So today I found myself reading two of Geoff Johns' recent mini-epics: Flash Rebirth and Legion of 3 Worlds. And with both of them, when I put them down, I just felt this feeling of fatigue from trying to keep up with the almost overwhelming amount of continuity and characters and ideas he threw at me. As I reflected on that feeling, I realized that I had felt it before — a few years ago, when I dove into the early years of the "All New, All Different" X-Men books. Which led to my ultimate realization...
Geoff Johns is this comic book era's Chris Claremont.
Do with that what you will. :)
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I don't know. I've never had the impression that Claremont cares much about continuity. I consider Johns to be following more in the footsteps of Roy Thomas and Kurt Busiek.
I get it that everyone loves Geoff Johns at the moment, and DC wants to leverage the huge fanlove of Darkest Night into more ongoing sales, but might all these bi-weeklies and inter-related titles by the one writer be too much of a good thing?
I didn't say it, but I was going to throw in a comparison to Claremont at the very height of his popularity. It's valid.
Of course Claremont's popularity momentum continued long after he peaked artistically even though he didn't add much to his box of tricks during his long decline from being at the very pinnacle of his creativity and popularity.
So I don't see a problem for DC in him being this decade's Claremont. They'll milk a lot of sales out of him yet, but perhaps for the discerning reader...
I don't think Johns has a huge bag of tricks himself. I've read Green Lantern up to 'Secret Origin', and he made a few plot elements go a loooong way. I'm not getting the impression of a wildly creative mind fizzing with new ideas or approaches.
Cav said: I don't know. I've never had the impression that Claremont cares much about continuity. I consider Johns to be following more in the footsteps of Roy Thomas and Kurt Busiek.
Claremont cared very much about his continuity, as Johns does. Eventually, all Claremont's funky-ass strong women were living in the same apartment building. Mutants, bionic gumshoes and whatever else. In the early 1980s he had to keep tying in Heroes for Hire, Marvel Team-up and X-men, as well as his other stuff.
Claremont was alight in them days though. Great comics. Pity his work started going around and around in ever decreasing circles.
Consider, also, that Claremont was working 'Marvel Method' and most of the 'heavy lifting' plot and concept-wise in his best work were done by such great creators as John Byrne and Alan Davis. Geoff Johns is depending on Geoff Johns now.
I'm reading Claremont/Davis Excalibur these days, and Claremont there, and Johns in Blackest Night were both standing on the shoulders of one hairy giant whose name is Alan Moore.
DC only knows one marketing strategy: Find somethig the fans love and keep flogging it to them until disgust sets in.
I was listening to an interview with Louise Simonson on the Uncanny X-Cast a few weeks ago and she stated that, when she was Claremont's editor on the X-books, more then once he would come into her office, slump down in a chair, and say that he was washed up...out of ideas. Louise would then take out a few of his past issues, flip through them, and point out the many little throwaway bits of potential plots in character's thoughts or statements which he had planted and hadn't gotten back to yet. He would immediately brighten, feeling that he had one to two more years of stories, thank her, and go back to writing.
I had that reaction to Legion of 3 Worlds as well. That's why I originally dropped out (I eventually changed my mind because I didn't want to miss out on the George Perez art). Finding out that Flash: Rebirth has been very similar confirms that I made the right decision to take a pass.
... I just felt this feeling of fatigue from trying to keep up with the almost overwhelming amount of continuity and characters and ideas he threw at me
I suppose you're not exactly suffering from the Chris Carter Effect, yet some writers are what I consider cyclical who continually repeat themselves in unimaginative style after their first wave of success, and then there are those who will make a story up as they go along, where oftentimes the questions asked are more satisfying than the revelations at the end. Chris Claremont appears to fall into both these categories.
I'm not sure how I feel about the central thesis of this thread, but I have to say that I had to go back and re-read Legion of 3 Worlds because people kept mentioning things that happened there that I didn't remember. They did, of course, but there was just too much information thrown at me at a sitting (which is how I read miniseries) to process it all. Sort of like the Dark Knight movie.
That's all. Please return to your previous thread.
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I get it that everyone loves Geoff Johns at the moment, and DC wants to leverage the huge fanlove of Darkest Night into more ongoing sales, but might all these bi-weeklies and inter-related titles by the one writer be too much of a good thing?
I didn't say it, but I was going to throw in a comparison to Claremont at the very height of his popularity. It's valid.
Of course Claremont's popularity momentum continued long after he peaked artistically even though he didn't add much to his box of tricks during his long decline from being at the very pinnacle of his creativity and popularity.
So I don't see a problem for DC in him being this decade's Claremont. They'll milk a lot of sales out of him yet, but perhaps for the discerning reader...
I don't think Johns has a huge bag of tricks himself. I've read Green Lantern up to 'Secret Origin', and he made a few plot elements go a loooong way. I'm not getting the impression of a wildly creative mind fizzing with new ideas or approaches.
Cav said: I don't know. I've never had the impression that Claremont cares much about continuity. I consider Johns to be following more in the footsteps of Roy Thomas and Kurt Busiek.
Claremont cared very much about his continuity, as Johns does. Eventually, all Claremont's funky-ass strong women were living in the same apartment building. Mutants, bionic gumshoes and whatever else. In the early 1980s he had to keep tying in Heroes for Hire, Marvel Team-up and X-men, as well as his other stuff.
Claremont was alight in them days though. Great comics. Pity his work started going around and around in ever decreasing circles.
Consider, also, that Claremont was working 'Marvel Method' and most of the 'heavy lifting' plot and concept-wise in his best work were done by such great creators as John Byrne and Alan Davis. Geoff Johns is depending on Geoff Johns now.
I'm reading Claremont/Davis Excalibur these days, and Claremont there, and Johns in Blackest Night were both standing on the shoulders of one hairy giant whose name is Alan Moore.
DC only knows one marketing strategy: Find somethig the fans love and keep flogging it to them until disgust sets in.
TurningPoint said:
Yeah. I have to be careful to ration my time there ... I can stay for hours ...
I considered linking to this entry in response to some of the "how did such-and-so happen" questions in the Siege thread...
That's all. Please return to your previous thread.