quote:Originally posted by Cobalt Kid: Warlord--which is basically like a creator-owned title--is very well done by Mike Grell.
I don't think Warlord occurred to me because it's not really a DCU book as it shares little-to-no continuity with the rest. I think it's technically in the DCU (given a Green Arrow cross-over many moons ago), but I definitely wantit to stay insulated where it is. That book has far exceeded my expectations and gets better all the time. I never collected Warlord in the past, but I'm glad I took a chance on this incarnation. It's truly excellent! (Gotta pick up that Showcase Warlord collection...)
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
GrayPal's POWER GIRL has been pretty much fluff, but enjoyable fluff for me.
One cannot discount their run on HAWKMAN, though, which was SO much better than even Geoff's run on same previously... With this run, I'd put them in the "Geoff/Gail/Phil" fanboy-pleasing camp (revitalization of villains, restoration of long-unseen 3rd tier faves like Golden Eagle)...
Marvelwise, HEROES FOR HIRE was on its way to Giffen/DeMatties/Maguire greatness before DC snagged GrayPal up exclusively.
quote:Originally posted by Cobalt Kid: Tony Daniel is not working for me at all on Batman.
I haven't read a bit of Daniel's run on Batman (though I read his crappy Battle for the Cowl), but it's consistently getting decent reviews on CBR, a site that gives me very reliable reviews typically.
quote:I've thought Dan Jurgens has done a really great job on Booster Gold and both his writing and artwork have reclaimed their place of greatness because of it. I think Booster under Jurgens has been better than Booster under Geoff.
I don't know if it was better than Geoff's run, but it certainly built very well on it. Dan's art remains very pleasing to the eye, and he can tell a very satisfying tale that shows the old school approach is still relevant. Definitely looking forward to Time Masters!
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm more of a character-follower than a writer-follower so other than the big names (Morrison, Johns, Simone, Mllash, etc) I don't really remember which writers have written which books I've read.
I also have never read a Marvel comic so I can't speak to the talents of Bendis and co. over there.
Regarding DC writers...
Geoff Johns - as much as I love his work most of the time, CK's suggestion of him skipping sleep and writing every book at DC gives me nightmares! I like variety in my books and Johns has a very samey formula to all the stories he tells, and as enjoyable as that formula often is, it can get kinda boring if you read a bunch of his books in a row.
Grant Morrison - can do (almost) no wrong for me at the moment. I'm a late-comer to his fandom but his run of Seven Soldiers - All-Star Superman - Batman (3 of my favourite storylines of the past decade!) has rocketed him to the top of my writers list. Something I never would have expected 15 years ago when I was barely tolerating him on JLA.
JMS - All I've ever read by him are his incredible few issues of Brave & Bold and he's already a writer I'll follow. Very much looking forward to his Superman.
Gail Simone - Too 'hit and miss' for me. I like some of her stuff and think she has some great ideas but her writing often bugs me. I thought Villains United was by far the worst of those Infinite Crisis minis and because of that I've avoided her Secret Six, despite its generally good reviews.
... Too tired to go into the rest in detail but I do think DC has some good up-and-comers. I thought that Prometheus Faces of Evil (or whatever) one-shot was well-written (though I don't remember who wrote it). JT Krul seems to be getting some good reports from around the place though I haven't read anything by him yet I don't think.
If you're still looking to drop those Marvel books you're not enjoying Lard Lad maybe you could tell us what books you're currently buying and we can recommend some for you? Vertigo seems to be firing on all cylinders at the mo so I'm sure you'd find some stuff you like there.
From: Australia | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
quote:Originally posted by Blacula: Geoff Johns - as much as I love his work most of the time, CK's suggestion of him skipping sleep and writing every book at DC gives me nightmares! I like variety in my books and Johns has a very samey formula to all the stories he tells, and as enjoyable as that formula often is, it can get kinda boring if you read a bunch of his books in a row.
For me, while there was an initial fanboyish appeal to Johns's writing, I found myself bored with his work rather quickly. So much of his stuff basically just consists in making things superficially resemble the way the were X number of years ago [usually late Bronze Age], but with two big differences: 1) the incredibly casual extreme violence tossed in (much of it directed against teenagers/old people); 2) the fact that his storylines in different titles tend to be so inter-connected (as Cobie suggests) that it's difficult to follow them unless you've been reading half DC's titles for the past ten years. The violence would actually be less jarring if the overall mood were grittier, but it seems really out of place with the "retro" feel he seems to be going for so much of the time.
What really bugs me, though, is that while he seems to be really good at playing with continuity, with re-arranging and connecting the pieces, there's a decided lack of genuine inventiveness in his work. So while he's often described as restoring much of DC to its pre-Crisis roots, in a way his stuff is very much the antithesis of the Silver/Bronze Age, which were all about constantly introducing new concepts and new ideas. In this regard, Morrison seems to me much more the heir of the Silver Age than Johns is.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I, on the other hand, have very little good to say about DC's writers, and none of it about their current work.
