posted
To clarify: those aren't my top 10 writers. I'd have to give that a lot more thought and that might take awhile.
Those are just 10 writers I think are doing better work than Johns. I think I could probably 5 more if I tried.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I think Geoff is taking quite a beating here. he's doing a job, and has been asked several times (or at the very least gotten approval) to figure out and smooth out the histories of several very convoluted characters.
The violence that he does has gotten to me on occassions, but no more so than any other creator out there.
Ever since the first couple issues of super hero comics, writers have been reinventing the wheel. He does it better than some, worse than others.
He seems to be happy right now to play in the DC sandbox. He seems to have a respect for what come before, and trying to take them into the future. Didio seems to be fixated onthe silver/bronze age characters, and Geoff has a great knowledge of them.
He's not my favorite writer at the moment either, but he's up there, because I enjoy his work.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Well, I don't want to be known as anti-Geoff. Like I said, I'm actually a fan and buy all of his work.
This is like the middle arguing against the top. It's not two opposite sides arguing. I just don't think he's the best of the best. He's good, though. I look forward to him continuing to improve over time.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
PS - I rank Bendis right next to Geoff. Different writer all together, but same type of argument. I think he's very good. But he has enough flaws--I wouldn't rank him in my top 10 either, but I think he does quality work for the most part.
Perhaps its because the two are so prominent in their respective companies, it puts them in this position? Obviously, if you don't agree with my classifications, you wouldn't be able to comment on that. I think perhaps because they make such an effort to guide their respective companies it puts them in positions where they are forced to do things in their comics that make them occasionally sub-par? No real way to know if that's true or not.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I'm not a big fan of either Geoff or Bendis. I really dislike everything I have seen Bendis touch. I thought it was bias because of Disassembled, but even now I still always feel like im watching the trailer of a movie, rather than the movie itself
-------------------- Touch the magic...
From: Morganfield, KY | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
For the record, it's not so much Geoff I have a problem with, as the overall approach that DC is taking these days, and since Geoff is their most prominent writer, he ends up being the target.
For all I know it's Didio that's calling up and saying "Hey, let's have somebody's stomach ripped out this week!" and "Let's get Luthor back in the Lex-Soar 7, but be sure to link it to Thanagarian technology!" and so he's really the one that's responsible for the stuff that annoys me.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Mattropolis: I'm not a big fan of either Geoff or Bendis. I really dislike everything I have seen Bendis touch. I thought it was bias because of Disassembled, but even now I still always feel like im watching the trailer of a movie, rather than the movie itself
I actually, I think that's the best criticism for Bendis New Avengers & crossover stuff I've seen thus far! (Moreso Secret Invasion than Siege).
quote:Originally posted by Eryk Davis Ester: For the record, it's not so much Geoff I have a problem with, as the overall approach that DC is taking these days, and since Geoff is their most prominent writer, he ends up being the target.
For all I know it's Didio that's calling up and saying "Hey, let's have somebody's stomach ripped out this week!" and "Let's get Luthor back in the Lex-Soar 7, but be sure to link it to Thanagarian technology!" and so he's really the one that's responsible for the stuff that annoys me.
This could easily be the same for me and some of the things that bother me about Geoff's work (not everything, mind you, but a lot of it).
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by MLLASH: THE DEVIL'S DUE DEPT:
John Byrne, of all people, also had a major hand in restoring JSA to greatness-- he re-inserted the Golden-age Womder Woman (as Hippolyta) back into continuity.
This was one of the very few things he's done that I haven't hated since the 80s. I believe Johns and co. took this example and ran with it when they came into power.
From an interview taken this weekend:
Another reader then asked about Wonder Woman, and if she would get a second ongoing series like Superman and Batman. "We keep on trying, we just want to get the first one right," DiDio said. Another fan asked about Wonder Woman's revised origin, post-Infinite Crisis, to which DiDio explained that her mother Hippolyta was no longer the original Wonder Woman of World War II. Additionally, Wonder Woman was again a founding member of the Justice League. "Wonder Woman is our premier female superhero in DC Comics," DiDio said. "When she first appears she should be in our premier superhero team.
