What about the time Aunt May died? Then it turned out she didn’t really die, she was just kidnapped and replaced by an imposter, and then eventually whoever kidnapped her just lost interest and sent her back.
Or what about the time Aunt May inherited an island with a nuclear reactor, then got engaged to Doctor Octopus?
Speaking of Spidey, what about the newest plotline?
The bad guy tears out Spidey’s eye and eats it. Then, when the bad guy comes after Spidey in the hospital, Peter rips of the bad guy’s face and eats it. And then Spidey dies. I dunno where they’re gong with this but I don’t like it…
I don’t really even follow Spiderman anymore but when I read the outcry on the web, I hunted down the scans. :eek:
Hmm, this would be the story that all the The Other-Evolve Or Die ads in Previews are for?
Yeah, I think that might be it. It’s running in the Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman title. I just read about it today when I saw that Jackson Publick (of the Venture Borthers) had updated his LiveJournal and bemoaned the plotline. (BTW, in the comments, there are links to the scans)
Like, I said I haven’t followed Spidey lately but thought this was pretty crack-headed.
Just came in here to say that I think this is poor use of the word “cracktastic.” I would imagine “cracktastic” to be something so good, it’s like crack. Something totally addictive, you know? I think a better word would be “craptastic” which implies that something is especially crappy. Carry on.
[/hijack]
My impression is that the OP isn’t looking for necessarily bad stories, but stories that are totally fucking insane, such as might be penned by someone on a five-day crack-binge.
Anyone else notice that you can see Brock’s testicle in the cast “photo” on that page?
So Fenris, what happened to the faun?
And the Savage Land gave birth to something that really needs a reappearance:
Chtylok, the Che-k’n Kau KRAW!
She’s the Phoenix. What do you want here?
Was that the time Nightcrawler thought he’d become an ordained priest but when he mentioned it in passing none of the other X-Men had any idea of what he was talking about and then when they went to the church he’d been serving at it was an abandoned ruin and it turned out that the church people were were anti-mutant humans?
This reminds me, I read a reference to Nightcrawler being “invisible” in the paper yesterday. I’m still undecided over whether or not I should email the columnist and point out his error. Because, see, I already have enough dork points.
I’m pretty sure the deer got its original brain and mind back. I don’t know if I have that issue. I do have the issue where Chondu the mystic shows up at Headmen headquarters in Bambi’s body and identifies himself by using flaming eyebeams to write “I am Chondu” on the rug.
Back To The OP
Captain Victory and The Space Rangers was mostly Kirby goodness. We had neat uniforms, big machines, ray guns, cool aliens, and villains with great names (Finarkin The Fearless, Ursan The Unclean, Bloody Marianne). We also had one of the most cracktastic things I’ve ever seen in a comic- Paranex The Fighting Fetus.
He was a nine foot tall fetus in red Kirby armor. Paranex had vast telekinetic powers. The title wasn’t given to Paranex by fans. It’s right there in the comic
“What is that?”
“The question, captain, is what will it be when it’s born?”
“He could be right.”
“That, is Paranex The Fighting Fetus.”
Later, Ursan is creeped out by Paranex.
‘Speak, blast you! Say something!’
“He can’t even say ‘da da’. He isn’t born yet.”
Sadly, I’m missing most of the series and have no idea what happened to Paranex.
Kirby also gave us Pluto masquerading as a Hollywood studio executive in order to trick Hercules into signing an Olympian Contract binding him to be the new ruler of Hades.
Christopher Priest’s nigh-brilliant run on BLACK PANTHER, pre-issue #50.
You want cracktastic plots? Priest is a mad plotter. He has more plots in one issue than in an entire Alan Moore miniseries. A typical Priest detail is to hint at Black Panther’s skill by establishing h’s developed “Galactus Contingency Plans” and then refuse to divulge exactly what the fuck they are.
The fact that most comic book fans would not give this title the attention or support it so richly deserved STILL makes me mentally :smack: bang :smack: my :smack: head :smack: with :smack: frustrated :smack: rage I share this hobby with you nerds.
I mean, issue #1 alone opens with substitute Wakanandan attache C. Everett Ross half-naked in his tighty whiteys standing on a bathroom toilet with a gun fending off a rat in a housing project wondering why nobody’s singing like on “Good Times” after trying to pick up the Wakandan delegation from the airport in his two-seater Miata, who came to America to investigate the murder of a poster child, is deposed in a coup by a blatant Joker rip-off, forcing T’Challa the Black Panther to radically change his methodology and weaponry ends up in the hood investigating the little girl’s murder and whupping much ass with the kimoyo card and his fly-ass redesigned vibranium suit and boots that allow him to walk up walls-- all before Ross receives demonically enchanted pants courtesy of Mephisto.
Did I mention how Priest had the gall to tell this story in non-linear ‘Pulp Fiction’ style?
Again: this was just THE FIRST ISSUE, PEOPLE.
I heard the series was excellent.
The part were Thor was felled by a bullet was laughably stupid though.
Prior to the Clone Saga, the writers of Spiderman had him spend several weeks/months/years in a mental institution with evidently no-one any the wiser that Peter Parker had just vanished for x number of days.
If you speak of Ann Nocenti’s “Mad Dog Ward,” I think it was several days. And this was right after he was apparently killed by Kraven, & MJ (who had been married to him for what, a week?) was running around wondering whom to tell.
