It would be cool to see Geoff Johns on a non super hero project.

[Winghead]

Something creator owned and without big corporate characters. He's one of the only mainstream comic writers who really hasn't done that.

[Ilash]

Yup. Though I would be more interested in a new creator owned project from Gail Simone who also hasn't done very much (does Welcome to Tranquility count?).

[Winghead]

Gail's done stuff for wildstorm like Gen13 and Tranquility and Secret Six is pretty much her baby much like the current X Factor is PAD's. Geoff has really never done anything like that and I'm sure he could pull it off well

[Ilash]

Yeah, true. Everyone always mentions how he is such a perfect fit for superheroes that he really need not try creator owned stuff but the more of his stuff that I read, the more I think that that's not true at all. He has a really twisted, violent streak to his writing that is actually pretty at odds with superheroes and I'd be interested to see him apply that to something perhaps more suitable.

[Thok]

Something creator owned and without big corporate characters. He's one of the only mainstream comic writers who really hasn't done that.

While I agree with the sentiment, I think he's still maturing as a writer, and I'm not certain he's ready to abandon the DCU yet. Among other things, Johns seems to prefer reimaging characters to creating new characters at this point in his career.

That said, I do hope to see some interesting independent work of his own in about three to five years.

[Winghead]

Yeah he does some creepy weird stuff and usually has a very literary writing style and his creator owned work could be a lot more like Moore and Morrison. He is kind of this generation's Alan Moore but he will need to try something outside of the super hero safety zone to fully reach those heights

[Ilash]

Yeah he does some creepy weird stuff and usually has a very literary writing style and his creator owned work could be a lot more like Moore and Morrison. He is kind of this generation's Alan Moore but he will need to try something outside of the super hero safety zone to fully reach those heights

Johns this generation's Moore? Yeah, I don't see it. I haven't actually loved everything that Moore has done (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume II comes to mind) but I really do think he's on a whole other level to Johns. I just don't see him ever reaching that level.

[RyleKayner]

Yeah he does some creepy weird stuff and usually has a very literary writing style and his creator owned work could be a lot more like Moore and Morrison. He is kind of this generation's Alan Moore but he will need to try something outside of the super hero safety zone to fully reach those heights

I just splurted my cornflakes all over my keyboard!

Johns is a fine, serviceable writer. You can compare him to Len Wein, John Byrne and Chris Claremont all you want, but Alan Moore? Completely the wrong league my friend. It's like saying Banksy is the Da Vinci of his generation.

I don't think putting Johns on a non-canon, non-DC book is the best use of his talents.

[Sean Walsh]

He co-wrote a horror miniseries over at Wildstorm called THE POSSESSED (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Possessed_(comics)) a few years back.

[Sean Walsh]

Johns is a fine, serviceable writer. You can compare him to Len Wein, John Byrne and Chris Claremont all you want, but Alan Moore? Completely the wrong league my friend. It's like saying Banksy is the Da Vinci of his generation.

I agree. Geoff Johns is no Alan Moore.

Because I can understand what the f Geoff Johns is writing about when I read it.

:eek: :tongue:

[Ilash]

I just splurted my cornflakes all over my keyboard!

Johns is a fine, serviceable writer. You can compare him to Len Wein, John Byrne and Chris Claremont all you want, but Alan Moore? Completely the wrong league my friend. It's like saying Banksy is the Da Vinci of his generation.

I don't think putting Johns on a non-canon, non-DC book is the best use of his talents.

See, I agree with most of this but that last line... why not?

[Raharu]

I'm always up for a creator doing their own thing with creator owned work, but I wouldn't jump on it or anything. He's really not a writer that's really all that high on my list.

I agree with the above, I can't see Johns as this generation's Alan Moore (even though I'm pretty sure that Alan Moore would be the this generation's Alan Moore :/). I think the call on John Byrne and Chris Claremount are good ones.

He's not really like Morrison either, for that matter. He's much more of a straight forward storyteller, and Morrison tends to be much of a deconstructionist storyteller most of the time.

[Will.S]

I could see Johns doing well on a creator owned superhero book similar to Kirkman's Invincible since it plays by it's own rules and has plenty of the gore that Johns seems so fond of using.

I could also see Johns doing a horror comic as well for the same reason of using gore in his comics and mixing it with other genre's.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Well, he did Olympus (http://www.amazon.com/Olympus-Geoff-Johns/dp/1401206433) for Humanoids...

http://superpouvoir.com/~marv/Comic-Independant/Solicitations/June_2009/olympus1.jpg
http://ns26514.ovh.net/~buzzprev/2009-05/Ind%C3%A9s/olympus3.jpg

I believe DC released it when they had the Humanoids license.