Just another thing Dan Didio is doing for DC these days. And letting us readers know that in interviews too.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
So much for a groovy second Wonder Woman title set during WWII!
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Cobalt Kid: (1) Matt Wagner – Madame Xanadu and Zorro have been nothing short of excellent, of far superior quality than all of John’s work as a “storytelling” is concerned. Green Hornet: Origins has already started that way too. Plus, Wagner has a plethora of other comics to back it up.
Hard to argue with Matt's pedigree, but I wouldn't rank him above Geoff. I sampled Madame Xanadu (the first 6 issues), but it really didn't grab me. Haven't tried Green Hornet yet. May wait for trade.
The best thing he ever wrote that I've read is Sandman Mystery Theatre. (One of my top ten fave runs of all time--see early pages of thread)Looooved that! But that was many years ago AND I think it got better when Steve Seagle came aboard as co-writer. The quality of the book after Seagle wrote it solo bears that out.
The main thing with Wagner, though, is I haven't read enough of his stuff and very little of what he's actually known for.
quote:[qb](2) Grant Morrison – while not everything he does it the best thing ever, more of his work achieve “perfection” in my mind than Geoff’s does. He also brings a level of creation to his projects that Geoff sometimes achieves—while Grant almost always does it.
There's no doubting Grant's enormous talent and imagination, but for me that rarely translates as an engrossing story. The ideas are just SO! BIG! that the characters tend to suffer as does simple comprehensibility. Probably the best two runs of his I've ever read are his JLA and Doom Patrol. The former was the perfect distillation of his ideas without losing comprehensibility. The latter was just so crazy and wildly outrageous that even if you were completely lost at points, you somehow didn't care.
All-Star Superman was close to perfect, but only close. Final Crisis was "blah". The Batman stuff is and was fairly interesting, but you just feel so detached from the characters. I think my problem with Morrison boils down to that: I just don't connect with the characters.
Alan Moore is very similar to Grant in many ways. The difference with Moore's stuff for me is his big ideas always seem more comprehensible and his characters are always more three-dimensional.
quote:(4) Bill Willingham – Sure, Geoff writes several more comics than Bill does, but Willingham in all fairness writes more characters thane even Geoff! With Fables, Willingham has a cast of 50 or so characters who each have distinct personalities that continually surprise the readers. He consistently writes excellent stories too—so much that the stories are just as good as the characters. And his series has been going for like 100 issues now. Fables packs more of a punch in a single issue than all of Blackest Night’s 8 issues.
Again, problem here is I haven't read enough Fables. One trade in, I enjoyed it but have only reached the tip of the iceberg. I look forward to seeing more of the story unfold over time.
(Noticed you didn't mention his crappy JSA run... )
quote:(5) Fred Van Lente – I meant it when I said Van Lente is doing incredible work at Marvel. If you haven’t heard of him by now, you’re really missing out. His Spider-Man stories are better than any others since probably Roger Stern. I’m not kidding. I’m not exaggerating. And the others series who feel his touch, from Incredible Hercules to whatever, are all top quality.
I LOVE his work on Hercules with Greg Pak. Unfortunately, it's the only thing I've read with either writer, and they work as a pair there. So it's difficult for me to distinguish between the two. It seems you qualify him solely for his Spidey work, however. I would hesitate to place any writer above Geoff on such a limited criteria. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that Fred gets lengthy periods of time to recharge his Spidey batteries between appearances on Amazing.
I'd say Fred is very, very promising, but at this point I'd argue he hasn't done anything career-defining to put him on such a high echelon.
quote:(6) Ed Brubaker – I know some of you get down on Ed, but I think that’s frankly just hog-wash. Bru is Marvel’s best writer right now and he is much more consistent than Geoff, Bendis or the other top names. He’s the best crime comic book writer since, hell, Lev Gleason. His stories are always poignant no matter what the scale of the story is, and he doesn’t pull any punches per the noir tradition.
Oh yeah, Ed's been one of my favorites for the better bart of a decade, so no argument there. Most of his work is nothing short of extraordinary!
