Top 100 Worst Characters

2. IMPOSSIBLE MAN (Marvel; FF antagonist). Omnipotent, silly, arbitrary opponent, Marvel's answer to DC's cavalcade of unbeatable magical trickster characters (of which only Mxyzptlk was interesting). A go-to character for writers who can't think of a plot or want something "light-hearted."

3. DOOMSDAY (DC, Superman-slayer). A story concocted to be as simply summarized as possible -- "The Death of Superman," a legitimate Event, packaged for the media complete with black-bagged comics -- inexplicably uses as its antagonist a goofy-looking alien monster with, it's later revealed, ties to Krypton and stuff. Used only once, in a better story, this might have worked -- Superman finally meets his match, an alien so incomprehensibly powerful he barely notices the red-caped nuisance squidged between his toes like snail jelly, etc -- but it wasn't a good story, and bringing the character back over and over again only reminded us of that.

4. Tao de Moto

5. The Grudgefather

6. Mambo

7. Junker

etc.

Incidentally the letter column of Newmen no. 3 contains this gem from one incisive, inquistive reader-

"1) Do any of the Newmen have more than one power?
2) Where are these bad guys coming from?
3) Where are the Newmen from? Where were they born?
4) How did the Newmen get their powers?
5) Who is the guy with the mustache and the red beard? Is he their father?
6) Will the Newmen ever fight another Image team, like Freak Force?
7) How old are the Newmen?
8) Are the Newmen Aliens?"

I'm afraid I've no idea whether the Newmen/Freak Force crossover ever came to pass.

* I don't appear to have the hash symbol on my keyboard.

later...
http://scoop.diamondgalleries.com/news_images/2606_6940_4.jpg

haw haw

12. SHADOWHAWK

13. WARBLADE

And....

14. BEN REILLY/ SCARLET SPIDER
From the stupidest decision Marvel ever made came a pointless character. I shudder at the thought of him and the issues he appeared in...

This whole complex but luckily short lived saga was apparently created by John Byrne to cash in on the success of Spider-Girl not realising that Marvel also printed Spider-Girl so there was no reason to cash in on something they were already cashing in on. The character was so unloved that she later became the superhero version of an opium poppy.

You could probably fill a list of 3575 terrible characters entirely from the Green Lantern Corps.

I remember reading Lobo as a kid...wasn't the point to take the piss out of DC characters outside of continuity, and by 'take the piss out of' I mean to see them all get shot in the head?

Cable is irredeemable.

I think he might have got sacked recently which he had coming for a long time.

Incidentally, Lord Julius and Mrs. Thatcher are exceptions.

(Also for such an uber-baddie he really never, ever wins or even does anything bad at all. Again often exists to show how scary this years summer crossover is when he grudgingly agrees to team up with all the heroes of Earth (?) to stop theUniverse being destroyed in a incompatible to the anti-life equation way. I am sure I've even seen Catwoman beat him.)

When the unbearably twee four-year-old is the best person in the comic, you know you have issues. Also, someone else mentioned the My Little Pony aliens on another thread.

Bloodwynd's ancestors were slaves belonging to Jacob Whitney. Even for a racist cotton plantation owner, this guy was evil. One of Bloodwynd's relatives, a woman named Clemma, had her fill of his violence. For 28 nights, the slaves gathered to perform the ritual of the Blood Gem. Mixing their blood in a cauldron and speaking incantations as old as mankind, they created this object of power. "It was fashioned with the blood, the sorrow...the misery of all slaves." The gem was used to murder Whitney, who's heart stopped under it's light while his soul was drawn into it. Passed down through the generations, the gem gained power as each of it's bearer's souls became linked with it. The Blood Gem craved evil, drawing out the dark side of it's user.

In time it fell into the hands of the latest descendant who used it to become the mysterious sorcerer named Bloodwynd. The Gem is actually another dimension that acts as the energy source for the Gem's owner. Within that dimension exists the being Rott who is the combined evil and darkness of all the Gem holders joined with the soul of Whitney and given a diabolical form.

