Is it even desirable at this point for the Multiverse to return?

[DBN]

Reading it makes me sick and is a prime example of why I avoid Johns like the plague.

Make no mistake Johns is a gorehoud:

Quotes from a new interview, where he talks about his new takes on classic villians, see if you can see a pattern here:

Johns on Parasite:

“The Parasite leeched off of everybody in his life, and it resulted in a lot of bad things, including death and murder."

Johns on Metallo:

“Metallo’s the ultimate bully,” explains Johns. "If he can brag that he made Superman bleed—he loves that, and that’s all he really wants."

Johns on Bizarro:

"Bizarro is definitely a threat; he’s dangerous and that’s how Superman sees him. He certainly doesn’t see him as a joke or a funny character."

Johns on Bizarroworld:

“Just think ‘Dawn of the Dead,” says Johns. “Bizarroworld is a little bit more scary and creepy."

Johns on Brainiac:

"We’re trying to push him into the upper echelon of villains, and make him a really scary threat. When Brainiac shows up, it’s a very devastating thing."

Johns on Action Comics Annual:

"Art Adams is doing a four-page mini on how Superman can be killed."

Johns on Action Comics:

"We’re just gonna try and push the envelope in ideas, and if people say, ‘You can’t do that!’ we wanna do it!”



http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/wizard/003071109.cfm

At the rate that Action is currently coming out, shouldn't that be a 2008 preview?

[JulianPerez]

I think that if you make all the violence and sexuality that is inherent in a concept overt...ultimately you result in something much more "normal."

Here's an example of what I mean:

Tarzan and Conan the Barbarian have had truly bloodthirsty tales. One of the more over the top scenes was in RETURN OF TARZAN, where Lord Greystoke actually killed a lion by tearing it with his teeth. There's sex inherent in the Tarzan concept. Who can forget the whole "thing no primeval, red-blooded man needs a lesson in?" Ditto for Conan to the power of infinity.

Doc Savage on the other hand, hides everything under the rug. Doc uses "mercy" bullets, tries to avoid taking human life, and has nothing anywhere near resembling a sex life...all this in the context of the pulps, where the Shadow regularly opened fire with .45 automatics on roomfuls of gangsters and where Conan was crushing soft, perfumed concubines to him left and right.

Yet, more than any other character in history, Doc Savage is the victim of a lot of speculation that paint him and his world in a sinister light, and while I have always believed in buying into the world a writer creates (if the writer says his crime college rids crooks of their evil nature, that's all it is) these theories are inevitable because it's just not NORMAL for a man to not be interested in women.

The exact nature of his "crime college," for instance. In his Doc comics in the 1980s, Denny O'Neil outright said they performed lobotomies. Or the ghastly idea Doc's men are Doc's servants and they don't really think for themselves. Or the "understanding" some speculate exists between Pat and Doc.

Not that we should listen to nitwits that say these things, but my overall point here is, people don't make these kinds of speculations about Tarzan or Conan. The reason is there's an element of repression to Doc and his aides that ultimately makes the mind wander to less wholesome directions.

I do think that the superhero genre, which can hold alot and be stretched in many different ways, cannot maintain the sort of genre expectations the current so-called adult audience brings to it. 

One value an adult audience should expect is characterization - which trumps all other values, including plot.

I'm serious. WRATH OF KHAN had plot holes you could drive a photon torpedo through yet it was wonderful and watchable because of how great the characters were.

And characterization is successful when transplanted onto superhero characters. In fact, its arguable that comics only really got readable when characters started to have definite personalities.

How does all this tie into my defense of Johns having Black Adam rip a terrorist's arm off and Gorilla Grodd? Because, as an element of their characterization, these two have an element of physical brutality. It's who they are, even if it wasn't made explicit before.

We talk about violence as if it was something separate from character, but it really isn't. The reason I enjoy Johns's tales is not only because of his gift for characterization and understanding of the characters. Violence isn't just done for violence's sake, but in service to characterization.

This is why it bothers me when people talk about violence as if its presence in and of itself has a value, when it doesn't. The only thing that makes violence work is the context.

This is why it bothered me when the usual people were hooting like howler monkeys that found a Game Boy at the sight of a pair of preview panels in Johns's ACTION COMICS...because it featured Superman losing his cool.

"That's that gore-crazed hack at it again!"

By the way, do you know what the panels turned out to be?

Superman's adopted young son was kidnapped and he's demanding an explanation from a person he believes has knowledge!

You know, I'd be a mite peevish too. It was a perfectly understandable, very human reaction. Superman is a humanitarian, but I don't understand where that makes him a robot.

This is why I don't accept reactions to something out of context as legitimate opinions. And hearing something happened without reading the comics is out of context.

I admit, I really dislike gore and slasher movies. I don't see one single bit of entertainment value in such a thing.

