The Brightest Day!

[TheCorpulent1]

Johns has only just started his plan to make Aquaman relevant again. So far, it's off to a very bad start in my estimation, but if his retcons make Aquaman a viable character who can support his own series again, I'll deal with them.

What I'd really love is to see more of the Martian Manhunter. He's only had one scene so far that I can recall. He and Aquaman were the main reasons I even started buying the series, so it'd be really nice to actually see him do... anything... again.

 

[SpideyInATree]

So far there's been nothing this series to hold my interest...the Hawks and the Aquaman stories might be okay if they were by themselves, although both of them are filled with Johns stereotypical teenage boy gore. He's really not fit to handle these characters anymore. The past few years we've seen Geoff Johns without a filter...and it's not impressive to me. It's what usually happens at DC: a writer gets popular and they let them do whatever they want. So clueless.

Johns does stereotypical teenage boy gore? Could you elaborate on that a bit because I happen to think without Johns' writing I wouldn't have ever read Green Lantern Rebirth, Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night, and now Brightest Day. Nor would I be reading The Flash, with that absolutely beautiful Frances Manapul artwork. I just don't see what's so stereotypical teenage boy gore about his writing....

 

[Tron Bonne]

Johns does stereotypical teenage boy gore?

Uh, yeah. I don't know if 'stereotypical teenage boy gore' is really the right term, but Johns tends to write some seriously bloody things sometimes. You said you read Blackest Night, right? Did you not see the gorefest that series was for at least the first half or something. Not everything he writes is like that, but yeah, he really doesn't shy anyway from unnecessary violence and gore sometimes

 

[SpideyInATree]

Uh, yeah. I don't know if 'stereotypical teenage boy gore' is really the right term, but Johns tends to write some seriously bloody things sometimes. You said you read Blackest Night, right? Did you not see the gorefest that series was for at least the first half or something. Not everything he writes is like that, but yeah, he really doesn't shy anyway from unnecessary violence and gore sometimes

Well, Blackest Night was something that kind of called for that. Johns' writing has the same amount of violence that any other of the top writers in the business have of today. You want to see some blatant, brutal teenage boy gore? Read Robert Kirkman's Invincible. Heh.

Sometimes what the writer is going for in a story is going to call for gore and violence. If it's something that really bothers people so much about his writing than don't read the guys books.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Well, Blackest Night was something that kind of called for that. Johns' writing has the same amount of violence that any other of the top writers in the business have of today. You want to see some blatant, brutal teenage boy gore? Read Robert Kirkman's Invincible. Heh.

Sometimes what the writer is going for in a story is going to call for gore and violence. If it's something that really bothers people so much about his writing than don't read the guys books.

Well, I wasn't really talking about other writers, I was talking about Geoff Johns, and it's not just Blackest Night. It's in a lot of his writing throughout the years. Like I said, it's not everything he writes by any means, but yes, it's definitely there, which is answering the question you asked. And, to be honest, I don't think any story is warranted to the amount of blood and gore of BN (even horror stories).

 

[RockSP]

Johns does stereotypical teenage boy gore?

Well, I wasn't really talking about other writers, I was talking about Geoff Johns, and it's not just Blackest Night. It's in a lot of his writing throughout the years.

Yeah several readers have made comments over the years about what they feel are his excessive use of gore. A few examples that come to mind: Superboy Prime's dismemberment of several characters in Infinite Crisis, Black Adams punching Psycho Pirates brains out the back of his head, Black Adam ripping Terra Man in half, the nazi speedster (can't remember the name) plowing through people in the first arc of the latest volume of JSA...

(Blood and guts is no big deal to me personally. With or without it, if a story sucks...it sucks.)

 

[SpideyInATree]

Well, I wasn't really talking about other writers, I was talking about Geoff Johns, and it's not just Blackest Night. It's in a lot of his writing throughout the years. Like I said, it's not everything he writes by any means, but yes, it's definitely there, which is answering the question you asked. And, to be honest, I don't think any story is warranted to the amount of blood and gore of BN (even horror stories).

