Doomsday Clock…

[Zero Hunter]

You can tell reading the story that this was not the original story they were going to tell. Whatever Johns had been building up to with stuff like the Button and other stuff in Rebirth got shoved to the side by Didio in favor of the new direction DC was taking being led by guys like Bendis and King. I still say that all of the delays came from Johns having to basically rewrite the entire 2nd half of the story because of what other writers were doing that went directly against the story he had planned. It was a giant mess created by Didio and Bob Harras which left pretty much no one happy especially the people who had been excited about the build up after Rebirth.

[Last Son of Krypton]

Afaik, DDC was originally meant to lead to a line-wide reboot/relaunch but its impact was lessened with each delay.

[Restingvoice]

You can tell reading the story that this was not the original story they were going to tell. Whatever Johns had been building up to with stuff like the Button and other stuff in Rebirth got shoved to the side by Didio in favor of the new direction DC was taking being led by guys like Bendis and King. I still say that all of the delays came from Johns having to basically rewrite the entire 2nd half of the story because of what other writers were doing that went directly against the story he had planned. It was a giant mess created by Didio and Bob Harras which left pretty much no one happy especially the people who had been excited about the build up after Rebirth.

What were they writing that made him had to change?
Bendis I'm guessing Legion?

[Zero Hunter]

What were they writing that made him had to change?
Bendis I'm guessing Legion?

Not just Legion but the whole direction Bendis was taking all the Superman books. With King it was letting him do Heroes in Crisis and totally ruin Wally West when Wally was supposed to be a big part of Doomsday Clock and Rebirth as a whole. Basically Didio pulled the rug out from under Johns by letting the new kids do whatever they wanted with no eye to the future.

[Restingvoice]

Not just Legion but the whole direction Bendis was taking all the Superman books. With King it was letting him do Heroes in Crisis and totally ruin Wally West when Wally was supposed to be a big part of Doomsday Clock and Rebirth as a whole. Basically Didio pulled the rug out from under Johns by letting the new kids do whatever they wanted with no eye to the future.

Oh
Right
Wally

It's been a while so I actually forgot how angry I was at that time

I stopped paying attention after a while but what was the direction of Superman? I only remember what Bendis did weird was bringing back Jor-El like nothing happened, even though last time he was pulled away by Manhattan when he almost spilled the beans

[kingaliencracker]

Doomsday Clock... oy. Spoilers below.

spoilers:

On the Plus Side - Damn pretty - A solid effort to use the style of Watchmen, and break from it when appropriate. - Some of the bits with Manhattan and his actor friend were actually rather moving. - Watching the entire gathered might of the DCU get casually swatted by Manhattan was amusing. - Constantine's absolutely horrible Dick Van Dyke-in-Mary Poppins accent was also funny (although likely unintentional). - I enjoyed the interplay between Luthor and Ozymandias. - I liked the fact that, in the end, the DCU infected the Watchmen reality (via M&M's kid), and M&M were left to infect the DCU. - The re-envisioning of the larger space of the DCU as a metaverse that occasionally re-invents itself, storing its old versions away for safekeeping, appealed to me. - Casting Dr. Manhattan as the scapegoat for the New 52? Sure. Beats inventing a new Parallax. - The Joker was consistently fun throughout. - The best thing I can say: I one feels that one absolutely must drag the Watchmen-verse into contact with the DCU, you could do a lot worse. Not-So-Good Things - Martin Stein as recast as bad guy secretly responsible for scores of metahumans who already had perfectly good origin stories? Pass. - Rorschach II had an interesting origin, but then just kind of wandered around until the story was over. - The delays killed the forward momentum of the story, particularly as it got run over by the (spectacular) Watchmen TV show and DC's Metal crossovers. - The return of the JSA was a triumphant moment that was severely hindered by the fact that we haven't seen much of them since. - The return the the Legion was a triumphant moment that was severely hindered by the fact that it was the wtf Bendis Legion. - As cool as the big fight on Mars was, it made the collective DC heroes look like big ol' morons ("let's send everyone to Mars! Wheeee!") - I think Johns kind of wrote himself into a hole with Dr. M's inability to see anything past his confrontation with Superman. The resolution of that confrontation didn't really "work." - On a meta level, John's laying all the darkness of the DCU at the feet of Alan Moore is some omega-level buck-passing.

end of spoilers

In the end, I enjoyed the series, even though is was something of a muddled mess.

