DC Comics in the ’80s was not in the best place when the decade started. The DC Implosion had happened in the late ’70s, and sales were dire across their line. However, they’d get a massive boon in 1980 with New Teen Titans, from Marv Wolfman and George Perez. This comic saved the company, and DC went on to change comics forever in the decade of excess. When we think of the company in the ’80s, we think of books like Watchman, The Dark Knights Returns, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and many more, all books that are some of the best of all time. The publisher created some amazing characters and stories in the ’80s.
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As great as DC was in the ’80s, not everything they did could be perfect. Every decade is littered with characters that define that decade, and looking back on them they’re sometimes pretty cringe. Some characters became beloved, but that doesn’t change the cringe. These five ’80s DC character are the most cringe-worthy of the decade, even if we like them.
5) Snowflame
Snowflame is a huge joke nowadays, with fans ironically liking the villain, but that doesn’t change how cringe the character is. Cocaine and the war on drugs were a huge part of the ’80s, so making a supervillain whose whole MO was that he gained superpowers from cocaine probably seemed like a good idea at the time. He was the most cliche cocaine user, a wild, unpredictable crazy man that was always one second away from devolving into a screaming fit of rage. Snowflame is hilarious, but he’s such a product of his decade that there’s no way he could be anything but cringe.
4) Vigilante
Everyone loves Vigilante nowadays because of Peacemaker and Freddie Stroma’s portrayal by Adrian Chase is amazing. It’s also nothing like the comics. The original version of the anti-hero was a cliche grim and gritty superhero, a wannabe Punisher-type character that used as much force as possible to stop crime, his job as a New York district attorney to hunt down crooks. The ’80s took the anti-hero trend of the mid ’70s and went wild with it. Vigilante was the perfect example of this, a man doing his best to clean up a dark city, who would eventually commit suicide because of the hopeless task in front of him. He was so “serious” that it’s impossible not to cringe when reading the character (although the two-issue Alan Moore story is pretty great).
3) Vibe
There have been some terrible Justice Leaguers, heroes who never really belonged on the team. The Detroit era Justice League is the worst version of the team, and Vibe is one of several reasons for that. Vibe was meant to take advantage of the break dancing trend of the ’80s. However, break dancing was cool and urban, and Vibe was created by a bunch of middle-aged white guys. There was no way the character was going to be cool, and he failed miserably. Vibe has some awesome powers, but the character somehow made break-dancing feel uncool.
2) TRS-80 Computer Whiz Kids
The TRS-80 Computer Whiz Kids were basically just an advertisement for home computers in comic character form. Shanna and Alec had their own comic available in Radio Shack, where the two of them would sing the praises of Tandy computers while sometimes teaming up with heroes in the DC Universe, like Superman. Their comics were some of the most cringe comics ever. They talked about how great Tandy computers were, using them to solve any problems while heroes like Superman looked on in awe of them. There’s something hilarious about the whole thing, at least, but it will always be cringe.
1) Starfire
Starfire is one of the best Teen Titans, but that doesn’t change how cringe the character was the back in the day. Starfire was a character who was meant to ooze sex appeal. She was rather empty-headed in a lot of ways; she missed social cues in the cutest way possible. She was beautiful, she was sweet, and she didn’t have the same modesty as other people. Starfire was every teen boy’s dream come true, and there’s something that is undeniably cringe about her back then. She’s a beloved character with a rich history, but anyone who doesn’t think that she was cringe needs to go back and read those old New Teen Titans issues again.
What are your favorite cringe ’80s DC characters? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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