Well, you didn't answer my question. I wanted some elaboration. Maybe some examples of his other writing throughout the years. Blackest Night was a superhero event that was going to have a horror comic feel to it. Geoff Johns even came right out and said it in the Blackest Night panel at San Diego last July. He came right out and said, "This is going to be a horror comic with superheroes in it". It was never a big secret. I would just like examples from you and the original poster Kurosawa about this so called "teenage boy violence". Because Geoff Johns has written a whole lot more comics than Blackest Night.

And I am talking about other comic book writers. Johns' writing has no more violence than Morrison, Tomasi, Bendis, Brubaker, etc. It's just something that is confusing to me.

And if I were you I wouldn't read Kirkman's Invincible or Walking Dead, which is probably one of the best ongoing series on the shelves today. Those series have violence, gore, and death to the Nth power.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Well, you didn't answer my question. I wanted some elaboration. Maybe some examples of his other writing throughout the years. Blackest Night was a superhero event that was going to have a horror comic feel to it. Geoff Johns even came right out and said it in the Blackest Night panel at San Diego last July. He came right out and said, "This is going to be a horror comic with superheroes in it". It was never a big secret. I would just like examples from you and the original poster Kurosawa about this so called "teenage boy violence". Because Geoff Johns has written a whole lot more comics than Blackest Night.

And I am talking about other comic book writers. Johns' writing has no more violence than Morrison, Tomasi, Bendis, Brubaker, etc. It's just something that is confusing to me.

And if I were you I wouldn't read Kirkman's Invincible or Walking Dead, which is probably one of the best ongoing series on the shelves today. Those series have violence, gore, and death to the Nth power.

I can't really think of a lot of examples off the top of my head or anything, but I know there were some issues of Green Lantern that had Black Hand murdering his family then blowing his own brains out, I believe he wrote a story were someone was eaten alive in Teen Titans, in this series he had Black Manta slashing people's throats and such. I'm sure someone else can give you a more complete list, but he definitely doesn't shy away from the gore.

And I actually have read a good chunk of Invincible and Walking Dead. The former's gore is pretty stupid, but I don't remember feeling that about the latter.

I'm not really offended by that kind of stuff, but I think it's obvious when it's unnecessary, and I'd say the majority of mainstream superhero comics overdo it.

EDIT:

Yeah several readers have made comments over the years about what they feel are his excessive use of gore. A few examples that come to mind: Superboy Prime's dismemberment of several characters in Infinite Crisis, Black Adams punching Psycho Pirates brains out the back of his head, Black Adam ripping Terra Man in half, the nazi speedster (can't remember the name) plowing through people in the first arc of the latest volume of JSA...

(Blood and guts is no big deal to me personally. With or without it, if a story sucks...it sucks.)

Sorry, missed your post here, RockSP. Here's a few more that's pretty excessive.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The thing that bugs me about Johns' use of gore is that it's so contradictory to the rest of his writing style. He tends to emphasize heroism and the bright, shiny goodness of the heroes and such, which I'm cool with. But then, for no apparent reason, he'll throw in someone getting torn limb from limb in graphic detail a page or two after everyone's basically fallen to their knees in awe of how awesome and wonderful a hero Superman is. It's just a jarring back-and-forth from one extreme to the other.

 

[trustyside-kick]

Hmm to me the amount of gore is appropriate depending on the character. The examples of Black Adam and Black Manta...I'm sorry but that isn't some sort of "badassery" gimmick or "teenage boy gore"...those 2 characters doing what they did in those examples makes sense to me. Black Adam has gone from villainy to what he views as heroics but much more like an anti-hero or walking the thin line type of character so his brand of justice is without mercy but hey "he only hurts those who deserve it". And Black Manta is plain old bat**** crazy. The second he hears Aquaman is back, hearing a local citizen cheer on that he IS back? He slaughters all of them because they just happen to be there where that ONE citizen made a comment.

Saying ANYTHING about Blackest Night being excessive is ridiculous if you ask me. It's zombies essentially...what do you freakin' expect?

So...better examples please.