I pretty much feel the same way. I enjoyed it, I just wish DC had some semblance of a plan with it.

As far as Alan Moore, the irony is that writers have consistently misinterpreted the point of Watchmen and have tried mimicking it versus understanding it, hence why comics are so dark and he somehow gets blamed still almost 40 years later.

But there is some beef between Johns and Moore stemming from Blackest Night that I think Johns has continued to carry into his recent work.

[kingaliencracker]

Oh
Right
Wally

It's been a while so I actually forgot how angry I was at that time

I stopped paying attention after a while but what was the direction of Superman? I only remember what Bendis did weird was bringing back Jor-El like nothing happened, even though last time he was pulled away by Manhattan when he almost spilled the beans

We'll probably never know exactly what Jurgens and Tosami had planned pre-Bendis. It's really unfortunate because that was the last enjoyable time for me as a DC fan. But Jon's aging up, the reveal, and the progression to 5G were probably not on the table with Jurgens and Tosami.

[exile001]

With King it was letting him do Heroes in Crisis and totally ruin Wally West when Wally was supposed to be a big part of Doomsday Clock and Rebirth as a whole. Basically Didio pulled the rug out from under Johns by letting the new kids do whatever they wanted with no eye to the future.

Oh, it's even better than that. King asked who editorial wanted as the killer and they chose Wally. It wasn't even the writer picking the guy, it was passed down, most likely from Didio himself.

https://www.cbr.com/heroes-in-crisis...igin-tom-king/

On the OP, DC started poorly and I quit a few issues in when nothing was happening except soft-resetting to a load of crap I did not want to see (heroes are now reviled) and Johns back-dooring his pet characters. I've since read it collected and it's a boring nothing littered with a lot of the tropes I dislike about Johns' writing.

[phonogram12]

Oh, it's even better than that. King asked who editorial wanted as the killer and they chose Wally. It wasn't even the writer picking the guy, it was passed down, most likely from Didio himself.

https://www.cbr.com/heroes-in-crisis...igin-tom-king/

On the OP, DC started poorly and I quit a few issues in when nothing was happening except soft-resetting to a load of crap I did not want to see (heroes are now reviled) and Johns back-dooring his pet characters. I've since read it collected and it's a boring nothing littered with a lot of the tropes I dislike about Johns' writing.

Which characters would you say he backdoored (wow did that sound weird XD XD XD)?

And I had no idea about deciding who should be the killer. Wow. Is that eye opening.

[blunt_eastwood]

DC was also supposed to take place a year ahead of the rest of the DCU, with the rest of the books eventually catching up. So we would see how things in the DCU got to the state it was in at the start of DC. But that obviously never happened. I believe some of that would explain the introduction of the Superman Theory and probably why Batman is wearing a different costume in DC.

[Kaled]

I don't know how much Johns had to change his story but Bendis Legion, Snyder working the JSA into Justice League and working towards Death Metal 2 and Johns lateness with Shazam Doomsday Clock was torpedoed before it started. Johns said Didio wanted the book out sooner and rather than later that is why it had to shift to bimonthly for the artwork because it came out too soon. This is why I wondered at the time if Johns and Didio were at odds about the direction of DC. Alll Dc books were going to time jump when issue 12 came out so they could play off the events introduced in Doomsday Clock.

[Restingvoice]

Oh, it's even better than that. King asked who editorial wanted as the killer and they chose Wally. It wasn't even the writer picking the guy, it was passed down, most likely from Didio himself.

https://www.cbr.com/heroes-in-crisis...igin-tom-king/

On the OP, DC started poorly and I quit a few issues in when nothing was happening except soft-resetting to a load of crap I did not want to see (heroes are now reviled) and Johns back-dooring his pet characters. I've since read it collected and it's a boring nothing littered with a lot of the tropes I dislike about Johns' writing.

