History AudienceAlienatingPremise / ComicBooks

* ''ComicBook/TheCrossing'' was hated right out of the gate for what it did to ComicBook/IronMan: retconning that Tony was made into a BrainwashedAndCrazy ManchurianAgent for Kang the Conqueror since the Avengers first fought him. That, along with showing Mantis undergoing a FaceHeelTurn and joining Kang as well, the Wasp being muated into a wasp-like creature, and finally Tony dying and a teenaged version of him from an alternate universe taking over as Iron Man. Naturally, fans didn't like what it didn't to beloved characters, especially given Iron Man (and the Wasp) were founding members of the Avengers. This status quo only lasted months before ''ComicBook/{{Onslaught}}'' and ''ComicBook/HeroesReborn'' undid most of it by backing back the classic Tony Stark and normal Wasp, and it carried over to the Avengers' return to the normal universe ''ComicBook/HeroesReturn'' with ''ComicBook/AvengersForever'' and ''Avengers Annual 2001'' do further damage control.[[note]]The former by retconning that it was Immortus who did all this, that his brainwashing of Tony only went as far back as ''ComicBook/OperationGalacticStorm'' (with the further reveal that Tony's murderous reaction to the Supreme Intelligence's action having been an attempt to get the Avengers to stay out of the Kree/Shi'ar conflict that backfired horribly), and that several players, including "Mantis" were Space Phantoms, thus returning the real Mantis to be a heroine; the latter by explaining the resurrection of the adult Tony and the undoing fo Wasp's mutation as the result of Franklin Richard's RealityWarper powers[[/note]]

* Creator/OrsonScottCard's ''ComicBook/UltimateIronMan'' was an attempt to reinvent the origins of ComicBook/IronMan for the ComicBook/UltimateMarvel line, but alienated audiences big time by just how extreme and bizarre of an approach it took: instead of Tony Stark being a rich genius who outwits his enemies, Card's run recharacterizes him as [[InNameOnly a mutant brain baby with a regenerative powers who wears the suit for health purposes]], [[OutOfFocus and isn't even a central character until partway through the run]], instead focusing on his father and a war between two feuding corporations. This story [[ContinuitySnarl didn't even make sense as an origin for the Ultimates version of Tony Stark]] (previous stories ''never'' hinted at him being a literal humanoid brain with a HealingFactor), and [[CanonDiscontinuity it was eventually written out of Ultimate Marvel's canon]], which turned this story into that of [[ShowWithinAShow an in-universe anime series]] and its loose interpretation of Tony's origins.

** ''Amethyst'' had a sort of crossover in the second series. Cue very surprised looks from readers wondering why a character from a "[[GirlShowGhetto comic for little girls]]" was doing in the pages of ''Dr. Fate''. (Turns out Amy is [[spoiler:a Lord of Order]]. Yes, you read that right.)

* Keith Giffen and Creator/JeffLemire's 2019 ''Inferior Five'' mini. Named after an obscure superhero parody team from the Silver Age, and being a sequel to ''[[ComicBook/InvasionDCComics Invasion!]]'', a fairly unknown crisis event from ''1988''. Unsurprisingly, it failed to sell well and was shortened to 6 issues from its intended 12.
* Robert Kirkman's ''[[ComicBook/AntMan The Irredeemable Ant-Man]]'': according to Kirkman, the idea was to have the protagonist start out as a cowardly jerk and evolve into a real hero over time. Unfortunately, the comic put extremely heavy emphasis on how much of a jerk the new ComicBook/AntMan was while failing to play up his HiddenHeartOfGold; Marvel's advertising didn't help, selling the comic with the tagline "The World's Most ''Unlikable'' Superhero". Non-fans of Ant-Man were driven away, while Ant-Man fans left out of disgust at the thought of such a douche taking over the title. Consequently, despite doing fairly well critically, it was a ''terrible'' sales performer and didn't make it long. Creator/EvangelineLilly read the series as research for the ''Film/AntMan1'' movie and publicly dismissed it as "crap".

* The second volume of ''ComicBook/SecretAvengers'' ended up as something like this. The premise is that SHIELD forms its own team of Avengers, but to keep them from revealing their secrets, they undergo a mindwipe after their missions, which was off-putting due to the grey morality of such a tactic and apparent attempts to amp the feel of the [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]] with the book's promotional material. Still, the series found a small audience thanks to the fact it explored the moral implications of the concept, had a quirky sense of humor, used underused-though-well liked characters ComicBook/WarMachine, [[ComicBook/DaisyJohnson Quake]], ComicBook/{{Mockingbird}}, and ComicBook/{{Taskmaster}}, and had generally good writing. The series ended after 16 issues so the writer could move onto ''Avengers World''. The third volume dropped these characters, with the art and tone of the comic shifting to what seemed to be a lazy ripoff of Matt Fraction's ''ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}'' ongoing. Many fans dropped the book, and it was cancelled after 15 issues.

