>>76930950It literally happens though, Superboy Prime was subjected to a lot of bullshit when his contrived analogy turned on Johns and the writers and he accidentally made some valid criticisms. So despite his previous efforts down the toilet the rest of his life went to drive home the point that this is NOT who you should be cheering for. Nothing about the tail end of his character arc, if you can even call it that, had any narrative purpose other than to humiliate him and by proxy the readers he was meant to personify or who agreed with him.
Similarly Mark Waid and Fraction literally gunned for Doom just because they disliked his character and fanbase. Admittedly Fraction had the excuse of Doom having previously wronged Scott (even though that itself was the consequence of another contrived and pointless storyline to further bury bullshit writers pushed on the characters) unlike useless demonic skin-armor shenanigans, but then The Living fucking Tribunal itself shows up out of nowhere and it was right back to a hamfisted statement by the powers that be put upon the characters just because they can.
I should ask why it is you assume that something bad happening can't be the design of a company or creator given their literal authority and ability to do so.
Does it really sound so unbelievable?
Especially in this day and age personal views and agenda bleed into all kinds of media, even if unintentionally, so do you really think once strawmen show up and begin facing hardship it's all coincidence? It just happened outside the writer's ability to stop it? Really?
I'm not saying characters should never face hardship before anyone tries to use an exaggeration as an argument, I'm just saying editors and writers should be held accountable for whatever gets put to paper.
