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Johns
Oct 6, 2007 13:50:36 GMT -5
Post by uberwolf on Oct 6, 2007 13:50:36 GMT -5
So I just finished Johns run on the Avengers Vol.3. What was so bad about it? I liked it very much. The Red Zone arc was great! Of course, compared to the current Avengers... anything looks good. I'm sure someone's going to mention issue 71. While I agree that should not have been in a comic book, come on... anyone one with cool powers is going to use them sexually. You think Sue's been married to Reed so long cause he's really smart?
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Johns
Oct 6, 2007 14:08:34 GMT -5
Post by Nutcase65 on Oct 6, 2007 14:08:34 GMT -5
hate to say it but a woman who can project invisible force fields doesn't actually need amn for that stuff,...
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Johns
Oct 6, 2007 15:18:08 GMT -5
Post by uberwolf on Oct 6, 2007 15:18:08 GMT -5
hate to say it but a woman who can project invisible force fields doesn't actually need amn for that stuff,... Well there ya go. Nuff said.
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Johns
Oct 6, 2007 17:57:04 GMT -5
Post by Doctor Doom on Oct 6, 2007 17:57:04 GMT -5
I want to note- I'm not by any means a Johns basher. The very opposite. His Green Lantern is the second best comic being published, his Flash run rivals Mark Waid's for the best run on that title EVER, and the majority of Infinite Crisis was pretty d**n good.
But... well, let's just say I'd give his Avengers work a 3/10 and leave it at that.
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Johns
Oct 6, 2007 20:37:37 GMT -5
Post by uberwolf on Oct 6, 2007 20:37:37 GMT -5
Then I'd have to give BENDIS! a -14.5/4200
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Johns
Oct 8, 2007 4:21:07 GMT -5
Post by Shiryu on Oct 8, 2007 4:21:07 GMT -5
I think that Johns' run started quite well. The battle against Scorpio was nice, and I liked the ending, with a new, menacing, Zodiac ready to strike, and the In Betweener warning the Avengers that one of them would die.
After that, Red Zone felt very dragged on (I believe that's when arcs started to be made for TPB format) and then issue #71 came in, but overall I still believe that the worse Avengers period ever is the Austen run. To my eye, it's even much worse than the Bendis run...
The problem with Johns is probably that he didn's stay much, and came after an excellent run and before a totally awful one, so people mostly identify the last Busiek issue as the last good Avengers issue.
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Johns
Oct 8, 2007 10:14:37 GMT -5
Post by dlw66 on Oct 8, 2007 10:14:37 GMT -5
After that, Red Zone felt very dragged on (I believe that's when arcs started to be made for TPB format) and then issue #71 came in, but overall I still believe that the worse Avengers period ever is the Austen run. To my eye, it's even much worse than the Bendis run... The problem with Johns is probably that he didn's stay much, and came after an excellent run and before a totally awful one, so people mostly identify the last Busiek issue as the last good Avengers issue. I'd be curious to know if Geoff Johns has the same passion for old school Marvel that he does for old school DC. He could have done some wonderful things with the Avengers in regard to dredging up some old Golden Age characters, and even some of the one-hit-wonder villains that Bored is always clamoring for !!
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Johns
Oct 8, 2007 13:35:54 GMT -5
Post by Shiryu on Oct 8, 2007 13:35:54 GMT -5
Uhm, good question. He used the In Betweener and the Zodiac, which are rather old age and partially semi obscured characters, so at least he knows the Old School. However he was also responsible for the costume change of Warbird and Ant-Man, without as much as two words of explanation, so who knows... (to be fair, perhaps the changes were imposed from "higher powers", I just don't know).
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Johns
Oct 8, 2007 14:09:23 GMT -5
Post by dlw66 on Oct 8, 2007 14:09:23 GMT -5
Sometimes the artists have a hand in costume revisions (or destructions as the case can be at times). Ultimately I'd assume that the editors sign-off on any changes.
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Johns
Oct 8, 2007 21:51:30 GMT -5
Post by uberwolf on Oct 8, 2007 21:51:30 GMT -5
At least when John's She Hulk tore the Vision in half at the end of Red Zone he was fixed right back up in no time. You suck BENDIS!
