Geoff Johns Exits DC Entertainment for Writing and Producing Deal

[Buried Alien]

Wish Jenette Khan was back?

Every. Single. Day.

I miss Janette Khan so much.

Yes and no. Kahn ran a tight ship, and that was great, but she was also at the helm for that damned CRISIS that screwed up so much.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[HAN9000]

I don’t think lee is a good idea… he seems to share much responsibility for a lot of bad decisions in N52…

[RepHope]

Johns has always seemed more suited as a creator than as a suit. He loves the characters, so I am sad to see him go. I’m curious how things will change under Lee, but I’m extremely happy that Johns will be writing ongoings and comics again.

[Armor of God]

A future series loosely based on the New 52 does not mean the actual New 52 is still around. Its an off-shoot set on its own in a dystopian future. If some want to count that, hey more power to them, but I don't, because its not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about current continuity. And the current continuity is best described as a revamped post-Infinite Crisis/Pre-FP lore foundation.

http://community.comicbookresources....he-DC-Universe 64 pages worth of material. And they're not making this stuff up. Its all documented.

Except how you choose to see it doesn't change fact. Batman Beyond is set in New 52 continuity, a future version of the continuity but the same continuity nonetheless.

[Armor of God]

Of course I'm fixated on time, nothing that lasts that long is a fluke. Of course quality is subjective, but people were buying the product. That's all that matters. There was an appeal, and I believe continues to be. Of course it didn't compare to the main verse. But it didn't have to; it wasn't supposed to. It was a compliment, not a competition.


Experience and having a complete clean slate of the lore to take in sometimes subtle, sometimes drasticly different directions than the main guy. Its the entire reason imaginary tales/Elseworlds have been popular for forever in DC/Marvel history. Speaking of which, could they just do that? Sure. That's part of what the Black Label is along with an apparently more "adult" theme. But I maintain and always will that there's a market for taking that concept and building a side-continuity with it. Its happened before with success, for both companies, and it can happen again.

You're persistently defending a project that was struggling after its immediate phase. Its appeal was merely novelty and once that stopped applying the Ultimate franchise crashed. Besides, bad management is no excuse anyway. These companies badly manage projects all the time. The ones that fold are known as failures while the ones that continue to survive are known as classics.

They already have Earth One for that and a dozen Superman origin stories. Even a younger Superman doesn't imply New 52. Earth One came before New 52 for instance. The New 52 itself is intact and splitting hairs over how much of it remains is pointless because then there never was a pure New 52 to even begin with ever. The New 52 launch carried over Johns GL, kept the Batman continuity, Death of Superman, used the Post Crisis era characters as members of Teen Titans and so on. So New 52 by your definition never existed, it was always the Post Crisis continuity with modifications and thats exactly how DC sold it initially.
To continue,Cyborg's Titans past or association was always going to return because its something that goes beyond comics continuities.Removing it was the real boneheaded decision and I dont see the fruits of it. Vic played almost no role in the Johns GL and now Snyder just knocks it out of the park with MMH who looks to the focal character of his JL. Discarding failure is only natural.

[Sacred Knight]

All I'm doing is defending a project that succeeded for quite some time. That statement does not suggest that it never had troubles. Of course it did; it had ups and downs just like anything does. But just because it eventually folded doesn't mean it was always a failure.

In any case, frankly I don't care if you think the idea of a secondary Earth is a bad idea. You're more than free to the opinion of course, but you're not going to convince me. I believe the idea is fruitful and still think there's a chance it might happen some day. I believe one thing, you believe another. I'll leave it at that.

[SiegePerilous02]

Yes and no. Kahn ran a tight ship, and that was great, but she was also at the helm for that damned CRISIS that screwed up so much.

Preach. She deserves major credit for things like bringing Karen Berger on board (that was her right?) and ensuring tighter editing, but this is the biggest long term screw up in DC's history and we've been paying for it off and on ever since.

[Robanker]

I'm a bit worried for Lee because while he seems a genuinely great dude in person, his ideas for comics have always been mired in the parts of the0 '90s I don't care for and I'm afraid what that means for the DCU in general.

That said, he's a veteran, seems humble enough and creative. He has some energetic stars in his lineup and I think listening to them may produce better results than him and DiDio, the latter of which I have never been a fan of. The New 52 drove me away from comics for five years (not just for the reset, but how it was handled and its general tone) and I think returning to that again so soon would pretty much cement that I wrap up with them outside reprints.

