What're your opinions on this?

[WSS?]

I'm a fairly big fan of Linkara, a guy on the internet who makes a video series named "Atop the 4th Wall," where he reviews bad comic books, occasionally making countdowns of terrible moments and ideas.  This video is one of them, counting the top 15 worst heel turns in comic books, according to him.  I liked it, but I'd like to see what you all think of it.

thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/5906-top15worst

[BaneTheDestroyer]

I liked it as well

[wildknight]

Haven't watched the video, but I've seen this guy before, and he's the worst kind of pseudo-intellectual lackwit.

[wildknight]

1) His take on One More Day is dead on, but he oversimplifies Identity Crisis so badly he should be drug out into the street and shot. Identity Crisis was a brilliant story, and his inability to get it makes him a dumbass, not it a bad story.

2) So... he's not really bothered by Raven turning evil. He's bothered by them doing it over and over? Guess what buddy, it's the comic books. EVERYTHING happens over and over. This argument is akin to saying "I liked taking a breath, but I hate the fact that I keep doing it over and over."

3) Nightwing/Renegade. *groan* He's correct in everything he says, but I'm actually shocked that he never once mentions the fact that the primary reason for the storyline was to capitalize on the growing fanboy obsession at that time with Deathstroke.

4) Er... the conclusion to Crisis on Infinite Earths was satisfying to you? Infinite Crisis was epic to you? Superboy Prime was incredibly stupid, I'll give him that.

5) Red Hood... sucks... so $#@!ing bad. He's just plain wrong, though. There has NEVER been a good Red Hood story since Todd's resurrection.

6) I enjoyed Maxwell Lord turning out to be evil, and there are literally a dozen explanations for Martian Manhunter's mindscan not revealing his true intentions. This guy seems to want to push some notion that Lord was this beloved character before turning evil, but he wasn't... he was an annoying government agent who had nothing to really contribute to a legit super hero team. Sure he had some nice personal interactions and sure, he hooked up with Wonder Woman... but the fact is that he was no more integral to the League than Wyatt Wingfoot was to the Avengers. What's that you say, who is Wyatt Wingfoot? EXACTLY. Turning evil made Maxwell Lord a name worth remembering.

7) Hawk/Monarch was stupid, but guess what? So was the entire concept behind Hawk & Dove in the first place. Furthermore, the "killed by his future self" thing was actually a good bit of writing. It pushes the tragedy angle in a nice direction.

8) DC hates Captain Atom. What else is new? Again, comic book stuff ALWAYS happens again and again. Complaining about it is pointless. (But yes, it was stupid)

9) Madelyn Pryor becoming Goblin Queen was AWESOME. $#@! this guy.

10) I am unfamiliar with this storyline, but I can only assume that the writers have been captured, tried before the International Comic Book Court in San Diego, and sentenced to life working for Highlights Magazine.

11) I have to take a moment to point out that Magneto's "hero" costume was more revealing than his "villain" costume (and more stupid looking to boot), thus defeating the theory that the guy JUST stated in the previous example.

At any rate, his complaint here isn't that Magneto turned evil. It's that Magneto wasn't turned evil. Whatever

12) Bendis, king of the retcons. It doesn't take a genius to note that Brian Michael Bendis does dumb stuff. REALLY dumb stuff. If you want to make a list of worst "anything" in comic book history, just look up a list of Bendis storylines, you're sure to find a minimum of one really good (bad?) example.

13) Who the $#@! cares about Mary Marvel?

14) Hal becoming Parallax may have had some serious flaws in the details, but it was an amazing storyline. This guy's primary complaint is that, in his opinion, Hal is overreacting. I cannot roll my eyes hard enough.

15) All of that Cassandra Cain art is terrible. What the heck?

... anyway, how is this fourth rate character important enough to rate the worst character turn of all time?

[Wo0dZz]

[WSS?]

Nov 21, 2013 5:23:45 GMT -5 wildknight said:

1) His take on One More Day is dead on, but he oversimplifies Identity Crisis so badly he should be drug out into the street and shot. Identity Crisis was a brilliant story, and his inability to get it makes him a dumbass, not it a bad story.  This is a guy who prefers action over storylines, so I'm not really surprised.

4) Er... the conclusion to Crisis on Infinite Earths was satisfying to you? Infinite Crisis was epic to you? Superboy Prime was incredibly stupid, I'll give him that.  See 1.

9) Madelyn Pryor becoming Goblin Queen was AWESOME. $#@! this guy.  Don't know enough to judge.

10) I am unfamiliar with this storyline, but I can only assume that the writers have been captured, tried before the International Comic Book Court in San Diego, and sentenced to life working for Highlights Magazine.  I'll assume you're talking about Mr. Fantastic slapping his own wife, which somehow makes her not evil.

11) I have to take a moment to point out that Magneto's "hero" costume was more revealing than his "villain" costume (and more stupid looking to boot), thus defeating the theory that the guy JUST stated in the previous example. It was a joke.

At any rate, his complaint here isn't that Magneto turned evil. It's that Magneto wasn't turned evil. Whatever.  His complaint was that it was overly-convoluted.

13) Who the $#@! cares about Mary Marvel?  The Marvel family has fans, dude.  

