USA Today: Johns unleashes 'Wrath of the First Lantern' crossover

[Desaad]

I don't really see where people are getting the idea Johns is leaving? I was talking about a future writer in terms of hypotheticals, I don't get any indication from this article that Johns is leaving any time soon.

Purely speculative. But he's comparing this to Blackest Night, it feels like it may be his final curtain call.

I've been hoping for this for a while now though so that is undoubtedly coloring it.

What's strange is that now that we might be here, prospects are slimmer than ever. Snyder and Lemire booked up, Cornell gone (and honestly he's fallen considerably in my eyes), Roberson gone, Diggle on Action, Gillen and Hickman and Aaron all booked up at Marvel, JMS putting out some of the worst material of his career consistently, Darwyn Cooke completely uninterested in the superhero genre....

I think there are some guys who could do some decent work that are established enough to shoulder the responsibility, but I honestly don't know. Jeff Parker, I suppose. JMS. Diggle, if he's got it in him.

At this point, to make me really ecstatic they'd have to make a big steal from Marvel or take a HUGE risk for an up and comer, or something from other media.

[MajorHoy]

Final Crisis of Infinite Lanterns.

Zero Hour: Final Crisis of Infinite Lanterns

[kevdude]

I don't see where people think he is leaving? He said in an interview after Blackest Night/Brightest Day that he is only half done with his storys in the GL mythos, so we have a good while to go if he leaves at all..... Heck GL is usually at the top 10 or 5 in sales it makes no sense for him to leave. People said he was leaving after BN and that didn't happen and why would it? He is the GL writer so hes not going anywhere imo.

[Retro315]

Mahnke is top-shelf. I hope he makes good money drawing Lanterns all day.

Blackest Night was neat but overperformed popularly and underperformed critically for me - but still, it introduced some big new toys that I really wanted to see played with once introduced (and Kyle Rayner is getting White Lantern powers only now, three years later ... brutal). Brightest Day was far more successful at reviving Aquaman than anything else it tried to do (I did like Tomasi's Hawkman, though).

But after slogging through "Countdown to War of the Green Lanterns", "Alpha-Lantern Stress", "War of the Green Lanterns", "Hal & Sinestro Versus The Sinestros on Korugar", "More Alpha-Lantern Stress", "Red Lanterns Who Could Be More Hellish and Interesting", and "Finally we learn something about the Indigo Tribe ..." I was starting to get really burnt out myself. (What can I say, the goodness of Sinestro Corps War and Tomasi's work with Guy, Sodam and Arisia really bought them a lot of good-will.)

Anyway, this bit with Simon, the First Lantern and the Alt. Guardians actually piqued my interest.

I'll still be underwhelmed unless I get something wildly original and fun and some of these big past elements actually get played with. Or until I finally get my damned Larfleeze vs. Krypto Special and learn more about The Cat in the Hate. And see some other classic Earth-based GL villains actually tinkered with like Goldface or Sonar or Karshon or particularly Evil Star. Evil Star has been scheming in the cosmic background and we know it. And bring back Arisia & Sodam.

[Harbinger of Apocalypse]

Interesting, I think the First Lantern arc will be more interesting then the Third Army as he sounds like a cool character. He isn't all 'kill all life', he seems to be more obsessed with life if anything. So, thats something different compared to Black Hand and Nekron or Krona - though Krona had an interesting motive in that he wanted to replace the Guardians but I felt Johns should have just invented a completely new Oan instead of forcing that kind of story arc on Krona but meh. Anyway, if he is the First Lantern and possibly powered by White Light, then Black Hand would be his natural antithesis. Makes me wonder if they will clash during the arc.

And I also don't get why some people think Johns in leaving as he hasn't indicated anything to say he was going to leave with this one. There were plenty of opportunities for him to leave in previous events like Blackest Night. If anything, I suspect things will win down a bit and prep for another event down the road. Mind you, I do get a bit exhausted with the constant event and sometimes feel such events kind of hurt the other GL titles as they tend to cross over with Green Lantern. They also manage to get one or two story arcs done before being dragged into a new event... GLC had the Keepers stuff and Alpha Lantern War before now being part of Third Army, New Guardians had Invictus only and similarly Red Lanterns only had the incredibly long Abysmus arc. Thats 1 or 2 story arcs before being forced to be part of a cross-over.

But even if Johns were to leave... to be honest, I personally think Green Lantern will drop back into obscurity if Johns were to leave as I can't see anyone being able to replace him. Though I don't know where he gets the energy to do the amount of stuff he is doing. I mean, he's doing Green Lantern, Aquman as well even though he is set to leave soon, there is Justice League and now Justice League of America plus his duties as Chief Creative Director (or whatever)... it makes me think the guys Batman and operates from the Johns Cave and using the Johns Computer Kind of amazing to see such multi-tasking.

[[Trigger]]

I don't see why he'd create a character like Baz that is so close to home if he's just leaving. He said he intended that character to be around for the long haul. I think he'll focus on building up Baz after this.

[Harbinger of Apocalypse]

If he decided to leave Green Lantern, he won't be leaving Baz behind since Baz is part of Justice League of America and so Johns could still use him technically. Just saying...