I LOVED Priest’s Black Panther run, and I know Selkie did too, because she introduced me to it. That was an amazing run for any writer, and I think “Enemy of the State,” the first arc, was the highlight. You described that first issue perfectly, and it had me hooked from the beginning.
Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just gone beyond tastefully-handled to absolutely freaking nuts by this point (‘oh, Emma is only sleeping with Scott because Jean’s mind-controlling him from beyond the grave’)…
Prepare to be out-geeked, Kyla. In his earliest appearances, one of Nightcrawler’s powers was that he was “invisible in deep shadows.” They backed away from this about midway through John Byrne’s run on the title in the early 80s (along with the “image inducer” gadget Cockrum had saddled him with), but a degree of invisibility is indeed one of Kurt Wagner’s powers.
Most cracktastic plot? About ten years after the universally-despised “Ms. Marvel pregnancy” plotline, Gerard Jones–an otherwise excellent writer who should definitely have known better–had essentially the same thing happen to DC’s (even bustier) analog of Ms. M, Power Girl.
A lot of readers were pissed when he “resolved” the elf subplot by having the murderous little bastard run over by an 18-wheeler without ever explaining who he was or why he was killing people.
The ‘Deep Shadows’ power was reaffirmed as a ‘secondary mutation’ late in the Excalibur run, IIRC. After or during Adams’ second run? Around 50ish.
Wonder Woman:
Okay, so just before the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Princess Diana (of Earth-1) decides to chuck in the old crime-fighting gig and marries Steve Trevor (their wedding is presided over by Zeus, no less). She comes out of retirement to help fight the multiverse-destroying Qwrd the Anti-Monitor. Then, in the final battle during “the Crisis”, WW gets blasted with ‘anti-time’ that not only kills her, but unravels her whole personal timeline, so that she never even existed! WW being such a prominent part of the DC universe, this causes major chaos with the previously-established history of numerous ongoing titles - If there was no Wonder Woman, then who was Wonder Girl and what was her backstory? Who fought alongside Flash, Green Lantern, etc. in the JLA? Added to this is the fact that the original Wonder Woman of Earth-2 was similarly retconned out of existence by the big-“Crisis” shake-up, so there never was a Wonder Woman in WWII who served as secretary for the JSA!
Over the next few years, we learn that -
Donna Troy (Wonder Girl) who had previously been been found as an infant by WW, brought to Paradise Island and raised as an Amazon warrior and Princess Diana’s little sister, was actually the offspring of some weird alien race called “the Trojans” or something or other. She then changes her superhero name to “Troia.”
The Black Canary (who had her own cracktastic backstory) was a founding member of the JLA, rather than recruited as WW’s replacement (during the period in which Diana got heavy into her Emma Peel phase - but never mind that, since it now never happened.)
Back in WWII, an obscure little character called “Miss America” (no relation to the Marvel Comics character with the same name) actually served as the JSA’s secretary, not WW.
All of this is confusing, but (perhaps) forgivable since Wonder Woman gets a major reboot, reappearing in the post-“Crisis” universe as an “all-new” character (the New, New Original Wonder Woman perhaps), and her new series is not just good, it’s great. It’s one of the best late-1980s titles coming from DC, and WW reappears as one of the freshest, best redos ever (IMO).
Enter John Byrne.
Byrne decides that since the usual Batman, Superman, Flash & Green Lantern have all been featured in storylines wherein they have been waylaid and replaced in their superheroic identities, WW needs to be waylaid & replaced too! (never mind that Wonder Woman had just wrapped up a major storyline in which Diana lost the title of Wonder Woman and was replaced by a rival Amazon called Artemis for, like, a year.) Diana gets herself killed. The Olympian gods decide she was such an exemplary mortal, she deserves to be deified, and is ressurected as the goddess of truth.
Then Diana’s mother Hyppolyta takes a cue from Joan Crawford’s book and assumes the identity of Wonder Woman. She wears a skirt instead of short-shorts, and wields a sword & shield rather than bracelets & lasso. To make things even more complicated (!!!DAMN YOU JOHN BYRNE!!!), Hyppolyta-as-Wonder-Woman goes back in time to WWII and is stuck there for several years. Having nothing else to do, she joins the JSA as their secretary. And so, after having Wonder Woman’s WWII career & position in the JSA clumsily retconned out of established DC universe history, her WWII adventures and position in the JSA is even more clumsily retconned back in!
Oh yeah, that whole thing about Donna Troy being an alien? Nix! Seems that an evil biyatch stole a piece of the clay that Hyppolyta used to form Diana’s original body, and used it to make a ‘clone’ of Diana, albiet one approximately ten years younger than Diana. Why? I dunno, but given how convoluted things have gotten by this point, could there possibly BE a rational explanation?
Anyway, Diana is eventually un-deified and ressurected as a human being. Hyppolyta hands over the star-spangled bathing suit to her daughter, and is eventually killed by Darksied.
As for Miss America? Well, there were a few Phil Jiminez issues in which Diana goes back in time to WWII (GAKK!!), and in an effort to disguise her presence from the Hyppolyta-Wonder Woman, masquerades as Miss America…and temporarily joins the JSA when Hyppolyta-Wonder Woman is unavailable.
There is also another character called “Fury” who (pre-“Crisis”) was the daughter of the Earth-2 Wonder Woman. How they dealt with that character is beyond me.
Easily…Lyta is Fury II, her mother, Fury I being retroactively inserted into history, as, IIRC, one of the Young All-Stars.