14) Hal becoming Parallax may have had some serious flaws in the details, but it was an amazing storyline. This guy's primary complaint is that, in his opinion, Hal is overreacting. I cannot roll my eyes hard enough.  The idea of Hal going crazy and slaughtering everyone in the GL corps is pretty dang stupid.

15) All of that Cassandra Cain art is terrible. What the heck? Indeed it is.

... anyway, how is this fourth rate character important enough to rate the worst character turn of all time?  Because it made no sense, I guess.

My reactions in red.  By the way, it wasn't a list of most famous bad heel turns, just worst heel turns, hence why Cass and Mary got high rankings.

[wildknight]

1) No, I'm talking about the entire storyline. Even by comic standards, it's terrible. Slapping a person is actually STILL in most medical books as a way to snap someone out of a hysterical fit. Know why? Because it works.

2) The Marvel Family has fans. 10 of them. They don't actually read Captain Marvel/Shazam comics, though... they just think they sound awfully hip talking about how they prefer the "classic" Captain Marvel over Superman. If anyone cared about the Marvel family, three consecutive generations wouldn't have grown up thinking the character was named "Shazam", so much so that DC eventually gave in and actually changed the name of the character TO Shazam.

Face facts; the only thing to ever come out of the Marvel Family that ever legitimately had any traction was Black Adam, and that's because they gave him his own major storylines where he ignored the lameass "heroes" he used to fight and went after actual DC powerhouses like Superman and Wonder Woman.

3) The idea of Hal going made with grief after being unable to defend his home town and literally every non-super hero that he loved from being murdered by a madman from space is "pretty dang stupid"? Really? Imagine you're a guy whose power is literally based on your own strength of will... and then you utterly fail everything you know and love. Imagine what that could do to you. The storyline actually made a great deal of sense. It actually got WORSE when they claimed he was completely under the control of a giant space bug.

[WSS?]

Nov 21, 2013 12:37:00 GMT -5 wildknight said:

1) No, I'm talking about the entire storyline. Even by comic standards, it's terrible. Slapping a person is actually STILL in most medical books as a way to snap someone out of a hysterical fit. Know why? Because it works.  Mr. Fantastic had no idea Sue had legitimately gone crazy.  He was just slapping her because she was annoying him.

3) The idea of Hal going made with grief after being unable to defend his home town and literally every non-super hero that he loved from being murdered by a madman from space is "pretty dang stupid"? Really? Imagine you're a guy whose power is literally based on your own strength of will... and then you utterly fail everything you know and love. Imagine what that could do to you. The storyline actually made a great deal of sense. It actually got WORSE when they claimed he was completely under the control of a giant space bug.  Yep, a man who's the epitome of discipline, good will, and honor, gets so angry and sad that he decides to murder the only friends he's got left.  Makes perfect sense.

[wildknight]

1) Actually, Mr. Fantastic LITERALLY says that she's "hysterical" immediately before slapping her. Again, "hysteria" is not just the name of an awesome Def Leppard album, it's also a psychological condition, and again, slapping the person is considered a viable way of snapping them out of it. The problem here is that the author didn't realize that people who go hysterical do things like break dishes and scream a lot... for the most part they don't change into their favorite S&M gear, get an 80's femmullet, and beat up the She-Hulk. The problem here is NOT Reed slapping his wife. It's not like he was just trying to make the silly broad mind her mouth and get back in the kitchen.

2) It does. It's called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Look into it.

[WSS?]

On a somewhat different note, how did Hal slaughter the entirety of the GL Corps by himself?

[Raven_turns#HEELYESBITW]

I love Linkara's take on The History of Power Rangers

[setokaiba]

I haven't been on that website in years. I forgot it even existed.

[Raven_turns#HEELYESBITW]

Nov 21, 2013 14:17:27 GMT -5 setokaiba said:

I haven't been on that website in years. I forgot it even existed.

I only go on it when he updates History of Power Rangers then look at other stuff Critic does.

[wildknight]

Nov 21, 2013 13:40:55 GMT -5 WSS? said:

On a somewhat different note, how did Hal slaughter the entirety of the GL Corps by himself?

... because he's Hal Jordan(?) Duh.

IIRC he nails a few by cheating and then once he has a whole bunch of rings he's unstoppable (nevermind the fact that the rings are supposed to go find new owners as soon as their wearer is killed).

[WSS?]

Nov 21, 2013 14:25:54 GMT -5 wildknight said:

... because he's Hal Jordan(?) Duh.  I know, I just would prefer a decent explanation why.


IIRC he nails a few by cheating and then once he has a whole bunch of rings he's unstoppable (nevermind the fact that the rings are supposed to go find new owners as soon as their wearer is killed).  Ah, there we go. 


Wasn't Hal popular back then?  Why'd they make him go crazy if he was popular?

Also, it seems the forum won't let me type outside the quote box.  Strange.

[wildknight]

Hal actually wasn't popular then, that was the reason for the storyline (well, that and DC needed to do some minor retcons). As the guy says in the video, he was considered "boring." I actually really liked Hal right around that time, but I can see where he wouldn't appeal to a lot of people, since it was the 90's and he wasn't a murderous ultra-badass with a flying motorcycle who gave the finger to authority at every turn, yet had a young female sidekick that he was a bit overly protective of.

[WSS?]

This video too:

thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/blockbuster-buster/blockbuster-buster/41429-top-10-things-i-want-to-see-in-the-justice-league-movie