I don't know. Lee is a weird case. I'm going to try and remain cautiously optimistic. I'll try.

[Jim Kelly]

Other than her first five years as publisher, where she instituted a lot of changes, I always assumed that Jenette Kahn stayed out of the creative side of things at DC for most of her long stay at the company and Paul Levitz or other big wigs were the primary movers behind the creative changes. So it's funny to see so much love for her on this thread. To me she was almost invisible and it was easy to forget she was even involved with DC.

[Sacred Knight]

I always thought the same. I've always thought that time as far more Levitz's creative hand than Kahn's.

[Robotman]

Jim Lee is the new COO. Every DC character in all media will now be mandated to wear huge shoulder pads.

[Atlas]

Predictions now that Lee and DiDio are again in charge and Johns has no power:

-The Crisis rumored by BC is indeed going to happen, and the Rebirth status quo of Superman, Wally West, and various others will be altered to resemble pre-Rebirth. This may in fact mean that Wally West will die at the end of Flash War, the Super Marriage will be disolved/erased, and other pre-Flashpoint elements that were returning will either be ignored or erased again.

-The Crisis may lead to the "publishing plans" that Bendis alluded to in his Word Balloon interview. We may see an "Ultimate DC" a new Earth-Zero created by this new Crisis, while the current iterations of characters (Rebirth) will be moved to another Earth and then only occasionally revisited in a few titles.

-Everything iconic about Superman is now in the crosshairs.

-More horrid, 90's-era designs will be forced upon characters who don't need a redesign at all (Superman, The Flash, Hal Jordan)

-Storytelling will again focus more on events and crossovers as with pre-Rebirth and the editorial miscommunication or complete lack of communication that marred the N52 era will return.

-Superman will kill in a story written by Bendis with input from DiDio and Lee.

-Tim Drake, Wally West, Connor Kent, and Dick Grayson are all but doomed.

-More titles like the worst of the "New Age of Heroes" will be released to continually diminishing results.

-The comic book DCU will be altered to represent the look and feel of the awful Snyer movies to some extent. This will date the DCU and connect it to a series of films that, outside of two WW movies, are going nowhere creatively.

-DC Comics has now limited its own lifespan as a comic book publisher in the same way Marvel has with its constant renumberings, hero replacements, and politically-charged propaganda in place of great storytelling.

[Sacred Knight]

I think we'll see that "Ultimate DC", but because of that I don't think we'll see major erasures of Rebirth concepts. The main line will be okay. A Fourth Crisis will happen in 2020, but the story will ensure the course of that Earth, not destroy the elements, and that the stuff Didio/Lee like that don't fit with the older, main DCU, will be funneled into the secondary Earth. Like should have happened in 2011 in the first place.

[Atlas]

I think we'll see that "Ultimate DC", but because of that I don't think we'll see major erasures of Rebirth concepts. The main line will be okay. A Fourth Crisis will happen in 2020, but the story will ensure the course of that Earth, not destroy the elements, and that the stuff Didio/Lee like that don't fit with the older, main DCU, will be funneled into the secondary Earth. Like should have happened in 2011 in the first place.

I think that's going to be the other way around, as neither Lee or DiDio really like much of the iconic and classic elements of the DCU. They don't like Superman's iconic uniform, DiDio doesn't like characters to be married/have personal lives (hence changes in the New 52), DiDio doesn't care for the idea of legacy and characters introduced in the 90s (hence the sidelining of Kyle Rayner, the sidelining and then erasure of Wally West, and the complete erasure of Bart and Connor Kent) and both seem to think that Batman is the end-all, be-all of DC Comics. This is what led to the New 52 essentially "Batmanizing" the other DC heroes, and that was a disaster in hindsight for many books and characters.

DiDio and Lee will shunt the more classic DCU characters and situations to a secondary Earth and focus the bulk of titles and output on a new Ultimate Earth.

[Trey Strain]

Last June, when the Wonder Woman movie was riding high, if anyone had predicted that Diane Nelson, Geoff Johns and Ben Affleck would be replaced within a year, everyone would have said he was crazy.

Now I'm going to predict something that's crazy.

The comics will be fine. And once the movies get past Aquaman and Shazam, which I have some doubts about, they'll be fine too.