I’m
posting this one now because I want to start next week – the first
week of the new year – on a positive note. So my “Best of 2012”
list will go up then.
But today I get to acknowledge all of the letdowns and disappointments that happened in 2012. This is always a tough list for me because I am fairly good at avoiding things that suck. Except restaurants, maybe.
Worst
Movie – Sinister
This
movie is strictly for Ethan Hawke fans. That’s because the whole
thing is about Ethan Hawke and what a shithead he is. And his ugly
sweater. Sinister
is so boring and uneventful I can’t imagine anybody liking it.
Every time you think, “Oh, man – it’s about to get good…”
it doesn’t. And the monster looked stupid. And didn’t do
anything.
Worst
Ongoing Comic Book –
He-Man and the Masters
of the Universe
This
just sucked. It was another example of DC trying to reboot without
rebooting. They want to take advantage of the history without being
beholden to it and you just cannot create stories that way. This book
couldn’t keep a creative team and quite frankly just didn’t feel
like Masters.
As Beau pointed out, the backgrounds just look like Earth. There is
no sense whatsoever that this is Eternia. Much like the
much-overhyped 30th
Anniversary itself, this book just fell flat.
Worst
Story Arc in A Comic Book –
Post-“COBRA
Civil War” GI
Joe
Man
did IDW fuck up. They hooked me so good with the whole “COBRA Civil
War” arc and then fell into the same fucking trap every other GI
Joe narrative has – they did a cheap de-powering of the Joe team
and made them outlaws/fringe/operating outside the government. And I
absolutely stopped giving a shit. Seriously – I dropped every
single GI Joe title because it just wasn’t good. And apparently a
lot of other folks did too, because IDW is rebooting in January. I’ll
pass.
Worst
Thing I Saw –
Black
Guy Nose Video on Tosh.0
I
gag every time I even think
about this, so now I am sharing it with you. Don’t watch it.
Seriously:
Worst
Thing on TV –
Home
Improvement Shows
Is
there anything worse than false hope? All these shows do is make
women dream of nicer houses than they can have. And they make it seem
reasonable that we can all make these things happen by ourselves.
Every single day, all day long these bullshit shows feature ruggedly
handsome males and even more ruggedly handsome females converting 10
x 12’ closets into five hundred square foot hot tub rooms or
gigantic kitchens with marble counters and stainless steel fixtures
or hanging gardens or some shit. It’s disgusting. There is no such
thing as a “Do-It-Yourself” home improvement project for regular
people. There are
“Try-It-And–Then-Call-A-Professional-Carpenter-To-Fix-The-Massive-Hole-In-Your-Ceiling”
projects.
Worst
Wrestler –
The
Great Khali
I
guess? I dunno. I haven’t been paying that much attention. I think
I saw him the other day, though. I haven’t noticed Sin Cara blowing
spots anymore and it even looks like they stopped using that
urine-colored lighting when he wrestles. So yeah – Khali it is.
However…
due to a conversation I had with Mrs. Troublemaker a few weeks ago, I
now proudly present the Phantie for
Absolute
Worst Wrestler of All Time –
Nathan
Jones
After
returning the mic I accidentally pilfered from Club Famous back in
November, me and the missus were discussing wrestlers in the car. She
asked me out of the blue who was the worst wrestler ever and I –
without a moment’s hesitation – said, “Nathan Jones”.
If
you don’t remember, Jones debuted in WWE back in 20002 and wowed
everybody by having a bad match with Bill DeMott. Bill DeMott – one
of the acknowledged best trainers in WWE – did not typically have
bad matches. He didn’t win them, but they were always solid. Jones
was not. After that he got teamed up with Undertaker. I suppose the
logic was that if you teamed somebody terrible up with somebody
amazing you might get something okay; and as we all know from
watching WWE’s current televised product they are perfectly fine
with “okay”.
This
did not work, either.
Jones
was so terrible they had to pull him from the scheduled tag team
match with him and ‘Taker against A-Train (now Tensai) and Big
Show. Jones was taken off of TV and returned after months of training
to once again be not very good at all. He left WWE shortly after
while the company was touring his home continent of Australia.