At one point, Rott tried to free himself from the dark dimension causing pain to Bloodwynd. When the passing J'onn J'onzz tried to help him, the sorcerer pulled into the Gem. Rott then telepathically forced J'onzz to take the form of Bloodwynd and impersonate him as a member of the newly reformed Justice League America where he remained as a mysterious member. The identity of J'onzz was revealed when the plans of Doctor Destiny caused J'onzz to go up against a doppleganger of himself. The Blood Gem had bonded to J'onzz and it took the efforts of the Atom and Ray II, who entered the other dimension, to rescue the real Bloodwynd. Once Rott was defeated, Bloodwynd remained a member of the JLA.

Send all hate mail to Dan Jurgens, ladies & germs. Thank goodness Grant Morrison & Darwyn Cooke are around to save me from this sort of convoluted heavy-handed stuff. As for the REAL Bloodwynd, he supposedly still shows up from time to time, but, wow, it might be in his best interest to keep a low profile. Or lobby for a Vertigo makeover. Or, at the very least, get rid of the box cut. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need a glass of milk.

When did her force-field generating powers first come along, by the way?

The anti-life equation is emphatically NOT death - it's about the removal of free will from everyone else in the universe. Starlin, unsurprisingly, didn't understand this, but most writers more or less have.

I'm sorry - there should be little to no praise on this thread.

I only read one issue of the comic -- the Cerebus one -- and I think I might've read part of a Medieval Spawn/Medieval Witchblade thing -- but the couple episodes of the cartoon I saw weren't bad.

There should be more Image characters here, though. And more 90s Marvel title-glut characters (but don't say Ben Reilly; Ben Reilly's just Peter Parker with crappy writers).

35) SPEEDBALL. There are much worse characters, to be fair, and it was nice to see a character who didn't just have another variation on flying-and-blasting for powers. But hype has to play a hand here, or the list would all be obscure never-seen-agains like Gagran The Improbable from some Strange Tales story, or those innumerable small-press superheroes from the 80s and 90s when everyone was trying to be the next Marvel. Speedball was billed as, in so many words, the next Spider-Man -- a geeky kid who gets powers to the ensuement of hilarity and angst. Angstarity. His power was he bounced around a lot.

38) Could be almost any of this incarnation of the Justice League, but GYPSY wins, for being as blatant a racial stereotype as has been seen in some decades. One old pal of mine suggested they should add a character called Nigger who had natural rhythm and could spit watermelon seeds with immense power.

39. OCCULUS: From the Tom DeFalco run on Fantastic Four. DeFalco had clearly read up on his Lee/Kirby and liked the idea of the FF going on science-fantasy adventures in weird dimensions. But the Negative Zone had already been done - and so had the Microverse! So DeFalco created the INNIVERSE, found by Reed in his garage hidden in a block of wood. Ruler of the Inniverse was Occulus. He was Occulus the something-or-other, he shouted a lot, and he ruled a universe hidden in a block of wood. But his tyranny did not go unresisted! OH NO!

40. WILDBLOOD: Foe of Occulus. You might think to yourself "Wildblood? What a rubbish name! Surely Marvel could not have been so crass as to attempt to compete with Image by taking two kind-of-Image-y words and running them together?" but of course this is precisely what happened. I seem to remember Wildblood was a shouty type with big eyes. Last known whereabouts: block of wood.

