11 Characters We Could All Do Without in 2011

By: Justin Moody | Comic Features | January 5, 2011

It’s a new year and it got me thinking about which characters I could really do without seeing for a while in 2011. These are characters that for lack of better words… had too much screen time in 2010 and deserve a vacation. In some cases it may be that they over saturated comics, while in others it could just be that they weren't very well used and need a breather. I think you’ll find a mixture of the “Big Two” along with some “Indies” to spice up the list, so enjoy.

1) Deadpool – Some will say that there wasn’t enough Deadpool in 2010 and they would be wrong. I won’t stop people from liking Deadpool, but there was just too much of him in the past year. Deadpool, Deadpool Corps, Deadpool Pulp, Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool Max, X-Force and then there was Deadpool variant cover month in which his ass showed up on every cover of the Marvel U. Thankfully most of his series have flopped and with no start date for the movie in sight, Marvel may give the Merc with a Mouth a rest.

Deadpool does not make everything better

The irony of the cover caption is not lost on me...

2) Batman – 2010 was definitely the year of the Bat! With the resurrection of Bruce Wayne lasting almost the entire year due to delayed scripts, DC really pumped out the tie-ins and lead ups for their biggest Bat even since issue #600. Sadly I don’t see an end in sight for Bat-mania with two new series launching in the final months of year and new creative teams on all of the other Bat-titles. No it looks like the dead horse is going to continue to get its ass kicked by DC.

I'll let Pilgrim Bruce prove my point for me.

3) Brightest Day – Yes I know it’s not technically a character, but I’m sick of it. This series was supposed to be seven issues long just like its “Blackest Night” counterpart and now there’s no end in sight. The thing just keeps on trucking. I’m all for a mystery, but this book is starting to resemble “Twin Peaks” more than “Identity Crisis”.

I think DC needs to learn how to count

4) Cyclops – I almost wanted to put “mutants” or the X-men as a whole, but I really thought about it and it’s just Cyclops that needs a year off. I used to really like his character and they use to actually do something with him. Now he just travels the world giving mutants orders and protecting the species. I love that fact that practically every mutant he confronts gives him the exact same line, “Who put you in charge?” And really, who the hell put him in charge of the entire mutant race? As far as I know there were no elections, no declaration of being an independent nation and it’s a requirement to live on their shitty asteroid island. Which incidentally would really screw up the current and ocean life of that area, but if the king of the sea didn’t catch it then who cares.

Oh, I get it... he threatened to kill them all.

5) The Atom – Ever since Ray Palmer has been back, he’s been everywhere doing nothing. I may actually regret this choice since he’s finally becoming interesting in Titans (you know the one we chose for book of the year), but that doesn’t give him a free pass for the rest of the year. Let’s see he was in Blackest Night, did nothing. He was in Brightest Day, did nothing. He was in Adventure Comics, who knows what he did there. He had a "Brightest Day Special" that I don't even remember reading. And he was in the afore mentioned Titans in which he found the blood of Ryan Choi. After all the fuss that DC made about him coming back in Countdown I really see no reason for his return other than the fact that the “B list” needed him.

Um... Can't he just grow big again? Why is this a threat to him?

6) Scott Pilgrim – This one is not actually on here for negative reasons. With the movie, video game and the sixth and final book in the series released in 2010 it’s fair to say that Mr. Pilgrim needs a break. It used to be hard to find a Scott Pilgrim T-Shirt and now they practically have an “In-Stock” guarantee as they sit alongside plenty of other merch. So as a personal favor to me… lay off.

Coming soon: Toddler Sizes!

7) The Walking Dead – I wish I could say this one wasn’t going to be negative as well, but it is. This series should end already, but Image and Kirkman are going to keep milking this cash cow until it’s got mad cow disease. Not only am I tired of the book, I’m tired of the marketing for the book. I’m tired of the reprints, the hardcovers in three different sizes and more importantly the TV show. You like that show all you want, but it never once captured what made the series great in the beginning and then pathetically ended with six episodes. Way to take a chance AMC, you couldn’t even green light it for twelve episodes? It’s lack of faith and the over-popularity of the show is just another reason why it needs a break in 2011.

Hey, it's me versus all the mindless Walking Dead fans...

8) Wolverine – I think that if they never used Wolverine again and only mentioned him in dialog that it would still be too much Wolverine. The simple facts are that he’s become a joke. Personally, I don’t care how many teams a character is on as long as it makes sense that they’re on the team, but when it becomes a joke that is acknowledged by the rest of the characters then it’s time to take a hard look at the possibility that the character is being over used. Hopefully Wolverine’s body joins his soul in hell and stays there.

This is better than any actual picture I could have put up.

9) Daredevil – Now that Shadowland is over and Murdock is out exploring the world I think it’s the perfect time to give him a break and let the character reset. I wouldn’t be opposed to Murdock taking up in another city, say Chicago for instance. But if Marvel plans on returning him to Hell’s Kitchen just for the reason that he’s always been in Hell’s Kitchen, then I hope that Murdock retires his tights permanently. And seriously Marvel just have one of the two Avengers teams stationed in New York pop over to the Kitchen every once in a while.

Allow me to conclude it for you... Iron Fist chi punches him...

10) Red Hulk (Rulk) – General Thunderbolt Ross! Screw you again Jeph Loeb! This is the stupidest character ever made and because of that I hope to never see him again. I stopped buying Avengers the second I saw him on a previews cover. Why? Because by buying the issues leading up to the issue I was saying that it was okay to put Rulk in the book. So I stopped getting the book to say, “No, this is not okay.” It’s bad enough that I can’t even read Hulk anymore which was finally interesting after Planet Hulk, but now Rulk is ruining other titles for me as well as well.

Nice nips Rulk! Ah, one more. You've been Rulked!

11) Superman – This one is actually painful to put on this list. I was enjoying Straczynski’s run on Superman. It was the only redeemable thing for Superman as a whole. Then he had to go and be a rock star spouting off crap like, “Trade paper backs are the future, I’m going to go work on more of those.” You know what that means? The royalty checks are bigger and the work is easier. New Krypton was crap, the 100 minute war was crap and now with guess writer and artist on Straczynski’s “Grounded” storyline, even Superman’s core title is crap. Sure Robinson was supposed to take over, but typical DC hasn’t delivered on that yet. “Grounded” should have been grounded the minute Straczynski stopped making deadlines and pulled out from the deal. At this point I don’t even care to know about his dream storyline that he was supposed to do after “Grounded”; nope I’ll just keep reading Action Comics the best non-Superman, Superman title out there.

It was either this or him sitting in a chair... I thought the symbolism was better for the article.

Granted none of these characters are likely to have any time off and since half of them have had huge shake ups in their stories I’m sure we’ll continue to see them… but I can dream. Check back later for the 11 characters that need to be used more in 2011.

11 Characters We Could All Do Without in 2011

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