Geoff Johns' worst book or idea

[Ilan Preskovsky]

In re to Johns love for the old Silver and Bronze Age characters, my main beef with that is that his version of "updating" them usually just means adding a whole bunch of decapitations.

And misery. Let's not forget the misery.

[phonogram12]

And misery. Let's not forget the misery.

Agreed. Like, it seems like he just wants to write his favorite stories from his childhood, but just add a whole lot of decapitations and misery to suit his more "adult" tastes now.

I'm not gonna like. There have been things of his I've enjoyed in the past, like the first 25 issues of his Teen Titans run and even his Batman Earth One story, but those are the exceptions, for sure.

[twincast]

Can I say everything but Star-Girl (naturally), JSA and Doomsday Clock? No?

Of all the characters he has worked on, the members of Young Justice are nearest and dearest to my heart, so I'd have to choose his run on Teen Titans.

I wonder whether he realizes that his Superboy Prime is basically a self-insert. (Doomsday Clock's meta-commentary makes me think he actually might.)

I'd be fine with the "emotional spectrum" if it weren't for the inconsistency of the Yellow Lanterns being all about the ability to instill fear when all other rings choose wearers who embody the respective principle/emotion themselves. (I won't blame him for Snyder's worse ideas expanding on any of his.)

The idea that undoing a change to the timeline would somehow have a much larger (and much worser) effect than the original change itself, dooming Barry Allen to forever suffer from My Mother Is Dead syndrome, is just... I literally have no words for it.

The Reboot Legion is "my" Legion, and killing off a couple members of them and the Threeboot Legion during Legion of Three Worlds was a dick move, but they'd been gone for years already, anyway, and I can respect his preference. That said, thirty- and forty-somethings still calling themselves "Boy", "Lad", "Girl", "Lass", or "Kid" come across as rather pathetic. If you need to go all old-school with an adult Legion of Superman's friends, go for, you know, the names actually used by the Adult Legion in the Silver Age.

I'd really like the new Shazam Family - no blood relations and all - if Mary didn't feel like a completely different character.

Splitting Joker into three characters who may or may not be aware of each other is simply moronic.

(Trying my best here to not blame him for anything clearly demanded by Joyless Dan - like the nEw 52, most of the deaths, and No More Marvels.)

This one wasn't on Johns.
It was mandated by Didio, over everybody INCLUDING Geoff telling him it was a bad idea.
I thought Geoff Johns made a purse from a cow's ear with this one.

True, but that doesn't make it any better that Bart outright disappeared for years after his first couple of arcs with no explanation or reference to him. And while I am fine with the origin retcon, his characterizations of "Conner" and Cassie have been a bane on the characters ever since - until Bendis of all people.

His fanboyism for silver age characters.

People keep saying that; it's not quite true. Geoff Johns is clearly a Bronze Age fanboy. Which is when he started reading comics, so it's perfectly normal. And there would be nothing wrong with it if he had any self-restraint or respect for any character that has been created since by anybody but him.

Plus, I hate to say it because I really like Grant Gustin, but TV Barry has become increasingly insufferable with each passing season.

As has everyone else. But yeah, a self-righteous hypocritical pessimist is not what Barry Allen is supposed to be.

[Tzigone]

True, but that doesn't make it any better that Bart outright disappeared for years after his first couple of arcs with no explanation or reference to him. And while I am fine with the origin retcon, his characterizations of "Conner" and Cassie have been a bane on the characters ever since - until Bendis of all people.

Perhaps not appropriate to this thread, but I've been looking for a rundown on differences in Cassie's characterization in YJ v. TT. But don't want to read TT. I mean, I have read a little, but nothing Cassie-centric. And with what happened to Kon (I'm not fine with the origin retcon) and with what I did read, I don't want to.

I'll freely admit, YJ Kon, Cassie, Bart, and even Tim all had some growing up to do (logical - they were still kids), but I didn't like the overhauls of the other three, and want to learn about hers.

[phonogram12]

I wonder whether he realizes that his Superboy Prime is basically a self-insert. (Doomsday Clock's meta-commentary makes me think he actually might.

Ha! I'm super curious as to what you mean by this.

edit: I can totally see where you're coming from with this, btw.

[twincast]

Perhaps not appropriate to this thread, but I've been looking for a rundown on differences in Cassie's characterization in YJ v. TT. But don't want to read TT. I mean, I have read a little, but nothing Cassie-centric. And with what happened to Kon (I'm not fine with the origin retcon) and with what I did read, I don't want to.

