Ugh, that's Mahnke?! His stuff was soooo good when I left DC a few years ago (apparently the same time as you).
Geoff Johns GL has always been dumb as dirt (yellow equals scaredness! red equals angryness!) but that corner of the DCU was pretty fun up until Blackest Night.
― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 04:50 (eight years ago) link
Johns' GL was okay, but the Green Lantern Corps was really fun for a while, especially when Dave Gibbons was writing/drawing it. It had a sort of a 2000AD style "space weirdness" vibe to it, with an interesting rotating cast. But then all that Red/Blue/Orange/Pink/etc Lantern Corps bullshit started happening, and everything was swallowed by Johns' silly megacrossover, at which time I bailed out. I did eventually read Blackest Night, but it was just filled with the sort of grim'n'gritty stuff (pointless, gruesome characters deaths, gratuitously gory action scenes, macho posturing, etc) Johns now seems to be highly critical of, so pots and kettles etc.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 06:51 (eight years ago) link
Noah Van Sciver's brother has been drawing ugly Green Lantern comics since years before Noah was drawing badly-printed sad-sack bakery comics
― glandular lansbury (sic), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 07:59 (eight years ago) link
(and was the first Quitely fill-in on New X-Men, the only thing I've ever read by him)
― glandular lansbury (sic), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 08:01 (eight years ago) link
yeah for a minute there i was like who's Noah? didn't even realize Ethan had a brother
― Nhex, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 08:17 (eight years ago) link
shared feelings on Mahnke btw
The crappy quality of the Mahnke art must be because of the inker, right? He was still producing great stuff in Final Crisis, it's hard to believe his art would've deteriorated so much in only a few years.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 09:50 (eight years ago) link
The last image Forks posted looks as if Mahnke's pencils were inked by Liefeld, with all the cross-hatching and wrinkles and weird lifeless eyes.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 09:52 (eight years ago) link
Do any of these Rebirth books actually follow up on the cliffhanger of DC Universe Rebirth #1? I'm still confused on where exactly the Dr. Manhattan plot is supposed to continue?
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 09:55 (eight years ago) link
Mahnke's Johnsiverse work was appalling.
Having them in my 'to read' pile I can't answer for definite but I'm 99% certain none of them follow up the end of DCU Rebirth #1 Special in the slightest.
― Horizontal Superman is invulnerable (aldo), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 10:55 (eight years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/BQTTTsf.png
by my count there's 260 words in these panels and none of them are interesting, informative, witty or even comprehensible without the context of however many back issues of superman I'd have to wade through to work out why there are two supermen and one of them is steroidal will riker
― benzarro ghazarri (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 11:57 (eight years ago) link
the cat has a power ring on its tail
waht
how did i miss out out on this startling development in the dcu
― benzarro ghazarri (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 11:59 (eight years ago) link
i feel like it says something profound about the cultural milieu of the 90s and the 10s that returned-from-'death', black-suited superman sported a mullet then and now has a beard and both are used to denote that he has been profoundly changed
brb gonna write a thinkpiece on the man of steel and men's grooming
― benzarro ghazarri (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:08 (eight years ago) link
The cat (Dex-Starr or something?) has been around for at least like six or seven years at this point, TBF.
― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:13 (eight years ago) link
jesus christ dex-starr's origin story is one of the most harrowing things i've ever read
animal abuse + rage-fuelled cosmic powers = comics aren't just for kids anymore!
― benzarro ghazarri (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:22 (eight years ago) link
I've often worried about Geoff Johns. Some of the stuff he writes is like seeing a kid who's constantly drawing pictures of his house on fire and his family dead on the lawn. I hope he's okay.
― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:30 (eight years ago) link
xp (or not) Yeah, don't read Bleez's then.
― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:31 (eight years ago) link
challenge accepted!
*reads bleez's wiki entry*
oh god no fuck you geoff johns you are genuinely the worst thing to happen to superhero comics in the last 20 years
― benzarro ghazarri (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:41 (eight years ago) link
Hasn't growing a beard been used as a shorthand for "becoming more serious" in fiction at least since the aforementioned Riker did so in The Next Generation?
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:44 (eight years ago) link
Also, IIRC Supes already did that in the early 90s when he executed those Kryptonian mass murderers, and after that went wondering in space because he felt he wasn't fit to be Superman again?
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:46 (eight years ago) link
I'd like to find a website that gathers all of the Johns gratuitous violence panels in one place. There is this one but that's just skimming the surface.
I could identify some of the Geoff Johns bits in 52 by people being ripped in half or dismembered.
― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:48 (eight years ago) link
tuomas, do you want to start the 'superman's grooming: an intensive textual analysis' thread or shall i?
― benzarro ghazarri (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:49 (eight years ago) link
Old Lunch super otm re: kid horror pictures
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 12:54 (eight years ago) link
I mean, I used to draw a lot of gruesome stuff as a kid cuz I loved horror movies and things that were grody, but I'm talking specifically about that kid you ask to draw a picture of mommy and he just goes ham scribbling an indecipherable mass with a black crayon to the point of ripping the paper to shreds while rocking in his seat and humming tunelessly to himself.
― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 13:39 (eight years ago) link
a behind-the-scenes peek at geoff johns' creative process
https://i.makeagif.com/media/8-14-2015/bB0ttL.gif
― benzarro ghazarri (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 13:48 (eight years ago) link
Tuomas, as I explained ^^^^^ this is that same Superman. The actual same one.
