Originally Posted by
lemonpeace
I agree, I would love to see John on earth standing toe to toe with the biggest names but the question was what aliens I'd want to see him with. I for one am disinterested in another thinly veiled soldier tale for John with the Green Lanterns, I rather see him bouncing of a multitude of different aliens throughout DC's cosmology in a more dynamic way than DC seems willing to with him leading the Green Lanterns. What makes characters great are their ability to be plugged into a diverse array of consequential situations within it's given universe, especially in comics. Darksied could easily be a nemesis for John if they choose to go that direction and develop it, and constantly putting John against D-list, G-list, Z-list character only further enforces his subpar treatment. If they can set up an ongoing personal antagonistic relationship between Jessica and Darksied, you can't tell me it's impossible to develop a nemesis relationship between Darksied and John.
John needs to be doing more than just appearing next to the "Big 5", his catalog needs to start standing next to theirs and he needs to be able to be looked upon as being in their level. what good is him appearing next to Batman Superman, Wonder Woman, whoever, if at the end of the day people don't see him as being as important as them so when the Anti-moniter or Superboy Prime, or Darkseid show up, he'll be conveniently injured or in the background , being of no consequence, while the "Big 5" or 3 or 7 do carry the story. DC has proven that, as they see it, John's development or usage comes second or third to a lot of other heroes around him. so if he's on earth I don't want him dealing with the Justice League exclusively, I could care less about a Justice League. if he's on earth. start with defining where's at and where he's from, start with returning to him to his roots as an architect and an activist, start will fleshing him out and letting him be more than a soldier archetype; as far as John is concerned, I don't care about the "Big 5".
comics seem to believe in this philosophy of "rub off" popularity, and I'm starting to feel that mentality is reaching a point where it's actively detrimental to characters of color like John. DC devotes to much time just putting their characters of color next to what they really wanna right about without much caring to actually develop the character, expect points for including them, then expect popularity and development by proximity. then once they yield no fruit, they drop the character in the void of obscurity until they need to parade them out again. We saw it with Duke Thomas, we saw it with Jaime Reyes, we've DEFINITELY seen it with Vixen, and we've just seen it with John in Snyder's run.