Local Man Continues to Not Learn His Lesson

I haven't done this in a couple of years, but let's look at titles I eventually stopped buying, and when I should have really stopped buying them. Last time, I left off at the end of 2013, after I'd jumped ship on Rick Remender's Captain America run in less than a year. There were actually no ongoing titles I dropped in 2014 (although a few got canceled), so we're picking up right at the start of 2015.

Captain Marvel: This was the second Kelly Sue DeConnick-written ongoing for Carol Danvers. What did we end up with, three or four of those all told?  They paired DeConnick with David Lopez as the artist - who was a major step-up from the mishmash of wildly different artists they used on the previous series - and sent Carol into space. This is where the idea of Carol's cat being an alien called a Flerken comes from.

I dropped the book after issue 11, which was a Christmas-themed issue. Mostly because the book was about to be dragged into some crossover between Guardians of the Galaxy and the time-traveling teen X-Men called Black Vortex. That ringing any bells for anyone else? No? Me neither.

I thought the first 6 issues, which involved Carol trying to help a planet full of refugees who were dying slowly of a mysterious ailment, could have been an issue or two shorter. So that didn't help the book's initial momentum. The next few issues were various shorter stories that worked better. There was a Lila Cheney team-up in there somewhere, since it turned out Carol was a huge fan of hers. Which makes it tricky on when I should have abandoned ship. Either I should have skipped it entirely, or I hung on the right amount. Overall, Carol Danvers just doesn't seem to click for me as a solo character, no matter how many different creative teams I've tried, but I don't regret trying again.

How many issues too many: 0

Nightcrawler: Claremont and Todd Nauck's attempt at a solo series for Kurt Wagner. I dropped it the same month as Captain Marvel, although this book would only last another 2 issues anyway. But Claremont had dragged out the Shadow King again, because he can't help himself, and I didn't want to deal with that.

There were parts of the book I enjoyed. The color work by Rachelle Rosenberg was very good. This is probably the most I've ever liked Nauck's artwork, which has always seemed like a style I should enjoy, but never quite clicks. Claremont tried to deal with Kurt dealing with the fallout from leaving Heaven to return to the living world, but didn't write a mopey, depressed, or angry Nightcrawler. Kurt struggled at times, but still liked being alive.

On the other hand, Shadow King.

How many issues too many: 2

Harley Quinn: I gave up on this at issue 16. I was gradually getting used to Chad Hardin's art, even while I would have liked Amanda Conner to be drawing the book. It helped I thought Hardin was loosening up his style the longer he was on the book.

But it felt as though Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti just kept throwing ideas and situations into the book, only to ditch them in favor of something else almost immediately. Which made it difficult to care about any of it, since you weren't sure there'd ever be any follow-up. Also, Conner and Palmiotti's sense of humor doesn't seem to quite mesh with mine. The success rate of their jokes and gags wasn't terribly high as I recall.

That said, issue 9 had Harley actually using her psychiatrist training to help a guy who was obsessed with her, which I thought was a solid issue. And issues 11-13 were the team-up with an amnesiac Power Girl (which spun-off into an entire mini-series involving Vartox that took place between a couple of panels). So I didn't mind sticking with it that long.

How many issues too many: 3

Ant-Man/Astonishing Ant-Man: They were by the same creative team (Nick Spencer and Ramon Rosanas), and the second one picked up where the first left off after it was canceled at issue 5 because of Secret Wars.

Scott trying to run his own business and be a good dad for Cassie was encouraging. Spencer deciding to take away Cassie's powers because. . . reasons, was not so good. Scott deciding to have a bunch of villains who might reform as his employees? Had potential. Spencer writing Scott as a loser who everyone calls a loser and an idiot, because that's how the movie portrays him I guess? Not so good.

There was definitely the kernel of something in there for me to give a crap about, but Spencer dumped too much other crap on top of it. I gave up on Astonishing after the first issue, and that's what I should have done with the first series.

How many issues too many: 5

Starfire: This was part of one of DC's various attempts at rebranding, after they finally got the hint that the New 52 wasn't working. Having apparently learned nothing from my experiences with their writing on Harley Quinn, I tried Conner and Palmiotti's take on Starfire for 6 issues. There were parts of it I liked. The attempt to give her a large supporting cast of non-superhero types, trying to make the town she lived in feel like an actual community. I don't think it actually worked for me, but I appreciated the effort.

But like I said before, their writing just doesn't click with me. I mentioned in the Year in Review post at the time that it didn't feel like the supporting cast really had their own lives when Starfire wasn't around. Like everything was just on pause until she and the audience's attention moved back in their direction. But it was worth a shot.

How many issues too many: 0

Man, 2015 was not a good year for me, and 2016 wasn't much better.

Descender: I gave this 11 issues, despite misgivings about Jeff Lemire's writing. I had the impression he was very decompressed, or maybe deliberate is a nicer word, in his pacing, and that was pretty much my feeling after reading this.

That and I wanted him to focus on some of the central mysteries more, and he was more interested in other stuff. Like how the boy TIM acted as companion for became a bounty hunter/scrounger in the time TIM was out of commission. The book wasn't getting where I wanted it to go fast enough - and I wasn't sure it would ever get where I wanted it to, period - so I jumped ship. Despite Dustin Nguyen's very pretty, water-colored artwork.

How many issues too many: 3. The reintroduction of Andy was probably the point things veered off-course for me.

