What happened with Geoff Johns? *shameless gossip*

[The no face guy]

It seems like every few weeks, there's another story that doesn't paint him in the best of light. I was always under the impression that Johns was not only highly regarded for his work in comics and the Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Shazam movies, but also considered a pretty nice guy who had worked hard to mend fences with creators whose relationships with DC had soured, finally got Bill Finger co-credit for Batman, and generally seemed to comport himself with a healthy degree of humility.

However, in the time since his short-lived promotion to head of DC, then falling on his sword following the disastrous Justice League movie debacle, it seems like he's made more than a few enemies. Former DC head honcho Diane Nelson, who was reportedly quite close with Johns back in the day, outright said Johns "was no friend of mine" last year, which struck me as odd. Then, Jerry Ordway mentioned that Johns specifically omitted his work on Shazam when he gave Zachary Levi comics to read for his role as Captain Marvel, which feels like a shabby thing to do given how well-regarded that initial Power of Shazam story is. Also, there was a lot of grumbling among other comics creators that Johns didn't actually tell anyone what the plan for Rebirth was, leaving everyone confused about the endgame of it all was. And, now, with the whole Snyder Cut train finally getting the green light, David Ayer singled out Johns for re-editing Suicide Squad into the half-assed Guardians of the Galaxy knock-off it was and broke the timeline of his movie in a way that made Harley Quinn guilty of helping murder Robin, which was never Ayer's intention. And now Ray Fisher has specifically called out Johns was enabling whatever "gross, disrespectful, and unprofessional behavior" Joss Whedon reportedly engaged in during the extensive Justice League reshoots.

Maybe I'm reading to much into this, but there's a line in Doomsday Clock from after Johns was fired as DC's top dog in which Dr. Manhattan, who had become exhilarated with tinkering with the very nature of the DCU, realizes that he has become the villain of the story. Perhaps this was a bit more autobiographical than I originally thought it was.

Whatever the truth of the situation, I hope Johns demotion within the corporate pecking order was a learning experience for him and made him better as managing these types of things. I've been really enjoying the Stargirl TV show and look forward to seeing what they come up with for the GL miniseries on HBO Max.

Often creative types are not the best planners and organizers, and do not possess the aggressive type A personalities that you often find on board of directors. He may have simply found the pressure to stay on top of things too much, which could explain the lack of guidance on rebirth, if he was busy on having to work with Warner Bros on upcoming films. He may also have a non confrontational personality, which was leading him to edit movies like Suicide Squad on behalf of the producers, who saw more profit in a Guardians of the Galaxy rip off, than original work. In other words doing the dirty work of having to change another writers script.

For whatever reason, his new role at Warner Brothers seems to be working out if he had a say in Wonder Woman, (I hear Aquaman was good as well) Hopefully he's helping Warner Bros steer away from the previous crap they were putting out towards a more Marvel orientated direction that realizes that a quality written script, is what normally puts people in seats.

[Stingo]

I think Johns is knocking it out of the park with the television adaptation of Stars and Stripe! Now if we could just get Courtney (and the JSA) a monthly comic book!

[The Darknight Detective]

Yeah, this thread is kind of ridiculous. I'm closing it immediately.