The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

[RUSCHE]

It is my personal pet peeve about current story trends, wrecked the heroes to make the Villians cool. Superman is the icon he is due to his restraint, compassion and need to help all of humanity. Individuals who say he is hard to write miss his greatest strengths, none of which are his powers. It is his upbringing. Period.

[NoOneofConsequence]

Whenever I see people claim Harley Quinn as a role model for "women in STEM", I'm reminded that the original Mad Love origin comic made it pretty clear that the only way she passed her classes was sleeping with her professors.

As for the X-Men, my head canon is that at some point (probably while off in space or after Onslaught), Charles Xavier went insane and ever since then has been using his powers to turn every mutant on earth into his personal puppet plaything and forcing them to do all of this for his sadistic entertainment.

[greycrusader]

In fairness, I believe that part of Harley Quinn's origin was ret-conned a good while back...though DC no longer really HAS continuity at all, so that's anyone's call.

I have an even more encompassing reason for why so many characters in the MU have been wildly derailed, mainly that a certain "Golden Guardian of Good" is a foreign presence in the universe, corrupting everything retroactively, making the heroes believe their world is as it should be.

All my best.

[Jack of Spades]

I have an even more encompassing reason for why so many characters in the MU have been wildly derailed, mainly that a certain "Golden Guardian of Good" is a foreign presence in the universe, corrupting everything retroactively, making the heroes believe their world is as it should be.

I blame Franklin Richards; the Sentry is just his self-insert. The whole thing reads like it was a written by a small child whose idea of character development is smashing action figures together.

[greycrusader]

I have an even more encompassing reason for why so many characters in the MU have been wildly derailed, mainly that a certain "Golden Guardian of Good" is a foreign presence in the universe, corrupting everything retroactively, making the heroes believe their world is as it should be.

I blame Franklin Richards; the Sentry is just his self-insert. The whole thing reads like it was a written by a small child whose idea of character development is smashing action figures together.

That's a brilliant take! He even looks like a grown-up Franklin!

[Batgirl III]

I’ve been toying with the idea that Franklin Richards is the reason the Marvel Universe experiences “comic book time.” He’s using his powers to subconsciously prolong his own childhood and as a side-effect is basically locking the ages of everyone close to him, close to those close to him, and so forth.

[NoOneofConsequence]

If you look at the original Sentry miniseries, it is literally a meta take on Mary Sue self-insert characters and how they warp and destroy whatever setting they are placed it. He is "the bestest hero Ever", is best friends with Reed Richards, fixes the problems of Spiderman and the Hulk just with his very presence (there by taking away part of what made them interesting and unique), and Professor X has him teach his students. But the bestest hero has to have the worstest villain that only they can defeat. The Sentry is literally pre-Marvel Silver Age wish fulfillment, and the Void is its total absence. And as a standalone story, it's really good.
But Bendis using him in New Avengers undermines the original story, and he is never really used for anything of importance. This is ironic given how Bendis was essentially using the Marvel Universe as his own playtoy, warping it just as much as the Sentry did.

[Batgirl III]

The Sentry is a prime example of what I call a Miniseries Masterpiece, Obnoxiously Ongoing story.

Miniseries Masterpiece, Obnoxiously Ongoing (Verb) A character or other concept that was great in a one-off storyline, but becomes instantly stale and absolutely crap when made part of the ongoing continuity. See Also: Hawkmaning (verb), Rorschaching (verb).

[NoOneofConsequence]

Yeah. I think Watchmen is probably the flagship example once DC decided to milk it more after the film, and then even worse, let Jones use it as his plaything.