Flashpoint Beyond #5 Preview

[krazijoe]

Unless you’re arguing Gail Simone is the type to pal around with Comicsgate people, I can’t agree. EVS clearly went off the deep end at some point, but he was not always how he is now.

He probably was the same, but hid it because he knew, but now it's like the wild west and the Internet and the political landscape has made being a(n) *phobe/ist en vogue and has allowed all the little cockroaches to come out into the light.

[krazijoe]

It's not disingenuous at all. I don't honestly care what kind of person Johns is in his personal life, but his ego and right wing ideology has retconned characters that meant a lot to me into unrecognizable caricatures. There are writers and musicians who's work I love and the actual person is not politically aligned with me or just an a-hole in general.

As for EVS, it was very clear to me what kind of guy he was for a while. Johns only distanced himself when EVS got in trouble publicly. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, but there's definitely a pattern. Again, I don't care since I don't have to socialize with the guy. But this **** permeates his work and his puddle deep characterizations and cornball dialogue don't exactly make up for it.

I'm not trying to cancel anybody. But this is a big thing in his work and he has shown that he only really respects or cares about his own ideas and it's bizarre how angry people get over someone pointing it out. Everything I've said is backed up in the text and there's a million more examples. You seem more concerned about his moral character than I am. I just think he's a **** writer.

I don't know John's personal life or beliefs, but I don't see his writings as his beliefs. He seems to be well rounded in his writings and writes that the people/heroes/villains are just like people in the real world. There are racist heroes, there are abusive heroes, there are *phobe heroes in everyday life. Just like there are non *phobe villains in everyday life. Just because one patterns a particular writing one way or the other does not necessarily mean they are what they write. By that is Stephen King evil? No, but he sure can spin an evil character.

[Dougbauer]

Oh God...who cares?? I just want to read good stories..And to me FB is very good.

[Triniking1234]

Oh God...who cares?? O just want tô read good stories..And to me FB is very good.

Could swear Johns committed war crimes or something.

[thwhtGuardian]

This book is better than Dark Crisis in every way, and it's obvious why: it actually has an actual plot.

[Dataweaver]

And we may be witnessing a first, with Johns actually sticking the landing. But then, FB#6 isn't going to be the end; so maybe not.

[Clark_Kent]

I won't lie, I came onboard initially because of the Watchmen/Doomsday Clock connections. What I have discovered is a fun story that I enjoy much more than Dark Crisis, and I'm excited to see how it wraps up (although Martha building a time sphere is pretty dumb lol).

I've only read each issue once, on release days, so maybe I missed it...but what's the significance of Jenny Slaters watch & the snowglobe? I'm assuming the watch has tachyons attached, due to her relationship with Manhattan, but I appear a bit lost on the rest. Any help? lol

Also, someone said in here that #6 isn't the end...did they expand the issue count, or is this spinning off into another title?

[Dataweaver]

It is spinning off into the New Golden Age one-shot, the new Justice Society series, the new Stargirl series, and a few others. Including one featuring Mime and Marionette.

[Jackalope89]

Johns isn't perfect (no one is), but I have enjoyed a number of things he's done. Comics-when Rebirth first began, I followed most things. But when he left, there was a notable shift in the overall dynamic.

[Dataweaver]

Yeah. My understanding is that Johns is trying again what he tried with DCU Rebirth; only this time, there isn't a Dan Didio around to screw it up.

[Refrax5]

I don't know John's personal life or beliefs, but I don't see his writings as his beliefs. He seems to be well rounded in his writings and writes that the people/heroes/villains are just like people in the real world. There are racist heroes, there are abusive heroes, there are *phobe heroes in everyday life. Just like there are non *phobe villains in everyday life. Just because one patterns a particular writing one way or the other does not necessarily mean they are what they write. By that is Stephen King evil? No, but he sure can spin an evil character.

It's more that he writes these things in a way that glorifies them. You're supposed to think these guys are cool and admirable. And it's something he imposes on the characters that wasn't there before. I don't care what his personal beliefs are either. I was bringing it up in response to people thinking it was something I was making up. I just hate how he drastically alters characters to fit his own personal wants. And I very much disagree that he writes well-rounded characters. Most of his heroes have one or two main traits that they remind you of repeatedly in their dialogue. He writes good villains, I'll grant him that.

[Refrax5]

Could swear Johns committed war crimes or something.

No, just defended them.

[Refrax5]

Unless you’re arguing Gail Simone is the type to pal around with Comicsgate people, I can’t agree. EVS clearly went off the deep end at some point, but he was not always how he is now. He never would’ve gotten a job at DC if he was constantly taking shots at fellow creators back then like he does today. This is the exact kind of Twitter trend I roll my eyes at, “oh I never liked this popular creator, I always knew they were bad.” People did that with Rowling and with Whedon and I can’t take it seriously because it’s so clearly not true. Twitter loved Whedon and Rowling, Harry Potter and Buffy/The Avengers dominated nerd culture, now everyone pretends they never liked either of those two’s work.


I don’t disagree that Johns only cares about his own stuff at this point, that was exactly what I said earlier in the thread.

That’s not true. You’re opposed to Johns from an ideological/moral standpoint. Your criticism of his writing is “he’s an evil right winger who turns everyone he writes into an evil right winger too. You aren’t criticizing how he structures his plots or how he writes dialogue, you’re reading moral messages in his work, claiming these reveal Johns’ personal beliefs, and then making statements about what Johns must be like.

