What's your opinion of Geoff Johns?

[xMatt]

RKitch, I agree about what youv'e said re: Stargirl. While she isn't my favourite, Johns has, in general, taking a lot of semi-popular characters and brought them to the forefront, like Mera and Black Adam, for example. Another among them is Sinestro.

I'm thankful that Johns brought a whole new dimension to the Sinestro/Jordan dynamic. I think it'll be tough for him to ever top his GL run, but there are clearly a lot more stories left in him and I've thoroughly enjoyed most of what I've read from him.

[Tony Stark]

That read extremely silly. Downright ridiculous. Supergirl was written as a horny bimbo just to make Jordan look like a stud. I've read A LOT of Superman in my time and I don't recall any female hero so desperately throwing herself at him. Well, maybe except Maxima, but she liked Superman because she thought him a worthy mate. Supergirl acted as if Hal was the sexiest thing she ever laid eyes on. Give me a break.

And that thought balloon where Hal says, "No bad thoughts. She's seventeen." It should have went, "No bad thoughts. She's seventeen... and Clark would beat the snot out of me."

I love Waid's work, but that right there was just kind of unfortunate. I want to assume that he got a memo that influenced that scene.

He didn't mess with her because of how young she was. That's why. Also I don't see were she was written as a horny bimbo. To me she was written as a young girl with a little crush. Plus he didn't want to disrespect Superman, but he's not afraid of Superman.
images.jpg

[BlueFlight]

He didn't mess with her because of how young she was. That's why. Also I don't see were she was written as a horny bimbo. To me she was written as a young girl with a little crush. Plus he didn't want to disrespect Superman, but he's not afraid of Superman.
images.jpg

She came on pretty strong and anxious for a young girl with a little crush.

[Flash Gordon]

Hal Jordan is so not the type of guy Kara would throw herself at.

[LoneNecromancer]

As a writer his work on Flash and Green Lantern is up there with the greats of all time.

As an editor in charge of a universe at large he is very hit and miss. New 52 overall is great idea but certain aspects of it could have been done much better.

He's not an editor?

Get a load of this Mary Sue-ish power fantasy wish fulfillment. I don't know who wrote this, but I get an impression someone is living vicariously through Hal Jordan and wishing they can get it on with DC women (and girls), who all just magically want him. This is weird and unnatural, and very... fan-ish.

That's Mark Waid you just insulted.

I got to say, and this is speaking honestly, Hal Jordan feels rather lukewarm since his "rebirth," and that is despite Geoff Johns' exhausting campaign to put Jordan on top. I know Jordan was brought back to full glory and what not courtesy of Johns, but his return felt and still feels inorganic. And what exacerbated that feeling early on was DC going full tilt and quickly overexposing Jordan. Suddenly, he was everywhere. Batman was skeptical of Jordan's return and downright defied it, but by the end of Rebirth he grudgingly accepted it, and shortly later, thanks to a shared adventure between the two, he fully accepted it, and none of it felt natural. It honestly felt like it was Geoff Johns doing everything thing he could to put a favorite of his from childhood back in focus and back on top. I can appreciate that kind of fan devotion, but thrusting a character back into action in such a forced and rushed manner is not doing the character much service. I know many will say I'm wrong and point to GL sales, but all I can say is, with the full weight of the DC machine behind Jordan since Johns pushed for his return, it's no surprise that GL sales/exposure is strong. But that still doesn't change the fact that Hal Jordan's presence feels very odd and unnatural, to me at least.

Forced and rushed? Seriously? Look how long Johns' run was going on for. It's not as though Rebirth happened and then everyone was totally down with Hal again, there was a huge subplot about how his return was looked at by the other Green Lanterns.

Also, I don't think you get what the term Mary Sue means...

"Mary Sue" nowadays at least, seems to refer to, "character I don't like and this sounds better than saying that outright".

[Mr. Mastermind]

Well, yeah, they basically turned the whole DCU upside down for the sake of Hal Jordan and made it revolve around him oftentimes in an attempt to force him to be popular through importance and over saturation.

Can you actually give any evidence for this? He changed the Green Lantern and Spectre sides of the DCu for Hal Jordan and that was it (and the Spectre side of the DCu is so tiny he practically only changed the Green Lantern side). Other than the occaisional team up, other sides of the DCu weren't affected.

He also took Hal Jordan out of the Justice League after a year. How is this changing everything for Hal Jordan?

