The Songs of Johnny Go

I'm wondering what exactly it is Mr. Johns is doing wrong...I've made s'mores in the microwave plenty of times without incident. Bless your heart for trying to help the guy out with his goo.

As a huge fan of Johns' run on The Flash (grotesque, stomach turning warts and all...) I enjoyed

bitemetechie's list, and generally agree with the bulk of it. Of course not being terribly science minded ('A wizard did it!' is a totally acceptable scientific explanation in my book) I can't say I've ever given much thought to the first pro OR con listed (I try not to think too much about time travel and its inherent issues, it hurts my brain meats), but it's certainly something to consider. I thought the double edged sword that is Geoff's youthful enthusiasm (he loves those toys so much he may just break them!) was well spotted. Cool stuff!

I'd comment over there, but I'm terribly shy.

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So I finally read FINAL CRISIS: ROGUES REVENGE and needed to talk with you about it, because I am frustrated. I was really digging it (in between gritting my teeth whenever Libra appeared, because ugh, Libra), but the ending just... ruined the whole thing for me. I mean, what the hell? (perhaps we should avoid spoilers or discussion altogether until Henchgirl gets to FC:RR?)

"A wizard did it!" Yes, rereading the storyline where a super-powerful magical entity retcons time and everyone's memories of a superhero's secret identity and undoing his marriage could only evoke "It's magic, we don't have to explain it."

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I can't even find it in me to be anything but mildly annoyed with 'Rogues' Revenge.' I was having so much fun with it (Cold being badass! Axel receiving something that could-if you squint-be considered character development! Scott Kolins!) and then...sigh. That's how you want to shelve these particular characters, Geoff? Really? I know 'Flash: Rebirth' was going to give you a bunch of shiny new toys to play with (well, more like old toys remodeled to seem new), but you didn't have to rip the heads off the old ones in an anticlimactic gorefest that made the rest of the series seem pretty pointless.

SIGH

But yes, I have a terrible tendency to let spoilers slip, even when I'm trying to be vague, so perhaps it's best not to discuss it until everyone's up to speed.

Though can I mention how cool Barry looks in Blackest Night?

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And also, Weather Wizard finally getting a bit of the backstory treatment himself! YAY! And then... NO! WHAT?! NO!

God, FINAL CRISIS was so unremittingly ugly that it ruined even Johns and Kolins with the Rogues. That's impressive. I didn't know suck could spread.

I'm hoping we see some redemption of that story in BLACKEST NIGHT: FLASH. Also, we have actually seen zombie Boomerbutt, right? In the BLACKEST NIGHT: BATMAN story? Because I was very surprised not to see him in BLACKEST NIGHT: SUICIDE SQUAD. For a brief moment, I was hoping against hope that his state in "Rogues War" (where we never actually saw him die... I mean, give into his already-death after talking to Ashley Zolomon) would mean he wasn't really dead after all, and yay, Digger's back! And then, wait, no, he isn't, is he? Crimminy.

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I can still see Johns taking Weather Wizard in an interesting direction from here, but it's not like *spoiler name removed* really inhibited WW's growth in any way, so it seemed so unnecessary.

I can't really complain about Final Crisis because...I didn't read it! I didn't want to buy single issues, so I told myself I'd get it in trade, but by the time is actually came out my enthusiasm for the entire thing was so low I just sort of forgot about it. Though judging by what I saw in tie in books, and your comments here, I didn't miss much by choosing to forgo the main series.

I miss Digger. Owen can be amusing, but yeah...

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I really do like WW, and I can't quite say why. If that flashback with the baby's mother (Wally's cop ex, whatshername) is any indication, he's kind of a sleazebag, but in a less obvious way than Digger. But there's something about him... perhaps it's his humorless theatricality.

Henchgirl's not actually gonna read the comments anymore, so let's switch to spoilers. OKAY. So, the thing that really pisses me off isn't just that Johns BLOWS UP THE BABY, but he does it right on the crux of WW making a crucial decision that would have been the climax of his character arc, and then pisses it away. At the end, he just kind of shrugs as if nothing happened. ARGH.

Yeah, I don't think you're missing much. But if you do check it out, let me know what you think. Morrison-lovers embrace it utterly, waving it in the faces of we unwashed masses who are too stupid to appreciate the awesomeness he created. Sigh.

Dang it, we need Digger back. There aren't enough lovably gloriously amoral sleazebag bastards out there!

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Weather Wizard is a strange one. Johns writes him a little differently than most, he never seemed as aloof and distant (or literate!) under any other writer that I can recall. He was traditionally as punny and silly as the other Rogues.

I wonder if Geoff plans to focus on the 'small god' aspect of the character? I liked when Simone had Weather Wizard refer to himself and Polaris as such during Secret Six, and it wouldn't surprise me that a self involved and quite egocentric man trying to expunge himself of a great deal of guilt would eventually try to leave his past mistakes and humanity behind entirely in order to become something 'greater.' That way anything he does (or did!) is justified because...he's a god, what does he care what other people think? (The way he can change the weather across the city to suit his moods, such as during Boomer's funeral, is a little creepy. He's getting scary powerful).

As his powers grow he seems to be connecting and interacting less with the others. Maybe Johns wanted to get rid of Josh in order to sever one of Mark's strongest remaining human ties? The only Rogue he seems to connect with is Lenny, and I suspect it's only because he thinks of him as a sort of surrogate Clyde. If the two ever have a falling out I don't think there's anything to prevent Weather Wizard from saying 'fuck it' and becoming a rogue Rogue.

If I were Cold I'd be going out of my way to keep Mark grounded.