I know my disappointment with Cap may seem overly negative, but it's the longest dry spell I've seen him go on the title. I fear he may have burnt himself out on the book without realizing it. I'd say reviews from other sources tend to back me up with that feeling. Also, Marvel's Project is decent but reads mostly as "Brubaker porn" (stealing it back ) for us, his fanboys.
Criminal is one of his masterpieces. I'll buy that as long as he puts it out! Incognito was good, but felt like a poor cousin of the absolutely, undeniably superior Sleeper from a few years back. And I thought his Daredevil run was a hit from start to finish, moreso than Bendis/Maleev, IMO.
So I'd probably rank Bru over Geoff overall.
quote:(7) DnA – Just like Geoff, Dan and Andy don’t always get it right, but they do much more so than Geoff in my mind. Even more, while they use traditional characters like Geoff does, there is a sense of progression and newness Geoff doesn’t have. They are not hamstrung by this unrealistic desire to restore a company to its glory days of 1982. They tell great, solid sci-fi series. And they do it with two consistently good monthly titles (really three since there are so many minis—and recently, four).
I'm definitely a fan, and they've done more for Marvel cosmic characters since Starlin. But I wouldn't rank them above Geoff. The main reason is because though they write exciting yarns, the characters rarely if ever feel all that real. I mean, they're fun, and they are written to make them interesting. But I don't really care about them as much as I should. Everyone has a shtick and they emote, but there's an extra layer missing that's hard to describe. I guess they write more in a '70/'80s style. There's nothing wrong with that, but it keeps them out of my upper echelon of writers.
quote:(8) Robert Kirkman – I can already tell the response some of you will give me: “yeah, I think Kirkman’s great too, but he’s not on Geoff’s level yet.” Really? I mean, seriously? Where then, is Geoff’s Walking Dead? He doesn’t have one. Because he just hasn’t gone there yet. He might be comfortable with the DCU and want to play in it, but he then really needs to make the decision: do I want to have an ‘anything goes style’ (which he sometimes writes to) or do I want a ‘restore DC to its greatness’ style (which he also sometimes writes to). His overall body of work reveal a conflict in Geoff internally; Kirkman once had this conflict and overcame it IMO.
Oh, I'm definitely there, and you know it! For Invincible and Walking Dead and their combined 140 issues of excellence alone, he deserves to be there. He gets extra points to committing to do creator-owned work, too. I may very well place him higher than Geoff as well.
quote:(9) Garth Ennis – I’m a big fan of Ennis and I can write you a 20 page paper on it, but I’ll sum it up: he takes risks; he has black sense of humor that pulls you right in; he creates character relationships that end up meaning more to me sometimes than relationships I see between real life people—and are more realistic too. And his storylines can make you laugh one page and then make you marvel at how moving they were. And then you think about them constantly after. I can’t say that for a lot of Geoff’s work.
Garth is one of my very, VERY favorite writers, and I'd definitely put him above Geoff with little hesitation. I have to catch up with Battlefields, but The Boys is turning into another masterpiece along the lines of Preacher and Hitman. Crossed (published by Avatar) was pretty good, too, though it would be a hard one to recommend.
quote:(10) Gail Simone – Many point to this idea that Gail is also trapped in pleasing fanboy sensibilities but I think that’s a bunch of bull-crap myself. Gail’s works are not written for anyone other than herself these days, because you can see that in the risks she takes in every issue of Secret Six, which could easily offend a lot of people. Her Birds of Prey shows she can write characters with the best of them.
Gail's stock is definitely rising with me. I LOVE Secret Six and will definitely pick up the Birds of Prey relaunch. I have two or three BoP trades of hers and enjoyed those nut not nearly as much as Secret Six. I'll give her another year and see how she ranks with me by then as I'll have around 50 issues and two series of her work under my belt.
Who else would I rank higher than Geoff? Oh, definitely Jason Aarons, on the strength of Scalped alone! That series is in the mid-thirties, so I think I've seen enough. His Punisher Max is really good so far, too. I've purchased the first of his Ghost Rider trades and will let y'all know what I think when I get to it.
There are many others who write irregularly these days, who I left off. Moore, Gaiman, Brian K. Vaughn.
Kurt Busiek, once my very favorite, is on the rise again as Astro City pucblishes more regularly and creator-owned work looks to be his focus.
