Ehhhh, isn’t Geoff Johns normally the guy who *lightens* the tone? If anything, both Metals are more extensions/expansions of what Grant Morrison did than they are take thats.
We are talking about *the* Geoff Johns, right? The one who gave Barry Allen the backstory of a murdered mom? Who gave Sinestro the backstory of his wife being killed by a child suicide bomber? Who has limbs ripped off at any available opportunity? That Geoff Johns?
see, I feel the same way. A lot of his darkness is set in the past, or accidentally. It's there in a shit happens sort of way.
I mean Superman exists because an entire planet blew up, Batman because of his parents murder. People don't think that their premises are inherently dark.
The people I think who darken the tone are the ones who do things that setup the idea the world is shit and there's nothing anyone can do about it
Snyder's totally riffing on Morrison ideas, though he doesn't carry them off as well. But also, Geoff Johns might talk a big game about lightening the tone, but historically he hasn't followed through at all. That tension between what Johns preaches and what he actually writes most of the time is the most interesting thing about him.
Has Geoff Johns EVER actually lightened a tone of anything from before? Not everything he writes is darker than it was before him, but I can't recall any single property he worked on that became more lighthearted or less violent and serious/dark after he came along.
His influence on the DCEU seems to have been largely positive, though his insistence that the Flash movie adapt Flashpoint, which is what held that movie back for years. I think Grant Morrison mentioned it in a recent interview, though I don’t have the link offhand.
Rebirth, I think is him in classic preaching mode. Lots of “aw shucks, what happened to FUN?” That never really works as a mea culpa for the New 52’s flaws because he made the bizarre choice to bring in Watchmen and essentially blame Alan Moore. On top of that, I maintain that while the Rebirth era was good, the New 52 had finally found its footing with DCYou and didn’t actually need to be relaunched. In any case, as a one-shot Rebirth was a perfect platform for Johns to trot out his disingenuous nonsense about how it’s someone else’s fault that the comic universe which he’d steered for the past decade was dark. Just contrast Rebirth with the projects he did before and after: Darkseid War and Doomsday Clock, neither of which is all that representative of the “classic fun” Johns pretends he wants to get back to.
Yeah that’s fair, Darkseid War is hardly the nadir of his career. It’s over the top and has some fun designs and the tie-ins are quite good. That said, it’s still an overblown event comic with some bizarre lore (remember the introduction of Mobius, he of the Mobius chair, and Grail, daughter of Darkseid?) where a bunch of Justice League members get “corrupted”.
It’s not bad, fun even, but it’s not exactly reconstructed superheroics.
1. Only thing AFAIK he was writing was Shazam, which he made lighthearted and fun again, after HE made it darker and edgier.
2 The closest thing you could consider the "main" book of New 52 was his Justice League, so again, him gracefully saving us all from himself.
3. One of the first things was Jon in his introduction burning his cat alive. Other things Rebirth brought to us was a sequel to Multiversity killing off a gay character made to subvert killing off gay characters and turning Bizarro into a child abuser and, regardless of its quality, Metal, King's Batman, DCeased, Black Label, Heroes in Crisis ect. If he deserves credit for Rebirth, it can't just be the good shit (which he also didn't write).
Johns? Lightens the tone? Ummmm, i dont have a problem with it but he turned Superboy from goofy and light-hearted to actual brooding/depressed struggling about his Lex connection. He turned Bart Allen from super silly to serious.
I havent read all his work, but being the guy who lightens things up is something I would never apply to him.
I think that's giving Snyder too much credit, because whatever the intent, he's still doing it, y'know? If all of these things were introduced and roundly labelled ridiculous in the span of 20-pages it would be one thing, but we've had several years and multiple events about this dude and as a result he looms over most of Snyder's own latter day career. Even if he was originally intended as a pretty good dunk on Johns, by this point he's just as emblematic of Snyder's own worst impulses.
It's like Superboy-Prime going from a fanboy strawman to Geoff Johns' signature character/unintentional(?) avatar.
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scans_daily2020-09-03 09:00 am
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Is this about Goeff Johns building connected multiverses that intersect or what is the connection?
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We are talking about *the* Geoff Johns, right?
The one who gave Barry Allen the backstory of a murdered mom?
Who gave Sinestro the backstory of his wife being killed by a child suicide bomber?
Who has limbs ripped off at any available opportunity?
That Geoff Johns?
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I mean Superman exists because an entire planet blew up, Batman because of his parents murder. People don't think that their premises are inherently dark.
The people I think who darken the tone are the ones who do things that setup the idea the world is shit and there's nothing anyone can do about it
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Rebirth, I think is him in classic preaching mode. Lots of “aw shucks, what happened to FUN?” That never really works as a mea culpa for the New 52’s flaws because he made the bizarre choice to bring in Watchmen and essentially blame Alan Moore. On top of that, I maintain that while the Rebirth era was good, the New 52 had finally found its footing with DCYou and didn’t actually need to be relaunched. In any case, as a one-shot Rebirth was a perfect platform for Johns to trot out his disingenuous nonsense about how it’s someone else’s fault that the comic universe which he’d steered for the past decade was dark. Just contrast Rebirth with the projects he did before and after: Darkseid War and Doomsday Clock, neither of which is all that representative of the “classic fun” Johns pretends he wants to get back to.
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It’s not bad, fun even, but it’s not exactly reconstructed superheroics.
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2 The closest thing you could consider the "main" book of New 52 was his Justice League, so again, him gracefully saving us all from himself.
3. One of the first things was Jon in his introduction burning his cat alive. Other things Rebirth brought to us was a sequel to Multiversity killing off a gay character made to subvert killing off gay characters and turning Bizarro into a child abuser and, regardless of its quality, Metal, King's Batman, DCeased, Black Label, Heroes in Crisis ect. If he deserves credit for Rebirth, it can't just be the good shit (which he also didn't write).
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I havent read all his work, but being the guy who lightens things up is something I would never apply to him.
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It's like Superboy-Prime going from a fanboy strawman to Geoff Johns' signature character/unintentional(?) avatar.