The Four Color Media Monitor

Newsarama interviewed the overrated writer who came from Hollywood, recruited by the since-dismissed editor Eddie Berganza, about his Doomsday Clock miniseries, which has come to a belated end after delays not unlike some Marvel projects in the early 2000s helmed by filmmaking types:

There were a lot of returns in this week’s Doomsday Clock #12 - some expected and some more surprising. The Justice Society of America are back. The Legion of Super-Heroes are back. And Superman’s parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, are back.

I wish I could say this is admirable. But Johns is a writer who knows how to mask his pretensions well, and as Brian Bendis has recently demonstrated, it looks like race-swapping's taken place in the Legion. In which case, what good would Johns' restoration be?

But as important as those developments are to fans, Doomsday Clock’s most obvious message is the return of hope. And although readers might have seen that coming as well - and in fact, the “return of hope” was billed as one of the series’ purposes before it began - the way that hope endured at the end of the issue was the biggest surprise of all.

And what if Johns still hasn't abandoned his obsession with over-the-top violence, among other serious detractors? This was the case in the time following Blackest Night, like when Black Manta turned up again, and such a despicably sensationalized rendition doesn't exactly generate "hope".

As Johns tells Newsarama, no reboot or crisis will ever be “forever,” because the new rules that creators make for the DCU will just evolve and change again later.

Well at least here he admits even his own tinkerings and tamperings with the DCU won't be forever, which is surely more than can be said for how long the company will continue in business. This does hint, however, that he's still willing to go along with any plan to publish another company wide crossover, just what's brought down superhero comics, something even the new Valiant universe wasn't immune to, and as noted in the following:

The writer even includes a list of several theoretical events and reboots to come - including, less theoretically, a 2020 “crisis” event that DC has already acknowledged.

But none of them last - not even the upcoming 5G universe, the issue promises - and none of them ever will.

“Celebrate that. Embrace that,” Johns advises his fellow fans and creators in our interview. “I mean, you can try to chain [the DCU] up, but Superman’s going to break those chains at some point.”

And someday, he'll break out of the chains DiDio's imposed on the franchise as a whole, along with Johns. That 5G universe, which, from what I know, may be replacing the main heroes with younger substitutes, including at least one race-swap, which is no longer novel, and no one should be deceived into wasting money on it.

But now, after both orchestrating 2016’s “Rebirth” initiative and writing Doomsday Clock, Johns has guided writers toward re-forging lost relationships and bringing back missing characters and concepts.

Will it last? Probably not, as the aforementioned promise of a 2020 DC crisis will attest. But will the inspiration of Superman and the hope of the DC last? According to Doomsday Clock, it will.

I think Heroes in Crisis already proved it wouldn't, or time would be wasted on further character assassination of the superheroes. Even if Flash Forward does exonerate Wally and resurrect the slain Titans, the point's been made this is only leading to additional money being spent on projects that'll allegedly repair everything, when the harm could've easily been avoided in the first place. Publicity stunts have to cease. Now here's some sections from the main interview:

Nrama: That’s what the entire story really comes down to, doesn’t it? This entire story builds to this moment for Dr. Manhattan, for Jon Osterman, to choose the third option. All this time, he thought his story had two possible endings — the end of him, or the end of the universe. But he chooses a third way.

Johns: The world today is built on two choices. We’re in this almost unconscious mode to choose one or the other. And that’s led to division and that’s led to a narrow view of the world and reality and each other. You’re programmed to have to pick a side.

I think people need to stop sometimes and say, maybe there’s another option. Another path. Another choice. Instead of letting everyone tell us there are only two ways to think.

Superman would always find another option. He’d find the better option. That’s what Superman’s greatest superpower is. It’s not flight or strength or heat vision. It’s knowing the better option, knowing the choice.

People ask, "How do you challenge a character who has all these abilities?" But it’s not about these abilities at all. It’s about having him make choices and having him go beyond one or the other. He’s a bridge; he’s inspiration personified. And we need that. We always need that. Everyone needs that.

That whole thematic is laced throughout our book.

I don’t want to break down the book for readers, because I think they should do it themselves, if they want to.

But Superman’s role was to see beyond.

