I was thinking about Green Lantern: Rebirth recently, the mini-series Geoff Johns and Ethan van Sciver did bringing back Hal Jordan back in 2005. I don't know why, so don't ask. More specifically, I was thinking about my reception to it, which was mostly positive.
OK, fine, I ranked it my second favorite mini-series of 2005. Man that list has not aged well, other than GrimJack: Killer Instinct in the #1 spot. In retrospect, it should have just been a Top 1 and left at that. Good thing I've developed impeccable taste in the last 15 years! Hahahahaha. Not buyin it? Fine.
Admittedly, my standards going in were really low. I figured Johns was going to kill off Kyle Rayner in some extremely violent and humiliating way, to clear the deck for his beloved Hal Jordan. Instead, Kyle not only survived, but was the only Lantern who wasn't controlled by Parallax for at least a while. Of course, Johns corrected that misstep a few years later during one of those interminable Lantern war stories, when Kyle briefly served as host for Parallax. But at the time, he survived, so the story exceeded my expectations.
Still I said Johns' greatest strength was to reach into his butt and pull out the finest silks and polished gems and Jesus Christ, that's embarrassing to read. And Kelvin rightly pointed out that's not what he'd call what Johns produces. Even if you could count what I wrote as a backhanded compliment, which it sort of is, still embarrassing. This is why I try not gush about things. It's awkward for everyone when I do.
I mean, Johns definitely pulled stuff out of his butt, but on a certain level I have to respect the amount of. . . I don't know, Chutzpah? Cheek? Lack of self-awareness? It takes to look at Hal Jordan wiping out the entire Green Lantern Corps and trying to erase the universe and say, "A giant yellow bug made of fear made him do that."
That's dumb, but it feels like the right kind of dumb for comics*. A completely bizarre answer to a particular problem, that tries to point to other stuff from the character's history - the yellow weakness in the rings, the stuff about being without fear - as evidence to support it. That's something that at least a certain subset of comic fans - myself included - love to do. My "theory" tag is full of me proposing ideas of various levels of plausibility to explain this thing or that. Johns just manages to get paid to do it. The thing about the yellow fear bug explanation I had the most trouble with was the Parallax would somehow think going from possessing the Spectre to possessing one of those little blue Guardians was an upgrade, as opposed to the existence of a giant bug made entirely of fear.
Looking back at it through what I can remember, I think Johns managed to string together enough big or "cool" moments between all the backstory and frantic handwaving explanatory dialogue to keep it going. I don't even remember how they got Parallax out of Ganthet, other than something where they all restrained him in ways that were meant to demonstrate how each of them approaches using their rings. But I remember Green Arrow trying to use Hal's ring. Kyle putting a bunch of arrows in Sinestro's back. Johns undoing the whole "Warrior" phase of Guy's backstory in one fell swoop, and Guy wearing his ring on his middle finger.
It's the kind of thing Mark Millar tries to do, coast on momentum with memorable stuff to get past all the all important connective tissue that holds a story together, but Johns probably does it a little better. Low bar to clear there, I know, but I think Johns has enough interest in making things fit or connect to actually try and do some of the work on that end. Whereas Millar can't be bothered with such tedious shit. Does it make sense Iron Man would send Bullseye and Venom after Spider-Man? Are we going to try and make it make sense. Who cares? It made for a cool last page.
I didn't really have any larger point with this post. Just got to thinking about that mini-series and figured the best way to stop was to get it out of my head by writing.
*As opposed to Johns' "Alan Moore is responsible for all those incredibly violent and dark stories I wrote from 2005 to 2015." That's just shoddy, spineless, buck-passing.
5 comments:
Although there is probably evidence to the contrary out there, I became suspicious of Geoff Johns very early on, when he took over Avengers and proceeded to engage in all sorts of utter nonsense in that title just before DC snapped him up for an exclusive contract.
We got Chuck Austen right after and that was also pretty bad, but no one ever claimed Austen was any good, whereas Johns had this reputation at the time for being a good writer, mainly because of JSA and Flash, as I recall.
I followed his exclusive DC work for a while because I was getting free review copies at the time, and I admit I was probably looking for flaws after his Avengers run, but some of that stuff was terrible. I haven't read anything of his since I stopped reviewing comics, but I don't think I've missed much.
I have to agree with you about throwing Alan Moore under the bus. Spineless is right. It's like a child: "Alan made me do it! Waaah!" I already didn't have any respect for him as a writer, but I lost any respect for him as a person at that point.
I definitely bought Johns' Avengers run at the time, but I may only have one issue from it now (the one where Cap tries to stop Odin-powered Thor from accidentally setting off World War 3.)
I felt like there were parts of it that were interesting to me in theory (using the In-Betweener, adding Scott Lang and Jack of Hearts, getting Hawkeye back from Thunderbolts, Black Panther breaking the Red Skull's jaw), but most of them didn't land or were undercut by other, less encouraging stuff (having She-Hulk start transforming based on fear, trying to rehab Gyrich, that sex scene issue with Hank and Jan.)
I've never read Johns' Flash (or really any Flash), and only bits of his JSA. I own Stars n' Stripes, the series where he introduced the future Stargirl, picked it up a couple years ago. It's OK, I think. Haven't reread it recently. But it's also a much smaller scale story. But I don't think Johns has ever been a favorite writer of mine, I just had more trust in him to be competent than I did a lot of other writers. Again, low bar to clear there.
I suspect that if Johns hadn't gone to DC, we would have been forced to endure a series of Hulks, each triggered by a different emotion. Just like what he did with all the different Lantern colours at DC, as it happens.
Instead, we got multi-colored Hulks via Jeph Loeb, triggered by nothing in particular!
I'm not sure if that's better or worse, honestly. Though at least with Loeb we all knew it was going to be trash from the very beginning. Never any reason to even hope for better.
I was done before Rulk turned up, thank Zeus.
Yeah, there are some writers that you know are going to do a shoddy job. I had zero expectations that Chuck Austen's Avengers was going to be any good at all, for example, and I was not wrong.
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