However, if this sort of thing is done out of some sort of cynical nostalgic or marketing urge, and it shows, then why bother, artistically speaking?
That's my chief concern, that the multiverse is being brought back for cynical marketing and nostalgia purposes. I would have no problem with the mutiverse being brought back several years ago, when there were so many problems with the singleverse. But now, bringing back the multiverse serves no function because the major problems created by the merged singleverse have been SOLVED, and the singleverse has, thanks to Johns, justified its existence. There's no REASON to bring the multiverse back.
And Capt Marvel doesn't fit? Like Super-Monkey says, get some good creative people on him or keep his books separate --the kids won't care that he doesn't team up with Elongated Man every other month.
Again, I don't see why Captain Marvel is entitled to such special treatment.
One of the drawbacks of a shared universe, going ALL the way back to the JSA in the 1940s, is that the self-contained role of each individual hero as the sole hope of the world is eliminated. It isn't just Captain Marvel that is weakened by being put on the same earth as Superman - ALL heroes are weakened by being put on the same earth as Superman! However, by putting all the heroes on the same earth, as they did in JSA, they gained much more than was lost.
Johns stuff with Black Adam just seems to be another excuse for more of his cheap gore stunts.
I don't really see the problem with Black Adam being violent. In fact, if he wasn't violent, he wouldn't be characterized appropriately as a very hard-edged, might-makes-right character who is far less restrained and "clean" than the JLAers that surround him.
In other words, it's not a cheap excuse for violence because the violence has a purpose: it's characterization, Black Adam being Black Adam.
And I will admit, there is something darkly cool about Black Adam catching a suicide bomber, tearing his arm off, and saying "You have THREE more chances to tell me who hired you."
Stuff like having his Black Adams new son fly through a guy complete with intestines dangling off the kids shoulder is just stupid and irresponsible.
Well, this is an interesting question, isn't it?
You've got a supremely powerful character like Black Adam. How do you get this character to arouse fear? One way is to not wuss out, and SHOW the absolutely terrifying consequences of such a character in battle against ordinary mortals.
One of my biggest problems is with the character of Gorilla Grodd at least prior to Johns; he's an illustration of why violence is necessary for certain KINDS villains (not all, certainly) in order to be frightening.
Grodd's a member of a savage anthropoid race. Gorillas are scary. Those suckers are BIG, fierce wild animals. When Johns showed, in an Edgar Rice Burroughs fashoin, what exactly HAPPENS when a gorilla attacks a man, suddenly, Grodd got his teeth back. This ferocity and bestial power was always a part of who his character was, but we the reader never realized it until it was depicted.
Suddenly, Grodd isn't someone to laugh at anymore.
It's no coincidence that Johns's Flash run, featuring a terrifying Grodd red in tooth and fang, preceded Grodd's promotion to "master villain" status in the League cartoon.
If DC wants to usher in a new age maybe the could start by showing some class.
I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with stories that appeal to our base urges for sex and violence.
Otherwise good, decent people enjoy Tarzan's savage beast-slayings and Solomon Kane drenched in the blood of evil Bat-people, or Andy Kubert's macho man war tales, or movies where giant snakes eat teenagers. Human beings, and especially men, are attracted to violence, blood, and "sick" things and that's been true from the days of the Gladiators to P.T. Barnum to the Godfather to Geoff Johns.
..and I don't like that we get Isis into the DCU just so she can be Black Adam's fling.
Now wait, that's not the whole story. In 52, Isis isn't just introduced to be Teth Adam's booty partner. It's a very interesting scenario that they're exploring: what if a "bad boy" like Adam gets a girlfriend that is a loveable Mother Teresa type? How will the power of love transform him? And the concept is well-executed: you see Adam acting differently as a result of Isis's influence. She refuses to allow him to wipe out a cel of very bad men to teach them a lesson, for instance.
And the idea of Isis - Princess Di and Marylin Monroe rolled into one - as a beloved figure in Khandaq is an interesting one. I loved the idea Khandaq girls duplicate her fashoin sense!
I've never been happy with having him as member of the JSA because it's just a rock stupid and nonsensical waste of a good villan.
If Black Adam was threatening the earth with some dubious ray, or teaming up with Sivana for "revenge" against the Marvels, that would be a waste of a good villain. What makes Black Adam different and unique, where he transcends the "mirror evil twin" villain niche is the fact he, like Namor, is a person with heroic instincts but also a degree pride and ruthlessness.
The moment where Black Adam, during his battle with the JSA, collapses because he accidentally destroyed the grave of his dead family was deeply touching. It's much more interesting than another Captain Marvel vs. Adam battle.
When I heard about Johns's "Black Reign" I was skeptical because of how it sounded like another inane KINGDOM COME type story where proactive heroes get smacked down by old school heroes or are "cursed by their own hubris" or somesuch. But to his credit, Johns didn't go for the easy way out. He did something it is very, very hard to do in superhero comics: present two contradiictory points of view, and have them both be sympathetic to the audience.
On the issue of Captain Marvel in "cartoony" context I would agree with your point if it were being done exactly like the 40's. But I think Jeff Smith is going to be serving up some "cartoony" Captain Marvel that will be a blast to read and very preferable to the utter Iron Age BS of Trials. For playing it totally straight, I would like to see that to but it seems like the only guys in the business capable of that are Dini and Ross on Power of Hope who can find that right balance of wonder and magic to go with the straight faced epic superhero stuff.
I wish Jeff Smith the best of luck, and if he can achieve the balance that would be great to see. Taking Captain Marvel's better elements and removing it from the detritus of the cartoony world that birthed him is an ideal approach.
But this really proves my point about the mutiverse's return not being a good idea: if a balance can be found for Captain Marvel, in other words stories can be told with him that are "straight" in the same vein as those of Superman or Green Lantern but still keeps true to the character's uniqueness, I don't see why he "needs" his own earth.
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