(This is coming from someone who does think that stuff like sex, foul language, and violence in comics is sometimes overboard mind you; but those examples are poor ones)

 

[TheCorpulent1]

It's the difference between PG-13 and R-ratings, basically. It's not that there are gory acts in the comics, it's that Johns really likes to have artists show off the gore for some reason. Did we really need to see Black Adam's fist going through Psycho-Pirate's face? It could've been shrouded in shadows or something to make it slightly less graphic without losing the emphasis of the act itself. I read superhero comics for some fun adventures, not as an alternative to watching Saw.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Hmm to me the amount of gore is appropriate depending on the character. The examples of Black Adam and Black Manta...I'm sorry but that isn't some sort of "badassery" gimmick or "teenage boy gore"...those 2 characters doing what they did in those examples makes sense to me. Black Adam has gone from villainy to what he views as heroics but much more like an anti-hero or walking the thin line type of character so his brand of justice is without mercy but hey "he only hurts those who deserve it". And Black Manta is plain old bat**** crazy. The second he hears Aquaman is back, hearing a local citizen cheer on that he IS back? He slaughters all of them because they just happen to be there where that ONE citizen made a comment.

To me, there's very few things that warrant showing someone punch another person's brains out in graphic detail. You can show violence, make it effective, without it becoming so over-the-top and stupid. It would be different if it was satirical, but it's really not as far as I can see.

And I know we're talking about Johns, who is uncriticizable to some people, but not to me.

Saying ANYTHING about Blackest Night being excessive is ridiculous if you ask me. It's zombies essentially...what do you freakin' expect?

Yet, Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are some of the greatest zombie movies of all time, and the gore never became excessive and over-the-top.

Really, I guess it's just a culture swift. Nowadays, with the rise of the 'gore porn' stuff it's becoming something people like. They want to see guts and gore all the time. It's shame, since it seems people are now thinking horror=gore porn, but I don't believe it is. I bet someone else could have done BN with very little on-panel gore and done it just as well.

 

[Kurosawa]

Johns was a huge fan of the Mortal Kombat games as a kid...and it shows with the stupid fatalities he writes in comics. Too bad he wasn't a Street Fighter fan I guess. At least then he'd write bad ass fight scenes.

 

[SpideyInATree]

I can't really think of a lot of examples off the top of my head or anything, but I know there were some issues of Green Lantern that had Black Hand murdering his family then blowing his own brains out, I believe he wrote a story were someone was eaten alive in Teen Titans, in this series he had Black Manta slashing people's throats and such. I'm sure someone else can give you a more complete list, but he definitely doesn't shy away from the gore.

And I actually have read a good chunk of Invincible and Walking Dead. The former's gore is pretty stupid, but I don't remember feeling that about the latter.

I'm not really offended by that kind of stuff, but I think it's obvious when it's unnecessary, and I'd say the majority of mainstream superhero comics overdo it.

I don't really call that excessive gore. I read the issue with The Black Hand in it. Yes, it's gore. It's violent. It's very brutal. However, the difference between Geoff Johns and Joe Schmo comic book writer is that it's something that adds to the story and the violence is not something just done for shock value.

That's what confuses me about the comment of "teenage boy violence". If it were just violence and gore just to put violence and gore in a comic, which there is nothing wrong with that if that's someone's thing, then I would completely understand saying a writer just does things with "teenage boy violence".

However, Johns' writing, in my opinion, has the violence in it when it's necessary. It's no different than any other current hot comic book writer that is writing for the big two. Some of them use it wisely while there are others that use it simply for shock and awe.

 

[Tron Bonne]

How does it add to the story? Would the story have somehow changed or become lessened if it only implied that Black Hand blew his brains out instead of actually showing it? No, it wouldn't have. Just how it wouldn't have changed if they had silhouetted Black Adam punching someone's brains out instead of literally showing it. It adds nothing at the end of the day, just something to make it seem more mature and shock you.

And no one is saying Johns does it more than anyone else, it's basically a standard at this point, but it doesn't stop it from being unnecessary to begin with.

Really, I think it's pretty unnecessary in just about every superhero story. Even when it's used 'right', like, in say Moore's Marvelman run when Kid Marvelman went bonkers, he still probably could have told the story fine without it resorting to being that graphic. Gore and excessive violence rarely really add anything but shock value to anything most of the time. About the only time it's worth anything to me is when it's satirical and is either poking fun at itself (like the video game MADWORLD) or trying to draw attention to its own negativity (like American Psycho, even though that book sucked ass anyway).

