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Post by berkley on May 19, 2022 22:08:39 GMT -5
Definitely Bomber Jacket Avengers.. the Crystal/Quicksilver/Black Knight stuff was so BORING. I didn't vote because I haven't read it, but everything I've heard about this run makes me feel like I agree: the very idea of the Crystal and Sersi mutual jealousy sub-plot feels wrong to me. But then, I don't think anyone's written either of those two characters to my satisfaction since Kirby (with the help of Stan Lee on the FF, in the case of Crystal).
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Post by MWGallaher on May 20, 2022 8:24:35 GMT -5
Post Bronze Age there are just too many to choose from, but up to that point, my nod for the worst goes to the Freedom Fighters. The most common complaint--that they were removed from the environment that made them unique, the Nazi-dominated Earth-X--is not the biggest problem. Nor was the fact that they were essentially poverty-level heroes, with no headquarters, cool vehicles, or stable civilian lives; that could potentially be a fruitful foundation for an interesting series. The biggest flaw comes from which characters made up the team, and how they were inherently not going to work well visually or logistically on the page together. Individually, you could do some appealing work with any of these characters, but assembled, they are the clumsiest looking organization you could come up with. The team leader was an old man in a corny get-up, and in an era where dynamic action scenes were important, the artists were hobbled by trying to show convincing action while Uncle Sam kept a freaking top hat on his head most of the time. The Human Bomb has to be shown taking off his gloves every time he uses his powers. Doll Man is constantly a few inches tall, making it difficult to even show him in big team scenes. Phantom Lady's not all that bad, but her main "power" is firing off a ray that blacks out the scene. Black Condor has a costume that immediately screams "safety hazard"--those crazy flowing sleeve attachments would have to interfere with his or his team-mates' actions in close combat. The Ray's not so bad, either, but monochrome costumes aren't the most visually appealing, usually. Oh, and there's Firebrand. I'm not saying there's no place for a superhero in a filmy, satiny pink top, but this wasn't the time or place for it.
Without any cool vehicles and with only three flying heroes on the team, they'd either have to run into action or fly while awkwardly toting the Human Bomb around with them (the luckier flyers got to carry Phantom Lady or at least deal with the minor inconvenience of having Doll Man on their shoulder).
This was such an ugly, ungainly team that even Vince Colletta used a pseudonym when he inked it!
And still, I bought every blasted issue...
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Post by Icctrombone on May 20, 2022 8:31:12 GMT -5
Post Bronze Age there are just too many to choose from, but up to that point, my nod for the worst goes to the Freedom Fighters. The most common complaint--that they were removed from the environment that made them unique, the Nazi-dominated Earth-X--is not the biggest problem. Nor was the fact that they were essentially poverty-level heroes, with no headquarters, cool vehicles, or stable civilian lives; that could potentially be a fruitful foundation for an interesting series. The biggest flaw comes from which characters made up the team, and how they were inherently not going to work well visually or logistically on the page together. Individually, you could do some appealing work with any of these characters, but assembled, they are the clumsiest looking organization you could come up with. The team leader was an old man in a corny get-up, and in an era where dynamic action scenes were important, the artists were hobbled by trying to show convincing action while Uncle Sam kept a freaking top hat on his head most of the time. The Human Bomb has to be shown taking off his gloves every time he uses his powers. Doll Man is constantly a few inches tall, making it difficult to even show him in big team scenes. Phantom Lady's not all that bad, but her main "power" is firing off a ray that blacks out the scene. Black Condor has a costume that immediately screams "safety hazard"--those crazy flowing sleeve attachments would have to interfere with his or his team-mates' actions in close combat. The Ray's not so bad, either, but monochrome costumes aren't the most visually appealing, usually. Oh, and there's Firebrand. I'm not saying there's no place for a superhero in a filmy, satiny pink top, but this wasn't the time or place for it. Without any cool vehicles and with only three flying heroes on the team, they'd either have to run into action or fly while awkwardly toting the Human Bomb around with them (the luckier flyers got to carry Phantom Lady or at least deal with the minor inconvenience of having Doll Man on their shoulder). This was such an ugly, ungainly team that even Vince Colletta used a pseudonym when he inked it! And still, I bought every blasted issue... I was in a rush when I posted this thread so I left out many of the “bad” teams. But I beg to differ, Phantom Lady’s main power was her chest.