[jerrymcl89]

Geoff is still in his ET-era Spielberg phase, which is fine. He's great at turning out commercially huge comics. Presumably, at some point, he'll try to branch out and try other things. But I don't think there's any rush.

[Raharu]

Because I can understand what the f Geoff Johns is writing about when I read it.

:eek: :tongue:

I assume this is a joke because of the icons then? Because I don't think Alan Moore is really that hard to understand, at least not on a surface level

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Geoff is still in his ET-era Spielberg phase, which is fine.

I don't quite get what that means - Speilberg was doing a lot of different stuff, and had done different stuff, before that.

[jerrymcl89]

I don't quite get what that means - Speilberg was doing a lot of different stuff, and had done different stuff, before that.

What it means to me is doing deliberately non-commericial stuff, which Speilberg only started doing around the time of "The Color Purple". I would think Geoff probably has things that aren't big fighty superheroey that he wants to do. But he hasn't tried to do them yet.

[FanboyStranger]

Johns is a very capable writer. His superhero work, for the most part, has been very good. That said, I read The Possessed, and it was terrible, even with the Liam Sharp art. I'm not saying that he couldn't do a good creator-owned series, but that he's in phase of his career where he's exhausting all the good ideas he's had growing up on the superheroes he grew up with. Personally, I find the various color Latern Corps a great singular idea, and kicked myself for not coming up with it sooner. I look at Roy Thomas doing great Elric adaptations for First in the '80s, and I think that's where Johns is going to end up someday. So, enjoy it while you can.

Anyone who compares Johns with Moore or Morrison doesn't understand the medium very well. Moore and Morrison have written comics that were so influential that they changed how comics are written. Johns simply writes good comics.

[Duy]

As much as I love Geoff's work - and I do think he gets the superheroes he writes better than anyone - I think the quality of his work rests on his understanding of the awesomeness of these characters.

Without these characters, I don't think Geoff would be the same. And there's nothing wrong with that.

[Ilash]

As much as I love Geoff's work - and I do think he gets the superheroes he writes better than anyone - I think the quality of his work rests on his understanding of the awesomeness of these characters.


Well, off the top of my head, I think Morrison and Waid have much, much better understanding of DC's characters than Geoff does. Geoff has to twist the characters to his own needs before he gets a real grip on them. That works brilliantly sometimes (Hawkman, the entire JSA), significantly less so at others (Bart Allen!).

[Darrell D.]

I agree. Geoff Johns is no Alan Moore.

Because I can understand what the f Geoff Johns is writing about when I read it.

:eek: :tongue:

I hope you were joking. Moore is a fairly straight forward writer, who happens to be good at what he does. I can't imagine someone not understanding his work. Not liking it, sure, but it's not like he's William Burroughs for God sakes.
Comparing Johns to Moore did make me giggle, though.

[Duy]

Well, off the top of my head, I think Morrison and Waid have much, much better understanding of DC's characters than Geoff does. Geoff has to twist the characters to his own needs before he gets a real grip on them. That works brilliantly sometimes (Hawkman, the entire JSA), significantly less so at others (Bart Allen!).
Maybe Waid, but I don't think Morrison does. I think Morrison does just as much twisting - if not more - than Geoff does, though Grant's twisting is of a different breed.

But more than anyone, Geoff has those awesome, hard-hitting completely fit-for-the-character moments that just drive the adrenaline all the way up. The last issue of "Superman and the Legion", for example, starting from the moment Kal revives when the sun becomes yellow again. Hal's return in Rebirth, Ollie's power ring arrow, all that stuff. I love it.

I mean, honestly, I love Alan Moore and he's definitely number one on my list of writers, but let's take For the Man Who Has Everything, for instance. Who the hell wants to see Jason Todd save Kal from Mongul? Really?

For my intellectual side, I'll take well told stories, great characterization, tight narratives, and whatnot. But for my pure fanboy, adrenaline-driven side, I want a payoff, like a boxing match pays off of a long build up. (Pacquiao vs Hatton, for example)

And from my point of view, no one does the latter better than Geoff Johns. And he gets most people's characterizations down pat, too -- and if he doesn't, he sometimes makes it better.

I can get where people are peeved about his handling of Bart Allen, and I get it, I do, but I do think that when Bart WAS to mature, the way Geoff handled it was as good as any. Whether or not Bart SHOULD have been given that development is another matter entirely.