10 Awful Animated Comic Book Shows

When you think of outstanding animated comic book shows, the likes of Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series immediately come to mind. They're the flag bearers and benchmarks of what every program should aspire to achieve. Unfortunately, not many are able to reach those lofty standards and fall way short of the mark set. Some of them even stumble out of the starting block in catastrophic fashion - and these are the ones we'll be focusing on here. These are the worst of the worst, AKA the Halle Berry's Catwoman of animated series. Quality is all a matter of opinion, of course, and one man's rubbish is another's treasure, so we welcome healthy debate on this topic. If you happen to disagree or agree with our choices, please sound off in the comments section below. Your voice matters to us. With that out of the way, read on and join us in celebrating these dishonorable comic book shows. The New Fantastic Four (1978) Somewhere, deep in the heart of comic book land, someone laughs until the end of time at how utterly stupid this idea was, but a whole team of people got paid for it. When you think of the Fantastic Four, the names of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Thing, and the Human Torch should come to mind - not H.E.R.B.I.E. Due to the rights to the Human Torch being tied up in another proposed TV show, Johnny Storm's character was replaced by a robot in 1978's The New Fantastic Four. You see, when you have a host of other colorful characters to pick from in your comic book universe, it's best to replace a popular character with a robot. Sigh. The animation wasn't bad for its time, but this always felt like the Fantastic Three more than anything else. While H.E.R.B.I.E. was adorable in his own way, he could've worked better as a sidekick to the original team. Fortunately, we did receive far better animated series featuring Marvel's first family decades later. Spider-Man Unlimited (1999) On paper, the concept of an interplanetary, sci-fi adventure, featuring Spidey, Carnage and Venom, sounds pretty good for a story arc. Sadly, this idea became a whole 13-episode series and got weird too quickly as we followed Peter Parker's journey on a Counter-Earth. Look, credit where credit is due: the writers attempted something original and different here. Unfortunately, it didn't work and confused the hell out of everybody else - and that's saying something when you consider that Spider-Man is notorious for clone stories and whatnot. But at least it wasn't another rehashed tale where we saw Uncle Ben get another cap in his ass, right? Perhaps Spider-Man Unlimited's biggest fault is that it followed the superb Spider-Man: The Animated Series and was doomed to die in its daunting shadow. Still to this day, the only series that's managed to rival the latter in terms of quality and popularity is 2008's The Spectacular Spider-Man. Beware The Batman (2013) Despite the impressive computer-animated graphics, no one remembers Beware the Batman very fondly. Apart from the fact that it ignored some of the bigger characters and supporting stars in Gotham City, it really lacked the heart or appeal of the series before it. It felt soulless, empty. The show seemed destined for failure from the start, however, after it was pulled from the schedule four months after its premiere, without any explanation from the network. Following a hiatus, the rest of the episodes aired in a new timeslot at 03:00 am, when absolutely no one watched it. Talk about burying a series in harsh fashion. The lesson to be learned from Beware the Batman is simple: don't mess with the Bat formula. The fans don't want a reinvention or reinterpretation; just give us more of the Dark Knight pummeling his well-known rogues' gallery and solving mysteries. That's all we ask for, really. Teen Titans Go! (2011) When you realize that the wildly popular Young Justice animated series was canned for Teen Titans Go!, we wouldn't blame you for smashing your fist through a wall several times over. While the former was an imaginative and highly entertaining show, this latter abomination of DC's young heroes fries your brain upon instant exposure. Incredibly, this series keeps on going and gets renewed season after season, proving there's simply no accounting for taste in this world. It's moments like these when we miss 2003's Teen Titans show even more and cherish it as a reminder of better times. Thank Athena for reruns and boxsets! Maybe we aren't the right target audience for the series, but then again, who is? If fans of the comic book characters can't find any bit of enjoyment from this, it certainly shouldn't be geared towards them in the first place. The Avengers: United They Stand (1999) After the successes of X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Silver Surfer, The Incredible Hulk and Fantastic Four in the 90s Marvel animation boom, you'd expect an Avengers property to bring it all together for a grand affair. The Avengers: United They Stand was poised to blow the roof off, but it barely managed to put out a birthday candle throughout its 13-episode