Tag Archives: Geoff Johns

Geoff Johns Leaves JSA

Geoff Johns has announced that he will be leaving Justice Society of America — a title that he has co-written even through a relaunch for nearly a decade — after the upcoming Justice Society of America #26.

At the center of his announcement is this:

The JSA to me represents everything good about life, work and superheroes. In life, generations past, present and future all provide different viewpoints. There can be something magical when it’s past from grandfather to father to son or from mother to daughter or son to grandfather. There’s nothing more important than family – and family means a lot more than just blood relatives. That’s what my very first book, STARS & S.T.R.I.P.E., was about and that’s what JSA, and life, is about.

So why am I leaving?

I have more stories to tell, and the characters are endless, but that’s also true for the DC Universe. I’m ready to move on to some other challenges like returning to THE FLASH and SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN. And I am also obsessed with making sure that GREEN LANTERN, BLACKEST NIGHT and everything around it is the absolute best it can possibly be.…and that’s only part of 2009. There are some new projects on the horizon.

It’s a shock to see him leave the book after so long, but as he says, the DC Universe is huge, and I can absolutely understand wanting to explore more facets of it.

Of course, this being a Flash blog, I’ll have to point out the phrasing, “returning to The Flash.” That may just be a reference to Flash: Rebirth, but it certainly sounds like he plans to stick around afterward.

(via Comic Book Resources)

And I thought there wouldn’t be any big Flash news to cover this week…

Update: Newsarama has an interview in which Geoff Johns clarifies what he’ll be working on next year:

With my runs on Action Comics and Justice Society of America coming to a close I’ll be focusing on Green Lantern, The Flash: Rebirth, Superman: Secret Origin and Blackest Night. Technically that gives me one monthly book and three mini-series, but by the time 2009 is over I’ll be back on three monthly books. So that’s what it’ll look like a year from now.

Speed Reading: Movie, Geoff Johns and DCUO

Geoff Johns talks to MTV about DC Universe Online, saying that the massively-multiplayer game is likely to ship in early 2010 or late 2009. He also says he’d love to tackle a Flash or Superman movie.

And speaking of movies, Variety reports that the film industry is starting to take super-heroes seriously, and looks into which characters are likely candidates for the big screen.

Michael Doran, co-founder and senior editor of the comicbook news site Newsarama, sees the most movie potential for DC Comics’ the Flash.

“Superspeed just is so elemental,” he says. “The character, especially the Wally West version — the fast-talking, quick-witted type — his personality almost matches his superpowers.”

Back to the fan perspective, Comix 411 has a wishlist for the Flash movie, and Siskoid looks at “The Human Race”.

Marching Toward the Kingdom

One of the themes in “Thy Kingdom Come,” the storyline that’s been running through Justice Society of America this year, has been exploring the link between the present-day DC Universe with the future shown in the groundbreaking 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come. This week’s Justice Society of America #21 looks into the mystery of the Kingdom Come version of the Flash. Continue reading

Catching Up: Messner-Loebs, Guggenheim, Waid and Van Sciver

Twenty years ago, William Messner-Loebs started a four-year run on The Flash. Seven years ago, out of work, he and his wife lost their house. Michigan Live writes about how his life has turned around since then. (via The Beat).

Another former Flash scribe, Mark Waid, talks to CBR about his arrival on Spider-Man.

Flash: The Fastest Man Alive “Full Throttle” writer Marc Guggenheim’s TV show Eli Stone has not been renewed beyond the network’s current 13-episode commitment. Update: Newsarama also has an interview about Guggenheim’s “Character Assassination” arc on Amazing Spider-Man

Flash: Iron Heights and Impulse artist Ethan Van Sciver, currently working on Flash: Rebirth, has started a weekly column at Newsarama, Your Time Is Now Mine.

Update: One more: Geoff Johns talks with CBR about bringing the Legion of Super-Heroes to Smallville.

Speed Reading: Kolins, Johns, Morrison

IGN is running an interview, the Geoff Johns Marathon, in which the writer talks about just about everything he’s working on, including Flash: Rebirth (via trmnlvlctyyy at Comic Bloc). Among other things, he writes:

Right now I’m looking at the Flash with Rebirth, and I want to see how I can make this mythology even bigger. It’s already huge. The Flash has an awesome base, so cracking it open even more has been an incredible challenge.

and

The Flash has always been my favorite character since I was a kid. And it’s fun to get back to writing Wally West. I wrote him for five years. To get back to him and then write Barry Allen. Like I said earlier, I get to take what I’ve learned over the last several years writing comics and apply it to the Flash. Because I started writing the Flash almost when I started writing comics, and now I get to look at everything I’ve done to this point and see how I can apply that onto my original work on the character. I want to continue to elevate my writing, and hopefully I’ll achieve that.

