Comments on: What Is Comics’ Jump The Shark Moment?

By: L. J. Monaghan

L. J. Monaghan — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 04:42:37 +0000

Pulled a “Brand New Day”.

By: seamuskeaneart

seamuskeaneart — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:34:38 +0000

I’m the Goddamn Batman!!!!

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 18:30:34 +0000

Nipples on the Batsuit

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:18:23 +0000

Hmmm, the end of “Battle for the Cowl”?

By: Coming Curse

Coming Curse — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 04:35:31 +0000

I have to agree with the guy who said the introduction of the White Lantern Corps. It was like the perfect storm of cliche writing. Bringing back all those dead characters in and of itself was a lazy reset button on par with OMD or the Superboy wall punching. Additionally, it was such a brutally obvious plot develpment that most of the message boards had predicted it over a year ahead of time. Anybody who thinks the comics industry hit its Nadir in the 90s needs to look at the panel where all those reanimated characters stand around posing in their white underwear while Hal Jordan shouts “If anyone deserves to be called a *GREEN LANTERN CORPS* It’s us!”

By: French Onion Soup Recipe

French Onion Soup Recipe — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 02:07:44 +0000

Fans ask about a possible new Cloak & Dagger series all the time at conventions, and Marvel usually has the same answer each time: not opposed to the idea, but waiting for the right pitch to come along. Apparently, they’ve found it: as reported on sources including the blog Comics Vanguard, writer Nick Spencer (Morning Glories, Iron Man 2.0, and, as of this past Thursday, a four-time Eisner nominee) and artist Emma Rios (Osborn) are working on a three-issue Cloak & Dagger miniseries, starring the titular cult faves and tying in to the upcoming Spider-Island story in Spinach Artichoke Dip | French Onion Soup Recipe | Onion Soup Recipe Amazing Spider-Man. The news was announced at this weekend’s currently ongoing Kapow convention in London, and was confirmed by Spencer on his Twitter account. Cloak & Dagger have deep connections to Spider-Man, starting with their debut in 1982’s Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #64, and their supporting roles in the ’90s “Maximum Carnage” crossover. They starred in three different series in their ’80s heyday, the longest one running 19 issues. Most recently, they were the subject of a March 2010 one-shot by writer Stuart Moore and artist Mark Brooks.

By: That Guy

That Guy — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 00:45:08 +0000

I’d say at least the “punching the wall” made made kooky sense in the hyper-reality of DC, and that DC hasn’t been the trainwreck of conflicting stories and narrative mismanagement that it was prior to Infinite Crisis. In a way, it was kind of cute and made as much sense as some alien or super scientific device explaining continuity glitches IN CONTINUITY.

If DC had a “oh, Jesus, wow…” moment for me during the recent era, the “let’s bring back Jason Todd, but we’ll worry later about how he’s alive and if this is useful to the narrative” approach employed fell far more flat.

For me, I quit reading X-Men so long ago, but I think “Bishop’s Mullet” marked the beginning of the end for me, if we’re looking for where a series took a turn from which the thing about the series that I liked fundamentally changed for the worse. In other ways, it also marked the beginning of the 1990′s-era of comics for me. But the nonsensical arrival of Bishop, the “M” tattoos, pockets, scarves?, huge guns, etc… who had ill defined powers, a back story that read like fan-fiction…

Anyway, that changed the tone, and that’s when they lost me.

More recently, I’d say the cynically calculated Roy Harper stuff lost me, and I’m surprised DC is continuing to follow that path through a portion of their output. But the absolutely awful “weaponizing the cat” is the most recent and egregious example of a stupid stunt that marks creative bankruptcy for a team of creators.

By: Thiago Ribeiro

Thiago Ribeiro — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 21:18:46 +0000

The complete bastardization of the DCU by Dan Dio & Geoff Johns. Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, rainbow colored lanterns, etc.

By: Smax

Smax — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 18:53:57 +0000

I think the comics equivalent is Disassemble the Avengers.

By: DeBT

DeBT — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 18:12:55 +0000

For Cerebus, many readers abandoned the series around issue #186 with Dave Sim’s Reads tract whose verbose narrative were outcrowding what little illustrations there were.

In For Better or for Worse, many long-time readers grew increasingly disastified with how much attention was being paid to Anthony.

