Jonathan Hickman should write Superman!!!

[Vanguard-01]

Sooooo, the guy who is writing the Illuminati as a bunch of planet-destroying, hero-slaughtering monsters should be allowed to write the greatest hero of all time?

Yeeeeeeah. No thanks.

[Blacksun]

hickman made captain america stand up against the ilumminati and hyperion is a great hero with a big heart. these two are the closest of what superman should be

[Vanguard-01]

hickman made captain america stand up against the ilumminati and hyperion is a great hero with a big heart. these two are the closest of what superman should be

Superman is already a great hero with a big heart. He already fights against planet-murdering psychopaths.

Hyperion is one of Marvel's many Superman ripoffs. Without Superman, there never would've been a Hyperion.

I'm not interested in seeing a guy who has destroyed many great heroes for the sake of his story get a shot at doing the same kind of damage in the DCU.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Sooooo, the guy who is writing the Illuminati as a bunch of planet-destroying, hero-slaughtering monsters should be allowed to write the greatest hero of all time?

Yeeeeeeah. No thanks.

Have you read the comic? This isn't a smart-ass "you don't get to interject because you don't know what the hell you're talking about" thing, I'm really curious; that's a pretty significant oversimplification of what's going on in that book, and if you're only getting that information second-hand you don't necessarily have the full story here (though I'm pretty uncertain myself how the characters can be pulled back from this).

[Blacksun]

Superman is already a great hero with a big heart. He already fights against planet-murdering psychopaths.

Hyperion is one of Marvel's many Superman ripoffs. Without Superman, there never would've been a Hyperion.

I'm not interested in seeing a guy who has destroyed many great heroes for the sake of his story get a shot at doing the same kind of damage in the DCU.

I wrote wrong, they are the closest of Superman on Marvel universe.

he didn't destroyed any great hero...

[Ascended]

Sooooo, the guy who is writing the Illuminati as a bunch of planet-destroying, hero-slaughtering monsters should be allowed to write the greatest hero of all time?

Yeeeeeeah. No thanks.

I fail to see what one has to do with the other, beyond judging his technical abilities as a writer and his creativity output; both of which are off the charts.

He also wrote the First Family of comics, and his FF run is considered to be one of the best the franchise has had since Stan Lee (or so I hear, I didnt read it myself).

Just because he's writing the Illuminati doesnt mean thats "all" he can write. He wrote the FF so should he only stick to writing high concept family sci-fi books? He's writing East of West, so should he only be allowed to write cowboys in a broken future?

Just look at all the pages that have been posted just from the Great Society issues; that's the best Justice League comic I've seen in years and years.

Imagine what he could do with the real things?

[Superlad93]

Sooooo, the guy who is writing the Illuminati as a bunch of planet-destroying, hero-slaughtering monsters should be allowed to write the greatest hero of all time?

Yeeeeeeah. No thanks.

Alan Moore wrote Killing Joke (crippling Batgirl and implying that Batman kills Joker at the end), V For Vendetta, Watchmen, and Marvelman. These books all had some of the darkest moments in comics from implied rape to some of the most grizzly killings I've ever seen, and then ending on some of the darkest and most depressing ideas in comics.

Then he wrote books like Supreme, Tom Strong, and ABC comics. Some of the most pure and fun comics I've ever read. Going from one spectrum to the other is a thing call creative range.

A smart writer knows what he's working with and how to/when to bend it. A writer in general can have a theme or idea they'd like to get out over a large body of work, but that single idea or theme is not something that you can pin on the writer forever.

Hickman has shown and explained that he will switch the themes of his work around based on the character he is writing (even within the darker stories as shown by Sun God and Cap contrasting his Illuminati in his Avengers run). DOT's great post about Hickman's Fantastic Four and FF explains this well.

So yes you can very easily write about the worlds dying and the possibility of hopelessness and then write one of the best Superman runs ever. Morrison wrote Happy (the comic staring off with a prostitute giving a man oral sex) and he write All Star Superman.

