10 Worst Comic Book TV Shows

We recently looked at the Top 25 Comic Book TV Shows here at IGN, and one thing was clear while we were coming up with the list: There were a lot of bad shows to sort through to get to the good. TV has rarely been kind to comic book characters, and we're still waiting to see a lot of new live-action series, in the wake of all the comic book feature film hits of recent years – though several are in the works.

Which Comic Books Could Be Coming to TV?
In the meantime, let's take look back at some of what we have had to suffer through as comic book fans through the years. I'm not numbering this list (we'll leave that up to you), so here they are in alphabetical order. Oh, and also, I'm only including programs that actually aired, which means a lot of rather notable crap -- like the recent Wonder Woman pilot -- isn't here, simply because the general public was spared the horror.

Strangely enough, there was a point in the late-1970s when there were three different live-action versions of Spider-Man appearing almost concurrently on TV. But while there is at least a goofy/campy/entertaining charm to Spidey's appearances on the Electric Company and in the Japanese series he starred in, the US-based The Amazing Spider-Man stands out for doing something nearly impossible: Making Spider-Man boring. The show clearly didn't have the budget (or modern technology) to pull off Spider-Man's powers in a convincing manner, but more damagingly, there was no wit, charm or any other notable emotional connection to be had with Peter Parker (Nicholas Hammond) or any of his supporting cast, as Spider-Man dully fought one dull, non-super-powered, uninteresting foe after another. With Smallville a hit for The WB, but Batman/Bruce Wayne off-limits as a character they could focus a series around, the network (and the producers of Smallville) looked at using Batman-related characters for their follow-up at bringing DC heroes to TV. The result was Birds of Prey, which took the legitimately cool comic book -- focusing on Barbara Gordon/Oracle, The Huntress and Black Canary -- and made it utterly silly and just plain dumb. Birds of Prey felt unfocused and lacking a cohesive tone from the start, veering wildly from would be serious moments to badly played wackiness – all of which contributed to a very short run. There have been some cool Black Panther stories in Marvel Comics (Christopher Priest's run being an especially great standout), but Reginald Hudlin's run was not one of them – which made the fact that Hudlin was adapting his own story here a major issue. Featuring a rather uninteresting take on Black Panther, and several Marvel Comics guest stars (including the X-Men) acting notably out of character, Black Panther was a poor way to introduce T'Challa to TV. And the "motion comic" type, barely-there animation, where they simply took the comic book frames and added minimal movement to them, seemed like a copout for an animated product intended to actually air on television. It was acceptable in the 1960s, on the old Marvel Superheroes series, but we've moved past that. Which is why we can't be too surprised that Black Panther never ended up airing in the US, quietly appearing online before going to DVD… Only lasting across two TV-movies, with a hoped for ongoing series never taking off, this version of Captain America got oh-so much wrong. Steve Rogers (played by Reb Brown) was not from World War II, but rather a modern day ex-Marine who drives around California in his van and explains, in a decidedly surfer dude manner, "I've been coming down the coast slow and easy. You know, kicking back." The TV Cap wore two different uniforms, though both (including the second, more comic-accurate one) included a motorcycle helmet as a permanent part of the ensemble. That was a minor issue compared to the bad writing though. Suffice to say, this Captain America never really felt like Captain America, and has some very cheesy, very late-1970s TV vibes running through it. One of many flawed attempts to turn the first Crow movie, based on the James O'Barr comic book, into a franchise, this TV series made the incredibly misguided mistake of actually focusing on the Eric Draven character played so memorably by the late Brandon Lee in the film, rather than using The Crow concept to introduce new characters. Mark Dacascos did what he could with the role, but the entire idea of Eric not simply coming back to get revenge -- after he and his fiance were murdered -- but just, well, sticking around, turned the series into something unintentionally funny. Eric fought one unimposing thug after another, walked around in broad daylight and had conversations with a bunch of people who were awfully accepting of the fact that this guy came back from the dead! Continue to Page 2 for a Fantastic Four member gone solo, a couple of X-Men spinoffs and the Justice League gone horribly wrong.