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Johns
Oct 9, 2007 12:55:44 GMT -5
Post by Bored Yesterday on Oct 9, 2007 12:55:44 GMT -5
hate to say it but a woman who can project invisible force fields doesn't actually need amn for that stuff,... Goodness gracious! You've been missed Nutcase.
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Johns
Oct 9, 2007 13:40:16 GMT -5
Post by Doctor Doom on Oct 9, 2007 13:40:16 GMT -5
I'd be curious to know if Geoff Johns has the same passion for old school Marvel that he does for old school DC. He could have done some wonderful things with the Avengers in regard to dredging up some old Golden Age characters, and even some of the one-hit-wonder villains that Bored is always clamoring for !! He's said repeatedly he feels at home in DC and feels no real affinity for Marvel. He grew up with DC, and doesn't care too much about Marvel. Ironically, Marvel's current number 1 (or, depending on where you stand, number 2) writer and the guy who has edited the Avengers books longer than any other editor ever also both grew up on mostly DC.
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fatbob
Force Works-er
Posts: 27
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Johns
Oct 25, 2007 9:44:17 GMT -5
Post by fatbob on Oct 25, 2007 9:44:17 GMT -5
Red Zone felt very dragged on (I believe that's when arcs started to be made for TPB format) and then issue #71 came in, but overall I still believe that the worse Avengers period ever is the Austen run. To my eye, it's even much worse than the Bendis run... The problem with Johns is probably that he didn's stay much, and came after an excellent run and before a totally awful one, so people mostly identify the last Busiek issue as the last good Avengers issue. That is exactly how I feel about Johns' run. I was not excited much by it at the time, but since I loved Busiek's run so much, just about anyone else would have been a disappointment. And Austen was much much worse. I read somewhere that one reason Johns left when he did was that Marvel wanted him to stretch out his stories to fit TPB, he wasn't happy to do so and left. Red Zone was originally only planned as a 4 issue story (which I think would have been better) and Marvel made him stretch it over 6. Does anyone know if that rumor is correct? For all that, the 6 issues of Red Zone are pacey and snappy compared to some of the glacially slow stuff we have had since.
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kingb
Force Works-er
Posts: 16
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Johns
Nov 6, 2007 11:38:09 GMT -5
Post by kingb on Nov 6, 2007 11:38:09 GMT -5
Strange I would come to board today and happen upon this discussion.
Basically, I came to the board because I was thinking that the end of Johns' run was the end of my enjoyment of the regular Avengers books. Maybe for good.
Johns never hit his stride on Avengers (like he did right out of the chute on JSA), but the end of his run was the end of an era for Avengers.
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Johns
Nov 6, 2007 12:05:45 GMT -5
Post by von Bek on Nov 6, 2007 12:05:45 GMT -5
John´s run started ok, not very good stuff, but at least readable. But the end tail was awful. Why kill poor Jack of Hearts anyway? JoH didn´t let Ant Man kill the guy who kidnapped his daughter... to kill him himself? And then commit suicide? It didn´t make sense, and was a waste of a character that had some potential as an Avenger.
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Johns
Nov 6, 2007 20:52:30 GMT -5
Post by uberwolf on Nov 6, 2007 20:52:30 GMT -5
John´s run started ok, not very good stuff, but at least readable. But the end tail was awful. Why kill poor Jack of Hearts anyway? JoH didn´t let Ant Man kill the guy who kidnapped his daughter... to kill him himself? And then commit suicide? It didn´t make sense, and was a waste of a character that had some potential as an Avenger. The way I see it, the Jack of Hearts was a storyline Johns was developing and had to rush it's conclusion before he left. He could have left it for the next writer to finish, but we've seen what happens in that scenario ::coughDr.Druidcough::
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Johns
Dec 25, 2007 22:38:54 GMT -5
Post by The EVIL Dr. Bolty on Dec 25, 2007 22:38:54 GMT -5
Just joined, and this topic grabbed my interest for a first post.
I should note that I STARTED reading Avengers with the Kurt Busiek run. It hooked me and kept me interested in superheroes past grade school, instilling me with a particular fondness for the Avengers. So, chances are, a lot of my reasons for disliking the Johns run come out of pure fanboyism for Busiek (even if Busiek's last two-three years on the book were rather bleh).