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Post by Cei-U! on May 20, 2022 9:30:53 GMT -5
Post Bronze Age there are just too many to choose from, but up to that point, my nod for the worst goes to the Freedom Fighters. The most common complaint--that they were removed from the environment that made them unique, the Nazi-dominated Earth-X--is not the biggest problem. Nor was the fact that they were essentially poverty-level heroes, with no headquarters, cool vehicles, or stable civilian lives; that could potentially be a fruitful foundation for an interesting series. The biggest flaw comes from which characters made up the team, and how they were inherently not going to work well visually or logistically on the page together. Individually, you could do some appealing work with any of these characters, but assembled, they are the clumsiest looking organization you could come up with. The team leader was an old man in a corny get-up, and in an era where dynamic action scenes were important, the artists were hobbled by trying to show convincing action while Uncle Sam kept a freaking top hat on his head most of the time. The Human Bomb has to be shown taking off his gloves every time he uses his powers. Doll Man is constantly a few inches tall, making it difficult to even show him in big team scenes. Phantom Lady's not all that bad, but her main "power" is firing off a ray that blacks out the scene. Black Condor has a costume that immediately screams "safety hazard"--those crazy flowing sleeve attachments would have to interfere with his or his team-mates' actions in close combat. The Ray's not so bad, either, but monochrome costumes aren't the most visually appealing, usually. Oh, and there's Firebrand. I'm not saying there's no place for a superhero in a filmy, satiny pink top, but this wasn't the time or place for it. Without any cool vehicles and with only three flying heroes on the team, they'd either have to run into action or fly while awkwardly toting the Human Bomb around with them (the luckier flyers got to carry Phantom Lady or at least deal with the minor inconvenience of having Doll Man on their shoulder). This was such an ugly, ungainly team that even Vince Colletta used a pseudonym when he inked it! And still, I bought every blasted issue... What he said... including the part about owning the complete run.
Cei-U! I summon the collecting compulsion!
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Post by Commander Benson on May 20, 2022 10:19:05 GMT -5
[M]y nod for the worst goes to the Freedom Fighters. Ye gods, I'd forgotten about them. That series was, indeed, awful. Unlike you, sir, I didn't have a problem with the composition of the team. My issues were with the mishandling of the concept. Why, oh, why did editor Gerry Conway and writer Martin Pasko think it was a good idea to migrate the Freedom Fighters to Earth-One? (Well, in the case of Conway I can guess---I found him to be one of those sloppy writers who ignore continuity to present his Neat Ideas. Pasko, however, was better than that.) I'm not saying that the Freedom Fighters should still have been fighting the Nazis on Earth-X. The conclusion of JLA # 107-8 (Oct. and Nov., 1973) put paid to the Nazi threat on that Earth. However, the concept of the Freedom Fighters operating on Earth-X with no, or few, other super-heroes, helping their world re-build after decades of Nazi domination, had to be more fertile with story promise than bringing them to Earth-One, where they're just another bunch of super-heroes. Had the Freedom Fighters remained on Earth-X, Messrs. Conway and Pasko might not have found it necessary to ramp up the super-powers of the members. Or, in the case of the Phantom Lady, outright bestow them. DC of that time seemed to have a problem with non-powered heroes, because its writers were handing out super-powers right and left. Over at All-Star Squadron, Roy Thomas ushered ordinary mystery man Firebrand quickly off stage to replace him with his sister, who had conveniently acquired flame powers. And Liberty Belle was imbued with a power of magnetism. The problem with super-teams, every member of which is a heavyweight, is that it's difficult to constently devise threats which would credibly challenge the team. Gardner Fox realised this after the membership of the Justice League had expanded to nine members (with the tenth, Hawkman, in the looming). That's why, in 1964, he shifted to his rotating-membership formula, which usually saw four or five members "tied up on urgent cases of their own" and missing that issue's adventure. To me, a Freedom Fighters team with lesser powers dealing with threats that would arise on a rebuilding Earth-X would have been far more interesting than the drivel we got.