Geoff Johns will always have a special place in my heart for Green Lantern: Rebirth, the first 25 issues of the GL ongoing, and GLC: Recharge (the last one co-written with Dave Gibbons.) However...I'm still not convinced that Johns was able to keep up the quality of JSA without David Goyer co-writing, Teen Titans lost steam after Mike McKone stopped drawing it (which makes me wonder just how much McKone really contributed), his Superman/LSH run was ham-fisted, and his Flash run is one of the most overrated in the history of DC Comics. What really galls me about Johns is the schizophrenic tone of his writing, alternately sentimental and sensationalistic. The one issue of Blackest Night that I read (the first) was all the worst about Johns in a nutshell, and I haven't read anything of his since.
Gail Simone I already criticized in The Anywhere Machine's "Things You Are Supposed To Like But Really Hate" thread, but it bears repeating -- for all the good things that can be said about her as a person, it doesn't change my opinion that her writing is corny, smug, overly self-conscious and dripping with what passes for irony, and she also portrayed Dinah and Barbara as reverse sexists.
Grant Morrison is the most egregious example of The Cult of Personality since John Byrne from 1981 on, passing off mediocre work as something special thanks to his P.T. Barnum/David Bowie/Madonna-like talent for self-promotion.
Tony Bedard did stellar work for Marvel on Exiles, IMO outdoing the work of all Exiles writers that came before or after him. But what I've read of his DC-exclusive work has been a string of false starts and letdowns (I still haven't washed off the stink of the six issues of R.E.B.E.L.S. that I wasted good money on.)
GrayPal are IMO overrated. I've really wanted to like their work in the past, but never have. I adored the first two issues of Power Girl, but after that their brains seemed to turn to custard.
As for JMS, I've been burned by too much of his sucky work for Marvel (and not just the editorially-mandated stuff -- I thought his Thor was abominable, and he seems to have had pretty much free rein on that) to give him anything more than a wait-til-the-trades-come-into-the-library chance.
posted
^^^ I love your strong opinions DD! I agree with a lot of them but one thing I wonder about is the Grant Morrison/Cult of Personality thing. Maybe this is because I'm a late-comer to his whole 'thing' but it seems to me more like his fans do all the talking/praising/promoting while he sits back and just works. In marked contrast to someone like Mark Millar who takes self-promotion (and self-importance) to aggravatingly painful levels.
P.S. I think you'll like JMS' Brave & Bold run when you get it out from the library. It is so good and so far removed from the death and destruction Didio era of DC Comics that it's a wonder he lets it get published.
From: Australia | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
B&tB is a huge bright spot in the DCU right now. One issue stories that explore characters motivations and personalities.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Geoff Johns- it's noticeable when he gets stretched too thin. I liked BLACKEST NIGHT, but now see it as a way to get to BRIGHTEST DAY, which shows lots of promise. (Aliveman? I'd buy it for Boston Brand, but with the Hawks, Aquaman and Mera and Osiris, I'm quitle looking forward to it.) I'm kind of mad at him because of Tempest and Damage, though.
GrayPal- Loved, loved, loved their Hawkman run. I wish they'd get the title back, along with a team book. Maybe Teen Titans? I didn't care for the initial POWER GIRL series at all, but liked the last half-dozen or so issues quite a bit.
JMS- Have you heard how he's beginning his WONDER WOMAN run? Paradise Island will have been recently 'destroyed'. Yawn. I liked Simone's WW run more than just about anyone here and wanted more, but I was open to JMS after enjoying his THOR run and the BRAVE and BOLD issues I've read. That openness has now decreased to 'I'll try it but I don't really want to'.
Bedard- Cobie's right... his run on NEGATION was great and makes me think that 5 years or so down the road, I'd like to see him on LSH. I have other issues with the whole REBELS/dot Legion concept, but I've liked more than disliked his current run.
Simone- Secret Six is great, and I am also looking forward to BIRDS OF PREY, but I'll miss her on WW. Isn't there some other project she's been hinting about, or was BOP it? Hawk and Dove as additions to that title's cast doesn't thrill me the way Flamebird and Black Orchid would've... oh, well.
From: Knoxville, TN | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Blacula: Geoff Johns - as much as I love his work most of the time, CK's suggestion of him skipping sleep and writing every book at DC gives me nightmares! I like variety in my books and Johns has a very samey formula to all the stories he tells, and as enjoyable as that formula often is, it can get kinda boring if you read a bunch of his books in a row.
For me, while there was an initial fanboyish appeal to Johns's writing, I found myself bored with his work rather quickly. So much of his stuff basically just consists in making things superficially resemble the way the were X number of years ago [usually late Bronze Age], but with two big differences: 1) the incredibly casual extreme violence tossed in (much of it directed against teenagers/old people); 2) the fact that his storylines in different titles tend to be so inter-connected (as Cobie suggests) that it's difficult to follow them unless you've been reading half DC's titles for the past ten years. The violence would actually be less jarring if the overall mood were grittier, but it seems really out of place with the "retro" feel he seems to be going for so much of the time.
