Geoff Johns' worst book or idea

[Masterff]

Does anybody else find that Johns is just really, really terrible at handling romantic relationships? From forcing "destiny" on Kendra Saunders and Carter Hall, to using "One Year Later" to justify taking Rick "Hourman" Tyler and Jesse "Jesse Quick/Liberty Belle" Chambers from having no relationship whatsoever to being married without any build-up, to Superman and Wonder Woman in the New 52, and god knows whatever relationships he handled in-between, I find Geoff Johns utterly incapable of writing a romantic relationship that isn't forced and contrived both in-universe and out, let alone one that happens believably on both characters' parts.

Wasnt Wonder Girl (Cassie) and Superboy (Conner) in the Johns TT Books?

This was my favorite DC relationship ever...
I really liked them as couple..

[Rod G]

Well . . .



10char

[Rod G]

The Rebirth one-shot that set off the whole Rebirth thing and its attack on the New52 continuity.
The BS idea presented there in that the New52 was devoid of love and legacy, etc.
I really like most of Johns' work, but I'll never forgive him for that one.

You said a mouthful.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

So, here's an odd one. Years later, I finally decided to read Flashpoint years after the fact and it's... OK when taken on its own. It was an indescribably terrible idea to use it as a way of semi-relaunching the DCU but that, obviously, wasn't up to Johns so much as Didio and Lee. What is massively annoying about it, though, is that it's a perfectly solid alternate-timeline story that would have been great had it revolved around Reverse Flash killing Barry's mom in the past, which wreaks havoc on the timeline, causing Barry not to become the Flash and the whole DCU becoming a much darker place - thus requiring Barry needing to stop Reverse Flash and saving not just his own mom but the entire DCU. This makes far more sense as it means that Thawne is the one who screws up the timeline by changing the past, not Barry for fixing it. It would also get rid of the imbecilic nonsense of Barry's new tragic origin. All this, and it would seriously "big up" Barry as one of the DCU's central figures of hope and brightness, ending Flashpoint with a potentially more hopeful and brighter future.

Instead, we got the New 52 (not Geoff's fault) but we also got Barry's tragic origin canonized (Geoff's fault), we got a story that made no sense whatsoever (Geoff's fault), we got a much less hopeful and endearingly naive Barry Allen (largely Geoff's fault) and the destruction of DC's sense of legacy (not his plan but because he wrote it, Geoff's fault).

I was expecting Flashpoint to be the less than great origin of the greatest mistake in modern DC comics but I was surprised by how much of a missed opportunity it was on so many levels.

[Frontier]

So, here's an odd one. Years later, I finally decided to read Flashpoint years after the fact and it's... OK when taken on its own. It was an indescribably terrible idea to use it as a way of semi-relaunching the DCU but that, obviously, wasn't up to Johns so much as Didio and Lee. What is massively annoying about it, though, is that it's a perfectly solid alternate-timeline story that would have been great had it revolved around Reverse Flash killing Barry's mom in the past, which wreaks havoc on the timeline, causing Barry not to become the Flash and the whole DCU becoming a much darker place - thus requiring Barry needing to stop Reverse Flash and saving not just his own mom but the entire DCU. This makes far more sense as it means that Thawne is the one who screws up the timeline by changing the past, not Barry for fixing it. It would also get rid of the imbecilic nonsense of Barry's new tragic origin. All this, and it would seriously "big up" Barry as one of the DCU's central figures of hope and brightness, ending Flashpoint with a potentially more hopeful and brighter future.

Instead, we got the New 52 (not Geoff's fault) but we also got Barry's tragic origin canonized (Geoff's fault), we got a story that made no sense whatsoever (Geoff's fault), we got a much less hopeful and endearingly naive Barry Allen (largely Geoff's fault) and the destruction of DC's sense of legacy (not his plan but because he wrote it, Geoff's fault).

I was expecting Flashpoint to be the less than great origin of the greatest mistake in modern DC comics but I was surprised by how much of a missed opportunity it was on so many levels.