At times Peter Milligan and Mark Wais were better than Geoff, too. Mark's doing pretty good stuff at Boom!, and Peter is kinda below my radar and has been for a good while. I have Peter's first Hellblazer arc but haven't read it yet.
So that's about four or five writers solidly or marginally better than Geoff who I read and are currently actively writing.
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I've been waiting for that post and it was a thoroughly enjoyable read!
I figure at this point I won't go back and forth since its all subjective but am curious as to what other posters think regarding certain writers above Geoff.
Some random thoughts:
- You definitely have to review those Ghost Rider trades! I've considered picking them up myself but have not yet. One fresh recommendation from you will tip me that way since you haven't let me down yet!
- I thought about putting Jason Aaron on the list but hesitated because Scalped is about the only thing of his I read. I hope to change that.
- I left Waid off the list for the same reason as Bendis and PAD, in that too much of his stuff misses the mark. It's almost unfair because he just has such a large body of work that the average is weighed down by it I think. Still, I find his Unknown at Boom! to simply be fantastic and he does have some amazing runs that rank him among the best ever (Flash anyone?).
- Busiek is definitely back on the rise, I agree. I'd love to see him have Astro City on a regular basis as promised and one more great book and his backlog of amazing runs will justify him being on any one's top 10 list again.
- You mentioned Brian K. Vaughn and it occurs to me with his Ex Machina ending there won't be any Vaughn series going right now. That's criminal! I missed the boat on Ex Machina but I won't let that happen again.
Other things I LOVED by Van Lente include his Marvel Zombies miniseries (which I'm the opposite of Reboot on--I like 3 & 4 better than 1 & 2) and his work on the Scorpion via Amazing Fantasy, which I thought was superb (there is a thread here on Gym'lls for it which I thought I started). I'm optimistic his upcoming Iron Man: Legacy ongoing series will give me the kick-ass Iron Man comic I've been dying to collect since Busiek left.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I think Johns was a much better writer earlier in his tenure at DC (The JSA/Batman/pre-200 Flash stuff). Then he seemed to lose some restraint and his work suffered, which leads me to suspect he needs a good editor sitting on him and as he grows in stature that becomes less of a possibility.
I think the penchant for Ultra-violence and continuity porn undermine his better ideas, whereas if you look at his first 50 or so JSA issue, these things were there but kept in check to the service of a better story.
From: Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by rouge: I think Johns was a much better writer earlier in his tenure at DC (The JSA/Batman/pre-200 Flash stuff). Then he seemed to lose some restraint and his work suffered, which leads me to suspect he needs a good editor sitting on him and as he grows in stature that becomes less of a possibility.
Batman? Johns never wrote Batman, did he?!?
As for his Flash, that's one I never did get into, strangely enough. I've a hunch that it's because I was so in love with Mark Waid's Flash that I found his taking it in another direction unpalatable. So I only read bits of Johns' run. Some day, I'll have to give it a second chance. I'm fairly sure I'll like it better then.
Des, I'm surprised you didn't address my comments on Morrison specifically. To me, he's just ALL OVER the place as far as quality and consistency. Please, guys, give me your perspective on Morrison and address the points I made above. For convenience's sake, here they are:
quote:There's no doubting Grant's enormous talent and imagination, but for me that rarely translates as an engrossing story. The ideas are just SO! BIG! that the characters tend to suffer as does simple comprehensibility. Probably the best two runs of his I've ever read are his JLA and Doom Patrol. The former was the perfect distillation of his ideas without losing comprehensibility. The latter was just so crazy and wildly outrageous that even if you were completely lost at points, you somehow didn't care.
All-Star Superman was close to perfect, but only close. Final Crisis was "blah". The Batman stuff is and was fairly interesting, but you just feel so detached from the characters. I think my problem with Morrison boils down to that: I just don't connect with the characters.
Alan Moore is very similar to Grant in many ways. The difference with Moore's stuff for me is his big ideas always seem more comprehensible and his characters are always more three-dimensional.
Again, I don't question the originality and brilliance of his ideas. I DO question his characterizations and his execution a lot, though.
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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