Let me take a moment to say, how interesting he's trying a gimmick of hinting he realizes there's people out there who aren't fooled by his deceptions. He also appears to be hinting at his otherwise leftist politics when he alludes to divisions, and suggests he's critical of conservatives of harboring a narrow view. Now about the theme of "seeing beyond":

Nrama: So you’re saying that theme of “seeing beyond” is laced throughout the book?

Johns: You see what you want to see. And Dr. Manhattan sees beyond what others see the DC Universe as. That thematic of seeing beyond something, and not being able to see something - from Dr. Manhattan not being able to see beyond the black wall of nothingness, to Nathaniel Dusk not being able to see the truth behind the crime he’s trying to solve, to Rorschach not being able to see the reality of who Ozymandias really is and what he’s really doing, to Mime and Marionette not being able to see where their child is.

The theme of blindness is throughout, a mass that obscures your view, shards of broken glass obscuring your vision, from the very moment that Comedian is thrown through that window through the universe shattering apart - that’s all laced within there.

This is something I didn’t want to talk about early on in the book, because you want people to find it and see it. And you want people to get what they want from this title.

Some people might read Doomsday Clock and just want to see the Watchmen characters meet the DC characters. And that’s fine.

They might focus on the “continuity” or the “future” bits planted in there. And some people might see a deeper story where you get inside these characters and inside these themes a little bit more. And everything viewpoint is valid, for whatever reason. You might just read it because you love Gary Frank’s art.

But everyone sees what they want to see. We live in an echo chamber of reality. We need to escape it. And the whole idea is, can you break past that a little bit? Can you see a little bit more? Can you try instead of shouting at the other side and seeing only its destruction as they answer?

That’s where the third choice comes from.

We all need a little help to see beyond what we can’t see. We all need a little help to know that maybe we can make a different choice.

The idea of needing someone like Superman to lead us there is what the series is really all about.

Here's what I find annoying about Johns' approach, where he touts Superman as one to lead anywhere. It isn't all that different from when he supposedly highlighted Wally West as a symbol of hope, and look how that turned out under Tom King. And how Superman's turning out under Bendis. All the while Johns has nothing to say. So why should we take his word at face value?

Nrama: He might go about it the wrong way, but he is smart enough to know what Jon needs.

Johns: He is that smart. And he knows that, OK, someone’s got to help him do it. And I can’t.

You know, there are no villains - or at least, I wouldn’t call them villains - in our book. There’s just people. I don’t want Dr. Manhattan and Superman to go fists-to-fists. There’s nothing interesting to me about who’s stronger. It’s all about who they are and what their viewpoint is and how that viewpoint remains, is reaffirmed or changes.

Part of it is seeing beyond what you can see, seeing beyond the next crossover. In the comic book aspect, this book doesn’t look to the next crossover. This book looks to all of DC comics. To the future of what DC is.

And what if DiDio contradicts this? He already did it with Wally West, so why should we expect much different later? These insults to the intellect will not stop so long as he's in charge, sitting around the corner from Bob Harras, who hasn't proven a convincing EIC. As for not having villains in the story, as Johns puts it, well, it wouldn't be the first time he's ever depicted a villain as a hero, with Lex Luthor and Sinestro but 2 examples.

Nrama: What, to allow us to have hope for the future? Is that where you’re going?

Johns: To inspire us. He does. That “S” symbol is everywhere across the globe.

Nrama: OK, Geoff, I understand what you told me the last time we talked - that this story’s point is bigger than just how it leads into the next crossover. But inside that sort of macro, there are some interesting micro-level changes to the DCU. For example - Ma and Pa Kent. We’ve already noticed hints in the DCU that Jonathan and Martha Kent were going to be alive after this series’ end. So they’re alive again, right?

Johns: Yes. We established really early on, in issue #1, we talked about Ma and Pa Kent’s death. There are specific things we point to that will carry on in other stories.

Nrama: Like the return of the Legion and the Justice Society…

Johns: Yes, if you look at what happened and how it changes in this story, it all has to do with the great history of the DC Universe - the great legacy from the Justice Society and Wonder Woman to Superman to the Legion of Super-Heroes to Superboy.