What really bugs me, though, is that while he seems to be really good at playing with continuity, with re-arranging and connecting the pieces, there's a decided lack of genuine inventiveness in his work. So while he's often described as restoring much of DC to its pre-Crisis roots, in a way his stuff is very much the antithesis of the Silver/Bronze Age, which were all about constantly introducing new concepts and new ideas. In this regard, Morrison seems to me much more the heir of the Silver Age than Johns is.
I totally agree with you EDE that Grant Morrison is 100% more Silver Age than Geoff Johns is. No question. Johns is much more late 70s Bronze Age than he is Silver Age to me.
Morrison is all about the "big ideas" which as you mention was a very Silver Age thing.
While Johns' strengths (and weaknesses a lot too) lie in his use of characterisations and character-interaction - a very Bronze Age thing.
I don't agree with you that Johns is completely lacking in inventiveness though. He's nowhere near the creative genius Morisson is and sure, he recycles A LOT but I think his work on Green Lantern over the last few years has been extremely inventive. All the new coloured Corps and their associated characters feel completely 'new' and 'fresh' to me and most important of all - like they are here to stay, like these are all permanent new characters to the Green Lantern story, not just flash-in-the-pans.
From: Australia | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
I suppose its a matter of degree, but I tend to see the color-spectrum stuff at the core as just a matter of taking existing concepts and linking them together (as in "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if GL's green energy, Sinestro's yellow energy, the Star Sapphire's power, and Black Hand's power were all manifestations of a single underlying set of forces? And then we could add more for the remaining colors?") rather than a really radical new idea.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'd disagree there, Edie. Yes, he's doing something with the spectrum that was ripe for the taking, but the bottom line is no one else thought to go there before! If you can find a way to expand and enrich a hero's mythology without totally trampling on everything that ever went before, I'd say that's pretty inventive. As you say, elements were always there, but he found a really cool way to link them all and add lots of new stuff in the process.
You might argue that there was a good bit of revisionism, especially in his retelling of Hal's origin story, but it was more organic than, say, making Hal a drunk was back when Giffen retold it. In the process he explored answers to mysteries that we'd never even though about like why was Abin Sur in a ship when he crashed on Earth or why the GL oath might be worded the way it is. That's a lot of creativity and imagination at work there that feels a lot more organic than "everything you thought you knew was wrong!"
Yeah, Geoff's a little bit country, but he's also a little bit rock n' roll!
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
quote:Originally posted by Officer Taylor: I'd disagree there, Edie. Yes, he's doing something with the spectrum that was ripe for the taking, but the bottom line is no one else thought to go there before! If you can find a way to expand and enrich a hero's mythology without totally trampling on everything that ever went before, I'd say that's pretty inventive. As you say, elements were always there, but he found a really cool way to link them all and add lots of new stuff in the process.
I'm still not convinced. It just seems to me there's a massive difference between
(1) "Hey, here's what we'll do next: We'll have a guy show up who used to be a Green Lantern, but now he's turned evil! And let's give him his own power ring that runs off yellow energy!"
and
(2) "Hey, there's all these different Green Lantern villains/characters with different energy-colored powers... why don't we link 'em all together! And make up some new colored energies?"
The Silver Age (and much of the Bronze Age for that matter) was about creating the dots, Johns's stuff is still primarily about connecting them.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
quote:Originally posted by Eryk Davis Ester: What really bugs me, though, is that while he seems to be really good at playing with continuity, with re-arranging and connecting the pieces, there's a decided lack of genuine inventiveness in his work. So while he's often described as restoring much of DC to its pre-Crisis roots, in a way his stuff is very much the antithesis of the Silver/Bronze Age, which were all about constantly introducing new concepts and new ideas. In this regard, Morrison seems to me much more the heir of the Silver Age than Johns is.
Whilst gushing about how much I loved Kurt Busiek's 'back to the basics' stuff over at Marvel (particularly with the Avengers, and his use of older characters in the Thunderbolts), I noted that he got a lot of criticism for the exact same reasons that Johns is getting here.
He seems really good at playing with stuff that other people have dropped, and tying stuff together (the whole Avengers Forever thing could be seen as a parallel to the this Emo Spectrum thing, taking past stuff lying around and tying it all together with a shiny bow), but not so stellar at creating new and exciting things.
A decade after the fact, none of the new characters Busiek created have 'stuck.' Will any of the new characters Johns has created still be around a decade from now? Sure, Sinestro will still be around, but he's hardly a Johns creation...
For all that he's reviled, even Liefield can point to the enduring popularity of Deadpool, almost 20 years later, and say, 'Ha-Ha!'
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah, I'm one of those who enjoyed the HELL outta Busiek's Avengers run (except for that crazy Kang story--WTF?!?), so maybe that informs my comics reading tastes...at least with regards to the big icons. I'm a guy who likes really dark stuff, too, like Walking Dead and a lot of Garth Ennis's stuff. But when it comes to heroic characters like the Avengers and those DC characters we've been discussing, I like a certain optimism and heroic attitude to the stories. Busiek filled the bill very nicely with most of his Avengers stuff.
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
Hyperpath: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic | Subscribe To Topic
![[shrug]](graemlins/shrug.gif)
