The Four Color Media Monitor

And just because Geoff Johns wants this. He told IGN in an interview:

IGN: Yeah, it blew me away. It’s a classic Justice League lineup but Superman and Flash have been replaced by their worst enemies. Could you talk about how this came to be?

GJ: Sure. We’ve got Forever Evil 5, 6, and 7 still coming out, and a lot of what happens with Luthor and Batman and the villains and the Crime Syndicate, a lot of that leads directly into this, so I don’t want to spoil too much, but I will say in the aftermath clearly Lex Luthor is going to become a big part of the Justice League. Obviously there’s some people missing from the lineup and there’s some new people in there, but really Lex is going to come in there and his position on the team is really challenging what the Justice League is all about.

Ultimately, if you trace it back, Lex can completely blame them for everything that happened, “You guys splintered your teams, you weren’t united, you had infighting, you were infiltrated and manipulated by one of the Crime Syndicate. I had to help dig the world out of the mess you created. You guys are supposed to be the world’s greatest superheroes. Well, by definition, that’s what I am now. So I am going to take my place here and I am going to help you figure out, should you just defend the world? I think you should do more. We are the greatest heroes. We should change it. Look what ARGUS tried to do to you guys with the JLA. You can’t trust them. You’ve got to be your own team.” So he comes in there almost as an instigator and he’s asking a lot of great questions, but of course nobody wants to listen to him or trust him, especially Batman.

IGN: Yeah, Batman does not look happy.

GJ: If you look at Batman, he’s the only one that’s turned away. We’ve always known that Lex Luthor is going to join the team. If you look at Forever Evil, it’s a huge Lex Luthor story. It’s a DC Universe story, but ultimately everything that happens in there is happening and reflecting and changing and challenging Lex Luthor on every level. Ultimately -- and you haven’t seen the last three issues -- he’s going to go through things and do things we haven’t seen him do before, and experience things we haven’t seen him experience before.

If they’re the world’s greatest superheroes, does that mean that need to be an inspiration? Take the lead and challenge what the world defines them as and challenge what the world is doing and do more than just stop a meteor from crashing into the planet or a supervillain from taking over a city or an alien trying to invade -- they have to do more than that. They have to do more than simply protect the world. They’re not just policemen. They’ve got to be more than that. And so Luthor coming on to the team is going to challenge what the Justice League is at its very center. It’s all about how you work together and unity and personalities combating one another.

One of the greatest things is, the reason that Lex Luthor is on the Justice League for the very first time is so interesting to me that instantly there’s tension, there’s humor, there’s a clash of ideologies. You’ve got someone like Shazam who looks at Lex Luthor and says, “What he’s saying makes a lot of sense.” And someone else says, “You don’t know him like we do.” There are characters on the team that bond with Luthor in a way they never expected they would. There’s other characters that break apart because of Luthor’s presence on the team. And clearly there’s some heroes who won’t do with it.

Why doesn't Johns have the bravery to say he's the one challenging what the League is all about? Now he's taking his penchant for putting villains into heroes' roles in ways that don't make sense and lowering the bar a step further. And it looks like Superman and Flash are out of the picture for now, just a very short time after the League was forcibly relaunched. Making Luthor a Justice Leaguer is the dumbest idea since Sinestro became a "hero" a few years ago.

At the same time, Johns is trying to do damage control by bringing back Ted Kord at the end of Forever Evil, nearly a decade too late:

In Forever Evil #1, we saw Lex Luthor and Ted's father Thomas conducting a "business deal" in a helicopter before it crashed and sent Thomas falling to his death. Thomas mentioned his son in passing, and now it seems this will come full circle with the debut of Ted. [...]

It's not clear what form this new version of Ted will take. In the old DC Universe, he was murdered by Maxwell Lord, so the New 52 will prove to be a new lease on life for the character. [...]

What we do know is that Ted is coming back in one form or another, and that will certainly make a certain time-traveling hero quite happy.

It might make Booster Gold happy, but I've got a hunch few in the audience will feel the same, and at this point, too many have been repelled to care. If Johns is trying to give Kord motivation by turning his father into a sacrifice, it's too cliched already to impress anybody. Besides, why should we have to trust a writer who was responsible for co-writing Ted's death at the hands of a badly written Max Lord to do justice for Ted now? I wouldn't count on Johns doing any better now, nor would I trust him to bring back Elongated Man, Sue Dibny and Jean Loring in a way that'd turn out respectably.

All these steps they're taking now come at a time when it's much too late.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, Justice League of America