Top 5 Things That Will Make Me Drop a Comic (Aside from Terrible Writing)

In no particular order, the Top 5 Things That Will Make Me Drop a Comic:


1) Writers on soapboxes.  I do not care if you are a Republican, Independent, Democrat, or Communist.  I pick up comics to read stories, not to here your diatribe against a political figure or policy.  If you can't write about politics in such a way that doesn't paint all your opponents as immoral, baby-eating scum then you shouldn't be writing about politics.  (And, really, if you want to write about politics, and you're in the comics industry, you're in the wrong line of work.)

2) Killing off characters for shock value (especially minor characters).  This is a symptom of bad writing.  While deaths can be written well, 99/100 they are written poorly and for cheap drama.  Not to mention that the only people that will care when you kill some obscure character are the fans of that character.  And they will be ticked that you did it.

3) Ignoring continuity.  Continuity exists for a reason.  It is the glue that holds a story together.  I'll agree that some stories probably need to be retconned, but ignoring continuity for no other reason than you feel like it is bad writing.  And not bothering to look up a character's history is even worse.  This is the age of the Internet.  You can learn all you ever wanted to know about a character and more if you're willing to spend a few minutes with a search engine.  You have no excuse.

4) Non-stop angsting.  Angsting within a story is fine.  Angsting that stops the flow of the story is not.  If a whole issue goes by and the hero has done nothing but whine, I'm probably going to quit reading the series.  If the character does nothing in their series but whine and mope about having superpowers and dating some of the most attractive people in existence, I'm going to call the character an emo git and then quit reading.  (Well, maybe.  It depends on whether the other X-Men are doing something interesting.)

5) Antiheroes.  Why?  Because most of the time they are not heroes.  They're just a-holes who happen to be slightly smaller jerks than the bad guys they're fighting.  Trying to find a decently written antihero who is actually somewhat heroic is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.