The Four Color Media Monitor

The chief un-creative officer of DC told Newsarama that he's turning Aquaman's adversary the Ocean Master into more of a hero as well as villain, just like he's absurdly done with Sinestro in Green Lantern:

...he wanted to explore the "gray areas" behind the battles and political maneuvering of war.

Plus, this time around, the kingdom is the mysterious underwater world of Atlantis, the deities are complex costumed superheroes of the Justice League, and the half-brothers — Ocean Master and Aquaman — are not clearly representing good and evil.

In fact, that latter point is an important one for fans of Johns' writing. With Ocean Master, the writer promises to explore the sides of the character that are not necessarily villainous, comparing Ocean Master to other character considered both heroes and villains — like Sinestro and Black Adam. But he also said the character is not like "any other villain I've tackled."

This whole turning of villains into more anti-hero is getting very old and gray-haired itself, and coming from him, it's not impressive at all. With Sinestro, it was especially preposterous, and made even worse with the way he's been making the Guardians out to look like turncoats.

Johns: I absolutely love villains, as you know. And so looking at Ocean Master and taking a step back, and saying, OK, what kind of person is this? He's someone who actually cares very much for his brother. He doesn't understand his brother at all. And he cares for him, because he's his brother.

He has violent tendencies, just like all Atlanteans do, which we've seen with Arthur. And he has a perspective on the surface world that's very different from Arthur's, but shared with the Atlanteans.

Johns sure does seem to love blurring the differences between good and evil too, and isn't doing Aquaman any favors with that. "Cares"? About as much as the Joker "cares" about Batman and Gotham's citizens, I'd say. Baloney. I also find it irritating today when writers babble about how they enjoy villains far more than heroes, if at all.

This latest nonsense is also part of their next creativity-destroying crossover called Throne of Atlantis, and whatever he's planning would be best forgotten.

Update: Johns' off-putting approach to writing both heroes and villains is also mentioned in this USA Today article about Green Lantern: New Guardians:

Since Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns added many of these colored Lanterns to the universe of the will-powered Green Lanterns and created a rich galactic mythology, the stories explored have shown men, women and aliens who are not black and white in terms of deeds and personalities. Instead, it's all a nice shade of gray.

Not a nice shade. Just a terrible one, that's all. The rainbow lantern parade is also very silly.

Labels: Aquaman, crossoverloading, dc comics, dreadful writers, Green Lantern, msm propaganda