So...when Busiek's ended with a whimper, I was excited about Johns's run. He had done decent work on JSA, which at the time was my favorite team comic.
As it happened, Johns basically just ignored every last bit of Busiek's run. The inconsistencies were bizarre. In the final Kang storyline from Busiek, Jack of Hearts is able to change into human form...suddenly, he's no longer able to do that, and in fact has to spend painful amounts of time in isolation. I think this is a pretty good example of what made Johns's run so...off. He basically ignored whatever was inconvenient to the themes he was trying to write.
Like the inexplicable rekindling of Vision and Wanda, right after Busiek had tried to send them in different directions - not even missing a beat before renewing the relationship.
I actually didn't mind the Hank/Jan sex scene. Yeah, it didn't need to be there, but it's not like it was a painfully out-of-character moment that ruined the characters - just gave us a glimpse into their intimate life that some would consider uncomfortable. However, I did NOT like the handling of their relationship for the rest of the issue. It felt like Johns had a good idea for their resolution, but it came across as...annoyingly wishy-washy, perhaps.
But I think the clincher for me was when Avengers started to feel like a subtle retread of JSA. Falcon uses a line that is almost WORD FOR WORD from a line Batman used in JSA; the tension between Jack of Hearts and Ant-Man reminded me just a little too much of Black Adam and Atom-Smasher; and Johns would use really contrived wording to achieve weak dramatic irony, and generally try too hard to write Frank Miller-esque one-liners.
But I suppose this was all compounded by the fact that Johns was doing much the same thing in JSA at the time. Just as Avengers did several 180s right as Johns took over, JSA went through a similar turmoil when Robinson left and Johns got solo rein. I could go on a whole separate rant about how badly Black Reign changed my opinion on Johns, but the point is that Johns was showing really irritating common flaws and poor continuity-usage in two comics that had been, up to that point, my favorites.
Plus, the whole "cities being uprooted" storyline that kicked off the run kinda sucked. It was a somewhat obtuse concept that lacked urgency in its execution, coupled with all of the previous problems that I mentioned.
I could probably rant forever about this, and it would probably get progressively less coherent as I went on. I'd love to hear some of my statements challenged, because I've often wondered if I give Johns too hard a time for his Avengers run (although I'll stand by my comments on Black Reign).
Unquestionably, though, Austen was so, so much worse. But I think Johns's run marked the point where the Avengers stopped feeling like the Avengers - the first step towards the complete overhaul after Disassembled.
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Johns
Dec 26, 2007 0:01:07 GMT -5
Post by spiderwasp on Dec 26, 2007 0:01:07 GMT -5
First off, welcome aboard bolty. Hope we continue to hear from you. If you continue to post here, I'm sure you'll have lots of points challenged but probably not so much with regards to this particular topic. I haven't heard anyone here who was that strongly opposed to Johns (Unlike Austen or Bendis), but on the other hand I haven't heard anyone who seems to be overwhelmed enough by his Avengers work to really come to his defense either. Maybe I'm wrong and you'll uncover a major Johns fan that I'm not aware of it. For me, I think you're pretty much right on the money, however, when I look at an issue of New Avengers, I find myself missing Johns terribly.
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Johns
Dec 26, 2007 11:13:56 GMT -5
Post by The EVIL Dr. Bolty on Dec 26, 2007 11:13:56 GMT -5
Thanks for the welcome! ;D If you continue to post here, I'm sure you'll have lots of points challenged but probably not so much with regards to this particular topic. I haven't heard anyone here who was that strongly opposed to Johns (Unlike Austen or Bendis), . Ha, don't get me wrong, Johns is a shining beacon of quality when put next to Austen. The thing is, though, when you're talking about Austen, it's blatantly obvious why he was a poor Avengers writer (and poor writer in general). A single example of tin-ear dialog or Idiot Plotting is usually enough. Bendis is similarly easy to tear down, as he ripped the Avengers apart and put them back together in a depressingly "modern" way. With Johns, it's a case of a lot of little things piling on top of each other until it's bad. He had solid ideas and is a mostly competent writer; he just has a few irritating tendencies and a penchant for ignoring recent writers. It's easier to go on a long rant because you can't just stop at, say, Hawkeye's death, or any one ridiculous moment from Austen's run.
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