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Post by dbutler69 on May 20, 2022 10:20:44 GMT -5
Avengers-jacket and pouch era - no contest. Terrible team, terrible look, terrible era. Okay the real answer is probably "Other" (probably some 90's team), since there are tons of bad superhero teams out there, but that's a cop-out.
I have no idea why the Legion of Super-Heroes is on this list., They finished second to the Avengers in the Favorite Superhero Team tournament I held a couple of years ago.
JLA Detroit is probably the weakest iteration of the JLA, but I also think they're unfairly maligned. I can understand what Conway was trying to do, populating the team entirely with characters who don't have their own book, including some he co-created, so that he could actually do something interesting and game changing with them. You know you can't really do anything with Superman and Batman in the JLA book that's going to change their status quo at all.
I have fond feelings of nostalgia for the original X-Men, so I can't bring myself to vote for them. Beside, the Thomas/Adams stuff was great, and Steranko too. That saves them from my ignominious vote here.
The Champions weren't much of a team. Great concept, poorly executed. Suffered from a revolving cast of creators, and nobody seemed to know what to do with them. But again, nostalgia won't let me vote for them.
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Post by berkley on May 20, 2022 10:32:58 GMT -5
I've never read JLA-Detroit or West Coast Avengers but I agree, there's nothing wrong with the basic idea of having a branch of those teams based far away from NYC. Same with JL International, except they were still mostly US heroes, from what I understand.
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2022 11:19:06 GMT -5
I had somehow completely missed the Freedom Fighters series up until last year. Upon learning of it, I had high expectations. In particular I loved the Ray from all the old Lou Fine Golden Age reprints I had read. Plus I kind of liked when the Quality Comics heroes showed up in All-Star Squadron. Add to that as well the simple fact it was a 70's series which I tend to have a soft spot for since those were my early reading years.
I ordered #1 just to kick things off properly, plus #10 for the Catman appearance and #14 for the Batwoman/Kathy Kane appearance (either of those characters I will grab any classic appearance of if there's an opportunity).
Sadly though it was a rough read and my interest in picking up more issues waned, I have to agree on this being highlighted as a choice.
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Post by mikelmidnight on May 20, 2022 11:44:18 GMT -5
I voted for JLDetroit. They were so much bad ethnic stereotypes, that I found them downright offensive. Plus, I felt that Conway was going for a Cap's Kooky Quartet vibe, but it totally failed to work with a bunch of new characters (I'd have loved to see a JLA consisting of an A-lister plus some reformed villains and questionable hero-types … say Mind-Grabber Kid, Huntress, Sportsmaster, Creeper, and maybe Man-Bat if the A-lister isn't Batman).
Avengers (jacket & pouches era) was after I stopped buying Marvel for the most part, so I don't have much judgement call on it. But from what I recall the stories were dire but the team itself wasn't ill-conceived.
Champions were a problematic team from the outset. Apparently the writer wanted to do a duo book with Angel and Iceman, and editorial told him duo books didn't sell and he needed a five-person team with a strong guy, a token woman, and a character with his own title … so the writer assembled them randomly. The resulting team had nothing whatsoever to do with 'the common man' so that was a misdirected attempt at a theme. I don't think the stories were any worse than the average Marvel title, and the Byrne art helped, but I do admit the lineup felt arbitrary.
I was always a fan of the DC multiverse and I loved the Freedom Fighters as a concept, but agree that switching them to Earth-1 forced them into a banal situation.
JLInternational and JLEurope always offended me with the USA-centric lineups … especially when it's not as the JLAmerica didn't already have a fair number of non-US citizens as members! They didn't have to revive all those dire Global Guardians (whom I loved despite their direness), but it felt like they weren't even trying.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 20, 2022 12:21:37 GMT -5
The Freedom Fighters were unique enough that you tended to forgive a lot. I liked the phony Crusaders issues, except for the Dick Ayers art. It seemed too stiff and he didn't seem enthused (same when he did some wor for Archie/Red Circle). I kind of liked the idea of reintroducing Firebrand as someone who ran away from Earth-X, while the Nazis controlled things, now trying to redeem himself It was an interesting and timely idea, given how soon after Vietnam this was, when many conscientious objectors fled to Canada. That was a hot button topic; but, in a metaphorical setting like that, you can explore both sides without as much emotional attachment. Problem is, they didn't go that deep. Based on the covers he did and his issues of All-Star Squadron, I wish Rich Buckler had handled the art.
