Posts Tagged Geoff Johns

27 results.
May23

Tom Sawyer’s Funeral: Green Lantern #20 Review

by Rob on May 23, 2013 at 8:38 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

green_lantern_20_cover_20131784141047If you’re anything like me, when you see Green Lantern #20, and its thickness, squared binding and eight dollar price tag, you will think of The Amazing Spider-Man #700 from just five months ago – an issue that was padded with secondary stories to pad out it’s length. So you might think that Green Lantern #20 would do the same to fill its 86 pages and get a little upset that you’re dropping eight clams on what would seem to inevitably be a big chunk of filler.

You would be wrong. Sure, there is filler here – I’m not sure I needed nine pages of messages of congratulations to writer Geoff Johns (although DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson’s message makes me believe she might be the brains behind the Horse_EBooks Twitter account) – but on the whole, this is a one-story comic book. So you’re damn sure getting your money’s worth with this comic book.

And it is a big story. This is Johns’s final issue driving the Green Lantern franchise, and he treats it like the series finale of a long-running television show, even though the Green Lantern books will continue, as the five full-page ads in this issue for those books attests. And as a series finale-feeling story, it brings back all the old favorite characters for a final bow, it throws all the old fan favorite moments at the wall, and as is befitting a sci-fi action story, it blows stuff up real good.

But this is a space opera, not hard science fiction. So while Johns puts all the pieces into place to make a slam-bang action-packed story, there are a bunch of elements required to push that story forward that are firmly based in the scientific principle, as defined within the Green Lantern universe,  of the Theorem of Shut Up That’s Why. So some of the points between A and Z require a lot of taking on faith to avoid nitpicking… but if you can, you’ll have yourself a damn fun read that brings all your favorites up to bat one last time, and even tells you where some of these characters would end up.

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Feb22

Pulling The Pin: Justice League of America #1 Review

by Rob on February 22, 2013 at 9:50 am
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

justice_league_of_america_1_cover_2013Editor’s Note: Gathered together from the cosmic reaches of the universe – here in this great Hall of Justice – are the most powerful forces of spoilers ever assembled.

This isn’t like The Suicide Squad.

- Steve Trevor

Actually, Justice League of America #1, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by David Finch, is a lot like Suicide Squad, in that it’s got Amanda Waller making unique and intriguing personal offers to fringe people with super powers to join a team controlled by the government to perform missions for the government’s purposes. It’s also a lot like Keith Giffen’s and J. M. DeMatteis’s early issues of their late 80′s Justice League, in that it is attempting to lay the groundwork for and justify a Justice League packed with second-stringers and also-rans. It’s also a lot like Brad Meltzer’s post-Identity Crisis run on Justice League of America, in that it’s got as many sequences of people looking at pictures of, and talking about, superheroes as it does sequences of people actually, you know, doing stuff.

Two of these similarities are good things.

Look, as an opening issue of a book trying to justify the creation of a second Justice League when there’s a perfectly good one that’s only a year and a half old, this is a perfectly acceptable story that delivers the necessary exposition required to justify the concept and to introduce characters who are either relatively new since the New 52 reboot, or who have been around in their own titles, albeit with sales numbers low enough to warrant a whole new introduction (I’m looking at you, Hawkman). And it does it with enough mysterious teases and interesting secrets to justify their willingness to join this team to keep things intriguing… with one exception. In one case, using a single word balloon, Johns shows himself to be playing with some serious fire. Fire that, if he handles it well, will thrill anyone who read comics through the 1990… and that conversely, if he screws it up, will make a fairly significant niche fanbase turn on him like he insulted their mothers, and make the attempted rehabilitation of Vibe seem like a low-risk venture.

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Feb20

For Great Justice – Review Of Vibe #1

by Amanda on February 20, 2013 at 2:45 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

Vibe1-1Vibe #1 drops into stores today and, if you’re like many of my LCS’s core demographic, you responded with a polite, “That’s nice”, blinked nonchalantly, and then went looking for Hellblazer #300 because you are a SERIOUS PERSON, GODDAMMIT and that the LAST REAL JOHN CONSTANTINE ISSUE before DC further neuters him and…went on to some post traumatic whimpering before finally pulling yourself together to look through the spoils of this week’s stack. Turns out, once you put your wailing and gnashing of teeth over the the Constantine thing aside and read Geoff Johns and Andrew Kreisburg’s Vibe, it’s actually pretty good.

