Lets get into it.

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1 CARRIE (1988)

This atrocious adaptation of Stephen King’s novel — taken by the Royal Shakespeare Company to Broadway where it folded after 21 performances — remains the primus inter pares of the musical flop. King’s story of a menstruating schoolgirl with telekenetic powers and a mad religious mother was served up with a ghastly gloop of rock-pop and fake blood. It was hailed as “a resounding mistake” in England and duly went on to be ferociously panned in New York, losing a neat $8 million.

Click here to view the embedded video.

2 WHICH WITCH (1992)

The brainchild of Benedicte Adrian and Ingrid Bjornov — members of Norwegian pop group Dollie Deluxe — this “opera-musical” was a cod 16th-century tale of thwarted passion that culminated in the young Italian heroine being burnt at the stake as a witch. King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway visited the Piccadilly Theatre to lend their support to “the most heavily panned London stage musical in a generation” — but it folded after 10 weeks. “Flops don’t come much floppier,” said the Telegraph. Nul points.

Click here to view the embedded video.

3 BERNADETTE (1990)

Described as “one of the most bizarre and spectacular failures in London musical theatre history”, the show — naively expected to pack out the Dominion — was based on the story of Bernadette Soubirous, a young peasant girl who had visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes in 1858. It was written by a piano-tuner and his wife, financed by readers of the Daily Mirror and an ex-chauffeur and, astoundingly, the Pope blessed the cast. To no avail: it lasted three weeks.

4 THE FIELDS OF AMBROSIA (1996)

A jaunty, taste-free US musical about capital punishment, set in the deep South in 1918. The hero, a state executioner, falls for a German femme fatale he’s due to fry — and eventually sings the finale from his own electric chair. The Daily Mail described it as “the biggest turkey, the floppiest flopperoo, the greatest slice of ham to hit the West End stage in years”. It didn’t last a fortnight.

5 JEEVES (1975)

Even Andrew Lloyd Webber has had his off-days. Riding high after Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph, the composer turned to Alan Ayckbourn to help bring the comic charm of Jeeves and Wooster to the stage, but the “heavy-handed affair” was denounced as “like a dream of all the Wodehouse novels combined in the ultimate ghastly weekend”. It lasted 38 performances.

— find the entire list here.

These are bad. I mean really really bad. I mean 10 cent hooker bad.

Until next time, keep dancing.

–Admiral Eo

So, for anyone that hasn’t heard yet, MYTHOI #1 has been released and is on sale now! If you are looking for a copy in your local comic store, but can’t find a copy, it is because MYTHOI isn’t in stores… yet. Have faith though, because you can buy it here.

In honor of the release of MYTHOI’s first issue, I am going to be doing a special top 10 list today. This is actually two top 10 lists, a best and worst. The category? The best AND worst first comic book issue #1s that I have ever read. Let’s get started:

THE BEST: Some comics just suck you in. They exceed your expectations, or come out of nowhere to surprise you. These comics make you wish it was next month already so you can grab issue two. These are my 10 favorite premiere issues of all time.

1) PLANETARY: From my first meeting with Elijah Snow, to having my mind blown by the idea of a multiversal supercomputer, PLANETARY had rocked me like a hurricane. The art, the story, everything about this book was perfect.

2) POWERS: This was my first exposure to Brian Bendis and Michael Oeming, and they left a very good impression. The idea for the story was fresh (at least to me) and Oeming’s angular, shadowy work complimented Bendis’ writing perfectly.

3) NEGATION: This was the first Crossgen title that really clicked for me. Paul Pelletier’s are was expressive and easy to read. It was like THE DIRTY DOZEN in space. It was a great read, and had me hooked until the series’ end.

4) NEXTWAVE: Bar none, the funniest book I have ever read. The first issue put me right in the middle of the action, and left my robot brain craving beer.

5) WILDCATS 3.0: This one might not have made the list if I hadn’t read the previous iterations of this book. Joe Casey took previously one dimensional characters and fleshed them out immediately. Dustin Nguyen’s art was a perfect fit, and the first issue, which took superheroes and put them in a corporate setting, intrigued and excited me. A great first issue.