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Post by berkley on May 20, 2022 12:50:52 GMT -5
Could it be that we ask too much sometimes when it comes to coming up with a good team concept? With so many superheroes running around in the MU and DCU, it could be like musicians leaving one band and immediately forming another with someone else because that's what musicians do: it's either make music as a solo act or as part of a band. So maybe we shouldn't expect that MU superheroes have any bigger motivation than, "Hey, you left the Avengers? I just left the X-Men! How about forming a new team?"
Not that good concept couldn't an advantage in both cases - though it seems more obvious for musicians than for superheroes. You'd hope that the members of a band share certain ideas about what kind of music they want to make, but how many different kinds of superhero-ing are there?
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2022 13:00:51 GMT -5
Could it be that we ask too much sometimes when it comes to coming up with a good team concept? With so many superheroes running around in the MU and DCU, it could be like musicians leaving one band and immediately forming another with someone else because that's what musicians do: it's either make music as a solo act or as part of a band. So maybe we shouldn't expect that MU superheroes have any bigger motivation than, "Hey, you left the Avengers? I just left the X-Men! How about forming a new team?" Not that good concept couldn't an advantage in both cases - though it seems more obvious for musicians than for superheroes. You'd hope that the members of a band share certain ideas about what kind of music they want to make, but how many different kinds of superhero-ing are there? An excellent argument, my friend! I’ve felt the same (sort of) about wrestling. It seems some fans - the more vocal ones - expect a storyline for every wrestling match. Now, of course, you need a storyline/compelling reason for a world champion to defend his championship. Storylines in wrestling are good. But, and I’ll use some of your words, with so many wrestlers running around in WWE, wrestling each other is doing what wrestlers do. “Hey, you left the Four Horseman? I just left a faction, too. How about forming a tag team?” Yes, have storylines, particularly for your world champions and quasi-main events. But WWE is presenting itself as a sport to the masses, scripted though it is. Sometimes no storyline/deep reason is needed for a match. Wrestlers have to eat. They are there to compete. Sometimes it’s simply about the paycheck from wrestling a match - so no deep and meaningful storylines are necessarily needed in *every* situation. So, and I’ll take your point forward, perhaps if Iceman and Wonder Man are at a loose end, and doing the solo gigs, why not team up with, say, Nighthawk and She-Hulk? It might not need a compelling reason, if we go by your logic. Thank you for making me think about this, berkley.
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Post by Dizzy D on May 20, 2022 13:06:03 GMT -5
I think the reasoning for them to just team up doesn't need to be very convoluted; like you said. Storywise I do want there to be some sort of angle to make them stand out for the dozens of other superhero titles on the market.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 20, 2022 14:23:46 GMT -5
I apologize for leaving out teams like the Freedom Fighters , the JLA whah , ha era and others. I was posting the thread right before I had to go to work. There are many crappy teams without mentioning the Image guys.
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Post by arfetto on May 20, 2022 16:05:33 GMT -5
I do not know if these characters would be considered "anti-heroes" or simply "villains" (they are basically villains though the intent was likely to depict them as anti-heroes), but since the topic just says "super teams" (so super hero or super villain teams might fit as long as they are super) I want to mention my favorite "best worst" super team.
Inspired by a variety of super team sources I suppose, from Marvel mutant groups, the Avengers, and the many "Government sponsored special op super squads" of early Image, my favorite terrible team is Theta Force from the Knighthawk comic.
I know this type of '90s team is commonplace in the independent comics of that era, but the almost alien-like quality of the comic's dialogue bumps them up above the rest of the pack for me. I also know the team could be hand-waved with "it is actually a critique of the times, particularly X-titles of the era as indicated by the last lines of dialogue" (as if it were comparable to Morrison's Doom Force parody or something), but the entire comic has such a strange feeling to it regardless.
"If we ever run into you again, you gonna carve you up into cutlets" haha.
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