the series since the start but this latest one went on way too long, after a few mediocre books that’d done the same. I ended up dropping it entirely. 

Jeff Lemire’s Descender proved what a hack he was by ripping off popular movies (again), Rick Remender’s Low was all about his therapy sessions (gotta pay for them somehow!), Scott Snyder’s Wytches was good if you enjoy American Vampire - and I don’t - while Kieron Gillen’s The Wicked + The Divine Volume 2 was a bit too thin on the ground for me to enjoy. 

Justin Jordan stunk up the joint with another bad comic, Spread, a comic about the apocalypse and other overused genre tropes. But the coup de grace of crap comics from Image goes to Mark Millar for his Millarworld titles MPH, Chrononauts, and Jupiter’s Circle, Volume 1. Lazy and derivative are the best words I can use to describe his 2015 comics. It’s incredible just how popular they are anyway. 

Chew, Volume 10: Blood Puddin’: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Descender, Volume 1: Tin Stars: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Low, Volume 1: The Delirium of Hope: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Jupiter’s Circle, Volume 1: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Chrononauts: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
MPH: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
The Wicked + The Divine, Volume 2: Fandemonium:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Wytches, Volume 1: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Spread, Volume 1: No Hope: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 

2. Marvel 

Yup, the Big 2 round out the top 2 of worst comics of the year. To be fair, they publish, by far, the most comics, so quite a few of their books will be intended as product rather than art. 

Marvel’s new Star Wars line has been disappointing, though best-selling. Kieron Gillen’s Darth Vader and Mark Waid’s Princess Leia both proved by Star Wars works as an ensemble rather than focusing on the individuals. 

The Death of Wolverine event crapped out several books “masterminded” by Charles Soule, a previously well-regarded writer. Gimmicky one-offs like Thanos Vs Hulk and Superior Iron Man bored, as did many new titles from their All-New Marvel NOW! relaunch (or whatever relaunch they’re up to!), like Greg Rucka’s Cyclops, Jason Latour’s Wolverine and the X-Men, Nathan Edmondson’s Deathlok, and Kelly Sue Deconnick’s Captain Marvel. 

By far the worst was the reprint of Alan Moore aka The Original Writer’s, Miracleman, Volume 3: Olympus, a near unreadable pile of pants. 

Deathlok, Volume 1: Control. Alt. Delete.:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Wolverines, Volume 1: Dancing with the Devil:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Princess Leia: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Darth Vader, Volume 1: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Death of Wolverine: The Weapon X Program:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Miracleman, Book 3: Olympus: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Thanos Vs Hulk: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Wolverine and the X-Men, Volume 1: Tomorrow Never Learns:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Captain Marvel, Volume 1: Higher, Further, Faster:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Cyclops, Volume 1: Starstruck: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Superior Iron Man, Volume 1: Infamous:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 

1. DC

The brown ring though goes to DC. They are simply incredible at publishing some of the worst comics ever - and so much of it too! Their line is like an open sewer! The New 52 continued pumping out crap until it died a quiet death in June and DC You took over. 

Even titles I heard were good like Gotham Academy and Grayson were terrible while stuff like Deathstroke and Teen Titans got relaunched again and failed to make a case for why they deserved it! Batman Eternal got worse - and it wasn’t that great a series in the first place - while a number of their flagship titles like Justice League, The Flash and Wonder Woman were simply embarrassments of poor writing and plotting. 

Even Vertigo, their indie line, showed its irrelevance with books like The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (the last in the graphic adaptations of the Stieg Larsson bestsellers) and Peter Milligan’s The Names. 

Want to avoid the worst comics in the market? Look past those published by DC! 

Wonder Woman, Volume 7: War-Torn: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Gotham By Midnight, Volume 1: We Do Not Sleep:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Swamp Thing, Volume 6: The Sureen: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Lobo, Volume 1: Targets: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Teen Titans, Volume 1: Blinded By the Light:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Batman: Arkham Manor: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Justice League, Volume 6: Injustice League:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Batman Eternal, Volume 2: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Batman & Robin, Volume 6: The Hunt for Robin:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Deathstroke, Volume 1: Gods of War: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
The Flash, Volume 6: Out of Time: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Batman: Arkham Knight: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Grayson, Volume 1: Agents of Spyral: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Gotham Academy, Volume 1: Welcome to Gotham Academy:http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015... 
Batman: Earth One, Volume 2: http://samquixote.blogspot.co.uk/2015...