Fair enough. Different people have different thresholds and preferences for violence.

Conan stuff, I can see the point there. Conan's world is rough and he lives by the sword. But Conan is very much an adults-only kind of thing and I think you can even overdo it there. The point of reading a Conan story shouldn't be just to see somebody's head fly off.

I don't know, I think there's something in Conan that fundamentally appeals to the boyish, adolescent portion of the brain, with his freebooting, lack of responsibilities, prowess, and so on.

There should be a difference between an audience of "children" and "adults," and an audience of teenagers. In fact, arguably, if you want to start getting into Conan NOW, unless you're fourteen the moment has probably passed.

Make no mistake Johns is a gorehoud:

Quotes from a new interview, where he talks about his new takes on classic villians, see if you can see a pattern here:

How the holy hell can these statements be construed to mean Johns is a gorehound? Unless of course, without ever reading a Johns comic ever, it's already been resolved he's a gore-crazed hack.

Still, even if your mind shuts down at the idea of a writer you've never read being any good...this is REALLY stretching it.

This reminds me of those hackneyed sitcom plots where a character gets it into his head that a woman is attracted to him, so everything she says, no matter how innocent, is somehow about sex.

Johns on Brainiac:

"We’re trying to push him into the upper echelon of villains, and make him a really scary threat. When Brainiac shows up, it’s a very devastating thing."

So, Johns wants Brainiac to be written as a grandiose, scary villain? THAT INHUMAN FIEND!

“The Parasite leeched off of everybody in his life, and it resulted in a lot of bad things, including death and murder."

...Because if a character's actions have had terrible consequences for people around him, when written by other people, somehow, this makes Johns a gorehound.

1 + 1 = 3?

Johns on Bizarroworld:

“Just think ‘Dawn of the Dead,” says Johns. “Bizarroworld is a little bit more scary and creepy."

Because if any horror element is ever present in a Superman story, it must be a sign of a goretastic hack, right?

By the way, nobody has gotten back to me on what exactly was so wrong with the Phantom Zone mini.

Johns on Action Comics Annual:

"Art Adams is doing a four-page mini on how Superman can be killed."

You see, now we're at a gesture level in our dialogue where any idea this writer casually mentions is Johnsbad.

Johns on Action Comics:

"We’re just gonna try and push the envelope in ideas, and if people say, ‘You can’t do that!’ we wanna do it!”

How again, does this show Johns is a goretastic hack?

I will concede this statement is pretty evil, but not for the reasons you might think so.

It's evil because saying "we're trying to push the envelope and be unpredictable" is a laughable writer interview cliche.

[Great Rao]

I think that if you make all the violence and sexuality that is inherent in a concept overt...ultimately you result in something much more "normal."
....
Not that we should listen to nitwits that say these things, but my overall point here is, people don't make these kinds of speculations about Tarzan or Conan. The reason is there's an element of repression to Doc and his aides that ultimately makes the mind wander to less wholesome directions.

Julian, are you actually saying that unless a guy slices up a woman and puts her in the fridge, he must be sexually repressed?  That this is somehow more "normal"?  I think that's why people are disagreeing with you.  The level of violence and gore that Johns presents is not normal - on the contrary, it seems like an unhealthy repressed fixation.

[TELLE]

Yet, more than any other character in history, Doc Savage is the victim of a lot of speculation that paint him and his world in a sinister light, and while I have always believed in buying into the world a writer creates (if the writer says his crime college rids crooks of their evil nature, that's all it is) these theories are inevitable because it's just not NORMAL for a man to not be interested in women.

Maybe Doc is gay.  Is that normal?

Not that we should listen to nitwits that say these things, but my overall point here is, people don't make these kinds of speculations about Tarzan or Conan. The reason is there's an element of repression to Doc and his aides that ultimately makes the mind wander to less wholesome directions.

I would agree. Not sure what you're saying, though --is this speculation wrong or misplaced?  Arguably, if Doc was a children's comic book character a la Capt. Marvel, instead of a sensational pulp magazine character marketed to adult males, I would say that non-fan speculation in new Doc adventures would not really be warranted.  As it is, everyone from Philip Jose Farmer on up has published explicit new tales of Doc, Tarzan and Conan.  And adult comedians, underground comics and Mad Magazine have had a field day with Tarzan's sexuality.

I do think that the superhero genre, which can hold alot and be stretched in many different ways, cannot maintain the sort of genre expectations the current so-called adult audience brings to it.

One value an adult audience should expect is characterization - which trumps all other values, including plot. [...]
And characterization is successful when transplanted onto superhero characters. In fact, its arguable that comics only really got readable when characters started to have definite personalities.