* Despite coming out in a period where Marvel was going from strength to strength, ''ComicBook/Champions1975'' was an infamously poor performer. Starting life as a pitch for a book starring Iceman and Angel in the aftermath of the newfound popularity of ''ComicBook/XMen'', ExecutiveMeddling demanded the addition of ComicBook/BlackWidow, ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules, and ComicBook/GhostRider to beef up the lineup. As it turned out, none of those characters have anything to do with each other, nor did they have enough star power or strong villains to support a team book. It didn't so much have an Audience-Alienating Premise as an Audience-Alienating ''Lack'' of Premise, as even at the time, readers noticed that the book seemed to have no purpose other than featuring characters Marvel wasn't using. What premises the book did try out came off as incredibly artificial--the team was supposed to be the heroes of Los Angeles, yet none of them were actually from there, they were supposed to be the heroes of the common man, but mostly just fought regular supervillains--and the characters struggled to build any kind of rapport. Even within the pages of the book, the characters were acknowledging that they had no reason to continue being together, and when their book was cancelled after only seventeen issues, their headquarters collapsed and they separated for good, with any future acknowledgement of the book's events being [[OnceDoneNeverForgotten generally rueful]]. The name resurfaced for [[ComicBook/ChampionsMarvelComics later books in the 2010s]], but [[InNameOnly that was all that did.]]

* Despite coming out in a period where Marvel was going from strength to strength, ''ComicBook/Champions1975'' was an infamously poor performer. Starting life as a pitch for a book starring Iceman and Angel in the aftermath of the newfound popularity of ''ComicBook/XMen'', ExecutiveMeddling demanded the addition of ComicBook/BlackWidow, ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules, and ComicBook/GhostRider to beef up the lineup. As it turned out, none of those characters have anything to do with each other, nor did they have enough star power or strong villains to support a team book. It didn't so much have an Audience-Alienating Premise as an Audience-Alienating ''Lack'' of Premise, as even at the time, readers noticed that the book seemed to have no purpose other than featuring characters Marvel wasn't using. What premises the book did try out came off as incredibly artificial--the team was supposed to be the heroes of Los Angeles, yet none of them were actually from there, they were supposed to be the heroes of the common man, but mostly just fought regular supervillains--and the characters struggled to build any kind of rapport. Even within the pages of the book, the characters were acknowledging that they had no reason to continue being together, and when their headquarters collapsed only seventeen issues in, they separated for good, with any future acknowledgement of the book's events being [[OnceDoneNeverForgotten generally rueful]]. The name resurfaced for [[ComicBook/ChampionsMarvelComics later books in the 2010s]], but [[InNameOnly that was all that did.]]

* Despite coming out in a period where Marvel was going from strength to strength, ''ComicBook/Champions1975'' was an infamously poor performer. Starting life as a pitch for a book starring Iceman and Angel in the aftermath of the newfound popularity of ''ComicBook/XMen'', ExecutiveMeddling demanded the addition of ComicBook/BlackWidow, ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules, and ComicBook/GhostRider to beef up the lineup. As it turned out, none of those characters have anything to do with each other, nor did they have enough star power or strong villains to support a team book. It didn't so much have an Audience-Alienating Premise as an Audience-Alienating ''Lack'' of Premise, as even at the time, readers noticed that the book seemed to have no purpose other than featuring characters Marvel wasn't using. What premises the book did try out came off as incredibly artificial--the team was supposed to be the heroes of Los Angeles, yet none of them were actually from there, they were supposed to be the heroes of the common man, but mostly just fought regular supervillains--and the characters struggled to build any kind of rapport. Even within the pages of the book, the characters were acknowledging that they had no reason to continue being together, and when their headquarters collapsed only seventeen issues in, they separated for good, with the only future acknowledgement of the book's events being [[OnceDoneNeverForgotten decidedly rueful]]. The name resurfaced for [[ComicBook/ChampionsMarvelComics later books in the 2010s]], but [[InNameOnly that was all that did.]]

* ''Telos'' was a six-issue miniseries that spun out of the event ''ComicBook/{{Convergence}}'', already a story that underperformed significantly, and promised to tell the story of the character of Telos, a moderately important character in the book who hadn't exactly developed a great following (being seen as a walking plot device with a convoluted backstory and a pretty ugly design). On top of that, rather than coming out in the immediate aftermath of the event, it came out six months later, by which point most people had forgotten about him--and what was more, it came out in a period where several popular or important characters, such as ComicBook/{{Shazam}}, lacked books of their own, causing many to accuse DC of SkewedPriorities. The book sold abysmally, debuting at #115 on sales charts and dropping all the way to #231 by its final issue, and it's the last time Telos would ever make a significant appearance.