[WhitOro]

Yes, got to admit, all the Green Lanterns events are sucking the life out of these titles. GLCorps was fairly good up and during Blackest Night, but after that it was only filler filler filler, wasting time waiting for Johns to come up with another big story. The relaunched title felt the same, with Simon on the lead GL became more lively and interesting, exaclty because it felt less like event building in progress.

Zero Hour: Final Crisis of Infinite Lanterns

Final Night of the Blackest Third Army: The Wrath of the Infinite Brightest Hour

Jumping on the bandwagon like a pro.

[ducklord]

Here's my Green Lantern wish - an actual status quo. No Corps-wide crises for two years. Green Lanterns patrolling their sectors, doing Corps stuff. That's what I want.

[B. Kuwanger]

Final Night of the Blackest Third Army: The Wrath of the Infinite Brightest Hour

Dawn of the Dead Lanterns

[RoughNTumble]

Here's my Green Lantern wish - an actual status quo. No Corps-wide crises for two years. Green Lanterns patrolling their sectors, doing Corps stuff. That's what I want.

seriously

on a similar note, when was the last time we saw general stone or cowgirl? lol

[Harbinger of Apocalypse]

Cowgirls been pretty much... forgotten entirely since the reboot and Hal's gone back to Carol Ferris without even showing Cowgirl. So, makes one wonder if Cowgirl is still in continuity or whether Hal did the Hal thing and just dumped her without telling her Last we saw her was when Carol rang for Hal when she became a Star Sapphire.

[Desaad]

And I also don't get why some people think Johns in leaving as he hasn't indicated anything to say he was going to leave with this one. There were plenty of opportunities for him to leave in previous events like Blackest Night.

I'm not sure I understand the logic, here; is it that because he didn't take one opportunity to leave some 3-4 years before, he won't take one a year from now? That's a bit like saying Brubaker didn't leave after "Cap Reborn" so he's never going to leave, or that because Bendis didn't leave after Siege he'll be on the Avengers forever.

Not saying that Johns IS going to leave, but nothing about your above sentence makes sense to me.

But even if Johns were to leave... to be honest, I personally think Green Lantern will drop back into obscurity if Johns were to leave as I can't see anyone being able to replace him. Though I don't know where he gets the energy to do the amount of stuff he is doing. I mean, he's doing Green Lantern, Aquman as well even though he is set to leave soon, there is Justice League and now Justice League of America plus his duties as Chief Creative Director (or whatever)... it makes me think the guys Batman and operates from the Johns Cave and using the Johns Computer Kind of amazing to see such multi-tasking.

This tends to be the way of things; you don't generally get two monumentally successful runs in a row. But it has to happen EVENTUALLY, and there is always the chance that with a solid effort from editorial in picking a successor they'd be successful.

[Harbinger of Apocalypse]

I'm not sure I understand the logic, here; is it that because he didn't take one opportunity to leave some 3-4 years before, he won't take one a year from now? That's a bit like saying Brubaker didn't leave after "Cap Reborn" so he's never going to leave, or that because Bendis didn't leave after Siege he'll be on the Avengers forever.

Not saying that Johns IS going to leave, but nothing about your above sentence makes sense to me.

Just saying there were plenty of opportunities to leave earlier as he could have ended with an event that seemed like the ending of a story. Blackest Night was perhaps the best opportunity to leave as it was a big event and had the whole prophecy element attached to it with loads of resurrections and all. A good ending point and material left behind for another person to take over if they wanted to do so. This whole Wrath of the First Lantern thing, however, makes it seem like Johns is going to stay as there are more stories to tell. Blackest Night had a certain... finality (I suppose?) to it. Could be wrong but thats how I see it.

[Desaad]

Just saying there were plenty of opportunities to leave earlier as he could have ended with an event that seemed like the ending of a story.

Sure, but that doesn't mean he's not going to take a future opportunity, right? Again, I can think of some 5 separate 'break points' for Bendis to have left the Avengers -- until he finally just did. The fact that he didn't take previous opportunities to exit in no way has any bearing on the liklihood that he'll take the next one, feeling perhaps that his run is over. Ditto Brubaker Cap, etc.

Blackest Night was perhaps the best opportunity to leave as it was a big event and had the whole prophecy element attached to it with loads of resurrections and all. A good ending point and material left behind for another person to take over if they wanted to do so. This whole Wrath of the First Lantern thing, however, makes it seem like Johns is going to stay as there are more stories to tell. Blackest Night had a certain... finality (I suppose?) to it. Could be wrong but thats how I see it.

Blackest Night may have been a stronger place to leave story wise, but Johns wanted to tell more Green Lantern stories at that point, and his run was still a wild, chart topping success then too. He's told, what, 3 years of stories since then? If he leaves after this arc he'll have told at least 4 years more of story. I hardly think it's unreasonable that after 4 MORE years he might want to leave. It's not as though he'll have felt he 'missed' his opportunity; he got to tell 4 more years of story.

I'm saying, if I'm writing a series of novels, I'm going to stop when I feel I want to stop. The fact that I didn't stop after the first 3 doesn't make it less likely that I'm going to stop after the 6th one.