Johns channels early Quesada talk
3 Comments Published by Avi Green on Sunday, April 04, 2010 at 4:00 AM.
At the 2010 Wondercon (via Speed Force), Geoff Johns gave some answers that sound very much like what Joe Quesada was saying early in his own editorial career, when he argued that "dead is dead", while at the same time both he and James Robinson made themselves sound like a joke (the text comes from a live-blog videotaping Newsarama made):
And Johns is really making a fool out of himself, after he not only brought back Barry Allen, whose death in 1985 actually meant something (and even characterized him absurdly as though he were a pagan deity), but also soiled his background and childhood with a forced retcon where the Reverse-Flash changes his history.
I don't like what Johns and Robinson are doing here, because it doesn't fix that fact that these recent deaths were poorly written and in bad taste, and I won't be surprised if they impose the same kind of editorial mandates that were practically lifted to suit their own wishes. And that only signals that more badness is bound to come under them.
“The first arc is called ‘The Dastardly Death of the Rogues,’” Johns says, “(Barry Allen) will be investigating a murder mystery that’s not what you think.”Uh oh, I do believe I found a boo-boo there. Ted Kord, rather than try to stop the out-of-character Max Lord and company from gunning him down, sought help instead from other heroes who turned out to be too busy to help him, and didn't even put up any kind of fight when finally confronted by Lord. Just what exactly would be diminished then? Now I know Robinson has really lost it.
Was Blackest Night meant to be a commentary on the nature of death in comics? “Characters get killed all the time in comics,” Johns said. “We wanted to do away with that tool for a while—when a character dies, they’re dead. Try to give death a meaning in the DC Universe again.”
Will Tim Drake be mad about the Digger Harkness Captain Boomerang being back? “If the guy who killed your dad came back, and your dad didn’t, you’d probably be angry,” Johns said.
Robinson: “Can I just say that there are characters that I wish came back that didn’t, but Ted Kord died a true hero’s death,” saying that bringing him back might diminish that.
And Johns is really making a fool out of himself, after he not only brought back Barry Allen, whose death in 1985 actually meant something (and even characterized him absurdly as though he were a pagan deity), but also soiled his background and childhood with a forced retcon where the Reverse-Flash changes his history.
I don't like what Johns and Robinson are doing here, because it doesn't fix that fact that these recent deaths were poorly written and in bad taste, and I won't be surprised if they impose the same kind of editorial mandates that were practically lifted to suit their own wishes. And that only signals that more badness is bound to come under them.
Labels: bad editors, Batman, dc comics, dreadful writers, Flash, golden calf of death, moonbat writers, violence
*facepalm* at Robinson's comment. Somewhere in the heavens, Archie Goodwin is weeping.
R.I.P. James Robinson's talent
1990-2010
R.I.P. Geoff Johns' common sense
1997-2010
Oh, come on. Robinson's talent and Johns' common sense died several years ago.
True. But Im right about the sentence above them.