5 Creators who fixed bad comics

t’s a simple fact of life, not all comics are created equal. Of course a bad initial run doesn’t doom a series neither does a bad subsequent run. There are many examples of writers taking a good series and destroying it but we’re here today to celebrate when creators do the exact opposite, those who shine a turd only for it to turn out to be coal which they turn into a diamond.

Deadpool

Joe Kelly is the true creator of Deadpool. Yes Rob Liefeld designed the character and Fabian Niceza wrote his earliest stories but Kelly created the Deadpool you recognise. Deadpool was originally a villain for the New Mutants to fight shortly before rebranding themselves in a paramilitary group led by Cable called X-Force. Wade Wilson was an uninspired tribute to DC’s Deathstroke (real name Slade Wilson), and that was it, he made a couple of wisecracks and he had a design meant to be “kewl” but thats all he was, a design. 

Joe Kelly enters with Deadpool’s first ongoing series and within the first few pages the Deadpool we know and love was born. Monologuing in the bushes to himself and getting mad that somebody heard him. This is what people like about Deadpool and this trait can be pin-pointed to that exact moment.   

Gen 13

Gen 13 is trash it really is, I’m ashamed to have so many of their back issues in my longbox. I used to in my teen years think that the self awareness to it basically being a T&A comic was ok. The self awareness usually took the form of Fairchild comment “Why does this keep happening to me” when her shirt gets ripped. 

DC in 2006 relaunched all the Wildstorm series, and knowing it wasn’t the 90’s an age where this low-art would flourish they had Gail Simone take over the book and her 13 issue run are the only issues of Gen 13 I will publicly defend. Under Simone the ritualistic disrobing of the characters ended and they were characters now. This run was more nuanced with a storyline about the fetishisation of adolescents and the demonisation of the same group. It also has one of my favourite lesser known villains in Dr Cross, a scientist with a massive infantilisation fetish and severe germaphobia.  

X-men

This is probably the best known example of a writer doing this (and I haven’t featured every time a writer fixed a series). I mostly included this one to have a nicer balance of Marvel and DC because anyone who knows about Superhero comics knows Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s worst work together was on the X-men. Even a change of creative teams to Roy Thomas and Neal Adams didn’t fix the X-men. Len Wein and Dave Cockrun fixed the X-men by changing almost the entire cast. A baffling trend in the history of X-men is writers wanting to reunite the least loved line up. 

Wein didn’t realise what he had done but Claremont had and Claremont stuck with the series for decades. Claremont actually begged Wein to let him take over the book because he loved the characters to which Wein replied “sure the books doomed anyway”. But under Claremont the X-men went on to be Marvel’s best selling team but why is it that only once have Marvel tried reuniting; Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Shadowcat and Cyclops when they’re the best selling team.

Green Lantern

All hail Geoff Johns king of retcons. I could leave it there but Geoff Johns almost entirely rewrote Green Lantern lore all because he didn’t like Kyle Reiner. in fact does anyone like Kyle Reiner? 

Changes Johns introduced; Green Lantern rings can’t do anything, Arisa was not a child who aged herself up to be with Hal. She was from a planet where you reached adulthood by the time you where 5. Hal wasn’t a serial killer he was possessed by a demonic entity that would also be the cause of the yellow weakness (killing all the jokes about Green Lantern losing to bananas or canaries) and most importantly Hal is a jerk. Before Hal had been a jerk but now the series was aware that he was one and better yet Hal worked on being a better person. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

IDW fixed the TMNT comics. The original series of comics has its earliest stories by it creators (Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird) and then ends up being inconsistent due to constant changing creative teams, so inconsistent which Turtle has which weapon changes story to story and with the book being in black and white you can’t go by bandana colour. After this we have the Image comics era of TMNT which could only have come out during the 90’s with the Turtles as cyborgs now (because another word would fit so nicely into the name). After the cancellation of the Image the series Eastman and Laird parted ways with Laird being sole owner of the Turtles and he was overly protective of them. The Turtles stories from his pre IDW era are safe, they’re not bad but they’re safe. Laird’s never liked the original cartoon series so almost any element unique to that series was not allowed to be referenced. But post Laird both the TMNT comics and cartoon could meld anything from the cartoons or comics together, IDW’s version is an eclectic mix of all things Ninja Turtles and with a consistent creative team its easier to follow and more enjoyable than any other Turtles comic.

Totally Meta Ninja Toys

Picture the scene, Christmas Eve 1988 and the parents of children all across are searching for the toys their children have been pestering them for. The toy with a name made up of various seemingly un-connected nouns in an order the keep muddling up, was it Mutant Ninja Teenage Turtles. Searching store to store for this toy from the ad with an imitator of Rob Paulsen (rumoured to be Sean Schemel who would later voice Goku in Dragonball Z) riling them into a frenzy.

We all know about this we’ve heard stories about toys being sold out on Christmas Eve, the weird part is… The Ninja Turtles did a story about it 3 years before they released the toys that swept America by storm. To quote the Tales from TMNT series “Let me tell you story…”

Michaelangelo 1, (a One Shot Comic they label as a Micro-Series) is all about this sort of thing. It’s kind of like the movie Jingle All the Way but with a more believable everyman than Arnold Schwarzenegger in it’s main role, a Five foot tall talking Turtle.

The comic opens on a winter scene of ice skaters and sledding and Michelangelo (his name spelt like the Renaissance painter). Michelangelo is thinking of getting presents for his brothers but with just $10 realises that this is a difficult task. He also stumbles across a stray cat that he gives the most logical name that a Turtle trained in Japanese Martial Arts named after the painter of the Sistine chapel could give a cat “Klunk”. Mikey looks into a toy shop where parents are frantically searching for “Little Orphan Aliens” the most adorable toy in the world. So adorable that a gang of hoodlums (one of whom is called Hector) steal a truck full of them that where to be donated to the nearest orphanage in hopes to sell them for a massive profit.

Michelangelo proving he’s the best of the Ninja Turtles, stops them on his own, but in the process ends up stealing them. Of course a truck of stolen toys would get the attention of the police so Michelangelo is now on the run from the cops. And of course him getting caught by the police would cause no end of questions like “What is he?” or “Why would you call a cat Klunk?” (who has spent most of this time stuffed in Mikey’s coat). 

Mikey then stashes the Truck in an alleyway away from the police because the toys would end up impounded and wouldn’t end up with the Orphans who are completely innocent in this whole affair. Michelangelo then returns to April’s apartment to tell her and his brothers about his Christmas Eve. His Brothers and April then dress up as elves and Mikey as Santa Claus to give the children their toys.

Now this story was later adapted into an episode of the 2003 animated series (which for it’s first 2 seasons was mostly adaptations of the original Turtle comics). But this is a blog about comics so I wrote about the comic, also I have the 1990 reprint that has a bonus story… and heres a quick review of a Christmas Carol but starring Raphael, it sucks, it’s as contrived as it sounds.