I realize that’s a very loaded question — everyone’s got opinions, after all. But this list at least is based on more than one person’s opinion.
On Reddit, a poster who goes by the name ComicBookCanon put together a combined “Worst Comics of All Time” list based on several sources — including bloggers, comic news sites and even Reddit itself. Some of his sources covered specific publishers, while others covered events and story arcs. And the final list of 25 doesn’t look that surprising to me, having spent a good portion of my life reading people’s opinions of comics on the internet — although I would have guessed a different title would have appeared in that No. 1 spot.
Here’s the top 25 — or maybe that’s bottom 25? It does start with the one that received the most hate, and goes backwards from there:
- Ultimatum – Jeph Loeb & David Finch (Marvel)
- Marville – Bill Jemas & Mark Bright (Marvel)
- One More Day – J. Michael Straczynski & Joe Quesada (Marvel)
- The Ultimates 3 – Jeph Loeb & Joe Madureira (Marvel)
- Countdown To Final Crisis – Paul Dini & Various Artists (DC)
- All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder – Frank Miller & Jim Lee (DC)
- The Clone Saga – Various Writers & Artists (Marvel)
- Sins Past – J. Michael Straczynski & Mike Deodato Jr. (Marvel)
- Amazons Attack – Will Pfeifer & Pete Woods (DC)
- The Dark Knight Strikes Again – Frank Miller & Lynn Varley (DC)
- The Avengers No. 200 – Jim Shooter, Bob Layton, David Michelinie & George Pérez (Marvel)
- Trouble – Mark Millar & Terry Dodson (Marvel)
- Holy Terror – Frank Miller (Legendary Comics)
- Avengers: The Crossing – Bob Harras & Various Artists (Marvel)
- Chuck Austen’s X-Men – Chuck Austen & Various Artists (Marvel)
- Identity Crisis – Brad Meltzer & Rags Morales (DC)
- Youngblood – Rob Liefeld (Image)
- JL: Cry for Justice – James Robinson & Mauro Cascioli (DC)
- Civil War II – Brian Michael Bendis & David Marquez (Marvel)
- The Rise of Arsenal – J.T. Krul & Geraldo Borges (DC)
- Convergence – Jeff King & Various Artists (DC)
- Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do – Kevin Smith & Terry Dodson (Marvel)
- Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose – Jim Balent (Broadsword Comics)
- Heroes Reborn – Various Writers & Artists (Marvel)
- Secret Wars II – Jim Shooter & Various Artists (Marvel)
Marvel dominates the list, followed by DC, and only two “indie” books show up — Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose, which I like to think revels in how awesomely bad it is, and the controversial Holy Terror by Frank Miller. Miller, actually, is the creator who appears on the list the most; other creators with more than one title showing up include Jeph Loeb, Terry Dodson, JMS, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld, if you take Heroes Reborn into account.
I think several of these titles benefitted from being older — Youngblood and Avengers #200, for instance, likely benefitted from not being released in the internet era and weren’t as high as they could have been, but their inclusion at all probably means they are really engrained in the minds of their critics. Many of them were hated at the time they came out (and ever since) because of the plot developments in them — One More Day, I’m looking at you — but in some of those cases they also just weren’t well crafted stories. Again, One More Day … I think if this was a list of the comics fans hated the most, the story that dissolved the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane would top the list. Maybe? I never read Ultimatum, and I had to do a quick Google search to remind myself what it was, but I’m not sure if it could top the unbridled hatred a lot of Spider-Man fans still have for the One More Day storyline. Just ask Tom Brevoort, who seems to get asked about it on a regular basis in his newsletter (or don’t, because, as I said, he gets asked about it a lot already).
I don’t want to just focus on the negative here, so to counter balance the worst comics of all time, how about we look at the best comics of 2024? In this case, Jamie Coville has gone through more than 250 lists of the best comics and graphic novels of 2024 and compiled a list of his own. Here’s his top 10:
- Ultimate Spider-Man by Jonathan Hickman, Marco Checchetto & David Messina (Marvel Comics)
- Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath (IDW Publishing)
- Transformers by Daniel Warren Johnson, Jorge Corona & Mike Spicer (Image Comics)
- Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta & Frank Martin (DC Comics)
- Final Cut by Charles Burns (Pantheon)
- Absolute Wonder Woman by Kelly Thompson, Hayden Sherman & Jordie Bellaire (DC Comics)
- My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2 by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)
- The Ultimates by Deniz Camp, Juan Frigeri, Chris Allen, Phil Noto & Federico Blee (Marvel Comics)
- The Power Fantasy by Kieron Gillen & Caspar Wijngaard (Image Comics)
- Sunday by Olivier Schrauwen (Fantagraphics)
As you can see, it’s a very diverse list, topped by Ultimate Spider-Man — a comic that is kind of the opposite of One More Day, in a Spock-with-a-mustache kind of way. So, yeah …