So I don't see your point.

[Vanguard-01]

Have you read the comic? This isn't a smart-ass "you don't get to interject because you don't know what the hell you're talking about" thing, I'm really curious; that's a pretty significant oversimplification of what's going on in that book, and if you're only getting that information second-hand you don't necessarily have the full story here (though I'm pretty uncertain myself how the characters can be pulled back from this).

Yep.

I read until Dr. Strange slaughtered a whole team of superheroes whose only crime was trying to defend their world.

Unless the story ends with a full retcon, it's one of the worst stories I've ever read.

Just look at all the pages that have been posted just from the Great Society issues; that's the best Justice League comic I've seen in years and years.

Imagine what he could do with the real things?

We've seen what he's doing when he has control of some of the greatest heroes in the Marvel Universe.

"Imagine what he could do with the real things?" I am imagining it......................And now I need a shower.

[upgrayedd]

Hickman writing Superman would actually make me want to buy a Superman title again

[JackDaw]

Hickman writing Superman would actually make me want to buy a Superman title again

I can sort of understand that. But.. he wouldn't be in control... no single writer is on Superman anymore (other than in in Elseworld limited series)... it wouldn't work particularly well. I've completely given up on mainstream Superman stories, its all creation by committee nowadays, brand management is main factor.

[numberthirty]

I'm not interested in seeing a guy who has destroyed many great heroes for the sake of his story get a shot at doing the same kind of damage in the DCU.

Please list(in detail) who these heroes were and exactly how he destroyed them.

[JackDaw]

Please list(in detail) who these heroes were and exactly how he destroyed them.

Let's give it a go..under the slight handicap of not having read the comics. Here's the guess:-

Hero 1: Generic flying brick in spandex costume, 10 committed fans, never had a solo series, or a run in a major team.

Hero 2: Generic non flying brick, good looking woman, nobody can quite remember who she is, or what she's done.

Another half dozen of the same.... plus maybe somebody who appeared in 20 or issues of Excalibur. Marvel naturally... after three letters of stern protest resurrects this one. (Phew.. what a relief... was losing sleep over that one.)

Put it this way... I doubt if any character that actually sells comics will go missing for more than a few issues.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Let's give it a go..under the slight handicap of not having read the comics. Here's the guess:-

Hero 1: Generic flying brick in spandex costume, 10 committed fans, never had a solo series, or a run in a major team.

Hero 2: Generic non flying brick, good looking woman, nobody can quite remember who she is, or what she's done.

Another half dozen of the same.... plus maybe somebody who appeared in 20 or issues of Excalibur. Marvel naturally... after three letters of stern protest resurrects this one. (Phew.. what a relief... was losing sleep over that one.)

Put it this way... I doubt if any character that actually sells comics will go missing for more than a few issues.

No, it's major characters, and he means "destroy" in the sense of "ruin". To explain, if you particularly care what the hubbub's about...

spoilers:

Black Panther learns that universes are crashing into each other, and the Earth is the nexus point: the two Earths of two different realities phase into being able to affect each other at 'incursion sites', and if those two Earths make contact, the two entire universes die; if either Earth is destroyed, both universes live. He reassembled the Illuminati (Iron Man, Beast replacing a dead Xavier, Namor, Black Bolt, Dr. Strange, Mr. Fantastic and a quickly mindwiped and removed Captain America) to help deal with the Incursions, and while they either luck into finding temporary other ways or situations with the likes of uninhabited planets where they don't have to kill anyone doing it or scenarios where there's nothing they can do (like Galactus eating the planet they're about to collide with, with no time to stop him), they all know that they might have to kill a planet if they don't figure something out, building weapons to do so. Meanwhile, they've found and imprisoned a woman, Black Swan, who's been hopping from Earth to Earth during Incursions and destroying them in her wake. She knows what's going on, but won't reveal anything as she worships whatever's the cause of it all, only doling out bits and pieces of information in the attempt to manipulate the heroes, with the reader knowing she's successfully tricked other versions of the group on other Earths into spelling their own doom.