― Horizontal Superman is invulnerable (aldo), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 14:22 (eight years ago) link
Didn't know about Bleez. Is it that hard to create a female superhero/villain without gruesome rape involved?Still 100% behind Dex-Starr though
― Nhex, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 16:39 (eight years ago) link
It's proven pretty difficult for DC, sure.
― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 16:46 (eight years ago) link
Although, to be fair, not all of their female characters' origins involve gruesome rape. Sometimes that's just how they're ultimately dispatched.
― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 16:47 (eight years ago) link
Bleez was once a princess on the planet Havania, renowned for her great beauty. Many men sought her hand, but she rejected them all, often in an extremely rude and abrasive manner. Two of her suitors, especially humiliated, sought out a Sinestro Corpsman and tempted him with stories of Bleez's beauty. He went to Havania, where he murdered Bleez's mother and captured Bleez, taking her to Ranx the Sentient City. For some time during the events of the Sinestro Corps War, Bleez was raped and tortured by members of the Sinestro Corps, but managed to escape when Ranx came under attack during the Battle of Mogo. The Sinestro Corpsman who had originally abducted her pursued and caught her, and forced her to kiss him. As she was being pushed to her limits by this final indignity, a red ring found Bleez and inducted her into the Red Lantern Corps. Her blood was transformed into burning plasma, and she vomited it into the Corpsman's throat. Before he could recover, she killed him in a blind fury. Later, she was among the strike force that ambushed the Green Lanterns transporting Sinestro back to Korugar for execution.
― De La Soul is no Major Lazer (ulysses), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 17:13 (eight years ago) link
oh look the dc universe wiki has a page devoted to comic-book sexual assaults :( http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Sexual_assault
― Trump is dong (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 18:04 (eight years ago) link
In a vague attempt to provide any kind of context and/or justification, the Red Lantern Corps are formed through RAGE so they all have pretty horrific origin stories.
On the other hand, the person that created them did so knowing they would all by definition have horrible origin stories.
― suffeeciant attreebution (aldo), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 19:47 (eight years ago) link
The only justification I can come up with is that Kirkman is worse
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 22:57 (eight years ago) link
Disagree! But I have a weakness for Bendis-y talk talk.
― De La Soul is no Major Lazer (ulysses), Tuesday, 7 June 2016 23:10 (eight years ago) link
They can both be terrible, but Kirkman doesn't have control over a whole company's universe (except in the obliquest way as Image's COO).
― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 23:13 (eight years ago) link
seemed like refried horseshit to me, but what do i know.http://io9.gizmodo.com/green-arrow-might-be-the-biggest-surprise-of-dcs-rebirt-1780887777
― De La Soul is no Major Lazer (ulysses), Wednesday, 8 June 2016 05:34 (eight years ago) link
Tuomas, as I explained ^^^^^ this is that same Superman. The actual same one
But isn't that Superman the post-CoIE version, the one who existed from the Byrne reboot up until Flashpoint? So basically what they'd done is kill the Nu 52 Superman and bring back the regular version?
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 8 June 2016 06:28 (eight years ago) link
exactly
― Nhex, Wednesday, 8 June 2016 07:02 (eight years ago) link
Yes. Plus that Lois. And their son, Jonathan.
― Horizontal Superman is invulnerable (aldo), Wednesday, 8 June 2016 07:49 (eight years ago) link
Johns has written individual comics I have liked and Kirkman hasn't. But yeah, unlike Johns, I guess Kirkman doesn't drag everyone else down with him.
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 8 June 2016 09:45 (eight years ago) link
Beardy Superman is really the post-Smallville, post-Infinite Crisis Superman, with younger (dead?) parents rather than the Byrne version with ol' ma and pa.
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 8 June 2016 09:50 (eight years ago) link
I thought he was the Adventures Of Superman Superman? He was in Convergence at least.
― suffeeciant attreebution (aldo), Wednesday, 8 June 2016 10:18 (eight years ago) link
Kirkman is actually good example, because Invincible kinda presages the tonal shift in DC comics after Johns and his followers took control: that odd combination of Silver Age pastiche interspersed with bursts of gore and violence they could never have done back in the days when the readers were mostly kids. But IMO this is more forgivable in Invincible since it's an original creation, and that tone was there right from the start, so it's not like Kirkman was derailing beloved cultural icons or anything.
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 8 June 2016 11:34 (eight years ago) link
otm - at least kirkman was shitting in a sandbox of his own creation
― Trump is dong (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 8 June 2016 11:45 (eight years ago) link
OMG, people mired in comics lore ITT can't figure out which Superman they're discussing. Congratulations, DC!
― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 8 June 2016 12:10 (eight years ago) link
http://www.newsarama.com/29635-mystery-of-a-second-new-clark-kent-key-to-action-comics-rebirth-run.html
Actually this makes it even more confusing
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 8 June 2016 12:14 (eight years ago) link
He's not from the same place as Wally West in Rebirth, so he's from... where?
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 8 June 2016 12:15 (eight years ago) link
Johns and Didio's asses?
― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 8 June 2016 12:27 (eight years ago) link
If they don't care about a coherent continuity, they really should just ditch it altogether. Clear the slate every issue or three.
― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 8 June 2016 12:28 (eight years ago) link
given the ever-increasing rate of dc reboots from crisis to the present we're probably only a year or two away from continuity being reset from panel to panel
― Trump is dong (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 8 June 2016 12:46 (eight years ago) link