Several Comic book characters I can’t stand. And here’s why…
This one’s gonna be a little different. I’m not really gonna talk about a poorly written character or group of characters. Never fear, my flock. I’ll get back to that after this one entry. There’s still more characters out there that need a new hole ripped in ’em. I’m just writin’ this one to talk briefly about bad characters that are written well.
How can that be? If they’re a bad character (not meaning a bad guy, like a villain), then how could they be written well? Simple. You’re supposed to hate them. Ahhhh…you all say collectively. Now we get it. Then I hand you all a piece of candy and say shut up and listen. Well-written characters that you’re supposed to hate aren’t that easy to pull off. They should be someone that’s not directly involved with the super heroing or villaining. Case in point, one of the best written characters that we all hate is J. Jonah Jameson. Every one of you that has ever read a comic knows who he is. He’s Peter Parker’s boss. He’s also Parker’s main conflict in his life, because Jameson does everything he can to make Spider-Man out to be the worst piece of shit ever, all the while we’re all pretty sure he himself knows that’s bullshit. He only does it to sell more newspapers. Asshole. But that’s the point. He’s meant to be an asshole.
Writing someone to be hated is kind of a funny thing. Writers know right off the bat that not everybody is gonna think they’re character is the greatest thing ever. Even if it’s a well written character, there’s still gonna be some haters out there. That’s life. But if they do their job well, then there should be at least a few people out there that think their characters are the bee’s knees. So purposely writing someone to be automatically hated by everyone isn’t usually in our nature. That makes it a little difficult. You have to look at the situations the person will be in, and think “Hmm. What could this guy do to make shit worse?”
There’s a reason I’m bringing this up. See, I just want to point out that even purposely hated characters can be better characters than the ones we’re all supposed to gush over. Pointing this out now after I’ve spit on Wolverine, Superman, and The Fantastic Four seems a little late, but fuck it. Better late than never. Anywho, like I said before, I’m going back to talking about shit characters that everyone’s supposed to love next. I just had this little itch I wanted to scratch first. Consider it scratched. 😛
Ok…scratched! 😉