The Top 10 Worst Comic Book Moments Of 2025, From ‘X-Men’ To ‘Absolute Flash’ (Part 2)
…And with a flash of lightning, we’re back for Part 2 of your friendly neighborhood Bounding Into Comics Editor-in-Chiefs’ Top 10 Worst Comic Book Moments Of 2025!
In Part 1, we looked at such disappointments as Sophie Campbell’s Supergirl run being a total bust and the continued mediocrity of Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man, and now it’s time to look at five more moments that are somehow even worse!
5) DC – ‘Absolute Flash’ Places Absolute Last
When it comes to DC’s Absolute line, one of my favorite ‘non-serious credits’ I like to regularly bring up (or at least I do on my weekly comic book podcast Foil Variant) is the fact that for all the deserved praise and accolades lavished upon the publisher’s first true ‘alternate universe line’, I personally pinged the line’s quality and potential success even before the release of Absolute Batman #1, my take informed at the time purely by creator interviews and solicits.
Thus, when they announced that the line’s second wave of titles would not only feature a book starring the Scarlet Speedster, my favorite DC hero, but that its narrative would center specifically on my favorite, abused-by-DC-in-recent-years incarnation, Wally West, one can imagine how absolutely electric I was about the prospect of Absolute Flash.
Eventually, there I was, Nick Robles virgin foil variant for Issue #1 in-hand, ready to finally see some proper respect being given to the true Speed Force conduit.
And then I started reading.
To be fair, that first issue did offer a somewhat strong start, its off-take on DC canon presenting readers with a visually unique and narratively interesting space-time-running ‘style’, a more caution-to-the-wind Barry Allen, and a far more alien, body-horror-esque version of Reverse-Flash (or at least, what we currently presume to be Reverse Flash).
Unfortunately, the series would immediately stall out thereafter, its next eight-issues spent on a dragging, poorly-paced plot that continually jumps between the Rogues’ attempts to recruit Wally into their ranks, his father’s attempts to protect him from military experimentation, and minimal flashbacks into main antagonist Elenore Thawne’s shady past.
With each issue dragging its feet and providing very little in the way of either ‘turn the page’ moments or ‘classic canon remixing’, and especially when every other Absolute book save Green Lantern delivering some of the best, most top-tier comic reading experiences in recent memory, Absolute Flash currently persists as a gut-punching case of ‘just not meeting the moment’ – And while I’d love for the book to eventually flip expectations and deliver some of the best DC storytelling around, at current, it just doesn’t seem like that’s on the horizon.
(Oh, and God HELP ME if the Reverse-Flash turns out to be the weird DCEU Doomsday-esque golem seen on the cover to the series’ upcoming Issue #12 and NOT the cool, interdimensional terror previously teased).
4) Marvel – ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Is Neither Amazing, Nor Spectacular, Nor Even Friendly
At this point, especially if you’re either a regular MTG player or reader of the site, you’re likely aware that for all the bluster and effort Wizards of the Coast is putting towards overloading the game’s Universes Beyond crossover offerings, their recent Marvel’s Spider-Man set was, shall we say, the TCG equivalent to The Clone Saga.
While I’m aware of with the many, many valid complaints that have arisen regarding the entire concept of Universes Beyond and even agree with some of them (seriously, seven sets next year, and FOUR are crossovers? Get outta here), I’m man enough to admit that I genuinely do enjoy the opportunity to slap my veteran player friends with my favorite super hero or even Hatsune Miku, and thus, with my love o Spider-Man, was absolutely the target customer for the set.
And yet, even going by the BIC code of being as intellectually honest as possible, my excitement for the set vanished as soon as I moved on from soyjacking over the character and art selections (I mean, come on they not only made a Ben Reilly card, but a Kaine card?!) and turned my attention towards their actual mechanics, which, suffice to say, just aren’t good.
From specific Spider-only abilities that apply to very, very few cards outside of the set itself, to the lack of actual comic book artists tapped to provide new artworks, to the fact that the set’s color division makes absolutely zero sense and activley prevents thematic deck-building (I’ve said it before, but someone wanting to run a Clone Saga deck would need to run a four-color engine, as The Jackal, Ben Reilly, Kaine, The Clone Saga enchantment, and every variation of Peter himself bear completely different colors from one another), the Marvel’s Spider-Man set just is not fun to play – I can even tell you, from experience, that the various ‘wins’ I’ve gotten with Spider-Man decks were largely due to my inclusion of Cosmic Spider-Man, who basically exists as a giant middle-finger to your opponents.
Adding to the disappointment is the fact that the previous set of Marvel x MTG cards, as released exclusively through the game’s exclusive Secret Lair service, were actually really, really good, with Captain America, First Avenger and Wolverine, Best There Is providing some of the most formidable creatures in the game.
Luckily for Marvel and Wizards of the Coast, that a full-on Marvel Superheroes set is due out in 2026 does provide them with an opportunity to print new cards and retroactively ‘patch up’ the Spider-Man set – and at this rate, whether or not they will, or even do so well, remains an unfortunate coin toss.
