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Global superpower being the new JLI

I don't recall their being a clear explanation for why they didn't have the League invite the top Global Guardians over. Fire & Ice decided to join on their own. Tasmanian Devil eventually ended up in the Australia embassy... and the rest of the Guardians were manipulated by the Queen Bee in Bialya.

(Owlwoman seemed pretty easily forgiven, but I guess they established in the end that she was brainwashed too?)

The computer manipulating the League was out for world domination. It chose the League as its foundation to get it. The Global Guardians were competition, brushed aside when it staged a threat from outer space ( see also Watchmen funnily enough) to establish the League as the big guns to the UN. The USA and USSR are the ones getting members on the team, and Superman has a word to drive it through. That first year had a bit of a grittier plot to it, under the surface.

Right, after that the buffoonery took center stage.

JLI: Yet another Giffen project that quickly went off the rails.

The pre-Breakdowns era had much more good comedy than the post-Breakdowns era did.

I remember Breakdowns as a bit messy. I think they felt they had overstayed by about a year in the end. It was a very popular book, and approach, at the time. I was still buying it, only dropping a couple of pre Breakdowns issues, on their release !onth, but picking them up a month or two later. They were able to do moments of seriousness in there. I think Giffen was very aware of that, pointing out that just as people thought it was too comedic, they'd drop in a Despero story.

I've never read the Despero storyline, but I've heard good things about it. Plus, it was drawn by Adam Hughes!

The only reason I've never read it is because, as far as I know, it's only been reprinted in an Omnibus.

Adam Hughes art gives it a leg up. It was also a welcome change in tone. Take those away...

Ahem. Hope you don't think less of me for it but I actually enjoyed the humour in the JLI era, particularly the marvellous visual humour. Never the less the whole series was strengthened by the juxtaposition between that frequent humour and the occasional very dark events.

I definitely don't think less of you, stile. There are some major comedic moments I enjoyed from that era, too!

Guy Gardner changing personalities ... that time the JLE and the Injustice League were in French class...

Stile, I don't think less of you either.

And I do give JLI full credit for breaking new ground, without which we'd never had had Peter David's X-Factor.

What it really boils down to is that Peter David's sense of humor appealed to me, but Keith Giffen's sense of humor did not.

I don't know if I've ever seen a version of Guy Gardner that I've taken to. I mean, I get that he's SUPPOSED to be an ass, but sometimes a writer can do that and make it interesting.

I'm embarrassed to admit I found Guy tolerable during the first year or so of the Geoff Johns franchising of Green Lantern. From 2005 to 2007, I was totally immersed in the green stuff.

I think toned-down, but still kinda an ass (or at least, rough around the edges) Guy was the best. you know, when he was not openly antagonizing (and kicking) his teammates

Especially Ice or Fire (and don't get me started on that whole triangle)

I actually haven't read the Johns GL stuff. May give that a try one of these days, once I'm done with my backlog of comic omnis.

I would advise against it, but I'll admit I'm biased. I try not to hate people, especially creators I've never met, but there are a few I still retain hatred for. Johns is one of them.

From what I remember, Johns' GL work operated in sweeping arcs, opening up the scope in methodical steps each time. Then repeating the process.

Fans could point to providing different coloured lanterns as new territory. I think DC were delighted with the sales, merchandise and a steady pair of hands on the book. When DC rebooted under after 52, Johns' books were among the most solid in a very poor line.

On that low bar, DC seem to have then given him license to redo every DC character, before anyone else gets to contribute. I remember his casts of thousands when I stopped reading JSA. GL was a bit like that. Massive casts creating story momentum, before anyone looks too closely.

When he left GL, DC gave a multi page tribute. As little as possible for the actual creators of these characters, but fawning over someone moving the pieces around and colouring in a few of them. Not Johns fault they did it, but incredibly off putting.

It's thecsame approach for the JSA title. Which I have enjoyed, even with all the same creator twitches. The spiffy art will have a lot to do with that.

All valid points, Thoth. You've helped me understand better why I was so much into the Johns Lantern franchise during its first couple years. Thanks.

My personal issues with Johns are not so much the overcrowding or the repetition, as the gore and the paternalism.

The one good thing about how Johns built the large JSA cast, was that he did it relatively gradually. And gave each enough screen time, to actually get a feel for them.

Not like Bendis and his 33+ member Legion...

I was going to say that my mileage may vary regarding gore. But actually, like most, I think it depends on the story, the consequences and the audience.

LO3W is a good example. John's gives us a psychopathic Superboy. But it's a collection of plot points. It's an excuse for a issues long fight scene, where power levels and motivations shift as required. Infinite Crisis was the same. The gore there isn't the issue there for me. It's that it's shallow, pointless, inconsistent, and panel filler. Inane rather than edgy. Every series with one or more !ittle Lantern rings off to find new owners, like anyone noticed their owners, while the Mary Sues live on.

Some of Alan Moore's early work looked at the Nietzschean concepts of the Superman. The conflicts were short, brutal affairs with consequence. As always, on Moore's coattails, Morrison also trod this ground. Like Miller's work, there was a point to the violence.

LO3W is also a good example of paternalism. Hijacking someone else's book to undo continuity issues elsewhere. Also including some of the most jaw droppingly dumb ideas I've read in comics. On JSA, it would have taken one editor to say "the originals were strong enough to get series. If you're going to reintroduce them, they should be at that level."

I really can't argue with any of these points that I'm reading here.

It's weird with Johns, though. When he's on - Superman and the Legion, *early* JSA - its really good. But when it's not, but it SHOULD be - Lo3W - its a "what the hell are you doing?" moment.

My hunch is that DC back office saw a lot of positive fan reaction and said, "hey, give him all the things, he makes them go!" with the predictable result of someone spread way too thin.

re gore, I think of it as: what's the purpose? is it just a shock-and-awe, oh wow thing? or does it actually serve a story purpose?

re 3 Worlds, issues-long fight scene kinda sums it up. I was hoping for something that would show us: hey, it's 3 good Legions versus an evil Legion of Villains. the heroes win because... teamwork? justice? something. something to be like: see, this is why the Legion is the Legion.

instead, they kinda won because they threw numbers at the bad guys. Oh, and Superboy-Prime was such an idiot that he punched his future self.

One thing about Johns's use of gore is the way that he tends to juxtapose it with nostalgia. So, on the one hand he intentionally resets things so that they look a lot like this comic that you enjoyed during your childhood, except heads are getting punched off and eyes are getting poked out. It just feels like there is something really messed up in an individual who feels the need to write something like that.

My sentiments exactly. I couldn't have put it better myself. Thank you, EDE.

ooph thanks for sharing, EDE. that just sounds so... like, let us have our enjoyment of the great moments of the past, please!

I believe it was one of Johns's successors on Teen Titans that gave us one of the most egregious examples of this kind of writing with Wendy and Marvin being mauled by Wonder Dog, but it seems very much in the Johns school of writing.

I was talking to Mattropolis yesterday about Johns revealing that Danette Reilly had been murdered after marrying the Shining Knight, and it led to a discussion of the number of JSA wives/girlfriends who had been murdered. At the very least you've got Myra Mason, Doris Lee, and Mary James Pratt. You had Dian Belmont being killed in All-Star Squadron, but then that was apparently retconned away after she became popular in Sandman Mystery Theater. In fact, nearly every member of the "girl JSA" from All-Star Comics #15 met some sort of grizzly fate. It's a pretty disturbing representation of the "women in refrigerators" phenomenon.