Dan Jurgens: C/D

Oh, wait - I forgot ZERO HOUR!

Hot damn: I think he's the reason for the INFINITE CRISIS!?!?!?

Zero Hour's subtitle: "(A) Crisis In Time" OMG

(yes, I'm killing time @ work; whatever)

Didn't Archie Goodwin write Armageddon 2001?

Pro: Gave the world Booster Gold. Con: Gave the world Booster Gold. Pro: When properly inked, has a very clean and consistent style. Con: Was frequently inked by Art Thibert. Pro: Had the cajones to take over Post-Giffen/DeMatteis JLA. Con: Stunk the place up.

I remember reading an interview with Jurgens when he took over JLI...they asked him who his favourite character was, and he said Blue Beetle, "because he's so sneaky". Wtf?

That run sucked so so bad.

Huk, you no like-ah the Thibert?

As for ARMAGEDDON (aka WHO IS MONARCH CRISIS??!!), WikiPedia sez that DJ was the plotter, & AG (& Denny O'Neil!) were on balloon duty.

I have semi-fond memories of "Armaggedon 2001"! Mostly this is because I don't recall any actual DC universe changes springing from it, it was just "SEND RANDOM CHARACTERS INTO RANDOM TIME PERIODS AND FITE FITE FITE!"

Or maybe I'm misremembering. The part I remember most vividly though is Starfire, Lobo, Orion and Enemy Ace fighting dinosaurs, which you'll have to agree is prettty unfuckwithable. There was a great Enemy Ace thought panel which was all "hey, where the hell am I? What are these monstrous creatures? Oh who cares, ALL I DO IS KILL!" (but in nice overblown flowery prose that I'm no good at imitating.)

You're thinking of one of the TWO Armageddon 2001 sequels, Armageddon: Alien Agenda and Armageddon: INFERNO.
I don't know which was which.
I actually really liked Thibert's inks at the time, but I d/led the Adv. of Superman issue from ca. 1990 with Hal Jordan AND Guy Gardner guest starring and the line-work is just a little too lean.

Don't worry, the Justice League of Bozos and Losers Era is over! Here comes Dan Jurgens and he's bringing along SUPERMAN...and Maxima! And Superman dies like two issues later.

He was great as penciller on Green Arrow during the Grell run when Ed Hannigan didn't feel like showing up.

When I was a callow schoolboy attending my first comics "convention" (really more of a church book sale in a freight hangar), I felt I ought to make conversation with the lonely-looking bloke hanging about behind the DC table while I flipped through advance photocopies and picked up badges. So I asked Dan Jurgens (for it was he) something about his use of Dr Destiny in this here preview of his first JLI, how he'd disregarded the character's continuity from Sandman to depict him inna 1960s stylee or whatever. The Jurg started fulminating about how Gaiman "shouldn't have been allowed" to use this DC character in his DC Comics comic because he was a JLA villain, so any changes to/use of the character should only happen in JLA etc etc. I backed away nervously and never made the mistake of talking to a mainstream creator for the rest of the '90s [except for Phil Jiminez after he'd done the Invisibles].

I remember reading the first Armageddon 2001 special being, like, 11 years old, and being really shocked by the intro where the villain was showed walking among the dead superheroes. I really believed that every hero was gonna die and OMFG HOW ARE THEY GONNA DEAL WITH THIS UNSTOPPABLE MENACE!!! THEY ARE GOING TO DIE!!!!

I only got to read the second special (the finale) a couple of years later, and by that time I was already used to heroes coming and going, dying and resurrecting. So I found it a very dull read.

Other than that, and even tough that the idea of a long-haired superman gets worse and worse with the years, I still like "Reign of the Supermen".

Reign Of The Supermen is allright!.

His Thor run (which I've only read 1-16 or something) was good also. Thor gets paired with another human, he FITES! some strange gods, has a misterious advisor, fites Hercules, fites the Destroyer or something and Odin is in chains for pretty much the entire thing. All this with glorious JRJR art. It was pretty much back to basics, but really well done.

He was a big Reagan supporter, so dud

oh aside from the fact that he can't write or draw, obv

Totally rub! Good business skills I guess, i.e. parlaying being the guy who happened to execute an editorial decision (Death of Superman) into a decade of top creator status.

He had quote a good run on Adventures of Superman -- solid, old-fashioned comics for emotionally stunted 11-year-old boys.

But otherwise -- dud -- responsible for many of the ugliest-looking costumes and comics of the 90s. Geoff Johns comes off pretty well by comparison.

Classic, though, if only for inventing one of the pivotal members of ILC's anti-canon:

http://www.dcworld.it/public%5CDCWorld%5CPersonaggi%5CBloodwynd.jpg

Armageddon 2001 #1 and one or two of the annuals that followed were my last dalliances with superhero comics. I remember really, really liking the first issue, and like Iodine, was all, "Holy crap! Everyone will die!"
I didn't read #2 and find out who Monarch was until two years after 2001!!!

You're better off not reading it. It's terribly underwhelming.

Though the two JLI annuals are ace, especially the JLA one. And the Flash annual is one of the first (if not THE first) Waid-penned Flash stories.

Gotta admit, being an excuse for imaginary stories, many of those annuals aren't that much of a bore. It's the core story the one that's lame.