If you are like many casual, or perhaps not even so casual, comics readers, unless you were a fan of Justice League Detroit in the 80s your only real brush with Vibe was in cameos on the television show Justice League Unlimited and on Cartoon Network’s DC Nation shorts. Behold:

Yeah, you’d take that character seriously too. And, you wouldn’t be alone in your opinion. The original Vibe was killed off by J. M. DeMatteis to try and cap the end of the JLD era and George Pérez disliked Vibe so much that he refused to draw anything more than Vibe’s legs falling off a panel in the mega crossover JLA/Avengers – and Pérez knows a thing or two about teen superheroes.

So, why does this new iteration of Vibe work?

Warning – Ahead there be spoilers!
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Feb11

Blackest Night: Everyone Quits Green Lantern

by Rob on February 11, 2013 at 10:16 pm
Posted In: Comic Book News

green_lantern_20_promo_cover_2013DC’s been releasing their May solicits over the past few days… with one exception: they’ve been holding back their Green Lantern solicitations. Which has led to a certain amount of anticipation, at least here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, because some of the best crossovers and events in DC Comics over the past several years have come from Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns in those books.

So we’ve been waiting for what Johns had planned starting in May with bated breath, with images and memories of classics like The Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night and Brightest Day dancing in our heads. What would it be? Another big crossover? Rainbow Lanterns? A new Lantern oath involving the prominent use of the word “sack”?

Turns out, not so much. It seems that Geoff John’s next big plan for Green Lantern is to, well, quit the book.

And apparently it was such a good idea that every other writer on the Green Lantern books has made the same plan. That’s right: everyone is leaving the Green Lantern books.

Um… what the hell, Geoff?

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Dec30

Talking About A Revolution: Aquaman #15 Review

by Rob on December 30, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

aquaman_15_cover_2012“Aquaman doesn’t care about white people. Surly Irish drunken white people.”

-Me, after reading about the flooding of Boston in Aquaman #15.

Aquaman #15 is the second part of the Throne of Atlantis crossover (the first part was in this week’s Justice League #15), and the second issue in a row where the Justice League moves heaven and earth (well, mostly they move water, but you get my drift), in the aftermath of Atlantean tidal waves flooding three Eastern cities, to save Gotham and Metropolis… while allowing Boston to marinate in its own saltwater, spilled Guinness and seething, neverending rage at Manhattan. And while the Justice League does its level best to save everyone who isn’t in Boston, Aquaman’s brother is busy amassing an invasion force in Boston Harbor, with plans to sink the city to the bottom of the ocean – think Billy Joel’s Miami 2017, only instead of references to the Yankees and 42nd Street, it’s about the Red Sox and Lansdowne Street, and it’s not sung by some piano-playing wuss from Steinbrennerburg.

As a native Bostonian, I’m beginning to develop a persecution complex. Well, an even worse persecution complex.

But that kind of reaction will tend to happen when we’re in the second issue of a crossover event, and there is a lot of parallelization with the plot and events of the first issue, without very much forward motion or momentum from the first chapter in Justice League, although there is a pretty good cliffhanger at the end… even while Fenway Park is filled with Rays and Marlins – and not the good kinds from Tampa Bay or, well, wherever the hell in Florida the Marlins play what they pretend is baseball.

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Dec29

You Damn Fool! You’re More Useless Than Aquaman: Justice League #15 Review

by Rob on December 29, 2012 at 4:14 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

justice_league_15_cover_2012Since last year’s New 52 relaunch, Geoff Johns has made it his personal mission to rehabilitate Aquaman’s reputation. Which is a somewhat Quixotic task, since Aquaman never had much of a reputation to begin with. I remember years ago, when superhero Underoos were finally released for sale, my mom brought me to the store late enough that all that were left were Aquaman Underoos… and I told her that I would rather parade around the schoolyard in tightie-whities than suffer the indignity of having to pretend to be Aquaman. I was 28. But that’s not the point.

But hey, everyone has an unlikely dream that they harbor deep in their hearts, and I don’t begrudge Johns his, even though I don’t think he’s quite delivered on it thus far. Hey, I have the secret fantasy that someday I, a bloated and drunken 41-year-old, can smack the home run that wins the Boston Red Sox their third World Series victory since 1918 despite never having played even Little League baseball, so I’m not gonna rank Johns out too much for his dream to make Aquaman cool, despite it arguably having a lower chance at success than mine.

After fifteen months of chasing the dragon, Johns has begin phase two of his unlikely Aquaman resuscitation (actually, given Aquaman’s inability to carry his own book for longer than seven years despite more than 70 years of history, perhaps “presuscitation” is a better word) by making Aquaman the focus of a big Justice League event, Throne of Atlantis. So finally, Johns has his main chance to give Aquaman some relevance, not only in his own title but in the DC Universe proper, by making the poor, fishfucking sonofabitch the focus of a story… but for it to work, the story better be a good one.