3) DC – Genuinely, Why The Hell Is ‘Hush 2’ A Thing?
Looking back on its announcement, I cannot recall a single tweet, post, or even article comment expressing anything other than ‘eye-rolling embarassment’ at the prospect of Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee, and Alex Sinclair teaming-up for a sequel to their seminal 2002 Batman story, Hush.
And yet, for some reason – I can’t even in good faith assume it was done for multimedia synergy, as The Batman released in 2022, its sequel is currently in development, and James Gunn is still in the early planning stages regarding The Dark Knight’s DCU debut – DC decided that 2025 was the year it had to happen.
The result, to the surprise of no one, was not great.
Rather than actually building on or expanding either the Caped Crusader’s deeper mythologies or those of the Hush story itself, the ill-advised sequel instead…well, it essentially serves as a tired retread of Gotham’s Greatest Hits that undoes all the character development experienced by Batman’s wider cast, especially Jason Todd, in order to make them more ‘easily recognizable’ according to their pop-culture reputation.
All in all, there really isn’t a lot to critique about Hush 2 because it thus far hasn’t offered anything worth actually digging in to – and to make matters even more embarrassing for DC, the story has ultimately experienced so many delays that they’re publishing two volumes of Batman simultaneously, with loeb and Lee helming the already discontinued Vol. 2 while Matt Fraction and Jorge Jiménez’s genuinely off-to-a-good-start Vol. 3.
2) DC – Tom King Still Gets Work
Admittedly, I have not read a Tom King book in years, as I am still currently salty that the former CIA operative who helped plan and execute Operation Iraqi Freedom turned my boy Kyle Rayner into a war crime apologist in his Omega Men run, but the fact of the matter is don’t need to in order to recognize how absolutely absurd it is that this man not only continues to receive regular comic book employment, but is currently considered one of DC’s top dogs.
As seen in Vision, Heroes in Crisis, Batman, Jenny Sparks, or even his current Wonder Woman book, King’s work typically follows the same pattern of taking a pre-existing character, ‘deconstructing them’ to their most self-hating and broken levels, and then use their out-of-charadcter actions as a soapbox for empty moralizing about ‘Don’t be mean to the CIA, we have feelings too’.
It’s tired, it’s trite, and worst of all, it’s not as deep or intellectual as anyone keeps pretending it is. It’s just the same faux-intellectualism repackaged over and over again under lengthy monologues and endless self-pats-on-the-back; So again, I ask, why does he keep getting work?
Even if you like some of his work, the intellectually honest among us must recognize that this is a clear ‘The Emperor has no clothes’ situation, wherein DC and its more suggestable fans continue to hilariously prop King up as ‘The Next Alan Moore’ despite his work being the try-hard equivalent of Moby’s These Systems Are Failing.
I mean, remember how damn near everyone who actually read comics rejected Wonder Woman’s ‘righteous killer’ turn in Infinite Crisis? Well, he decided to spin THAT crappy record again in his recent Wonder Woman Vol. 6 #27.
I don’t know how his career will end, what his legacy will be, or what, if anything, will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but what I do know is that King should not be so regularly handed the keys to these kingdoms.
1. The Entire Industry – Blind Bags
From Marvel’s Ultimate Endgame, to DC K.O. #1, to IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #13, it seems 2025 was the year that the entire mainstream comic book industry tried to get their own piece of the gacha pie by asking players to actively gamble for exclusive variant covers to their most popular books.
Let’s be honest: No one who care’s about the actual comic book medium, let alone serious fans, can rightfully defend this.
At a time when national economies are failing the world over and tech oligarchs spend most of their time thinking up new ways to plunder the average individual’s pockets, it’s already a steep ask for a reader to spend anywhere between $5-$7 USD on a single issue, let alone forcing them to fork over evermore cash in the hopes of maybe getting the one they actually wanted.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that rather than an exclusive pool of blind bag-only covers, which would guarantee that anyone who took a chance got at least something for their troubles, publishers often include a book’s standard ‘Cover A’ among their offerings – In other words, there’s a high chance that you pay extra for a blind bag and end up getting a regular print cover worth a couple bucks less at minimum.
Plus, thanks to the immense financial investment and risk involved in buying a blind bag, the only ones who truly benefit from their production are the publishers themselves, as well as scalpers, many of whom will gladly spend hundreds or thousands of dollars in order to pull an exclusive variant they can turn around and sell for at least double their money.
And to top it all off, the book that sort of ‘set the standard’, Ultimate Endgame Vol. 1 #1 had its blind bags packaged in such a way as to cause damage to the spine of its included book.
All in all, like any year, 2025 had its ups and it had its downs – and believe me, those downs were down – but at the end of the day, we’re still seeing some progress being made towards the medium’s overall ‘quality recovery’.
Here’s to hoping 2026 doesn’t blow the lead!