* ''ComicBook/ArchieComics2015'' had a hurdle to cross. It's a reboot of the classic ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' without its signature art-style and with more emphasis on plot. It doesn't have the pick-up-and-read, nostalgic element of the original.

* Despite coming out in a period where Marvel was going from strength to strength, ''ComicBook/Champions1975'' was an infamously poor performer. Starting life as a pitch for a book starring Iceman and Angel in the aftermath of the newfound popularity of ''X-Men'', ExecutiveMeddling demanded the addition of ComicBook/BlackWidow, ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules, and ComicBook/GhostRider to beef up the lineup. As it turned out, none of those characters have anything to do with each other, nor did they have enough star power or strong villains to support a team book. It didn't so much have an Audience-Alienating Premise as an Audience-Alienating ''Lack'' of Premise, as even at the time, readers noticed that the book seemed to have no purpose other than featuring characters Marvel wasn't using. What premises the book did try out came off as incredibly artificial--the team was supposed to be the heroes of Los Angeles, yet none of them were actually from there, they were supposed to be the heroes of the common man, but mostly just fought regular supervillains--and the characters struggled to build any kind of rapport. Even within the pages of the book, the characters were acknowledging that they had no reason to continue being together, and when their headquarters collapsed only seventeen issues in, they separated for good, with the only future acknowledgement of the book's events being [[OnceDoneNeverForgotten decidedly rueful]]. The name resurfaced for [[ComicBook/ChampionsMarvelComics later books in the 2010s]], but [[InNameOnly that was all that did.]]

* This may have been part of the reason Creator/GailSimone's ''ComicBook/TheMovement'' didn't last very long despite good reviews. A comic series about a group of [[NominalHero morally dodgy protagonists]] becoming vigilantes, who are also completely new characters (The only member of the team to have appeared in previous DC comics was Katharsis, a secondary villain in Simone's Batgirl run) and thus don't have previously built audience love to carry them. It was also very politicized which is a frequent turn-off for some comic readers. Simone herself has commented that, in hindsight, the book was a very difficult concept to sell and was lucky to get as far as it did.

* This may have been part of the reason Creator/GailSimone's ''ComicBook/TheMovement'' didn't last very long despite good reviews. A comic series about a group of [[NominalHero morally dodgy protagonists]] becoming vigilantes, who are also completely new characters and thus don't have previously built audience love to carry them. It was also very politicized which is a frequent turn-off for some comic readers. Simone herself has commented that, in hindsight, the book was a very difficult concept to sell and was lucky to get as far as it did.

* ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'': The premise of Peter David's 1996 book -wherein a parallel lifeform merges with a dying Satanist, becomes an "Earthborn angel" and lives supernatural-themed adventures with a religious bent- turned off older Superman fans (who wanted Kara Zor-El back), newer Superman fans (who did not care for Supergirl or supernatural-themed Superman books), religious fans (who felt David was writing an AuthorTract about beliefs he did not know or understand), non-religious fans (who felt David was using the franchise as a mouthpiece for his religious views), and more widely speaking, whoever was not a David's die-hard fan. Ultimately the book was cancelled and all but outright declared non-canon. DC tried to re-release the series as a trade collection in 2016, but it was cancelled after only four issues due to flopping in sales.

** Their ''[[ComicBook/RomIDW Rom]]'' especially had this problem. The main reason Rom has fans is because of the Creator/MarvelComics ''ComicBook/RomSpaceKnight'' series. However, Marvel's contract stated Marvel got to keep the rights to anything they invented. As such, the vast majority of Rom's lore and concepts [[ScrewedByTheLawyers couldn't be used for the new series]], forcing the creator to make up new lore, which caused [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks many people to dismiss the series out of hand]].

** Their ''[[ComicBook/RomIDW Rom]]'' especially had this problem. The main reason Rom has fans is because of the Creator/MarvelComics ''ComicBook/RomSpaceKnight'' series. However, Marvel's contract stated Marvel got to keep the rights to anything they invented. As such, the vast majority of Rom's lore and concepts [[ScrewedByTheLawyers couldn't be used for the new series]], forcing the creator to make up new lore, which caused many people to dismiss the series out of hand.

** Their [[ComicBook/RomIDW Rom]] especially had this problem. The main reason Rom has fans is because of the Creator/MarvelComics ''ComicBook/RomSpaceKnight'' series. However, Marvel's contract stated Marvel got to keep the rights to anything they invented. As such, the vast majority of Rom's lore and concept couldn't be used for the new series forcing the creator to make up new lore, which caused many people to dismiss the series out of hand.