"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does? - Gaff Blade Runner
"In a short time, this will be a long time ago." - Werner Slow West
"One of the biggest problems in the industry is apathy right now." - Dan Didio Co-Publisher of I Wonder Why That Is Comics
Superman: Secret Origins wasn’t necessarily bad but it was fairly boring. It lacked an identity of its own.
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.
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.
Last edited by ducklord; 05-07-2019 at 06:24 PM.
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.
Assassinate Putin!
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.
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.
Check out my blog, Because Everyone Else Has One, for my regularly updated movie reviews.
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.
"My name is Wally West. I'm the fastest man alive!"
I'll try being nicer if you try being smarter.
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?
Last edited by Timber Wolf-By-Night; 05-08-2019 at 12:20 AM.