I'll freely admit, YJ Kon, Cassie, Bart, and even Tim all had some growing up to do (logical - they were still kids), but I didn't like the overhauls of the other three, and want to learn about hers.

I really don't want to get too deep into it, but "bland badass" round about sums up what little he did with her.

... And I just remembered hat Geoff Johns was the one who brought back sweet little Inertia and Match as a murderous psychopath and a brainless brute, respectively. Oh god, please stop making me remember his Teen Titans!!

Ha! I'm super curious as to what you mean by this.

Superboy Prime is a pre-Crisis fanboy hypocritically murdering post-Crisis characters for not living up to his idols/ideals. And what has Johns built half of his career on - and particularly so with Infinite Crisis? Precisely that. Doomsday Clock on the other hand is among other things basically a rebuttal to this attitude. (Maybe the nEw 52 jolted him to realization, I don't know; doesn't matter.) Not that I have any reason to believe that he'll leave gratuitous gore behind him completely, but I can't fathom he'd be self-unaware enough not to recognize the role he played in this development.

[TheCape]

Can I say everything but Star-Girl (naturally), JSA and Doomsday Clock? No?

Not a fan of his Flash (Wally) run with Scott Kollins?

[Tzigone]

... And I just remembered hat Geoff Johns was the one who brought back sweet little Inertia and Match as a murderous psychopath and a brainless brute, respectively. Oh god, please stop making me remember his Teen Titans!!

I never liked the idea of Inertia at all, actually. Barry already had an evil speedster that became a double. And Superboy had a double and we didn't need anymore of them. I was kinda meh on Match, too. I'd have been happy never seeing either again.

Oh god, please stop making me remember his Teen Titans!!

As an old school New Teen Titans fan, I have issues with what he did with them, too. Though I probably can't blame him for DC's stubborn refusal to let Gar and Raven grow up, I can for what he did to Jericho. Poor, wonderful guy got a terrible arc arc and ghastly death the first time, and he brought him back and crapped all over him and killed him again.

[Dr. Ellingham]

And yet, in the decade since he has returned, they have done nothing with Barry Allen except make him, at very best, a watered-down Wally West ripoff. I'm all for having Barry Allen back in the DCU but I've yet to see any reason what this particular version of the character has contributed to the Flash mythos and the DCU at all.

Sure, I think for longtime fans this is a pretty representative view. (I haven't read a Flash book since Flashpoint, so I gots no idea, myself.)

But let's set aside us longtime (and typically long-suffering) readers and look objectively at the Flash over the last 10 years. Flash has been a consistently successful solo series, and has maintained a surprisingly successful TV series. This despite pretty angry howls from message boards.

So there's the reality - not everyone is happy, but whatever they're doing is working well.

TV Barry has become increasingly insufferable with each passing season.

You may be right; I gave up after season 3. The show got increasingly sillier, faux dramatic and teenager-y. There's just way too much good television to watch anything less than well-written, well-acted stuff.

[twincast]

Not a fan of his Flash (Wally) run with Scott Kollins?

More like I don't have strong feelings on it either way.

I never liked the idea of Inertia at all, actually. Barry already had an evil speedster that became a double. And Superboy had a double and we didn't need anymore of them. I was kinda meh on Match, too. I'd have been happy never seeing either again.

The whole point of Thad's original story was that - contrary to expectations - he was not evil. Keeping him around in the present with Bart would be redundant, but guest appearances when on break from fighting against their evil grandfather's machinations in the future or something would've been nice. Match, however, was more like a (fairly cruel) joke that went on for far too long, but he didn't deserve being unimaginatively turned into Bargain Bin Bizarro.

[Tzigone]

More like I don't have strong feelings on it either way.


The whole point of Thad's original story was that - contrary to expectations - he was not evil. Keeping him around in the present with Bart would be redundant, but guest appearances when on break from fighting against their evil grandfather's machinations in the future or something would've been nice. Match, however, was more like a (fairly cruel) joke that went on for far too long, but he didn't deserve being unimaginatively turned into Bargain Bin Bizarro.

I read it - he was planning to kill Max (or let him die, at least), and he was mean to people in general. He had a last minute change, but he was hardly a sweet baby. Yes, he was made what he was by his raising. Some good influence helped him out, though as I recall, he still only liked those who praised/liked him. Still a boring evil-duplicate storyline, IMO, even if it ended in not-evil-self-destruction. No more duplicates/exact opposites/etc. at all. For anyone. Good or evil. That's the way I feel.

