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No one cares about worth. We just want Winick to stop making unreadable DC books.

Excellent. Totally agree with this. I haven't read a single Winick superhero book that I thought was "good comics."

...but just out of curiosity, what do people generally consider Winick's "best" work in superhero comics? It certainly isn't anything involving the Outsiders or Titans.

I thought it WAS the superhero fans who wanted him to return to indie comics.

Thank you folks, I'll be here all week.

And guess what, I missed the prior strip that made that very joke.

Oops.

His best superhero work is probably Exiles, since Exiles was actually good. Of course I also liked the first two Outsiders trades.

I agree that Exiles was probably his best superhero book. It started off strong, at least, until the formula became a bit too "What If"y. (What if Captain America was a vampire?)

And guess what, I missed the prior strip that made that very joke.

The summary in the first panel should get you up to speed.

Yeah out of interest whats the beef with his Green Arrow stuff? I was under the impression that his Green Arrow run was pretty interesting stuff? I have been thinking about picking up the back issues of the run (well the entire series to be honest) BUT beginning to wonder where all the hate coems from and is it as applicable to Green Arrow as anythign else?

Count me as another one who liked Exiles. Liked it enough that I stuck it out through the Chuck Austen issues until Winnick would come back, then dropped it when he left for good.

Exiles and GL are the high points - both range from above average to very good (Exiles did drop off a bit towards the end, but Chuck Austen is around as the fall guy for some of the problems there). I think I prefer his GL run overall - he did a lot of good work with Kyle over that stretch, and didn't throw away everything Marz had meticulously built up.

(Yes, I know it's a sad thing that "not destroying the previous writer's status quo" is now a positive, but, well, welcome to modern comics.)

His Outsiders was very readable when Raney was around on art, as well. The book was awful post-OYL, though.

His Batman... meh. Bringing back Jason Todd was a horrible idea executed poorly, and there wasn't much else to his run other than a fun Batman / Nightwing vs Amazo fight. Oh, and turning Black Mask into the most annoyingly snarky character this side of a Joss Whedon series.

Titans may be the worst super-hero comic published in the last ten years.

"until the formula became a bit too “What If”y. (What if Captain America was a vampire?)"

... um, wasn't that the point of the whole series? A team book based around the "What If?" concept? I thought Austen REALLY missed the point where, in his first guest stint, he had the Exiles visit the 616 Earth. No one reading wanted to see that.

(Bedard also got it wrong - he at least had the team visiting alternate Earths, but they were ones we'd seen previously, which somehow seemed less fun than the ones Winick was just making up on the fly)

Best one yet. I take it more as a (fully justified) pop at DC Editorial policy rather than a personal attack on Winick himself.

His GL was pretty heavy-handed, and didn't make good use of Kyle in the least, from what I read.

I loved Barry Ween, and people kept praising his Exiles to the heavens so I bought the first volume and... sorry, it was mediocre at best. It jumps all over the place, shedding characters left and right without actually establishing the ones that are present, and is really just continuity porn for hardcore Marvel readers at that time.

How so, stealthwise? Blink's initial group (with the exception of Magnus, who sort of died quickly) got fairly well-established.

Continuity porn? Speaking as someone who hadn't read any of the stories referenced in the early issues (at least, not by that point), I had no more trouble understanding what was going on than in the better-written issues of 'What If?" True, premise of the book is based on alternate Marvel continuities, but I had no trouble enjoying the stories as stories.

Best one yet. I take it more as a (fully justified) pop at DC Editorial policy rather than a personal attack on Winick himself.

Blame DC Editorial for actually putting the stamp of approval on Winick's terrible writing -- "Okay, let's go with the return of an anorexic Trigon although it makes no sense, and make sure every character, not just Gar, is a smartass?" Yeah, they're at fault here too. Poor writing, after all, only makes its way on to the stands after an editor gives the okay.

Yeah out of interest whats the beef with his Green Arrow stuff? I was under the impression that his Green Arrow run was pretty interesting stuff? I have been thinking about picking up the back issues of the run (well the entire series to be honest) BUT beginning to wonder where all the hate coems from and is it as applicable to Green Arrow as anythign else?

I always thought the hate for Winick's Green Arrow was the simple reason that Winick has a habit of introduce some major or interesting plot ideas, but then does little or nothing with them. So they just become sort of a big pile of wasted ideas.

The first "dose" of the Green Arrow hate came from having Ollie sleep with Black Lightning's niece seven issues after Meltzer had him preparing an engagement ring for Black Canary. Of course, Winick eventually followed through on that, but it was a pretty poor way to force a break-up: Ollie cheats... again.