Here’s two examples of criticism of Johns that has nothing to do with morals:

1. He never takes any responsibility for his part in making the DCU “darker”, even though he’s one of the main culprits in making things darker. He’s the guy who made Superboy-Prime and Alexander Luthor into villains for Infinite Crisis. He’s the one who gave Barry Allen his dead mom origin. He’s the one who tossed out classic Captain Marvel for his Shazam reboot and has prevented anyone from reverting the Fawcett characters back to how they were. He claimed New 52 Superman was “distant and alien”, taking shots explicitly at Morrison’s Action run as he did so, yet hypocritically made sure his New 52 JL and Superman runs were carried over into Rebirth. So New 52 was bad and wrong except when it’s his stories. Johns never points the finger at himself for DC’s “darkness” problem, it’s always someone else, Moore or Morrison or Didio or whoever.

2. He’s obsessed with “leaving his mark” on every major DC franchise. Despite frequently making big changes on properties he works on, he never allows others the same freedom to toss his changes if they don’t work out. For example Johns is trying to force his Three Jokers story on everyone despite everybody else clearly not digging it giving a canon name, origin, and family for the Joker. Giving WW a brother is the only major change he did that seems to have been tossed out, but I’d wager he’ll bring Jason back were he to ever tackle WW again because he simply can’t accept that some of his ideas are ****.

Those are two criticisms I have of Johns that make no assumptions about his political or social beliefs. I think John’s wrote some great books back in the day, and I think Flashpoint Beyond is better than Dark Crisis, but he’s had a lot of misses and I detest the changes he makes to some of my favorite characters like Supes and Wondy. But I don’t buy the idea that he’s secretly a hardline right winger, Johns is ironically one of the guys who pushed diversity a lot at DC. He made the first female GL, the first Muslim GL, he wrote Jaime Reyes debut as Blue Beetle in Infinite Crisis, he created Michael Holt, a black atheist who takes over the Mr. Terrific mantle, he turned Mera into the co-star of the Aquaman franchise, he created the Shazamily which added diversity to the previously all white Marvel family, he’s likely one of the biggest contributors to diversity at DC. Very ironic given the circumstances of how he fell from grace.

Nope. I said that I disliked how he throws out prior characterizations to mold the character into something more representative of his own views to the point where the characters are unlikable. And it's not even that they're unlikable because they're conservative. A lot of writers have written Carter Hall as a right winger, but he was a well-rounded and likable character, not a stereotype embodying everything problematic about those beliefs. Chuck Dixon's beliefs certainly informed his runs on the various Bat characters and you can tell when you go back to those stories, but the writing is still thoughtful and everyone is in character. He wasn't rewriting these guys to reflect himself. My father was a police officer. I have friends who are hardcore gun-owners. Hawkman is one of my favorite DC characters. Trust me, this isn't some blind hatred of conservatives on my part. People are layered and nuanced, unless they're written by Johns. It effects his writing and I only went into it as deeply as I did because you argued that those things weren't there at all.

As for EVS and Gail Simone, I don't know enough about Gail Simone and his relationship to say much. This isn't some "Twitter trend" and you're again projecting a bunch of bullshit that isn't there. I was friends with EVS on Facebook. I used to be a fan of both him AND Johns. I've spoken with both of them and talked back and forth on social media. EVS definitely showed who he was on there by making fun of Robin Williams suicide the day it happened, insulting fans, ranting about liberals and so on. I got into a heated argument with him on his page over him mocking suicide and his politics and unfriended him. Johns was still pretty chummy with him for some time after that and only distanced himself when it became a public issue. So, no, I never claimed I "always hated him," just that he made very clear what kind of person he was some time before Johns disowned him. Again, this wasn't even my main point, and his friendship with him was only brought up because you made a big thing about me mentioning it as an aside.

I actually have repeatedly criticized his shallow, heavy handed characterizations and terrible dialogue. I've criticized him turning Hal Jordan into a casual killer, which is wildly out of character. A lot of his diverse characters are stereotypes too and the Shazam family are basically a collection of characters with one trait (the Asian video game kid, for example), in a saccharine, cloying package.

You're the one zeroing in on the political aspect when i was bringing it up in relation to his writing. You're also accusing me of nonsense and straight up misrepresenting what I said. It's tiresome.

[married guy]

I had decided to skip this when I heard about it and STILL didn't buy in after the first couple of issues.
But damn it all, I caved & ordered the trade as I'm hearing so many good things.

[Frontier]

The stuff I said about Barry are literally things he said or things that were said about him in Johns' runs, not my interpretation.

I was thinking more when he wrote Barry as The Flash, like in Blackest Night, JL, or his solo.

And turning Hal from a guy that once said "Real heroes don't kill...I never even thought about it" to a guy that bombs terrorists and blows the heads off bad guys with a quip is a pretty prime example of how Hal Jordan went from being my favorite character to a very alienating, gross character to me. But Johns loves his "rah rah America" WASPy heroes.

I mean, even Hal was resistant to the ideas of GL's being allowed to kill in the Sinestro Corps. War and they brought in Sinestro properly. It's why him blowing that Sinestro Corps. members' head off was seen as OOC even for Johns' Hal.

I just don't see how Johns' Hal doesn't track with the "main" version of Hal, because it least to me it really defined a lot of his modern characterization that you see elsewhere like in GL:TAS or even Morrison in my opinion. I don't think it's that far off from Waid's Hal either.