Johns channels early Quesada talk

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):

“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.”

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.

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.

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.