However, there are lots of reasons why it might be really, really bad as well. Remember, Geoff Johns wrote the trainwreck that was Infinite Crisis, in which he symbolically and literally tried to kill all sense of whimsy in the DC universe. Furthermore, "Green Lantern: Rebirth" was a six issue retcon explanation no matter how hard the writing tried to pound it into a coherent narrative or how much the content introduced has been used since. However, he's gotten better since then. His old Flash and JSA were good, and "Legion of 3 Worlds" has been FANTASTIC (if a huge wank-off to HIS version of the Legion no others count goddamit). In the end, he's definitely got more hits than misses.
But for now, let's focus on his other seminal work, the second part of his "Green Lantern trilogy", "The Sinestro Corps War." Pretty much everyone loved it, while I found it fairly good. It does have a solid narrative base, but there are a lot of little problems that add up to drag it down for me. By far my biggest pet peeve is, well... try to guess for yourself:
Now, I get it. The classic GL mythos has Hal Jordan being "honest and fearless" and "one who can overcome great fear" but good god man, that doesn't preclude you from using synonyms!
Gah! It really makes the dialogue feel stilted and forced. They just have to slam home that they're fighting FEAR. Their enemies wield the power of FEAR. They need to overcome their collective FEAR. We get it! It's even more jarring when you get to exchanges like this:
That's one of like three times that he doesn't resort to his old standby. I want to believe that some editor decided to risk alienating their big money-maker when he wanted to write "fear-motivated mini riot."
And while we're on the subject, as I was slicing up that fear montage (for hours, to entertain one person, hope you're happy) I remembered the second thing about the storyline that irked me: the moments that stood out in their ridiculousness in the series about alien space cops with magic rings fighting counterpart-Supermen-cyborg parasites that run on the power of being scary. These are just the things I gleaned from the first THREE issues mind you; if I had taken every fear reference from the whole series that montage would be six times as large.
"There were rumored acts of fascism, excessive violence and, worse yet, instilling across his own planet."
Now, the fear thing is bad. But I'd worry more about the fascist government and the excessive violence. That's just me. I think I'd focus on those two first, and in the meantime I'd DEAL with being scared.
"I never believed in fear. Not before I came face-to-face with Parallax."
Waitwaitwaitwaitwait. Hal Jordan never believed in fear? As in "I don't believe in leprechauns" believe? What the... how does that work? Did he not get when he saw people react to scary things, which he would see quite often in his job of space cop superhero? Is he literally missing the flight or fight response? That's not courageous, dude; that's a mental illness.
I think it'd be "AHHH! AHHHH! AHHHHHH! I'm being strangled by a space monster! Oh my god! Shoot it! Shoot it! AHHHHHH!"
Now here's where I get worried about Blackest Night. Recently it's been revealed that there's an entire "emotional electromagnetic spectrum" that will be harnessed by seven corps, wielding the lights of red rage, orange avarice, yellow fear, green willpower, blue hope, indigo compassion, and violet love. You know what the means? I hope you like reading the words "rage," "avarice," "fear," "willpower," "hope," "compassion," and "love." I expect the "war of light" to look something like this:
...I might have gone of on a tangent with some of those bubbles, but you get the general idea. Hopefully Johns will be able to hold back and just give me a good goddamn zombie/cape story. Guess we'll find out on Wednesday.
