Yesterday, we covered the Best Comics of 2009, and now to even the scales ComicsAlliance is back with an even more far-reaching list: The 15 Worst Comics of the Decade. Yes, yes, I know that the decade isn't technically over, but most people don't realize that, and we couldn't resist doing a roundup of the very worst comics to come out in the aughts, or the '00s, or whatever else people tried to call this limbo decade, before we roll over to double digits.



Marville (2002)We'll be going (mostly) chronologically through our fifteen favorites, by which I mean the ones we hate the most. Some of these will surely come as no surprise, but others may be more unexpected -- drop your own thoughts in the comments if we missed your (least) favorite. We'll be hitting the first seven today, going roughly from 2001 to 2004, with the remaining eight tomorrow. It begins!

In the history of comics, eventually some definitive article will be written on Bill Jemas, one of the oddest, most energizing figures to ever be found wandering near the top of the corporate ladder. This is not that article. But seriously, Bill Jemas, remember that guy? The guy who saved Marvel Comics with methods that, at times, seemed not unlike a doctor attempting to defibrillate a heart patient by tying them to a tree in the rain and throwing electric eels at them blindfolded -- but successful? Yeah, that guy.

Man, he wrote some terrible comics.

For those that don't remember, "Marville: was a 2002 six -- (or seven - I'll explain later) -- issue mini-series written by Bill Jemas that was created for a publicity stunt called U-Decide, which you can probably read about somewhere else on the internet. Suffice to say, two new Marvel Comics series came out of the stunt, Ron Zimmerman's "Ultimate Adventures" and "Marville," and they were both terrible. We'll cover the failing of "Ultimate Adventures" more fully later on, but it was really just painfully boring hackwork, oatmeal made from cardboard with some rat poison on top masquerading as zesty seasoning. "Marville," on the other hand, was something different. It may just be the strangest comic that Marvel has ever published.Marville ostensibly began as a parody book, a vehicle for Jemas to make fun of his own industry. Marville-the-parody only lasted for two out of it's six issues. The last four were...something else. But first let's talk about the parody issues. I'm a sucker for parody books, and even more for strident, hostile irreverence, and so I actually found myself shockingly predisposed to like "Marville." "Oh no," I wondered. "How will I ever write about this as one of the Worst Comics of the Decade?" I really needn't have worried.

The very first thing you see when you open up the first issue of Marville, is the following disclaimer:

In case you can't read that, it says "An Insider's Guide to Marville #1: Here are a few things you need to know about comic books and about the real world to get the "inside" jokes in Marville #1." The text on the rest of the page proceeds to explain every reference you're about to read, in essence explaining every joke you're about to read before it gets told. Which is just a BRILLIANT way to set up a comedy. I know I like all my humor pre-chewed.

For most of the first two issues, the book merely vacillates between comprehensibly bad (endless AOL jibes, playing off AOL's relationship with DC's parent company Time-Warner at the time) and surreally bad, like a scene where a character from the future goes into a bank after his ATM card (also from the future) doesn't work. The bank manager informs him that his account has $100 million in it but won't open for 3,000 years. Which is a perfectly fine, odd joke.

But then, when the man from the future protests, the banker, out of nowhere, announces that he is Alan Greenspan. He doesn't look anything like Alan Greenspan, and Alan Greenspan has had nothing to do with anything leading up until now...but he says, "My name is Alan Greenspan." He then announces, "I'm famous for creating unprecedented economic prosperity in the 1990's." To which the man from the future replies, "Great. What have you done lately?" And then the scene is just over. "Marville" is full of things like that.

But but but...while "Marville" rarely flirts with competence, it often verges on being sort of amazing. Take a scene from #2, in which the main character, the man from the future, has gotten hold of his money and is just giving it out to people on the street. When a group of guys, semi-menacingly, ask him for money, he simply complies, because he's giving it out anyway. Then Batman shows up out of nowhere and starts beating people to death. And so does Iron Man. And so does Black Panther. Batman literally rips a black man's arm off and beats him with it:

On the handy-dandy pre-emptive joke-explaining page at the beginning of the issue, it is stated that "Batman, Black Panther and Iron Man are all billionaire super-hero crime fighters." The whole scene is peppered with dialogue about how much money these guys have, and how they do nothing for the poor. Iron Man cops to shutting down the factory that all of the people they're beating up used to work in and outsourcing the jobs to Mexico. Then Black Panther saves Iron Man from saying "n****r" out loud, thus preserving the reputation of a fellow billionaire while mercilessly beating the life out of the poor. Then Rush Limbaugh shoots them. I am not making any of this up.