42. THE BEYONDER WITH A PERM (Marvel, Secret Wars II and a plethora of cross-overs). In Secret Wars, the Beyonder wasn't a character so much as an arbitrary force, almost like a puzzle to be solved. Classic or Dud, that was fine. In Secret Wars II, the Beyonder comes to Earth and adds omni-naivete to his omnipotence -- his "cute" lack of understanding about how the human bladder works, or what normal behavior is, wasn't funny enough to make us overlook that he'd somehow been competent enough to assemble a planet out of alien cities, identify superheroes and supervillains, outsmart Dr Doom through psychological suggestion, etc. That was Cousin Larry Beyonder; Secret Wars II, we should probably assume, is about Balki Beyonder, who models himself after Captain America with Lionel Richie's hair, shacks up with Boom Boom, puts the smack down on Puma, and acts in an arbitrary way that makes for easy issue-by-issue plot division.

The one good thing to come out of it was Spidey grabbing a notebook from a building the Beyonder had turned to solid gold, and having an ethical dilemma over what to do with it.

He had blue skin and a cloak with skulls on it, by the way.

She could sneak around and hide from people really well. And then nick their jewellery, presumably.

Giant Man, Giant Man
Used to be called Ant-Man
Talked to bugs in a monster book
Now wears spandex - what a look!
Look out! Here comes the Giant Man!

Blame him for Ultron? Listen, cat,
Dr. Pym's got no time for that!
Changing costumes, changing names,
Bug or big, it's all the same!
Look out! Here comes ... YELLOWJACKET?

Here's a bridge about stuff
That Pym did or didn't do
Fuck if I know what to put here
So I'll leave that up to you

Goliath .. I mean, Giant Man
Friendly wife-beating Giant Man
Shrinks or grows, it's great for sex
When you can plumb bob in your ex

Look out! Turn off that bugzapper
When you're in a disaster -
You could kill Giant Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

(I apologize profusely.)

-- Wooden (josephgoode...), October 19th, 2004 12:34 PM. (Wooden) (later) - holy moly which issue(s) is this, i must read it stat.

Can be quite strong for an hour a day if he eats a magic pill that turns out to be made of super-addictive, brain frying, monkey crack. Why not just call him PCP-Man and be done with it?

there are no bad tintin characters but asterix has the one-joke CACOFONIX >:(

SO MUCH worse than General Glory.

For the same reasons as Thompson and Thomson, only true this time. Comic relief characters that weren't funny, with bad accents, and infuriating to read.

That's nearly the truth, but not quite. The pictures weren't redrawn, but some new details were added to the background. The characters were left as they were though.

http://www.geocities.com/amazing_tales/micros/rumaanharjavti.gif

Comics were crap, weren't they?

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/075660592X.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

62) THAT BIRD GUY THING FROM NEW MUTANTS (Marvel; New Mutants). What the fuck.

63) CLOUD (Marvel; Defenders). Hello, I am a galaxy or a cloud or a nebula or something and I fight crime. What the fuck.

64) MOONDRAGON (Marvel; Avengers). In the Marvel universe, Sinead O'Connor was raised on a moon of Saturn by Zen monks and dressed like Vampirella. Also: not a dragon. What the fuck.

62a) Codename: BIRDBOY! His appearance inadvertently lead to the death of #19. MIMO - Mort In, Mort Out.

66. THE SUGAR MAN - Despite having a couple of points in his favor for being possibly the most gruesome mainstream toy ever produced that was unrelated to Spawn, the entire concept of an egg-shaped four-armed sadist with an evil tongue of power seems to have inherent flaws.

Not really.

(btw, i feel like i should defend hank pym - he's not that bad a character)

READ IT AND WEEP (IF YOU DARE)

For extra hilarity: http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0899/toy.html

i don't know whether (as usual) to curse or to bless you.

in that second link it says "the boy was punished"! For WHAT?

http://www.coincidental.net/comics/images/covers/avg1-232.jpg

I could talk abt the horrible wingy hairdo but aside from the uninspired powers (what flight and superstrength?, standard fare in the avengers) he finally reveals his secret power which is, well, let me let Ludickid's guide to marvel explain

STARFOX. Occupation...womanizer. Good work if you can get it. And how does he get all the chicks despite his nature as a hopeless dipstick? MENTAL RAPE! He's a walking brain Sybian! And to think the East Coast Avengers hired him as a team member, rather than arresting him as a habitual sex criminal.