Get a load of this Mary Sue-ish power fantasy wish fulfillment.

Calling a character a Mary Sue should be the Godwin's Law of comic book discussions.

I don't know who wrote this, but I get an impression someone is living vicariously through Hal Jordan and wishing they can get it on with DC women (and girls), who all just magically want him. This is weird and unnatural, and very... fan-ish.

Firstly, if you don't know who wrote this, you shouldn't bring it up in a Geoff Johns discussion.

Secondly, how it that unnatural? It's a teenage girl having a crush on a celebrity (Hal's a celebrity in the DCu, he founded the Justice League, led it, and saved the universe multiple times). That happens in the real world all the time.

Thirdly, if Geoff Johns wanted all the DC women to be in love with Hal, Wonder Woman would be with him then, instead of Superman.

That read extremely silly. Downright ridiculous. Supergirl was written as a horny bimbo just to make Jordan look like a stud.

Having a crush=/=being a horny bimbo

I've read A LOT of Superman in my time and I don't recall any female hero so desperately throwing herself at him. Well, maybe except Maxima, but she liked Superman because she thought him a worthy mate.

Maxima is a character who exists just to sleep with Superman, that's her main motivation in life. That level of wish fufillment could not be more blatant, much more so than what Supergirl is doing here.

And that thought balloon where Hal says, "No bad thoughts. She's seventeen." It should have went, "No bad thoughts. She's seventeen... and Clark would beat the snot out of me."

Hal isn't scared of Superman.

[Auguste Dupin]

Hal isn't scared of Superman.

Just because he's not doesn't mean he'd be willing to anger the guy by.....educating his underage cousin.

[Mr. Mastermind]

Just because he's not doesn't mean he'd be willing to anger the guy by.....educating his underage cousin.

It's a non-issue as Hal knew that he wasn't going to go near there from the first place.

IIRC the whole thing was meant to make Hal as awkward and uncomfortable as possible, it was hardly a sex fantasy from Waid's imagination.

[greenish lantern]

He has written some mediocre stuff for the past year, but...
He's GL run is the best GL run of all time,
He made Aquaman popular (sort of) and cool,
His JSA run was great,
He has written some great Superman stories (Superman/Brainiac, Up, up and away, Secret Origins etc),
He had a good run on Teen Titans and Flash.
His new stuff (except for Aquaman and thrones of Atlantis and Shazam) has been fairly mediocre, but hey, he has been working like mad for quite some time so maybe he's just tired.

[Robotman]

Even if you hate on Geoff Johns you have to admit the guy knows how to write villains. Look what he's done with Sinestro, Black Adam, Lex, Black Manta, etc.

[The Man From Room X]

The Geoff Johns co-produced 2011 Green Lantern film wrecked the character to the general audience making him totally toxic. A failure of that level is fatal for a basically unknown, unproven character like Hal Jordan. From my point of view, whatever successes Johns had with Green Lantern in comics are very small scale compared to a 200 million dollar film with a disastrously poor critical and financial performance that also wound up sinking an expensive cartoon show. Whereas at one time the general audience didn't know about Hal Jordan (why is he white?) now they don't seem to like him.

Yeahhhhh... no.

*Points to the huge GLTAS fanbase that is screaming for a revival of that series*

[Desh]

Firstly, if you don't know who wrote this, you shouldn't bring it up in a Geoff Johns discussion.

Because that's an example of the type of garbage that we saw during the period of Hal Jordan's return. A bunch of writing creating forced, unnatural situations that often come at the detriment of other characters to make Hal Jordan look AWESOME (or for Johns just to get revenge on characters he doesn't like), all of which was spearheaded by Geoff Johns! It all smacks of shameless fanfic.

[Desh]

Yeahhhhh... no.

*Points to the huge GLTAS fanbase that is screaming for a revival of that series*

Yeeeeahhhhh... yes.

Almost everything has its fans. Obviously they're not great or influential enough to get the show back on the air.

*points to a bunch of unsold Green Lantern merchandise and lost money*

[Mr. Mastermind]

Because that's an example of the type of garbage that we saw during the period of Hal Jordan's return. A bunch of writing creating forced, unnatural situations that often come at the detriment of other characters to make Hal Jordan look AWESOME (or for Johns just to get revenge on characters he doesn't like), all of which was spearheaded by Geoff Johns! It all smacks of shameless fanfic.