The second "dose" came from Winick revealing Mia is HIV positive, because this was far from the first time he's tread on that plot point. In fact, Winick has done next to nothing with the "Mia has HIV" angle -- he doesn't show anything from her perspective about how difficult it is to live with the disease -- so I've always wondered what was the point. So "Mia has HIV" seems to be nothing else but an attempt at a sales spike, which is really sad. I mean, it's pretty unnecessary to raise AIDS awareness when the average reader of Green Arrow is probably well into their 20s and have been "aware" of AIDS since before Magic Johnson. I get the idea is to show Mia living a full, active life with HIV, but again... I bet most, if not all, the readers of GA are aware of that already.

Third? Well, Ollie was elected mayor of Star City when we caught up to him "One Year Later" (issue #60), which, honestly could lead to some interesting storylines for the character. But by issue #74 (and it may have been before that), he's resigned. Considering three of the in-between issues were a "missing year flashback" and four issues were a team-up with Batman against the ever-popular Jason Todd, Winick yet again introduced a major plot point that could shake up the status quo and proceeded not to do much with it.

Fourth? Well Black Canary killing "Ollie" after the wedding, and the revelation of who "Ollie" really was, were both rather yawn-inducing. Along with the following GA/BC series, which really has been a prime example of the extremely drawn-out storyline.

Oh, and killer lasers from the sky.

Bwahahahahah!

That sounds like Peter David's Hulk run (at least, by the end) -- have an interesting new idea to shake up the status quo, introduce it in the second half of an issue, have an issue or two based around that premise, then have Hulk wonder away from the situation to a new situation, hopefully interesting, and continue for dozens of issues.

What was it, "Hulk Island"?

Yeah out of interest whats the beef with his Green Arrow stuff? I was under the impression that his Green Arrow run was pretty interesting stuff? I have been thinking about picking up the back issues of the run (well the entire series to be honest) BUT beginning to wonder where all the hate coems from and is it as applicable to Green Arrow as anythign else?

I'd stay away from it.

He takes everything Smith had built up for the character in his issues and throws it away, including the new outlook on life Smith had given GA, gives his side kick HIV (and then doesn't really do anything with it) and every villain they fight is some sort of big troll - seriously, in two consecutive arcs, the villains are giant troll monsters.

So with GA, the Smith stuff is excellent, the Metzler run is okay, and then the Winnick is stuff is just dreadful.

"His GL was pretty heavy-handed, and didn’t make good use of Kyle in the least, from what I read."

His GL run was more than the hate crime issue, though. One heavy-handed issue does not a run define, especially as Winick was on GL for three years (give or take a fill-in). Listen, I don't like the guy that much, but GL *was* solid superhero comics... at worst.

"It jumps all over the place, shedding characters left and right without actually establishing the ones that are present, and is really just continuity porn for hardcore Marvel readers at that time."

Something makes me think you missed the point. The team, as noted, was probably more stable than most Avengers lineups during that time period, in spite of the whole gimmick of the book being that it consisted of characters who, thanks to their alternate-universe nature, were completely expendable. And a big hallmark of the team was that their characters were so well-established that the readers were PISSED when anyone did get replaced (I remember the Blink / Magik swap causing quite the kerfuffle), even though, again, that was kind of the point.

And, again, part of the whole point of the book was that you didn't have to know anything about Marvel continuity to enjoy it - since most of the characters had no idea what was going on themselves, everything was always nicely laid out.

(Winick also hit on the "Marvel Zombies" concept - more or less, via the Legacy Earth story - long before Marvel started beating the idea to death. I don't know if that's a positive or a negative.)

Your cartoon is funny, but the fact remains that all mainstream/in-continuity comic books are sequels, in the sense that a great deal of prior knowledge is required for understanding. That's why I'm making a transition to only reading creator-controlled series. I like being able to read the first issue of a series, the last issue of a series, and every issue in between and -- using only my common sense and my knowledge of history and culture -- be able to understand everything.

Sort of off-topic, but I felt it's worth noting.

Judd Winick should return to indie comix just so the world can have more Barry Ween. That might be my favorite comic ever. Sure, the final storyline was overwrought/overdramatic, but everything else was wonderful.

I liked Winick's Exiles and Green Lantern runs. I tried to like Outsiders -- there were some good moments. His miniseries Caper started out interesting, I don't remember where it went.

I'm actually one of the few people (I think) who've read Caper. It's sort of surprising that they've never released a trade version of it, considering it's not that bad. It's a series of three inter-related crime stories told in a different tone (one is a Godfather-esque turn-of-the-century mob story; another a B-movie Hollywood murder mystery, and the last is a Pulp Fiction comic crime rampage). As I recall, it's worth reading, but probably not owning.

I liked Caper too, especially the first story arc. Another reason I don't think Winick's a bad writer, just that superheroes aren't really in his wheelhouse.