I love his name - Starfox he is a FOX from the STARS do you see?

The whole secret love powers was clearly protesting too much.

Maggott is one of my favorite characters of all time! This doesn't stop him from being one of the most ill-conceived characters ever created.

He looked like Colossus, and was just kinda pointless. Did he have a point? A power? Where'd he go?? And he inspired Belle and Sebastian.

Oh I liked this character back when I was still reading the X-comics... She was kinda morally confused, wasn't she, with good intentions and an awful outcome. Louise Simonson was a good writer back in those days.

72b) Outside of Wally West's dad working with Fidel Castro, I can't think of any good that came out of Millenium & THE MANHUNTERS.

72c) NOTE TO ST3V3 3NG3LHART: I'm pretty sure the concept of "The Millenium" has been around for quite a while; taking credit for "being the first to deal w/ it" is somewhat disingenuous.

DRIQ! He was the interplanetary Bill the Cat!

http://www.comics.org/graphics/covers/1489/200/1489_2_01.jpg

http://www.comics.org/graphics/covers/2636/200/2636_2_24.jpg

(Who fits on this list when she was in the JLI, way to go with rubbish sexist character whose possible only good attribute was being female and trying to get inside Superman's pants. I bet she would be shocked with what she found there.)

And ginger too. Which would bring in Gen 13. Who I am sure ALL belong on this list if I knew what they were called.

While we're on it, how about Powerhaus from The Deviants? His power is to leach emotions from other people and convert it into muscle mass. Because, you see, that makes sense. (One reason why I find Warren Ellis so great is because he actually pulled a reasonable character out of that trainwreck.)

"I can convert the nose hairs of my enemies into mysterious dreams... IN BATTLE"

"OK, Sparky - it's go time!"

75) DEATH'S HEAD II: Dull, ugly makeover of freelance peacekeeping agent and Transformers/Dr Who spin-off, well beloved by all Marvel UK's twelve readers.

76a) The Big Wheel. HAHAHAAHHA! And in the same issue!

http://www.samruby.com/Villains/RocketRacer/ASM183.gif

77) THE PHANTOM SURFER?

ihttp://www.steveenglehart.com/Comics/Comics%20Images/Green%20Lantern%20Corps%20202.jpg

http://www.norse-man.net/marvel/Char-G/Gossamyr.jpg

79. GOSSAMYR. Crimes: Represents everything awful about the Simonson/Blevins run on New Mutants not already covered by Bird-Boy and the Ani-Mator. Twee fairey-ness drags New Mutants away from Earth for convoluted and irrelevant interstellar espionage plot. Vague "emotion-manipulating" powers, already well covered by Empath in this series, are added to create drama out of nowhere and further degrade the characters by fulfilling Simonson's apparent conviction that teenagers, even ones seasoned by all manner of war, trauma, and loss, have the maturity of six-year-olds.

This website seems to be some kind of RPG character guide and it really makes the case for her inclusion here:

Adult Form: When Gossamyr gets to a certain age, she will transform in to a giant monster capable of ravaging suns. Their stats are left to the Judge’s imagination.

Talents: Gossamyr has no known talents.

Also, I mean, the character design as a whole. I guess Simonson might have rather been writing Elfquest but it doesn't change the fact that she was actually on New Mutants.

I'd like another vote for Bloodwynd, please.

THANOS is about 400x better than ADAM WARLOCK you fools

POWER PACK is basically indefensible however.

Kangaroo -Amazing Spiderman #81

This misunderstood guy keeps getting thrown out of nations for no good reason, but if he could only get the Kangaroo jumping thing down, he might be on to something. I've been reading through the DVD run of Amazing Spider-man and this misunderstood bad guy seemed about the most goofy in the run that I have read so far.

I think the whole idea that Gwen Stacy sired two bastard children of the Green Goblin is really stupid.