Which Comic Characters Have Been Written Great, or Badly, The Longest/Most Often

[EliSnow]

JustJon posted the thread asking which characters have always been written well. I believe the consensus was that none of the major, long-term characters have always been written well. The reasons are that, with long term publishing, these characters grow old, are written by bad writers, or made prey to bad editorial decisions.

But what characters have been written great the most? And conversely, which comic book characters have been written poorly the most?

For the former, I think I have to go with Daredevil. Yes, he's been written badly and has one of the worst costumes of all time, but with Frank Miller's run, and basically the last ten years with Smith, Mack, Benis, and Brubaker, he has been written as a great character.

For the latter, I have to say Spider-man. He's had some great runs, but has been subject to some of the worst writing/editorial decisions of any major character.

[Knowledged_one]

Jean Grey has been written horribly with all the things they have done to her

on the converse i would say that Storm has been written really well with all the changes she has gone through: From weird african chick, to confident team member, to punk mohawk chick, to losing her powers.....................and on and on

[TheMojoPin]

John Constantine gets my vote for most consistently well-written going on 25 years now, with only a bump when Brian Azzarello took over for a couple years.

Spider-Man gets my vote for haing been written as shittily as possible for 15 years now. The J. Michael Stratosphere era started off really strong, but ended up wallowing in some of the worst writing for the character ever.

I''d say Superman, but outside of Elseworld-style series, he's ALWAYS written shittily in his titles. He's a boring character.

KO, I'd argue that what you listed for Storm actually shows how poorly the X-characters are written...especially her. They have no idea what to do with her, so they keep bouncing her from cheap character twist to cheap character twist (which having her marry the only other major black character besides Luke Cage out of nowhere is just the latest example of) until her past makes her look like a complete schitzo.

[Knowledged_one]

John Constantine gets my vote for most consistently well-written going on 25 years now, with only a bump when Brian Azzarello took over for a couple years.

Spider-Man gets my vote for haing been written as shittily as possible for 15 years now. The J. Michael Stratosphere era started off really strong, but ended up wallowing in some of the worst writing for the character ever.

I''d say Superman, but outside of Elseworld-style series, he's ALWAYS written shittily in his titles. He's a boring character.

KO, I'd argue that what you listed for Storm actually shows how poorly the X-characters are written...especially her. They have no idea what to do with her, so they keep bouncing her from cheap character twist to cheap character twist (which having her marry the only other major black character besides Luke Cage out of nowhere is just the latest example of) until her past makes her look like a complete schitzo.

Yeah i guess i can see that, just like the cheapness they used to grow her to adulthood during the X-tinction agenda was the work of the Genoshan genengineer

But i think the fact that she has gone through all of that (until like you said the weird marriage and then member of the FF stuff) and they were able to portray differently all of her aspects..........i liked her run as head of the X-men when she beat cyclops,i thought was well done and her leading the New Mutants for a while was done well also.

[Knowledged_one]

another character i think that was done well was Hawkeye for a good period of time especially the run in thunderbolts

[booster11373]

Superman has a few good runs followed by years of mediocre writing and yet I still read......

[JustJon]

Spider-Man gets my vote for haing been written as shittily as possible for 15 years now. The J. Michael Stratosphere era started off really strong, but ended up wallowing in some of the worst writing for the character ever.


JMS started really strong, but alot of the problems with his run stemmed from Marvel editorial, according to him.

[EliSnow]

John Constantine gets my vote for most consistently well-written going on 25 years now, with only a bump when Brian Azzarello took over for a couple years.

I forget -- did his run feature the town running the internet bestiality site and the bisexual John Constantine?

[TheMojoPin]

I forget -- did his run feature the town running the internet bestiality site and the bisexual John Constantine?

Constantine has always been bisexual (in that it was established very early on that he dabbled with the same sex back in his younger, punk-ier days), but yes, Azzarello is the one that played it to the hilt (complete with a shallow and shitty Batman luvs Joker metaphor), and also had the arc about the town making porno films to survive, complete with a drugged up Constantine being orally serviced by a huge hound.

Yeah.

It's as bad as it sounds.

Azzarello was really all wrong for the title and the character, though the first arc with Constantine in prison was fantastic and the middle arc with Constantine and a bunch of strangers stuck in a snowed in roadside dinner in the middle of Nowheresville, USA was also quite good. The rest, unforetunately, was a mess.

[CYYYFYYY]

I think the FF has alwys been written poorly. But I have to say Spidey who is my favorite character has had some horrid runs... The Clone and now this starting all over. It makes me SICK!