Black Widow: This was the Mark Waid/Chris Samnee book that started up once Secret Wars was supposed to be finished. It wasn't, but Marvel figured out it was stupid to keep their entire publishing line on hold because Jonathan Hickman can't properly pace a book to save his life.

Natasha is one of those characters I feel like I should like, but every story about her seems to revolve around some aspect of her past coming back to strike at her, and making all her friends and allies question whether they can actually trust her. And we got more of that here, so I left after 6 issues. Samnee and Matt Wilson made them a very pretty six issues, but still.

How many issues too many: There were some good action sequences and fights in the first few issues, so let's say 3. I'd say this was a sign I was getting smarter, but these books get canceled so fast anyway it hardly matters.

Illuminati: This started up in fall of 2015, like the previous book, but died in 7 issues. I dropped it after 6, so it was going away either way. I didn't enjoy Bendis' attempts to make the Hood some big-deal, hotshot villain, but this felt like Joshua Williamson was going to keep him on a smaller-scale. Small group of villains, loosely united by common goals to get paid, and none of them terribly impressed by Hood or his bullcrap. Plus, Shawn Crystal drew most issues, and I'd enjoyed his work on various Deadpool books previously. And the whole thing blew up in the Hood's face spectacularly, which was fun.

How many issues too many: 0. Looking back, I don't really regret giving this a try. Maybe it didn't make a strong enough impression for the negative aspects to linger.

Blue Beetle: And now we're up to DC Rebirth, when they tried to go back to more popular versions of certain characters. They handed Jaime and his cast to Keith Giffen and Scott Kolins and Giffen promptly made everyone unlikable and hostile towards each other. I wondered why Jaime, Paco, and Brenda were even friends for as much as they squabbled and sniped at each other.

Even counting the 0 issue, I gave up after just 5 issues. I vaguely remember wondering what was going to be the mystery of the scarab this time, since I vaguely recall Dr. Fate showing up to speak of dire portents. Oh, and Ted Kord was acting as a mentor trying to help figure out the scarab for Jaime. That was nice. Bit of a horror vibe to the book, but don't you usually want the audience to want the characters to survive?

How many issues too many: 5. When you want to see characters acting like friends, and instead they act like they can barely tolerate each other, that's not much fun.

Not much to go on for 2017 and 2018, but I've hardly been buying any ongoing to begin with, so that's no surprise.

Nova: I don't have anything against Sam as a Nova, but I was buying this because they brought back Richard Rider after he was killed off in Thanos Imperative. Considering Thanos and Star-Lord were brought back almost immediately, it wasn't really fair Rich had to wait 6 years for his turn.

But Rich did still have to share the book with Sam, and I didn't really care about Sam or his family too much, so it just didn't work and I dropped it after 4 issues. Then it was canceled after issue 6.

How many issues too many: Issue 3 had Cosmo and Death's Head in it, so I enjoyed that issue. let's say 1.

Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider: This spun out of some Spider-Clone nonsense Dan Slott did, and focused on Ben Reilly trying to keep himself alive, and decide what kind of person he was going to be. There was some stuff in there about morality and mortality I thought had real potential. But Mark Bagley got shifted off the book onto some Venom series, and they replaced him with Wil Sliney. You might recall Sliney's art didn't do anything to keep me on Fearless Defenders 4 years earlier. if anything, it looked more computer generated than before, so action was stiff, facial expressions were weird, and one issue of that was enough for me.

They had Khary Randolph doing cover worked, and if Randolph had handled interiors, I probably would have stuck around.

How many issues too many: 1. I said it at the time, if I'd paid closer attention to the credits on the cover, I wouldn't have bought issue 6 at all. My bad.

Deadpool: I dropped Deadpool for good in 2018, but I'd skipped his book for most of 2017 as well. A combination of a crossover between three titles he was in, which then flowed directly into Secret Empire tie-ins will do that for you.

By the time I came back, everyone hated Deadpool again, and Duggan had him trying to kill Cable for Stryfe. Then he pissed off most of his remaining friends, and I gave up on the book.

I don't know. I enjoyed a bit of Wade dealing with the fallout from the complete catastrophe his life had become. All his friends dead or pissed at him (again). The bit where he kept making Captain America look bad was pretty funny. His attempt to at least protect Evan from Stryfe was touching.

On the other hand, the story where he "kills" Cable fell extremely flat. Having him kill a Cable who hates his guts and says they were never friends is a complete waste. At that point, I don't care that he's killing Cable. I only care about that guy because he's Wade's friend who sees something good in him. If you take that away he's just another judgmental asshole with a body count that should prevent him from throwing stones, but apparently does not.

How many issues too many: 9. The issue right after I picked it up again was fine, but avoiding the Cable storyline clearly would have been the smart play.

The main thing I notice is most of these books just didn't last long, on my pull list or in general. I think Deadpool, Descender, and Harley Quinn are the only ones that went past 2 years. And Deadpool is the only one of those three I bought for that long. Generally, if a book lasts that long, I've stuck with it (not that there have been many recently). Which may mean I haven't learned anything at all, just like the title suggests.

Also, I feel like my reasons for not sticking with something were either not as clearly defined these last few years, or I just don't remember as clearly. Maybe that's because I gave up on so many of these books so fast. If I only buy it for 4 issues, how much of an impression can it make? Or I was being more discerning about not continuing to buy books that I thought were only OK, just out of inertia. Which might suggest I learned something after all.

Unless the books didn't have enough time to build any inertia. If they were always just, "Well, I'll try this," then I probably always had one foot out the door. I think the increased prices do encourage that in me. To not keep buying the book and wasting money.