Welcome to the Comic Bastards end of the year list. Similar to our group reviews, each of the participating writers will be giving their picks for their best and also worst comics of 2017. Without further ado, here are our #5 picks for Worst of 2017.

Dustin - Sisters of Sorrow

Sisters of Sorrow is the only non-comic book, comic book on the list. I say it that way because a TV writer wrote a TV script and then someone else made it into a comic… kinda. You see, if you read my best of list, there’s another BOOM! title on that list. That title made a comic book. Everything about it was a comic, from the pacing to the way the story unfolded and presented itself. There was care and effort put into every page and consideration for how someone would then read those pages. It was a pure comic book experience.

Sisters of Sorrow was the exact opposite. The creators didn’t care how you read it, which is why the story jumps forward so often hoping that you’ll figure out everything that happened in-between. The pacing is terrible from start to finish. The action is generic and boring. Hell, the story is generic and boring. Instead of empowering women in a gritty dramatic way, it’s just, “hey ladies, wear these nun costumes and unremorseful kill everyone that’s wronged you.” Even the one character that does show human emotions is unrelatable because she breaks all logic with her actions. To put it frankly, this was a TV pilot and then some, not a comic book. I can see why people passed on it; it was a shitty script.

Ben - Warframe

Lost in, it’s lengthy lore Warframe did nothing to draw me into it’s already existing and vast world. Instead, I had to read the first issue with a Wikipedia page open on my computer in order to understand what was going on. Once I finally understood the characters and motivations in the story and the history that surrounded them, I was left realizing what a boilerplate and boring story Warframe was. It didn’t help that even though an entire team worked on the art, the character designs and overall art are simply not that thrilling save for a few action scenes.

Oliver - CABLE

2017 really hasn’t been a good year for James Robinson. How is it possible to take Cable, large angry robot-armed baby-stealing psychic time-traveling gun maniac, and make him boring? I have no idea how, but Robinson seems to have discovered the secret. This is an angry man with a gun doing some faintly racist time travel adventures with no charm or personality. This is not my beloved large angry robot-armed baby-stealing psychic time-traveling gun maniac. I could not imagine this version of Cable adopting a puppy, let along Hope, X-Force, and the entirety of the New Mutants.

Ultimately, I don’t think this is a terrible and irredeemable comic. It’s just unbelievably dull, and one of the biggest disappointments of the year. It’s not hard to write a good Cable series; Robinson’s even done that before. His 90s Cable run is great fun. Unfortunately, this one is not. Let’s hope that the writers who come after Robinson manage to remember how much fun Cable can be.

Jonathan - Justice League/Power Rangers

Justice League/Power Rangers is not a good crossover. It’s not a good adaptation of either of the title teams. And, it’s just plain not a good comic. Where it isn’t mediocre and uninspired, it’s beyond idiotic and abandons any pretense of attempting to tell a decent story. And, that’s not even considering how simplistic the artwork is. Seriously, you have to know you’re phoning it in as an artist when the only way you can think to distinguish Gotham City visually is to put a red/orange filter over some generic buildings at ground level. I mean, Stephen Byrne is a decent artist, or at least has the capacity to be one, but we don’t get much evidence of that. Of course, the same can be said of Tom Taylor and his writing for this book.  

Furthermore, who is Justice League/Power Rangers even supposed to be for? It doesn’t tie into any other DC or BOOM! Series. The characters are too watered down for hardcore fans, but it doesn’t lean into any over the top and fun territory that’d attract casual readers. Maybe the goal was to target a younger audience simply based off of brand recognition? I guess I could believe that. Hell, maybe that’s why they thought they could get away with the whole Large Hadron Collider nonsense. Although, if that truly is the case, then wouldn’t it make more sense to have the versions of both the Justice League and the Power Rangers from their respective movies that came out this year? Regardless of their quality, those are what non-comic-book-reading kids are going to be most familiar with. So really, no matter which way you slice it, Justice League/Power Rangers falls short.