run. Rather than go for an all-star Avengers line-up, this series decided to give the B-grade members a shot - and it failed oh so spectacularly. You see, once the audience had been treated to the adventures of Spidey, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, none of us wanted to see Hawkeye or Wonder Man in the starring roles. Call us spoiled, but we expect a certain consistency in epic characters from our shows. It's no surprise that this only lasted one season, as we all probably gave up around the halfway mark. Sadly, this was one Avengers experience that we wouldn't want repeated ever again. Swamp Thing (1991) "Swamp Thing! You are amazing!" The moment those words were sung in the intro we should've known this was bound to be a pile of bollocks. Fortunately, we only had to endure this crap for five episodes before someone wised up and pulled the plug on it. We can only wonder what went through Alan Moore's mind when he saw what they'd done to this poor character… In a typical case of the show being solely created to promote the toy line, Swamp Thing failed to capture the magic of the comic book series at the time. Instead, it fell right into the camp trap and its villains were a bunch of buffoons that posed as much danger as @dcsucks_420 on Twitter. Swampy deserved so much better than this. While Justice League Action also relies on the camp element, its version of Alec Holland is far superior to the 1991 animated series. If you ever feel like a fix of the botanical beast, watch that series instead of this. Hulk And The Agents Of S.M.A.S.H. (2013) Unlike films, it's paramount that animated series contain some form of humor and fun. After all, most of them are geared to the younger audience, so you need to keep it as light as a feather. However, when you go full slapstick at the expense of the story, it usually results in something as smashingly bad as Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. Look, it tried incredibly hard to be funny and featured the voice talents of Seth Green, Clancy Brown and Eliza Dushku, but it just didn't leave a lasting impression. In short, it sucked. Instead of trying to fill the programming block with whatever's the flavor of the week, it'll be wise if Marvel looks to produce better animated series. Their track record in the 2000s has been pretty bad, with more duds than anything else, and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. will be remembered as just that. X-Men: Evolution (2000) X-Men: Evolution had some tolerable episodes, but overall, the writing and dialogue were atrocious at best. Also, the animation looked about as exciting as your mother's Boxing Day peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yum-may. Following X-Men: The Animated Series was never going to be an easy task, but this program chose to go back to the start rather than carry on where its predecessor had left off. This proved to be a giant mistake as we saw many recycled and rehashed ideas regurgitated in the new show - but they were far inferior. Another confusing aspect was the X-Men's costume "upgrades." Evolution decided to redo many of them for some unknown reason and they came out incredibly bland. This only contributed to the show looking like a convoluted visual mess, which is exactly what it's remembered as. Fred And Barney Meet The Thing (1979) Oh, yes, this was made. What's even better is that Thing refers to himself as Benjy Grimm here and turns into his alter ego by touching together magic rings while saying, "Thing ring, do your thing!" Thing ring, really? Ai, the creators didn't respect us. While a Flintstones and superhero crossover isn't exactly a shocking concept, it's the horrific quality and execution of the show that astounded us. Sure, throw some characters together and make it a barrel of fun, but at least understand the damn source material, for truck's sake. Thankfully, this train wreck only lasted three months before the format changed. Can you imagine if it had been allowed to continue any longer? It might've made Josh Trank's Fantastic Four actually look good in comparison. Aquaman (1967) If you want to know the reason why everyone laughs when you mention Aquaman, it's probably because of the embarrassment of this show. No matter how much you try to forget it, Arthur Curry riding a cute seahorse will forever remain ingrained in your brain due to this take on the character. Regrettably, we never got to see the powerhouse that A.C. truly is here, as every adventure degenerated into something that would make The Little Mermaid giddy with joy. It's pretty obvious from this series that the creators didn't care nor take him very seriously, either. In the animated films and Justice League series since then, Aquaman has been treated much better and not as a second-rate superhero. With his first major film around the corner, we have a feeling this show might just end up being a minor blip in the Atlantean's mighty legacy. At least, we hope that's what happens. Well, that's enough suckage for now. Tell us, which animated comic book shows did you detest? Let us know in the comments section down below.