Albert wrote (quoting Sterns):
"*War Comics (Okay, these are obviously not in the superhero genre, but I will wholeheartedly concur that a war comic has never kept my interest!)"

If the literal question to Sterns was "who do you think are the 5 worst superheroes?" that would be, quite possibly, among the most asinine answers he could make.
So which characters in this genre do you think are the worst? Well, I'd have to go with this completely different genre, and not characters in it, but the genre itself. Yeah, great understanding of the question to start off with.

As to the original question, I think it contains some interesting possibilities for interpretation. For instance, while there may be no bad characters per se (only bad writing, as stated), clearly there can be characters badly fitting the genre or character type they are supposed to be, i.e. selling Punisher as a superhero, when by most basic counts he's neither particularly super (at the very least not in the powered sense) nor very heroic.

And then one could of course go for financial criteria, like which 5 are the worst in terms of not being able to sustain an audience etc (but that'd hardly be many big names).

And yes, I think Paul does deserve some sort of title for showing that Madam Fatal page. And I think the title should be... Madam!  ;)

Lets make a list of the five worst radio jocks.

Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Stern

I truly see a number of parallels between the two of you, JB, and I mean that as a sincere compliment. You've both produced work that on some occasions has made me laugh, and on other occasions has touched me. You're also both known for being fearlessly vocal with your opinions, regardless of who it might offend. And you also both open up big chunks of your lives to your fans--Howard through his show, you through this forum. So while I can easily understand why you might not personally be entertained by him, it does surprise me a tad that you don't at least appreciate what he represents.

*  *  *

I swear I am NOT trying to be snarky, but this thread brings to mind the rule about not starting a negative thread.

I hardly think this is a negative thread. A negative thread would be "Why Rob MacAustin is a Shi**y Comic Book Creator." This is a fun debate over fictional characters! 

Stern has apparently read comic as a kid and through his early teens. Big time Superman fan.

That said, Howard probably isn't aware of all the lameasses like Shatterstar, Azrael or Ripclaw.

He does have a background in funny books; he was a reader as a kid and his uncle is Jack Adler, who worked in DC's production department (and eventually became production manager) from the 1940s through the 1980s.

Quoting Johnny Carson:  "I did not know that".

Howard Stern
Don Imus
Jim Rome
Ruch Limbaugh
Howard Stern (he gets two mentions)

Yes we could figure out more, but Howard Stern takes the cake, so I'd say case closed1

I think Howard Stern is one of the better radio hosts, his opinion on superheroes notwithstanding; how many other radio hosts could have brought over the millions of subscibers he brought over to Sirius? In fact, what other celebrity could do it? Even Oprah going to XM didn't impact subscriptions nearly as much as Stern's deal did.

Bottom line-- before the Howard deal, Sirius had half a million subscibers. Today, they have over 6 million.

The "worst" superheroes are just usually the ones who have had the worst, least inspired writers.  Hawkman had a billiant run recently with Geoff Johns (and the 1960s run with Joe Kubert), but otherwise, some pretty blah scripts could lead one to believe this is a pretty blah character.

Other than Neal Pozner's 1980s mini-series, who has written Aquaman well?  Nobody recently.  This character is world famous, but he can't hold his own book.  Lame superhero?  No, we just need to unleash somebody as talented as Alan Moore to write the character.  Swamp Thing might well have been described as lame prior to Moore's run.  Come to think of it, Swamp Thing might be described as lame once again, as nobody seems to currently know what to do with the character.

But Dazzler was just plain lame.  Moore, Morrison, Bendis, Johns, Gaiman...nobody could rescue that train wreck.

Much as I love Gaiman's writing, I don't really see him saving any superhero titles (train wreck or not). He's great at mythology and fantasy, but so far I can't say I've really been blown away by any of his try outs at the superhero game - at least not as mainstream superheroes, which would sort of have to be part of the deal for it to truly be a "save".