I'm assuming that Garry is referring to the fear itself as volume 4, he is just refusing to address it as fear itself because he hates that arc so much he doesn't think it deserves to be known by its proper name. And as far as character assassinations go, the only two I think come anywhere near that charge are Vindicator and Sasquatch. barring the ending where he lets his brainwashed wife flee with his only child, Mac was as Mac as he'd always been. puck was Puck, Northstar and Aurora were on point, Marrina was tweaked a bit to be more punk rocker in attitude, but I didnt mind that. Now Vindicators I agree was particularly off. The implication throughout, seemed to be that Heather willingly turned her self over to the Master because she wanted Claire back so much, and that the brainwashing element of unity just turned her anger up to eleven. That means according to the writers Heather was willingly able to send Canada to its doom solely so she could save Claire.....from a stable and loving home. I don't care how much Heather was distraught over not getting Claire back, she would never have listened to the Master, ever.Now if they had Unbrainwashed her and had her have a Michael pointer moment where she relives the moment of killing her cousins and is in utter horror from what she did, I could see the damage done to her character lessened somewhat. But nope, we get a fake feel good moment with no mention of her cousins ever again. The only problem I had with Sasquatch was that out of nowhere near the end they gave him a duality crisis like the hulk. Now in the original Byrne run there was that battle for control between him and Tarnaq, but he never went hulk smash let alone actually say the phrase quatch smash.