It all is tied together. And it all helps support itself.

It resonates and expands out from Superman, in all directions - the past and the future.

But he’s at the very center of it. And he always will be, forever.

No mention of the race-swapping Bendis indicated some time ago for Lightning Lad, I see. It may not last forever, any more than shedding Superman's secret ID, but Johns' inability to ensure such PC tampering doesn't occur doesn't speak well for himself either.

Nrama: So we talked earlier about how this issue says “the past and the future are free,” and how that frees up stories. But is this all tied together?

Johns: Well, the idea of the past and future being unleashed and free, to me, was personified in Johnny and Imra, two characters I love. The idea is that you shouldn’t try to control and put too many rules on this stuff and say this is forever, because it’s going to - and should - evolve and change.

Celebrate that. Embrace that.

Don’t put rules on this stuff. And I don’t mean rules like … I mean, you can try to chain it up, but Superman’s going to break those chains at some point.

There's stuff we can celebrate, but it shouldn't include his otherwise shoddy writing.

Nrama: Let’s talk about the end of issue #12. The boy, Clark. We talked about how Superman was the turning point - the inspiration for Jon finding the third choice. But there was also a seed planted early on, with this child, when Jon first noticed him in Marionette’s womb. I feel like there’s something you’re saying about Jon now finding a hope for the future, pouring himself into this child, both literally and figuratively.

Johns: Well, it’s kind of passing on the legacy to somebody else who will - and he says as much - who will get the love that a child needs so that they can return that love.

He never really got that in his life.

And of course, Superman did.

So hopefully, Jon’s created the hero, the human being, that can do what he couldn’t.

And hope is in children. That is our future. Children aren’t the ones choosing sides. They’re taught to do that. I think children have such unpolluted viewpoints. They’re so honest. And then they learn what to do by others.

Our greatest hope is the younger generation to always make things better.

And that’s really, ultimately, the point of this too - moving on and changing and allowing change.

As much as, like you mention, nostalgia is within this, it’s also very forward-looking.

I hate to say this, but children aren't always honest, let alone innocent, and if they're taught the wrong approach - which is arguably the problem with many universities today along with parents who have the wrong ideas on anything - then hope won't be coming from them. Did it ever occur to Johns his own writing isn't suitable for children? And if they did read the items he's written that really turned me off, something tells me that, if they bought into his garish viewpoint, they wouldn't make things better, but worse.

Nrama: It’s interesting that you’re saying there were no edicts or change, because you did have a lot of delays on this. Can you address the delays?

Johns: I know there were delays on the book as we worked on it. It wasn’t for lack of working on it. It wasn’t for lack of making this important or anything. This book took a lot of work. For me, I didn’t want to rush through the scripts - I couldn’t. I would have loved if we had started the book - we had talked about launching in April, but they wanted November. I would have loved if we had launched in April.

But ultimately, I need to focus on the quality of the book and getting that book out rather than rushing it or having anyone else but Gary draw.

It was also a really busy year for me running Stargirl and finishing up Wonder Woman 1984. With everything I was working on, I wanted to make sure it was as perfect as I could make it.

So for all the readers who were frustrated by the delays, I understand and I apologize. But I wanted to make sure it was the best I could deliver.

Yawn. If he were a truly dedicated writer, he'd make a choice between comics or movies/TV. That he didn't makes it pretty obvious he's no more responsible than Kevin Smith, who held up his own wretched Black Cat miniseries for nearly 2 years for the sake of his movie schedule. Nobody should accept Johns' apology if he couldn't choose which entertainment medium he wanted to concentrate on, which doesn't jibe well with his blabber about choosing sides. It's possible to craft a quality story without taking so much time in between to produce movies and TV shows, the latter starring his own creation, rather than Jerry Siegel's Golden Age protagonist the new variation is based on.

It's a terrible shame DC continues to employ this shameful hack writer whose visions aren't as spectacular as some of his apologists would like you to think. Bringing back the Justice Society members and such is fine, granted, but as with Bendis, it doesn't excuse the colossal minuses littering their careers, and nobody should let these phonies pull the wool over their eyes.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, dreadful writers, Justice Society of America, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, Superman