[lordozone]

I'm in the minority, but for me Doomsday Clock. It's not bad, but it's a fan-fiction who totally betray the original intent of Watchmen. I don't really care, we still have the superior original story, but his writing is too "american" for this kind of story.

[king81992]

Perhaps not appropriate to this thread, but I've been looking for a rundown on differences in Cassie's characterization in YJ v. TT. But don't want to read TT. I mean, I have read a little, but nothing Cassie-centric. And with what happened to Kon (I'm not fine with the origin retcon) and with what I did read, I don't want to.

I'll freely admit, YJ Kon, Cassie, Bart, and even Tim all had some growing up to do (logical - they were still kids), but I didn't like the overhauls of the other three, and want to learn about hers.

Cassie went from being a nice person to a mean person who pretended to be nice and got a bunch of Titans killed under her watch.

[king81992]

I'm in the minority, but for me Doomsday Clock. It's not bad, but it's a fan-fiction who totally betray the original intent of Watchmen. I don't really care, we still have the superior original story, but his writing is too "american" for this kind of story.

Doomsday Clock is basically DC comics trying to scapegoat Watchmen for bad editorial decisions that happened in New 52 and Rebirth.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Sure, I think for longtime fans this is a pretty representative view. (I haven't read a Flash book since Flashpoint, so I gots no idea, myself.)

But let's set aside us longtime (and typically long-suffering) readers and look objectively at the Flash over the last 10 years. Flash has been a consistently successful solo series, and has maintained a surprisingly successful TV series. This despite pretty angry howls from message boards.

So there's the reality - not everyone is happy, but whatever they're doing is working well.

You may be right; I gave up after season 3. The show got increasingly sillier, faux dramatic and teenager-y. There's just way too much good television to watch anything less than well-written, well-acted stuff.

Heh, then that was quite the defence for someone who gave up on both the comics and the TV show a while back.

The success of the Flash TV show is one thing (I'm guessing it's mostly about a very strong first season and a very likable cast) but let's not overstate the popularity of the Flash comics. It's a series that has done moderately okay on the sales charts but it's far from a smashing success. I don't think it's doing much better than, say, Wally's series towards the end of Johns' run. Reviews of the various series, meanwhile, have ranged from awful to pretty good but no Flash comic starring modern Barry has been a critical darling like Waid or Johns' original runs. Barry also just hasn't made much impact on the larger DCU, aside for Flashpoint, because when he does show up in another book, he tends to be written like Wally West most of the time - sometimes the Timmverse Wally, at that.

And this isn't a Barry vs Wally thing. It's a Barry vs Barry thing. It has been ten years and, aside for certain creators and editors wanting the character back in the DCU (which I totally understand, to be clear), there has been little done to justify his return. He remains an inconsistent and blandly written character whose biggest fans (it seems to me, at least) are still those who remember Barry from the Silver and Bronze ages - perhaps even those who enjoyed his retro-modern appearances - and they seem to enjoy him for what he used to represent rather than the character as he is written.

The Flash is one of DC's most popular properties so the fact that the Flash series continues to sell solidly says little about how well nu-Barry has been received. That most writers either outright say they would be writing Wally or just write Barry as Wally says a whole lot more. As, in fact, does Josh Williamson saying that Barry is easily his favourite Flash but he still writes him as a mopey, wildly unlikeable bore that looks like even more of a dick when you put him next to classic Wally West who, ironically enough, he has a far greater handle on.

And, there's just no getting past it, this is all Geoff Johns' fault. I think his intentions were good with Flash Rebirth but he nonetheless ended up ruining the character of Barry Allen and lessening the rest of the Flash family by artificially inflating Barry's importance, at the same time. His moronic dead-mon retcon led to Flashpoint and the New 52 (I actually though Flashpoint itself was fun as an alternate reality romp, but everything to do with Barry needing to let Thawne change time by killing his mom to save time was incoherent nonsense that just doubled down on probably his worst retcon ever), which meant that we got a DC Rebirth that brought back Wally West with the added baggage of having his wife and kids wiped out of existence, which in turn led to the disastrous Heroes in Crisis (and I'm a big Tom King fan), which, again, did neither Barry nor Wally any favours.

I've liked a lot of what Geoff Johns has written but while his fanboyish nature as a writer can give us excellent stuff like Doomsday Clock, Sinestro Corps War, his Flash with Scott Kollins and JSA, it can also lead to unnecessary retcons that don't just damage characters he works on but often have ripple effects that detrimentally affect the rest of the line as well. His take on Barry Allen is by far the worst example of this to date.