By: Joe S. Walker

Joe S. Walker — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 10:49:40 +0000

Arguably Marvel jumped the shark some time in 1967, when Jack Kirby decided he wasn’t going to see his prime ideas taken from him and screwed around any more.

By: Bears

Bears — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 08:56:30 +0000

http://delsignore.livejournal.com/

By: Richard J. Marcej

Richard J. Marcej — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 05:37:07 +0000

The moment that comics became exclusively sold in comic shops and disappeared from news stands, drug stores, convenient stores, etc…

This allowed comic companies to continually raise the prices (far exceeding inflation) and laid the foundation to cater only to the aging fanboy and reject, ignore and eventually lose the next generation of readers.

By: Sue

Sue — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 01:20:30 +0000

Superboy’s Punch and the Mindwipe(s) in Identity Crisis would be mine.

And probably “Bees My God” from Amazons Attack.

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 01:15:24 +0000

Hal Jordan going mad killing off the entire GL Corps is the biggest.

But every time they kill off a character for a year (Superman, Batman) they jump the shark. Fortunately time and writers clever cosmic reset buttons (ie Darkest Night) make forgiveness a little easier when the storylines go awry.

By: Brandan

Brandan — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 01:13:44 +0000

It’s definitely a toss up between Superboy punch and White Lanterns. One “I want to reset continuity without resetting continuity” plot move vs “I can’t believe he seriously did that 80s cartoon” plot move.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 22:31:41 +0000

The Superboy punch, and bringing back Jason Todd as a result. Hands down.

By: Deco

Deco — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 20:03:56 +0000

1-800-kill-robin

By: braak

braak — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:49:25 +0000

I actually have heard some people referring to “the Superboy punch” as a kind of synonym for “then everything just stopped making any kind of sense, but in a way that I couldn’t be bothered to care about.”

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:29:59 +0000

Goddamn Batman

By: Adam P Knave

Adam P Knave — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:28:53 +0000

Yeah “Punched the Wall” is a good clean one to fall back on.

Though I have used “Xorn’d” before, as well.

By: Supermutant

Supermutant — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:25:52 +0000

Marvel jumped the shark for me starting with Avengers Disambled. So much stupid stuff since then. X-Men by themselves jumped the shark with Grant Morrison’s run but almost got of it with Whedon’s but look at where they are now.
DC jump the shark moment happen a couple of times last few years. Death of Blue Beatle was it to me. They get better then Batman RIP/Final Crisis mess.

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:09:56 +0000

Azazel-ed.
As in ‘He totally Azazel-ed the end of this issue.’

By: Kyle

Kyle — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:00:21 +0000

I would say One More Day and, while I enjoyed the series itself, Barry Allen’s return in Final Crisis. Both are classic examples of comics’ inability to move forward with stories and its desire to constantly go back.

By: Chris B.

Chris B. — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:36:01 +0000

Continuity punch.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:05:04 +0000

Punching the walls of reality. No debate.

Weren’t there even lines about “continuity waves” changing reality?

By: JRC

JRC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:57:10 +0000

Comics don’t have a moment like that, really, because they’re like individual TV shows.
You could argue that a single book might have a JTS moment, such as the already mentioned ‘Devil Did It’ in Spiderman, but the nature of the medium is now more creator rather then character driven (admit it, come on), so it’d be more accurate to say Bendis jumped the shark, or Loeb, or Miller, Millar, ect . . .

By: KentL

KentL — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:46:47 +0000

My first thought was Women in Refrigerators, but that’s more localized to violence against women. The Superboy punching reality fits well, but for a long time, the cry of everything is horribly wrong was U-decide!

Honestly, I think comics are special in that they continually come up with ways to screw things up, so you can’t just point to one thing.

By: Jennifer dG

Jennifer dG — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:44:20 +0000

I seem to remember some Marvel book in which the villain gouges out and eats someone’s eyeball. Am I making that up? If not, “Eating the Eyeball” is kind of catchy. If I am making it up, damn, I’m sick.

By: Mark Engblom

Mark Engblom — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:12:19 +0000

I think Superboy punching reality and One More Day are both an outgrowth of that same trend of lazy, ad hoc storytelling I identified above. We can disagree on where that mentality took root, but since Identity Crisis and One More Day took place a year apart, 2006-07 looks to be when the shark jumping/fridge-nuking really got going.