end of spoilers

SUPER DUPER MEGA SPOILERS FROM HERE, and here's where we get to the alleged 'ruining'.

spoilers:

Eventually, they meet with The Great Society (the Justice League), made up of Sun God (Superman), The Rider (Batman), the Norn (Dr. Fate), Boundless (Flash), Jovian (Martian Manhunter) and Dr. Spectrum (Green Lantern), who haven't lost hope in the face of the threat, and have found ways every time so far to stop the Incursions without taking any lives. They believe they can continue to do so until solving the problem for good (and given their implicit roles, we as the readers have little reason to doubt them), but the Illuminati is skeptic. With time running out as tempers flare when the Society learns what the group may be prepared to do, Namor, deciding there's only one way this will end, attacks and triggers a conflict; The Great Society wins, but Dr. Strange, who's taken demonic forces unto himself to try and gain the power to stop this, loses control and slaughters all but Sun God, who weakened, decides to die with his planet and people rather than follow the group back to their world. Each of them realizes in turn, now that the time has come, that they don't have it in them to destroy a world of seven billion people, resolving to die with their universe if they can't figure out another way rather than become part of the cycle of blood, but Namor basically tells them to go **** themselves and blows up the Societies' world himself, because Namor. Now, Namor's assembled his own group (Thanos, Black Swan, Maximus the Mad and a couple other characters introduced in the run) to kill whatever worlds they're confronted with, while the rest of the Illuminati is on the run and trying to find a way to fix everything, pursued by Captain America who's learned what they did to him and assumes they've been killing worlds right along. Obviously it's a dark book, and one that wouldn't fit with Superman (even as we see how he'd deal with it, and it shows that he WOULD find a way alongside his comrades, it's just that things go to hell when that collides with the Marvel approach of problem-solving), but none of those characters are as symbolically or personally bound up in moral forthrightness and relative infallibility as he is (it's a pretty significant part of the metaphor of the book that the team--the "New" Avengers, in contrast to the regular book with, by the standards of mainstream comics, a larger-than-average number of nonwhite and female characters--is made up of a bunch of rich, mostly white, male kings and supergeniuses who think they alone can know of, much less make, the weighty decisions impacting all creation, which good intentions aside isn't really out of character for anyone involved, and those who would chafe at such a thing do). Additionally, the only one who actually does go through with it, Namor, was already a complete monster regardless of what fans think of his abs and pout and occasional speechifying about 'honor' as he tries to kill everyone above sea level unless the urge to try and get with someone's wife/girlfriend takes priority for the day. The main Avengers book, by contrast, is all about great deeds by great men and women and unvarnished heroism and inspiration and the young new members that still believe that everyone can come together and save the day, so it's hardly all doom-and-gloom. He writes for the book he's working with, and he obviously wouldn't do the sorts of things with Superman that he would with New Avengers, nor, based on what the Great Society indicated, any of the other major DC characters. And with the exception of a couple frankly B-list characters like Dr. Strange, no one here has gone so far that they couldn't conceivably be pulled back, even if they've got a lot on their conscience. No one's become a mass murderer except the guy who was already an attempted one.

end of spoilers

[JackDaw]

No, it's major characters, and he means "destroy" in the sense of "ruin". To explain, if you particularly care what the hubbub's about...

DOT: Thanks for the brief. (I did wonder after my posting if Vanguard was actually complaining about major heroes acting out of character rather than offing major characters.)

What can one say? Its another example of heroes going up against other heroes in circumstances where you'd be mildly surprised if 5 year olds fought. I'd guess its not an example of great writing but this (and the performance of morally "grey" acts in general)... has been done so often with Marvel's main "heroes" by so many other writers that its hard to specifically blame JH for "ruining" them.

[Vanguard-01]

Please list(in detail) who these heroes were and exactly how he destroyed them.

Dispenser just did it for me.