The whole scene is a weirdly edgy and mental attempt at calling out the superhero obsession with fascist violence and wealth, and to make a statement about how class divides transcend racial divides, and it's all being delivered via mayhem and bloodshed. It may be too much of a mess to make any real point, but when was the last time you read a Marvel comic that tried to take on subjects like that without slipping into some namby-pamby weak-spined "can't we all just get along" middle ground?

There's also a transcendentally odd two-page spread later on that sexualizes the criminal justice system, first with an arrested criminal licking the fingerprint ink off the fingers of a cop dressed as a hooker, then to prisoners in central booking slow-dancing by candle-light, and then finally lawyers kneeling in front of a reclining judge who thinks in a thought balloon, "Oral arguments, you bad boy." Then the criminal "gets off" when his case is dismissed, and he's let out of the crazed sex world of American justice.

As of issue #3, Jemas abandons the regular parody format of the book. The art becomes blocky, ugly computer generated stuff, and within four pages the characters have met God. God takes them skinny-dipping at the dawn of time, and then the rest of the series is devoted to Jemas' creationist-lite beliefs about the dawn of man, which involve Wolverine, the first human. Even though including Wolverine is an obvious jokey metaphor, it isn't hard to see that Jemas is actually quite serious with a lot of his theology and opinions about the true nature of evolution. For anyone who read this series, it should have come as no surprise when it was reported earlier this year that Jemas now devotes most of his time to translating the Bible from the original Hebrew.

Issue #6 of the series, the final issue in comics form, is spent recapping the previous three, and it's revealed at the end that the main character is pitching the story as a comic book series to an unseen publisher, in a dark room with only a chair and an exit sign on the wall. The story ends abruptly with the main character standing up and walking towards the exit. The last page of the comic is a press release about the then-upcoming revival of Marvel's creator-owned Epic Comics line.

According to Wikipedia, "The final issue of "Marville," issue #7, did not actually contain a story; instead, it contained the submissions guidelines to Marvel's new Epic Comics imprint." Thus ended Bill Jemas' own six-issue "Cerebus", a

parody-turned-Bible study that's partly about the power of creator-owned comics. Also of note: "Marville" had horrifically ugly Greg Horn cheesecake covers that I'd wager were the first and possibly only time a major comics company put dorsal nudity on the cover of a comic. 2002 was a hell of a banner year.

-Jason Michelitch

Dark Knight Strikes Again (2001 - 2002)

As Neil Young said, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." So let's all go back in time and kill Frank Miller. This follow-up to "The Dark Knight Returns," a pivotal book in the development of the American superhero, is so mashed-together and befuddling, the only logical place to start is the title. Hilariously similar to a chapter of "Star Wars," some invisible synchronicity kicks and registers how painfully disappointing The Prequels were, how far yon mighty George Lucas fell, smacking his head on every rung of the ladder on the way down. The massive failure of "DK2" (grindgrindgrind) had the same effect on Miller.

While most -- though not all -- of his output in the late nineties disappointed, a return to the character he was most associated with seemed to proffer a Darth Vader-like shot at redemption. Alas, the insanity that seeped in during "Sin City" is so powerful, it not only botched the comeback, it spread to Lynn Varley. Known throughout her career for lush washes and supple brushwork, on "DKSA" she goes the digital route. And frankly, it looks amateurish.

Each page seems to clash with the one opposite, hardly any effort is paid to depth, and in general the eyes seem to be arguing over where to look. It's hardly all Varley's fault, though. There are occasional moments that remind of Miller's fine cartooning and his European-flavored style, but the layouts look odd and dashed-off. The storytelling is sloppy and confusing, and overall it just looks goofy.

Defenders claim we're not getting it, that it's a misunderstood media critique, it's aimed at twenty-first century youth, that it's supposed to be confusing. Assuming for a moment that that's true, what does that say about a creator, when his intent is to bombard you with seizure-inducing flashes of light while blasting you with air horns and murdering your childhood? What does it say when DKSA wasn't the only Miller book in contention for this list?

No, friends. Miller is gone. Burn your idols, kill the Buddha, and be obliged that you never saw "Holy Terror."

-John Parker

Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose (Entire Decade)