I doubt Josh is gone for good. It seemed ambiguous enough that Johns could bring him back. I just REALLY hope that there's a method to Johns' madness and he has plans for Mark and Josh beyond killing off the latter for (pointless!) shock value.

I LIKE a lot of Morrison's work, but I'm not going to say that everything he's written is brilliant (far from it). He's pretty hit or miss.

Sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense, I'm trying to get all my (rambling) thoughts down before I rush out the door!

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bitemetechie.livejournal.com

Well, lucky for you, I haven't got a shy bone in my body. I'll be pushily outgoing enough for both of us!

-glomp-

So. Hi! I be the Henchgirl. That be my Flash rant. These be my grammars. Yarr.

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Yay, nice to meet you! I always feel a little weird commenting in personal journals if I haven't really talked to the person elsewhere. 'Hi, you don't know me but here are my thoughts on __________.'

I enjoyed your Flash rant. I also share your fondness for Chyre.

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bitemetechie.livejournal.com

Eh, don't feel weird. I mean, it's only weird if you leave comments saying things like, "I really like the shirt you're wearing." or "Why did you fill up with premium instead of standard? Whyyyy?"

Chyre is awesome. It's funny, when I make my list of my favorite comic book characters OF ALL TIME (TM) in my head, more often than not, the 'civilians' make it to the top of the heap. I'm finding more and more that I love the cops of the DCU very dearly--Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock have always been close to my heart, but now Chyre and Morillo, much to my pleasant surprise, are just as beloved.

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sharrainchains.livejournal.com

I knew I needed a toaster oven -- I have been toasting the marshmallows over candle flames...

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Be warned: one girlfriend of mine found my indoor-s'more making to be blasphemy. I doubt she's alone in that mentality.

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Yeah, between the gutting of Phantom Lady & an alternate Superboy punching off Pantha's head...just, no.

Johns is one of those writers who drives me crazy. Used to be Louise Simonson & John Byrne. Then Alan Moore. Now it's Johns.

I think it's partly that his obsessions preclude him having a little corner of comics where he doesn't affect the hoary old series, like Garth Ennis has managed. And partly that his obsessions seem to include the bloody deaths of all superheroes.

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I disagree that his obsessions include the bloody deaths of all superheroes, though. Here's the thing that bugs me most about Johns and INFINITE CRISIS: up until that point, he was the antithesis of the kind of comic writer that brings back C and D list characters just to kill them off for cheap shock value.

Remember his FLASH and JSA runs before that? He actually brought back many characters, single-handedly undoing much of the idiocy wrought by ZERO HOUR and other such bullshit in the 90's that did what he essentially ended up doing in IC.

Honestly, I really have to wonder how much of it was DiDio's doing and Johns was the triggerman. Just as Meltzer was reportedly the triggerman hired for the rape of Sue (if you believe Valerie D'Ozario's "We Need a Rape," as I'm inclined to. I could imagine DiDio being like, "We need to clean house and shock readers. Here's a list." But there's no way to know for sure.

Regardless, Johns has made up for it a great deal with SINESTRO CORPS onward, which has made this GL fan very, very happy. Now if he could finally write Hal like... well, Hal (which is to say, Jim Kirk), that'd be another good start. Also, the whole Star Sapphire thing. Yeah, he's flawed. But he comes from a genuinely good and earnest place, which I'll take over the overstuffed pomposity of people like Morrison and Loeb.

And again, I'm counting on BLACKEST NIGHT to end with mass resurrections. In which case, the "bloody deaths" of BN so far will be moot.

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I don't know. When we was at Marvel, didn't he off a bunch of Pym's shrinky successors in Avengers? Or did Bendis do some of that?

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How many successors did Pym have other than Scott Lang? I'm not too up on Marvel. Either way, Lang was killed by Bendis in his very first issue, the start of AVENGERS: DISASSEMBLED. If you don't recall, he did it with the exploding zombified corpse of Jack of Hearts.

Now, Johns did kill Jack, I believe (or maybe it was Chuck Austen?), but before that, I can tell you that he wrote an absolutely wonderful and rather powerful story about the strained friendship between Scott and Jack, with awesome art by Gary Frank that really sold the emotion.

So no, Johns really does care about characters for the most part. Even if he did kill Jack, I think it was actually done in a way that served a story, not in the name of cheap shock value and exTREEMness.

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OK, I was thinking that Johns killed both Jack of Hearts & Scott Lang, whereas Bendis killed the lady Yellowjacket. But OK.

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I looked it up: Johns did indeed kill Jack of Hearts, but I believe he actually did it as part of a built-up story arc. Bendis did it to spark off the gratuitous shit-fest of AVENGERS: DISSASEMBLED (aka BITCHES BE CRAZY). Bendis deserves far more ire, IMO.

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Geoff's JSA did, however, use Maxi-Man & Impala as off-screen fodder for Roulette, & had New-Wave kill Shakedown after the rest of the Masters of Disaster had left. So he does kill off the really obscure characters.

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There's obscure, and then there's obscure. I pride myself as a fan of DC, and have spent much time reading old issues of WHO'S WHO, but the only one of those characters I recognize is Shakedown, who I was sad to see go. But other than that, I can't get too worked up about those, beyond the principle. Not compared to the kinds of characters killed off in INFINITE CRISIS, anyway.

But in JSA, Johns also brought back the original Hourman (one of those unceremoniously offed in ZERO HOUR), Hawkman, Johnny Thunder (making him the Thunderbolt was utterly inspired, and it drives me crazy that everyone--Johns included--seems to have forgotten that), and Lyta Hall. So credit where credit's due.

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