I was really thinking she'd help the handsome brother kill the "ugly" twin and separate himself from it, only for it to turn out that the "ugly" one was a decent person and the "handsome" one is a dangerous sociopath. Come on, it should have written itself!

Anyway, I'm not sure if this counts, but my biggest "twist ending/lazy retcon" disappointment was with how Chris Claremont finally handled the Madelyne Pryor storyline. An interesting character with genuine greivances against Scott Summers is rendered a raving stereotypical "villainess" (her motivations were more soap opera than soap opera) and Scott Summers is exonerated for blatantly ditching his wife and newborn son because the twist is that, oops, Madelyne was an evil shrew all along! Feh, I say.
Chad | Email | 09.25.06 - 1:17 am | #

This was the stupidest comic story you've ever read.. So you've never read a Judd Winick story?
Ragnell | Email | Homepage | 09.25.06 - 2:50 am | #

I just finished reading the BATMAN: UNDER THE HOOD trade (checked it out of my local library)....

...so a Superboy-prime punch brought back Jason Todd? I mean, I'll accept, maybe, Ra's Ah Ghul finding the body and dumping it into a Lazarus pit...but let's just say I'm glad I didn't pay money for it.
Gordon | Email | Homepage | 09.25.06 - 4:57 am | #

I also had the thought that the sickly brother was going to be the nice one and vise versa.

But, it would have been TOO OBVIOUS a twist.

Then, I thought, the sickly brother is going to lop off the good brother's head and somehow graft his own on the well body (for he too would love some blonde-girl nookie), but THAT would have been TOO OBVIOUS a twist as well.

The leather straps and rubber skin ending is PERFECT, because it is SO DAMNED IRREDEEMABLY STUPID that it would NEVER be too OBVIOUS a twist.

Genius!

That guy should be writing for DC now.




~P~
P-TOR
SanctumSanctorumComix | 09.25.06 - 6:16 am | #

M Night Shyamalan got his start in comics?

--m4
mojo_iv | Email | 09.25.06 - 7:21 am | #

"Be easy on her, Richard. We have created an atmosphere of dread around us..."

That is the best line of dialogue ever.
BeaucoupKevin | Email | Homepage | 09.25.06 - 7:36 am | #

I just recently had reread an old Marvel reprint from a Werewolf by Night annual, where a vampire pulls that same Siamese twin scam on an amnesiac. (The logic being, the vamp figured nobody would suspect a Siamese twin, and I confess he does have something there.)

The dupe realizes, after staking his evil "brother" that they were only held together by plastic...
Chuck T. | Email | Homepage | 09.25.06 - 8:27 am | #

Oops. I mean MADE for each other. I don't know where my head is this morning. Probably attached to my evil twin.
Sally P | 09.25.06 - 8:39 am | #

I guess you could call this a twist to the ending that changed by the beginning of the next issue. But in this issue of Hulk Betty Ross had just transformed from the giant green Harpy back to her regular, yet nude, self. It left no doubt with angles and shapes Miss Ross had not a snippet of clothing. She and Bruce then jumped off the failing floating island. Don't ask. Well my ten year old brain couldn't wait for the next issue to see the nude and falling Miss Betty. Imagine my dissapointment when I opened the next issue where a tight fitting potato sack appeared on her. I went back to look at the final panels of the previous issue showing there was no time for her to grab anything. That started off a lot of contoversy of nudity in comics. We comicbook readers are a kinky lot.
Monte DeShan | Email | 09.25.06 - 8:46 am | #

Oh I dunno. That ending would have been a huge improvement on the remake of Sabrina - as opposed to the original ending: does the beautiful girl go with the handsome rich guy, or the other handsome rich guy?

And Greg Kinnear even went on to portray a siamese twin.
Jon Hendry | Email | 09.25.06 - 8:54 am | #

You know, my parents tried the "fake siamese twin" thing with me and my brother too. I figured it out pretty early on because they forgot to use the felsh colored rubber to cover the leather straps. That and I'm four years older than my brother.
Eddie Mitchell | Email | Homepage | 09.25.06 - 9:57 am | #

I love that issue of Sgt. Rock that ends with the line "And when I woke up, my pillow was missing."
milo | Homepage | 09.25.06 - 10:38 am | #

This comic was still a helluva lot better than Civil War # 4. At least there were no "Thor clones murdering African-American superheroes."

The ridiculous idea of "Siamese twins bound with rubber straps" is still a million times better than anything Mark Millar could come up with. And you wouldn't have to deal with shipping delays for the entire line.

I'm glad DC is still putting out comic books that aren't complete dreck.
Roel | 09.25.06 - 6:54 pm | #

How did the rubber and straps grow with them?
David Cutler | Email | 09.25.06 - 7:42 pm | #

I think my least favorite "twist ending" was that issue of the "5 Years Later" Legion in which we learned that Shvaughn Erin had really been a MAN who had taken special gender-changing drugs to get closer to Element Lad.

Now, the point of this story was "Look, Element Lad is gay! We knew it all along!", but it all felt very clumsily executed. I have no problem with Element Lad (or any other superhero) being gay, but they really cheapened Shvaughn's character in the process. Not so much by the gender bending thing (that felt more like desperate justification), but by defining him/her solely by the Element Lad relationship.

It was a very unfortunate way to "out" E-Lad, in spite of the artwork of Colleen Doran, and ended up being dropped in the next retcon.
C. Elam | Homepage | 09.25.06 - 8:52 pm | #

I believe in LOVE again, now.

Thank you Mike.
batfatty | 09.26.06 - 12:16 am | #

"How did the rubber and straps grow with them?"

Silly David! Unstable molecules!
Scipio | Email | Homepage | 09.26.06 - 5:53 am | #

"Silly David! Unstable molecules!"

Makes sense. Their sick, sick father was Reed Richards.
Jon Hendry | Email | 09.26.06 - 6:00 am | #

Richard Richards?

When you're right, you're right.
David Cutler | Email | 09.26.06 - 12:33 pm | #

I was not!
Reed Richards | 09.26.06 - 9:02 pm | #

I was going to cite Moon Girl as worse written right up until that twist ending. Still close run, though.
marionette | Email | Homepage | 09.27.06 - 3:12 pm | #