6)BATMAN– THE LONG HALLOWEEN: Tim Sale’s dark and moody art set the tone for this book from the first page. The (much maligned) Jeph Loeb not only did a sparkling job on dialogue, but crafted a murder mystery that had me guessing whodunit right away.

7) THE ULTIMATES: The other Ultimate universe titles hadn’t done much for me. Spider-man was a teen again. Big whoop. The X-men were teens again. Big whoop. Then came the ULTIMATES. The first issue was only about Captain America, but I knew it was special. After all, it made me think Captain America was cool (no easy feat). The action was akin to a summer blockbuster movie. This showed how great the Ultimate universe could be.

ASTONISHING X-MEN: No one has ever gotten the X-men so completely right as Joss Whedon. Having John Cassaday on art didn’t hurt either.

9) THE INHUMANS: This book caught me by surprise. I had no idea who Paul Jenkins was. I knew Jae Lee was the guy who couldn’t draw Namor a few years earlier. I knew the Inhumans only from my Marvel Universe Handbooks. I had no idea upon picking this book up that I would get such a beautiful family story, or that the art could make me flip through the book so many times that the corners of the book would fray. I love surprises.

10) TOM STRONG: How can you go wrong with Alan Moore? The constant art changes on this title caused me to drop it after a dozen issues or so, but I loved the first issue of this great pulp character.

THE WORST: So everyone knows, I grew up mainly in the 1990’s. Why do I bring that up? I just wanted to apologize ahead of time for bringing up the bad memories that are to follow.

1) FORCE WORKS: When I was young, I liked the Avengers West Coast. When the AWC disbanded, and reformed into a proactive super-team (a concept that always spells comic book disaster) I was excited. My excitement lasted until the U.S. Agent got his cool new laser shield. Sigh.

2) Urth 4: A sad sad knock off of the fantastic four. Please note that the Air elemental guy has a porn star mustache.

3) ANNEX: In the early 1990’s Marvel comics had an event where they introduced a brand new character into each of their summer annuals. This event gave us characters like Bantam, a chemically enhanced Latino boxer, and Annex, a war vet with a missing leg, who had a suit that could make legs, and weapons. When Annex got his own series, I thought he was cool, until I opened the book, and realized I couldn’t care less. The art was serviceable, but the story was so bland, at one point, I threw pepper on the book in an attempt to spice it up.

4) BLOODSHOT: The man has a target on his chest, need I say more?

5) THE COMET: Just look at the cover. Tom Lyle has done some good work over the years, but this was not one of his finer moments.

6) BRIGADE: The first time I read this, I thought I had accidentally bought a second printing of YOUNGBLOOD (eeeeep!), then I re-read it, and it was worse than YOUNGBLOOD. WORSE THAN YOUNGBLOOD! Oh, and is that Booster Gold in the bottom left corner?

7) SLUDGE: I really like a lot of the Ultraverse titles. PRIME was great. THE STRANGERS was a fun read. SLUDGE, however, was a boring, sloppy mess. The main character gets shot, blown up, and has toxic waste thrown on him. Even at 10 years old I was able to recognize overkill when I saw it.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS: 52 was such a great series, I was all set for the next weekly comic from DC to be equally fantastic, especially since this series had Paul Dini involved. Sadly, this first issue was everything that 52 was not, which is to say, this issue (and all the other issues in this series) was bad.

9) RAVAGE 2099: The first new Stan Lee creation in years wasn’t very good. In fact, it was downright hard to read. The art was lackluster as well. This book stood out as extra bad to me because of how good the other 2099 titles were.

10) ARMAGEDDON 2001: I was lost from page 1 and it never got better. That takes skill. Not a skill anyone wants, but it does take skill.

Well folks, two lists for you all in honor of MYTHOI. I hope you enjoyed them, and as always, let me know if you disagree (or agree for that matter).

I will be up at the Long Beach Comic Convention all Weekend with James Ninness, the man who wrote MYTHOI, helping to introduce people to our company and our comic. If you are in the area, stop by and say hello, chat us up a bit, or get your copy of MYTHOI, as we will have a few on hand. I will be putting updates on the site nightly as to our Semantink shenanigans, so feel free to tune in if you are interested.

Thanks for stopping in, See you all next time.