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Dec05

Seasickness: Aquaman #14 Review

by Rob on December 5, 2012 at 9:51 am
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

Editor’s Note: One last review of the comics of November 28, 2012 before the comic store opens with the new stuff today…

I have never understood the general enthusiasm over the New 52 reboot of Aquaman, even though my co-editor Amanda liked it enough at the start to mutter things like, “Hero’s Journey” and “Joseph Campbell” and a bunch of other stuff that made me wish I’d learned more in college than the fluid dynamics surrounding beer bongs. For me, the sudden DC focus on Aquaman, who has never been able to support his own book for very long (his longest running self-titled book lasted 75 issues – about six years) stunk of a Trading Places-style Gentlemen’s Wager between Geoff Johns and Dan DiDio: “I will wager you, sir, one American dollar that I can transform this water-sucking, fishfucking, orange-pantsed fashion victim into a proper superhero!”

So I read the first few issues and then kind of tuned out – and I’ve just realized that I’ve said that about no less than three New 52 books in the past couple of weeks, which might be a topic for another time – but with Throne of Atlantis, the next big Justice League arc, on its way, I decided to check out Aquaman #14 to bone up and get a sense of what’s going on with the book.

The short answer? I have no fucking idea.

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Sep07

Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, Track 2: Green Lantern #0 Review

by Rob on September 7, 2012 at 9:13 am
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

EDITOR’S NOTE: Comic Reader of Earth: You have the ability to overcome great spoilers.

The most obvious thing I can say about Green Lantern #0 is that new Green Lantern Simon Baz is the unluckiest son of a bitch in comics history.

If Simon Baz didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck at all. Black cats must go days without sleep in order to find him just to cross his path. The next time Spider-Man whimpers about “The ol’ Parker luck,” he need only look at Simon Baz to know that a dude with a high-paying engineering job who has banged a supermodel should really just learn to shut the fuck up; Spider-Man could have gotten his powers by being gang assaulted by radioactive lepers and still count himself luckier than Simon Baz.

His luck is so Goddamned bad that it stretches the bounds of logic. Which is the only downside to an origin issue, with a generally likable character, that is packed with character-building story points… even if a lot of those points require you to believe that the hero has luck so crappy that if he won the lottery, he’d die of a gangrenous paper cut from the winning ticket before he could collect.

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Aug31

Re-Reboot: Justice League International Annual #1 Review

by Rob on August 31, 2012 at 6:10 pm
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

EDITOR’S NOTE: One spoiler! One spoiler!

I’ve got mixed feelings about Justice League International Annual #1 which is the final chapter of the book and which depicts the dissolution of the team. It has a lot going for it, including the return of writer Geoff Johns to the character of Booster Gold for the first time since 2008, and Dan DiDio’s return to writing O.M.A.C., which was one of the most underrated and unfairly cancelled books of the New 52 relaunch. It ends the story of the team decisively and fairly satisfyingly, if suddenly, and spins Booster, Blue Beetle and O.M.A.C. into new directions that could prove interestingly in the future… or in the case of Booster, in his past.

The problem is, the issue does it, in several cases, by introducing sudden and drastic changes in a couple of characters’ motivations and personalities, at least in relation to how they were depicted in recent issues of Justice League International. Which makes a certain amount of sense – you switch writers, you get new interpretations… or in the case of Booster, old interpretations. There is a sense in this issue of Johns and DiDio sweeping in to conclude the book and reclaim their characters, all while muttering, “No, no, no… Goddammit Dan Jurgens, you’re doing it wrong!”

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Aug30

Rebound: Justice League #12 Review

by Rob on August 30, 2012 at 8:22 am
Posted In: Comic Book Reviews

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve had the blues, the reds and the pinks; one thing’s for sure: love spoils.

Well, that’s the end of the first year of the first post-reboot Justice League since Crisis On Infinite Earths back in 1986. That Justice League, at the end of its first year, had established itself as a solid action book with an interesting character-based humor element… and was already on its way to becoming far more focused on the comedy than it was on the action. It short, its best days were already gone by that first anniversary, having given or on its way to giving Guy Gardner a 70s sitcom level personality change, The Martian Manhunter an Oreo fetish, and Booster and Beetle a harebrained get-rich-quick scheme of the month.

So how does Justice League #12 compete? Well, by going in the opposite direction, coming out of an only okay character-based story while promising, in a Geoff Johns patented epilogue, action-packed tales including an attack by Atlantis, battles between Superman and Batman and Shazam, and a possible conflict between The Justice League and the recently-announced Johns and David Finch produced Justice League of America.

Oh, and it seems that we will spend some time witnessing Superman boning Wonder Woman. But you already knew that, and we’ll get back to that in a minute.

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