Certainly, adult readers should expect characterization.  Superman, Black Adam, and Capt. Marvel all had definite personalities for me pre-Crisis.  Heck, as I mentioned above, they even all used violence, some even killed.  Sure, these characters didn't develop very much (that is, life-changing events, or plots, didn't alter their attitudes and long-term goals except in the most minor way --I would argue you can't have character development without plot)  but they had adventures where they learned lessons and experimented with alternate ways of doing things.  They changed love interests and expanded their families.  But, true to form as branded serial adventure characters whose traditional audience cyclically evaporates every four years, they changed very little.

I would hate to discuss a comic I haven't read, since you would have to ignore my comments, so I will keep this general, and based on the new superhero comics I have read over the last 20 years (admittedly not very many):

The attempts to graft new, complex and "adult" personalities onto these characters (many of whom are already very complex --we are talking about the Clark/Superman duality here constantly) almost always fail and are almost always pathetic.  Imaginary stories and Elseworlds being some of the exceptions --where a clear end is in sight for the character and his evolution.  It may work for the new audiences I mention above, but only if they have no experience of previous incarnations of the characters.  Better to create new characters out of whole cloth.  And while you're at it, why not get rid of the genre trappings (by which I mean the chief markers --the costumes) so people will take you more seriously?  What you have left are adventure stories with fantasy or sci-fi elements, a la the X-Men movies, Heroes TV show, Dr. Who, etc.  Leave the crazy science and outright, careless fantasy to the kiddies.

Of course, there's a million billion dollars reasons not to do this --DC wants to keep the brands going, the writers want to eat, the "adult" fans need their fix: the whole system of pushers, pimps, and plantation workers would temporarily collapse if the capes were abandoned.  So they soldier on...

This is why it bothers me when people talk about violence as if its presence in and of itself has a value, when it doesn't. The only thing that makes violence work is the context.

The context here being the type of world where thousands of psychotic superpowered types and their only slightly less psychotic adversaires have the run of a fictional universe based on all the cliches of crime melodramas and slasher films (some misguided editors idea of "reality").  Fine as parody.  Fine as a self-contained story.  But as a giant continuing shared world marketed to teens --a consumer lifestyle for crissake-- there is something very sad and not a little disturbing about that.  Plus the art is ugly.

[JulianPerez]

Julian, are you actually saying that unless a guy slices up a woman and puts her in the fridge,

Two things:

1) Johns never did that, so it's hardly fair to bring it up when talking about Johns. The reason it is apples to oranges, is because Ron Marz is a terrible writer that had violence against a woman for shock value whereas Johns uses violence for the purpose of characterization. Marz's girl in the fridge served no purpose. Johns's violence always serves a purpose.

2) Perhaps I didn't phrase my point clearly enough: There's nothing wrong with sex or violence if it is inherent in the concept of a character. The characters of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION can get away with having no sexual desire, because it's an all-guy movie...you don't expect sex in that context. But Doc is a pulp hero. And as if to underscore the point, women throw themselves at Doc all the time.

This is why I said there's nothing wrong with Gorilla Grodd and Black Adam performing violent acts - because its in their nature to be brutes. But I would have a problem if Superman or Captain America did so, which Johns has never done and he's written both characters.

The level of violence and gore that Johns presents is not normal - on the contrary, it seems like an unhealthy repressed fixation.

Here's why I disagree: because I've...y'know, READ Johns's work, I can put the actions of his characters in context.

For instance: if Johns has an unhealthy, repressed fixation with violence, why is it except for Black Adam's itchy punching fist, Johns's JSA is free of gore?

It's not because Johns hasn't had the opportunity to put some in. During the JSA's big battle with Mordru, the Dark Lord could have been melting human flesh left and right. But Johns had Mordru fight like Mordru: he defeated Canary by transforming her into an actual black canary inside a cage.

The only characters Johns has be brutal are his brutal characters. It's not like Mr. Terrific is rebuilding a T-Sphere to drill through skulls.

And then there's Superman, but whose reaction is reasonable by any definition - everyone that excoriated Johns for those panels should be ashamed of themselves for catastrophic willful ignorance and jumping to false conclusions.

[Super Monkey]

Those panels didn't have any words. Clearly the problem was with the artwork that made Superman look like the hulk with a cape. He looked more like Bizarro than Bizarro!

[Michel Weisnor]

Julian, Geoff Johns writes at least one gory panel every few issues. It's what he does. He should try his hand at the horror genre. I just finished reading his Flash run; while good I wish he would tone it back....

Off topic:

With the return to roots feel of comics, do you think we'll see pulp style superhero comics? You know with less comic panels and more written pages?      

[Super Monkey]

BTW,

People seem to be missing the REAL reason why DC is introducing a new version of the Multiverse. The reason is the same as to why they got rid of the original version in the 1st place.

That is because, Marvel has a Multiverse and and it's big with their readers. I believe they call it the Marvel Omniverse or something.