Geoff Johns' worst book or idea

[caj]

I guess it sounds like I'm picking on him - maybe I am. Johns has certainly wrote his share of great books and had great ideas.

But he's also laid a few serious rotten eggs.

What is you least favorite Geoff Johns' book/idea/execution of an idea?

[superduperman]

Killing off the Earth 2 Superman. Far and away. There was absolutely no reason to bring him back if they were just going to do that. He got his happy ending and they wouldn't let him keep it. There was just no excuse for that. They should have just left him alone instead of turning him into a villain and literally dragging his corpse around the DCU afterward. I still haven't forgiven Johns for that.

[king81992]

His Teen Titans run, especially how he handled the cast of Young Justice.

[SixSpeedSamurai]

Bringing Barry back.

[EsotericFailures]

Barry Allen's new tragic backstory. The fact that this is in every version of The Flash now makes it so much worse than it already was.

[superduperman]

Yeah, I forgot. He's of the belief that every hero has to have a "tragic origin". So not only does Barry get one but Hal has to lose his dad too. Next we'll find out Harley Quinn became evil because someone ran over her cat as a kid or something.

[HAN9000]

Bringing Barry back.

That actually was not his idea. Dan Didio and EVS were behind it.
Although I agree it's a worst idea.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Infinite Crisis was hobbled by editorial and legal issues out of Johns's control, so I can't really blame him for that one.

Personally, I'd say The Flash: Rebirth is probably one of his biggest misfires. While the dead mom origin stuck, pretty much everything else from it has been ignored because it didn't quite connect with people.

[qwertyuiop1998]

His New 52 JL run, Especially Darkseid war
I mean this retconned AM origin was most boring version I ever read and out of character

[Hol]

It was actually Geoff and Ethan who had convinced Dan to bring Barry back. I do not have any links to interviews to confirm but I remember the time around the announcement of Barry's return VERY well. I know after the fact Dan published a letter in the back of all DC comics explaining that his plan all along when first arriving at DC was to bring Hal AND Barry back but I do not believe that to be true. a) Because in many interviews at cons he always said Barry is one of the characters that their deaths meant something and Wally is the Flash now and b) Ethan said in interviews at the time that he and Geoff had to convince Dan. He joked that it was funny that Dan was taking credit now. I'm not a huge fan of Ethan but I 100% believe him.

So yeah bringing back Barry Allen, for me, is the worst idea he ever had. Mostly because I knew it would be the downfall of Wally West and the destruction of his character that is so unique in comics. And I was right. And partly because it was executed so poorly. Flash Rebirth is terrible...and to add to it Geoff left 12 issues later. He messed up a good thing and then left.

[Ropeburn]

His Teen Titans run, especially how he handled the cast of Young Justice.

This. Loved Johns on JSA, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, basically anything but his TT run.

[Arnoldoaad]

His Teen Titans run, especially how he handled the cast of Young Justice.

Yeah, you nailed it

With the exception of Conner his handling of the Titans was terrible

[married guy]

I enjoy almost everything Geoff Johns has had a hand in.
With that said, I cannot express in words how much a LOATHE the retcon of Barry's mum.
HATE IT WITH A PASSION.
Barry didn't need some dark tragedy to inspire him into heroism. Doing so takes something important away from the character.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

His handling of the Legion of Super-Heroes, while not nearly as bad as much of what has been previously brought up, deserves an honorable mention. From his introduction of "xenophobia is now a Big Thing on 31st Earth despite its previously Utopian portrayal" to the assassination of R.J. Brande, the Legion's financial founder/backer and thus the closest thing to a father figure the Legion as a whole had; killing off both Rond Vidar and the second Karate Kid (whitewashed as he was), both rather minor characters to the original/Retroboot Legion, in Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, while at the same time killing off actual members of both the Reboot and Three-boot versions in the same story; making the resurrections of Conner Kent and Bart Allen more central to the story than the titular Legion themselves; and finally, his LSH back-up stories in the revived Adventure Comics that served mostly to introduce plot ideas that were later either walked back onscreen by Paul Levitz or flat out ignored because they were just lousy ideas, like Alan Scott being somehow imprisoned on the Sorcerors' World or the out-of-nowhere claims by Lightning Lord, evil brother of LSH members Lightning Lad and Lightning Lass, that he had a secret twin that had been kept secret from him when it was an established core part of his origin that Lightning Lord was a single-born child on a planet where virtually everybody has a twin.

Johns' handling of the Legion was yet another cautionary tale about why self-identified fanboys who become pros shouldn't necessarily get to write the characters they claim are their favorites.

Edited to add: Oh, and let's not forget that thing he started doing at the end of several "first issues" of some of his runs on books, in which he would "preview" upcoming story-lines. How many of those future stories didn't actually come to pass?

[Elmo]

Killing off the Earth 2 Superman. Far and away. There was absolutely no reason to bring him back if they were just going to do that. He got his happy ending and they wouldn't let him keep it. There was just no excuse for that. They should have just left him alone instead of turning him into a villain and literally dragging his corpse around the DCU afterward. I still haven't forgiven Johns for that.

I'm part of the camp with the headcanon that believes that was not the E2 Superman from Pre Crisis