Here is my list, with some caveats. Some of these characters I actually like; its’ more that many of them were badly written for long stretches of time.
1) Venom and Carnage: I know I’m in the minority on this one, and that’s OK. I liked Venom at first during the McFarlane Era, sure, but then he just got shoved down our throats over and over again. And when Marvel gave into temptation to make him an “anti-hero” they had to make a newer, more psychotic-bad-guy-Venom-ish character, which is how we got Carnage.
2) Black Panther, until the late 90s: Black Panther was quite an interesting concept when introduced by Lee/Kirby. A king of an African nation who was also a superhero? It was like the flip side of Dr. Doom. And while he had some good moments here and there (the “Panther’s Rage” story arc for one) there weren’t a whole lot of them. He was mostly wasted in the Avengers except for when they needed a Reed-Richards-like deus ex machina to whip up some fancy gadget to save the day.
3) Green Lantern until the mid-2000s: DC was terrible for much of the 60s, 70s and 80s and Green Lantern was exhibit A of the company’s many problems. Uninspired story-telling with Hal frequently whining about this, that, or the other. Finally they had him suffer the loss of his hometown (Coast City) and killing him off (well, kinda) to reboot the concept in the form of Kyle Rayner. (who was also kind of a wet noodle.) It took the Geoff Johns “Rebirth” to realize the full potential in the character.
4) Carol Danvers: Hopefully the Infinity War 2 movie will inject some moxie into the character. Whether she was Ms. Marvel, Binary, Warbird or Captain Marvel, she has just never been that interesting to me. I’ve often given her books a chance, and I always wind up saying the same thing — “why does this book exist other than for the fact she has “Marvel” in her name??” They’ve tried lots of things, including depowering her, making her an alcoholic, making her the lead in Civil War II, but, honestly, none of it ever resonated in the least and her books keep getting canceled for lack of interest. Given her power set, that’s insane.
1) Venom and Carnage: I know I’m in the minority on this one, and that’s OK. I liked Venom at first during the McFarlane Era, sure, but then he just got shoved down our throats over and over again. And when Marvel gave into temptation to make him an “anti-hero” they had to make a newer, more psychotic-bad-guy-Venom-ish character, which is how we got Carnage.
2) Black Panther, until the late 90s: Black Panther was quite an interesting concept when introduced by Lee/Kirby. A king of an African nation who was also a superhero? It was like the flip side of Dr. Doom. And while he had some good moments here and there (the “Panther’s Rage” story arc for one) there weren’t a whole lot of them. He was mostly wasted in the Avengers except for when they needed a Reed-Richards-like deus ex machina to whip up some fancy gadget to save the day.
3) Green Lantern until the mid-2000s: DC was terrible for much of the 60s, 70s and 80s and Green Lantern was exhibit A of the company’s many problems. Uninspired story-telling with Hal frequently whining about this, that, or the other. Finally they had him suffer the loss of his hometown (Coast City) and killing him off (well, kinda) to reboot the concept in the form of Kyle Rayner. (who was also kind of a wet noodle.) It took the Geoff Johns “Rebirth” to realize the full potential in the character.
4) Carol Danvers: Hopefully the Infinity War 2 movie will inject some moxie into the character. Whether she was Ms. Marvel, Binary, Warbird or Captain Marvel, she has just never been that interesting to me. I’ve often given her books a chance, and I always wind up saying the same thing — “why does this book exist other than for the fact she has “Marvel” in her name??” They’ve tried lots of things, including depowering her, making her an alcoholic, making her the lead in Civil War II, but, honestly, none of it ever resonated in the least and her books keep getting canceled for lack of interest. Given her power set, that’s insane.
5) The Punisher.
Frank Castle is engaging in small doses…but in the 80s and 90s Marvel was pushing him down our throats in not one, not two, but THREE friggin books every month (and was usually guest-starring in another book somewhere every other month.) That was way too much.
He has ZERO personality. He rarely exhibits street smarts, tactical smarts or anything similar. His main thing is to just use bullets to solve his problems until they’re all gone. Yawn. This was the Golan-Globus, straight to video version of comics.
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