This one I know, and when I told my friends, their went "Ooooh. This explains A LOT"

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

Doomsday Clock... oy. Spoilers below.

spoilers:

On the Plus Side - Damn pretty - A solid effort to use the style of Watchmen, and break from it when appropriate. - Some of the bits with Manhattan and his actor friend were actually rather moving. - Watching the entire gathered might of the DCU get casually swatted by Manhattan was amusing. - Constantine's absolutely horrible Dick Van Dyke-in-Mary Poppins accent was also funny (although likely unintentional). - I enjoyed the interplay between Luthor and Ozymandias. - I liked the fact that, in the end, the DCU infected the Watchmen reality (via M&M's kid), and M&M were left to infect the DCU. - The re-envisioning of the larger space of the DCU as a metaverse that occasionally re-invents itself, storing its old versions away for safekeeping, appealed to me. - Casting Dr. Manhattan as the scapegoat for the New 52? Sure. Beats inventing a new Parallax. - The Joker was consistently fun throughout. - The best thing I can say: I one feels that one absolutely must drag the Watchmen-verse into contact with the DCU, you could do a lot worse. Not-So-Good Things - Martin Stein as recast as bad guy secretly responsible for scores of metahumans who already had perfectly good origin stories? Pass. - Rorschach II had an interesting origin, but then just kind of wandered around until the story was over. - The delays killed the forward momentum of the story, particularly as it got run over by the (spectacular) Watchmen TV show and DC's Metal crossovers. - The return of the JSA was a triumphant moment that was severely hindered by the fact that we haven't seen much of them since. - The return the the Legion was a triumphant moment that was severely hindered by the fact that it was the wtf Bendis Legion. - As cool as the big fight on Mars was, it made the collective DC heroes look like big ol' morons ("let's send everyone to Mars! Wheeee!") - I think Johns kind of wrote himself into a hole with Dr. M's inability to see anything past his confrontation with Superman. The resolution of that confrontation didn't really "work." - On a meta level, John's laying all the darkness of the DCU at the feet of Alan Moore is some omega-level buck-passing.

end of spoilers

In the end, I enjoyed the series, even though is was something of a muddled mess.

To be fair, spoilers:

this wasn't the first or last time Geoff Johns has tried to take on Alan Moore's writing or lay the blame for darkness in DC Comics at the feet of his work. See his treatment of Swamp Thing in Brightest Day or his handling of elements of Joker's possible origins from The Killing Joke in The Three Jokers.

end of spoilers

[PennyDreadful]

Oh, it's even better than that. King asked who editorial wanted as the killer and they chose Wally. It wasn't even the writer picking the guy, it was passed down, most likely from Didio himself.

https://www.cbr.com/heroes-in-crisis...igin-tom-king/

On the OP, DC started poorly and I quit a few issues in when nothing was happening except soft-resetting to a load of crap I did not want to see (heroes are now reviled) and Johns back-dooring his pet characters. I've since read it collected and it's a boring nothing littered with a lot of the tropes I dislike about Johns' writing.

We know he was assigned the characters but did they actually tell him which characters to use in which roles? Because the way he told it it was vague. I wonder if he himself chose to use them in his attempt to do a sequel to Identity Crisis.

As for Doomsday Clock, Johns had by then developed a pattern of running late with books, a sign he was basically burned out.

[Restingvoice]

We know he was assigned the characters but did they actually tell him which characters to use in which roles? Because the way he told it it was vague. I wonder if he himself chose to use them in his attempt to do a sequel to Identity Crisis.

As for Doomsday Clock, Johns had by then developed a pattern of running late with books, a sign he was basically burned out.

King made the plot, told DC that there will be a character that did it and two characters that will be the red herring. He asked for which characters he can use for those three roles. DC gave him Booster, Harley, and Wally. King chose Wally as the culprit.