Geoff Johns' worst book or idea

[byrd156]

I'm going with Flashpoint. If it was an elseworlds or stand alone story then I could give it a pass. But with it leading to the new 52 which obliterated all of my favorite characters into limbo it is my pick.

Yeah easily Flashpoint.

[king81992]

Full disclosure: I'm a former member of HEAT, so I'm a self-identified fan with major entitlement issues

I can understand the annoyance of a Kyle Rayner fan feeling that Hal just stepped back in and tromped all over a character that had (eventually, tortuously) established himself as a pretty sweet character in the DCU.

But I think the additions of the Yellow Lanterns Corps and (to a lesser degree) the other Corps were darned brilliant expansions. And yes, they often didn't make a lick of sense (Emotions first started on Earth? Will is in emotion? Why is empathy so gol-durn weird? Why are there no males in the violet corps? etc.), but there was a whole lot of absolute comic book coolness for those first few years after GL: Rebirth.

I think the difference between GL: Rebirth and Flash: Rebirth is that the former felt like an inevitable make-good on a bad idea (Hal going nuts for no good reason and destroying the Corps), while the latter felt a lot like a present that no one asked for ("Barry's back? Um, gee, I guess that's okay. But he had a pretty good death, and his protege is doing a good job carrying on his name... what's that, you promise Wally won't get get shafted by this? Okay, based on how you've handled the GL franchise we're gonna trust you on this one, just please don't screw it up...")

In hindsight, it's hard not to argue that Kyle eventually got pushed into a ditch by the return of Hal (although I'd argue that Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz represented the final nails in his emerald coffin). But at least in the vastness of the GL mythology there's theoretically room for Kyle to shine.

Kyle was put in the coffin as soon as his girlfriend got killed and shoved into a fridge. Everything else after that was just DC pretending that he was going to be relevant.

[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.

[SiegePerilous02]

Pretty much all his ideas for Superman as a character are bad.

His grasp on the Trinity in general is pretty lousy outside of a handful of ideas and when he's working with a co-author.

Giving Wonder Woman a brother and turning Two-Face into two underwhelming twins are bad too.

[Vordan]

Superman: Secret Origins wasn’t necessarily bad but it was fairly boring. It lacked an identity of its own.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Yeah, I'd forgotten about the how Wonder Woman has a twin idea. Ugh.

That said, I think it's undeniable that Geoff Johns is one of the most successful creators DC has ever had. He has a far better track record of hits than misses.

[ducklord]

Kyle was put in the coffin as soon as his girlfriend got killed and shoved into a fridge. Everything else after that was just DC pretending that he was going to be relevant.

That WAS pretty darned heinous, and was one of the many things that hobbled Kyle out of the gate. But the kid grew into the role, especially during Morrison's JLA run.

One thing, I think, that seriously hindered Kyle in the post-Flashpoint era was, frankly, the lack of cultural imagination that went into his creation.

Imagine you've been given the reins of the GL franchise. You're getting rid of the Corps, and replacing that bland ol' Hal Jordan with a brand new Green Lantern who's going to be the ONLY ring-slinger in the universe. It's a whole new thing baby!

And you decide to make him a 20something white guy.* From New York. Thud.

Dollars to donuts, if Alex had gotten the ring instead of Kyle , she'd still be an oft-appearing character today (assuming she wasn't eventually shoved in a fridge to motivate a returning Hal Jordan, of course).

* I know that later efforts were made to retroactively make Kyle Hispanic, but that never really stuck.
** Y'know I'm going to amend that footnote, as Kyle's recent Omega Men appearances reflect a character who actually HAS some long-neglected Mexican roots.

[superduperman]

Pretty much all his ideas for Superman as a character are bad.

This. His origin for Superman sucked. What he did to E-2 Superman sucked even more. I didn't even read Return of Krypton or whatever the hell it was called. From what I understand, I didn't miss anything. Doomsday Clock started off interesting but has been dull as hell ever since. Just let us have the JSA again. Speaking of, I think the only halfway decent thing he did for Superman was bringing the KC Superman into the mainstream JSA was a fun idea but they didn't really do anything with it. Which means even when he DID have a good idea for Superman, he didn't really know what to do with it. The worst part is, it looks like they are going back to his crappy origin for Superman instead of the way more interesting one they came up with for New 52. Whatever ones opinion of New 52, it gave Superman a much better origin than what he had before.

[Dred]

GL rebirth is the reason no one believed them when they said Wally wouldn't get the shaft. Everyone saw what happened with Kyle and knew editorial had bigger issues with Wally going in. Every panel at the time was filled with Wally questions because everyone knew they were lying.

And everyone was right. Hell I remember back on the old comicbloc forums Geoff swearing up and down Wally would be treated well. Fat lot of good that was.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

This is an easy one. Flash Rebirth, It had its moments here and there but it was filled with so many stupid ideas, I barely know where to begin. Ruined both Barry and Wally.

[Frontier]

Giving Wonder Woman a brother and turning Two-Face into two underwhelming twins are bad too.

At least that was an out-of-continuity thing and not like with Jason where several issues were spent on Wonder Woman's secret brother who nobody really cared about...

[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?

[caj]

I think the difference between GL: Rebirth and Flash: Rebirth is that the former felt like an inevitable make-good on a bad idea (Hal going nuts for no good reason and destroying the Corps), while the latter felt a lot like a present that no one asked for ("Barry's back? Um, gee, I guess that's okay. But he had a pretty good death, and his protege is doing a good job carrying on his name... what's that, you promise Wally won't get get shafted by this? Okay, based on how you've handled the GL franchise we're gonna trust you on this one, just please don't screw it up...")

I think you said this perfectly IMO. Completely agree.