You should probably try to point to example of this that Johns actually wrote, instead of something written by a complately different writer.

And how does that example come at the detriment to Supergirl?

[Ilan Preskovsky]

I often view Mark Waid and Geoff Johns as two sides of the same coin: they cover much of the same territory, and even have somewhat similar approaches. The key difference is that Waid uses less (much less) gratuitous violence in his writing, so he's a little more "old school" than Johns in that sense.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I thought much the same when I first started to read Johns' work but the more time goes on, the less I see this as being true. The major similarities the two share are that they both work primarily, if not exclusively in the superhero genre and they both have an impressive knowledge of DC history. It's also interesting that while Johns' is great at writing villains and often quite poor at writing heroes, it's often precisely the opposite with Waid.

In fact, at this point everything that sucks about Johns' work is the precise opposite of what works about Waid's.

For a start, while Waid is producing some of the absolute best work of his career at this point, Johns' best work is clearly behind him. I should say that I am not reading any of Johns' New 52 stuff but I have hated everything he has done for about four or five years prior to it (save for a surprisingly decent Superman run) and nothing I've heard or read about his current work suggests that it is in any way an improvement. But yes, I could be wrong here. Still, while Waid's work on Daredevil right now is every bit as near-universally acclaimed as anything he has ever written - and rightly so - the general consensus on Geoff Johns (even by those who like him) is that his best work is still JSA and his early work on The Flash and Green Lantern.

As to the specifics of why Waid is so much better a superhero writer than Johns, I think it comes down to three things. It's also worth mentioning at this point that I do actually think that Johns is the better plotter of the two but that's a double edged sword as he gets so drawn into his elaborate plots that he loses sight of the forest for the trees. Anyway, the three areas that Waid isn't simply better than Johns, but actually shows exactly why I have a problem with Johns' later work is characterization, dialogue and tone.

Characterization: Though, it's true that Johns has done some stellar work with particular villains in the past - see Captain Cold, Black Adam, Sinestro - they don't outweigh just how bad he is at writing just about any hero outside of Superman (and, again, he basically just writes Donner's Superman) and the JSA. His Wally West was Barry-lite, his Hal is pretty bland and his Barry Allen was an utterly unlikable and thoroughly bland jerk. He destroyed the character of Bart Allen and did very nearly the same thing to Superboy and Wondergirl. Most notably, his characterization these days basically comes down to honing onto a single characteristic and milking it for all its worth. Waid, by contrast, may not have written the most memorable and inventive of villains but a) he's getting better at it (see Empire for proof) and b) his general characterization of most of the characters he writes is fully fleshed out and clearly well thought out.

Dialogue: Waid at his worst embraces the hyperbolic Silver Age melodrama inherent in the dialogue of the likes of Jack Kirby or Stan Lee but without the same pinache for it. However, not only is he relying on such devices less and less, he has a great ear for natural dialogue and he is excellent at giving his characters plenty of character and humour because of it. Johns, on the other hand, simply isn't a good dialogue writer. He relies less on old school superhero over-writing but his scripts all but entirely lack in any sense of humour whatsoever,, his dialogue is mostly pretty clunky. He also occasionally tries to ape the high concept, POP-tastic speech of Grant Morrison and he really fails miserably at that.

Tone: This is the big one. While Waid captures the sheer hope, optimism and heroism of superheroes better than any modern writer this side of Grant Morrison and, again, he often displays great humour while doing so, Geoff Johns has adapted this dire, overly serious, often grim take on superheroes that is entirely at odds with what makes them work in the first place. This is a problem that has grown tremendously from his early days on Stars and Stripes and JSA and reached its nadir on the truly terrible Blackest Night event and Flash: Rebirth. This does often display itself as gratuitous violence but I think the problem is much deeper than this. The horrible tone of his recent comics have turned me off more than anything else.

With all this said, I do think that he does have some talent as a writer but because of how much he has been rewarded for his later excesses and how his writing style has basically become the house style at DC, he has not only failed to iron out the kinks in his writing but has specifically gone on to exacerbate his absolute worst tendencies. I don't think he runs DC like others have suggested but his writing has somehow become the template, which all the other writers at DC seem to be forced to follow to some degree or another.

And yes, I do think he seems like a nice guy based on interviews I've seen of him but, hey, this is even more true of Dan Didio as well - so his niceness as a person just doesn't seem to have much bearing on evaluating his often less than nice work.