Newsarama interviews artist Scott Kolins on Faces of Evil: Grundy, which reunites him with Flash and Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge collaborator Geoff Johns.

Finally, MTV’s Splash Page wonders why Grant Morrison can’t talk about a Flash movie, given the number of NDAs he’s signed in connection with various film projects. [Edit: Since the original page has vanished, I’m attaching a quote from the Google cache so you can have a little context. Thanks, Rockin’ Rich.]

“Yeah, that’s the kind of thing I can’t talk about,” Morrison said. “Yes, I have talked to them. I’m deeply involved in those discussions. I know what’s going down with all of that, and it’s actually really exciting. But beyond that, I can’t say anything. I wish I could tell you. I’m sure announcements will probably be made at some point, but I can’t say anything.”

Creative Consistency

Edit: This has been restructured and rewritten a bit to make the post come off a bit less personally, since that wasn’t the intention.

Groovy Superhero is running a series on The World’s Fastest Cancellation, looking at the way the series has been relaunched over and over since Geoff Johns 2005. The Flash has had a remarkably consistent writing credit over the years, until Geoff Johns left the book in 2005 to do Infinite Crisis.

Wally Before Geoff

One thing the author of that series said got me thinking about the series’ creative history: In part one, he or she writes about the book after Geoff Johns left it:

The Flash…was relegated to the status he had endured throughout most of the ’90s: a “who needs work?” book, being tossed around from creator to creator

Tossed around from creator to creator? True of the last three years, but certainly not true of the 1990s. William Messner-Loebs wrote the book for four years from 1988–1992. Mark Waid* took over in 1992 and stayed on until 2000 (Brian Augustyn joining him officially halfway through after several years as editor and an uncredited co-writer), with a one-year break during which he wrote JLA: Year One and Grant Morrison and Mark Millar filled in. In fact, if you count the Morrison/Millar run as a main creative team, there’s a grand total of only five issues by fill-in writers** from #1 to #225 (the end of Geoff Johns’ run), covering 1987–2005.

Long-Term Consistency

If you go further back, Gardner Fox wrote most of the Golden Age books, with Robert Kanigher coming in near the end. John Broome wrote most of the Silver Age, with Fox and Kanigher. There was a transition period in the late 1960s, and then Cary Bates wrote nearly every issue from the early 1970s through 1985.

Three main writers from 1940-1970. One from 1970-1985. Five writers or writing teams from 1987-2005. (I’m lumping the Waid/Augustyn and Waid solo runs together. Same with the Morrison/Millar and Millar solo books.)

Now let’s look at the book after Geoff Johns left in 2005:
4 issues by Joey Cavalieri
8 by Danny Bilson & Paul De Meo
5 by Marc Guggenheim
7 by Mark Waid
6 by Tom Peyer
4 by Alan Burnett
2 one-shots

Six writing teams in three years, and a couple of one-offs.

Flash or Thrash?

Following Johns’ final issue, it’s clear they had already decided to axe the book, since all that remained was one stand-alone story that had been sitting on the shelf and the 4-part “Finish Line,” which was clearly intended (like the current “This Was Your Life, Wally West”) to wrap up the series.

Then DC proceeded to throw lead characters, creative teams, and creative directions at the wall haphazardly, hoping something would stick. How could anything gain traction with that much churn?

In my opinion, given that DC is already committed to relaunching the series with Flash: Rebirth, the best thing DC could do to build the book back up would be to keep Geoff Johns on after the miniseries, and give him at least a year to establish the series tone, direction, and at least one long-term arc. Then make sure that whoever follows him is sufficiently high-profile not to scare readers off, and won’t simply throw everything out and start over.

Notes

*By part 5, he explains that “Waid’s main contributions to the Flash mythos were to introduce Wall and Wife Linda’s twins.” Now, I would assume that he meant Waid’s contributions this time around, but given the remark in part 1 about the series being a dumping ground of random writers in the 1990s, I have to wonder whether the writer in question is simply not familiar with Waid’s eight-year run, or that it established the Wally/Linda relationship, introduced the Speed Force, built up a family of speedsters, spun off an Impulse/Max Mercury book, and really established the Flash as once again being a major player after 60-odd issues of the B-list.

**Those fill-ins would be:
#29: Len Strazewski (1989)
#151: Joe Casey (1999)
#160: Brian Augustyn solo, not sure you can properly call it a fill-in. (2000)
#161: Pat McGreal (2000)
#163: Pat McGreal (2000)