Flashpoint is like the albatross hanging around the Flash franchise (and to some extent the DCU as a whole), which kind of sucks when it seems to be people's go-to major Flash storyline.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Flashpoint is like the albatross hanging around the Flash franchise (and to some extent the DCU as a whole), which kind of sucks when it seems to be people's go-to major Flash storyline.

Absolutely. Though, to be fair, it did build on the terrible decisions made in Flash: Rebirth. They should really scrap everything post-Final-Crisis and start from scratch again with a strict rule of no retcons for Barry Allen allowed at all.

[The Darknight Detective]

Absolutely. Though, to be fair, it did build on the terrible decisions made in Flash: Rebirth. They should really scrap everything post-Final-Crisis and start from scratch again with a strict rule of no retcons for Barry Allen allowed at all.

Good luck with that. At this point, I don't see Barry's role changing significantly at DC for, at least, decades.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Good luck with that. At this point, I don't see Barry's role changing significantly at DC for, at least, decades.

Oh, I'm not expecting anything. Call it wishful thinking.

[The Darknight Detective]

Oh, I'm not expecting anything. Call it wishful thinking.

Understood, Ilan.

[Frontier]

Good luck with that. At this point, I don't see Barry's role changing significantly at DC for, at least, decades.

At best we could get at least one run where Barry Allen's dead mom doesn't get mentioned...not that I'm expecting it .

[The Darknight Detective]

At best we could get at least one run where Barry Allen's dead mom doesn't get mentioned...not that I'm expecting it .

Looks like that's carved in stone, too. Personally, I'm indifferent to it.

[Frontier]

Looks like that's carved in stone, too. Personally, I'm indifferent to it.

I was indifferent to it up until it seems like the book just can't let it go and the impact it has on Barry's character.

I think the only time it really worked as a concept was when the TV show used.

[The Darknight Detective]

I was indifferent to it up until it seems like the book just can't let it go and the impact it has on Barry's character.

I think the only time it really worked as a concept was when the TV show used.

I agree the show has done the best job with it, Frontier.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

I was indifferent to it up until it seems like the book just can't let it go and the impact it has on Barry's character.

I think the only time it really worked as a concept was when the TV show used.

The show did a good job with it, it's true.

I was never indifferent to it, though. I always thoughts it was a truly terrible mistake. It's not simply that it gave Barry an unnecessarily tragic origin but it signalled to me that for all that Geoff, Ethan, Dan, whoever, wanted to bring Barry back, they had absolutely no faith in him as a character. They couldn't just let Barry Allen be Barry Allen (as Waid and Cooke did in their respective retro books) but they had to give him a tragic origin, had to make him to the source of the Speed Force, had to give him a bunch of traits from Wally West (this varies from writer to writer - hello, Bendis!), had to make him hipper, younger and cooler. And that was before they made him the only Flash for fear of any of the others upstaging him and made absolutely nothing of the fact that Barry represents the Silver Age better than any other character and having him show up in the modern DCU was rife for great character and story beats. And then, of course, Josh Williamson got his hands on him and decided that the main trait of Barry Allen should be that he is almost superhumanly mopey.

Flash: Rebirth is easily the worst thing that Johns did because, along with being Johns' fanboyish writing at its worst, it completely ruined the Flash franchise going forward and BOTH Wally West and Barry Allen in particular. DC has only doubled down on its failures ever since.

Thank goodness, then, for Brian Bendis who has at least given us the most authentically Bart-Allen-y Bart Allen in 15 years.

[godisawesome]

I agree the show has done the best job with it, Frontier.

The show made it work because it made Reverse Flash suffer the consequences as well, and used that for a fantastic story with him that was so much more than just the psycho that Johns kind of simplified him to.

Of course, I kind of found myself rolling my eyes a bit at how heavy handed and over the top their Flashpoint idea was, but it’s still worked better.