I
suppose Jones is so memorable because he received two massive pushes
from WWE and was in no way a competent wrestler or enthralling
entertainer. He botched moves, had bad timing, and couldn’t cut
promos. The sad part is that it really isn’t his fault. It’s
WWE’s fault for deciding to back somebody who simply was not
capable of performing at the level they were suggesting.
Worst
Toy Line –
Hanna-Barbera
by Jazwares
I
base this solely on the fact that two of the four figures we bought
from this line broke within a day of being opened. I bought the 3 ¾”
scale Tom and Jerry figures for Lil’ Troublemaker. Tom’s arms
fell off with a minimum of play. I did go back to Toys R Us and
purchase the 6” scale Tom (a better fit for Jerry anyway) and he’s
doing fine.
The
Space Ghost is a mess. Not only did his crotch break in two when I
tried to move his legs, he’s just one of the worst executed figures
I’ve seen in a while. But we’ll get to that in a minute.
I
understand that two broken figures might not seem significant, but
with a fifty percent failure rate I can’t imagine why I would
purchase more. The Masters of the Universe Classics line may have had
some problems last year, but I don’t have a single figure that is
unusable.
Worst
Online Store –
MattyCollector.com
Who
else could possibly earn this ignominious distinction? While there
have indeed been slight improvements over last year, Matty still has
terrible communications with their customers (not “fans”) and the
site itself is laughable. It’s a glitch, flash-based thing that
often has an intrusive ad in the top right corner that “folds over”
and gets in the way of the main menus. The “Search” function does
not. The archives have been “upgraded” to the point where it is
easier to type “Masters of the Universe Classics Dekker action
figure Mattycollector” into Google than to look for Dekker on the
site. And while ordering is not nearly as frustrating as it was two
years ago, it is still very frustrating. The White Screen of Death is
omnipresent every sale day and the addition of a Captcha – the
worst thing ever to come out of the internet - is just terrible.
If you want an up-to-date, comprehensive listing of IDW's current and past releases, you might as well go fuck yourself. Because their website is not going to help you for shit. It is unnavigable, the search function doesn't, and it's just a big mess. When I do my Comic Book Updates I either scan IDW titles or avoid using pictures entirely because you sure can't find anything on their site.
Worst
Song –
Any
song that plays on Atlanta’s 105.7, but especially “Moves Like
Jagger” by Maroon 5
I
had to fight the temptation to feign ignorance of the title of that
abominable fucking song. But I know it. I know it all too well. The
co-worker that I’ve mentioned several times over the past year
liked to listen to this station just loud enough that it was clearly
audible to me. And yeah – I asked him to turn it down. But he’s
Dwight Schrute if Dwight Schrute was way more annoying.
The
music that this radio station plays is the worst, most soulless pop
garbage available. Every song makes me seethe with a white-hot rage.
I have never found a form of music so intolerable, not even modern
“country”.
Worst
Action Figure –
Space
Ghost
Hanna-Barbera
Classics
By
Jazwares
Even
worse than last year’s Big Loser, Snout Spout, and that’s saying
something. Not only did Space Ghost break immediately, he’s just a
poorly executed figure from design to execution. Read more here
if you want.
Worst
Restaurant –
Elmyr
(picture from Tim R. on Yelp.com)
I’ve
never had a waiter that was actively an asshole before. And as many
times as I’ve said, “We’ll never eat here again” I didn’t
realize I had never truly meant it until I said it at Elmyr.
-Phantom
Totally agree with you on the He-man comic. Each issue has He-man on the cover, and I get my hopes up a little. But five issues in and the only GLIMPSE we see of him is in the last few pages of the fifth one. I also agree about most new music sucking ass. For Christmas I got "I Got a Name: the Jim Croce Story" (big Croce fan), and while reading it, I realized that I haven't heard any music that could even compare to him in years.
ReplyDeleteI did my level fanboy best to like that He-Man comic and I couldn't do it. And I can like some pretty bad stuff for the sake of geek love.
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