 

[SpideyInATree]

How does it add to the story? Would the story have somehow changed or become lessened if it only implied that Black Hand blew his brains out instead of actually showing it? No, it wouldn't have. Just how it wouldn't have changed if they had silhouetted Black Adam punching someone's brains out instead of literally showing it. It adds nothing at the end of the day, just something to make it seem more mature and shock you.

And no one is saying Johns does it more than anyone else, it's basically a standard at this point, but it doesn't stop it from being unnecessary to begin with.

Really, I think it's pretty unnecessary in just about every superhero story. Even when it's used 'right', like, in say Moore's Marvelman run when Kid Marvelman went bonkers, he still probably could have told the story fine without it resorting to being that graphic. Gore and excessive violence rarely really add anything but shock value to anything most of the time. About the only time it's worth anything to me is when it's satirical and is either poking fun at itself (like the video game MADWORLD) or trying to draw attention to its own negativity (like American Psycho, even though that book sucked ass anyway).

I think that it adds to the story. Yeah, they could have implied it off panel or showed things in the shadow. However, showing some of the violence does add to the story. It adds some emotional power to the story. Just like I said earlier in the thread...if it's written well and the story is written well then it's going to add to the emotional context of the story. That's me. Obvioulsy that's not your thing.

When this conversation originally started getting brought up I was just confused that it was just Geoff Johns being singled out for "teenage boy violence". If the original poster doesn't like Geoff Johns' writing than come right out and say it. That's ones opinion. I just don't like when people give very odd excuses for not liking a writer when Johns is doing no different than any other writer in the industry.

I guess you guys also don't watch a lot of Anime either, heh.

 

[Kurosawa]

I don't like it when ANY writer does it, but it irritates me most with Johns precisely because there are aspects of his writing that I do like. Like when Bendis does it..it pisses me off but I hate Bendis' "writing" pretty much outright. But Johns will do scenes that I love then turn around with crap like the killing of Psycho Pirate that just makes me sick and that I see as a slap in the face to the characters creators. Not that when Bendis kills Kirby characters it disgusts me any less than when Johns kills Fox characters, but I expect better from Johns...which I really shouldn't after crap like SBP and his butchering of Kal-L.

 

[Charlie Boy]

Remember that really long debate about minorities in comics or the lack thereof a couple weeks ago that went absolutely nowhere? /drunk]

 

[TruerToTheCore]

Gore should not be in a regular DC comic. Never.

 

[Mystirious]

Vixen: a white woman standing in the darker corner of the room.

Also pictured: Wonder Woman's ass.

Let's see Benes try to draw it now that she has pants.

Pants are the devil

 

[Tron Bonne]

I think that it adds to the story. Yeah, they could have implied it off panel or showed things in the shadow. However, showing some of the violence does add to the story. It adds some emotional power to the story. Just like I said earlier in the thread...if it's written well and the story is written well then it's going to add to the emotional context of the story. That's me. Obvioulsy that's not your thing.

When this conversation originally started getting brought up I was just confused that it was just Geoff Johns being singled out for "teenage boy violence". If the original poster doesn't like Geoff Johns' writing than come right out and say it. That's ones opinion. I just don't like when people give very odd excuses for not liking a writer when Johns is doing no different than any other writer in the industry.

Well, I believe excess violence and gore rarely add legitimate emotional weight to anything. Violence and gore, okay, but there becomes a point when whatever 'emotional weight' is added turns to just unneeded excess, and even another point when it becomes almost of self-parody.

I can agree that these things are warranted in some case, but let's take a quick look at a panel from Siege:

Spoiler

Not only do we see Ares torn apart, we see his skeleton and various organs falling out. Can you tell me how this adds 'emotional weight' more than if we had simply seen a huge bloody splat, or even just a silhouette or shadow of Sentry doing this.

In the end, none. It's just meant to shock, but it comes off as almost laugh-worthy because you can tell how forced and pointless it is. Even if the story surrendering it is good, and well written, it's still totally unnecessary*.

Like I said, I think about 99% of the time this stuff is pointless. It's just done because there's more or less no censors on violence anymore for comics, and showing graphic violence is perceived as a mature thing to do (I is serious, therefore I show seriousness as serious as seriously possible).

If you don't have a problem with it, that's fine. I'm not offended by it or anything, but I still recognize the excess of it. Thought as I said earlier, might be a new culture thing; in the rise of 'gore porn' in the last few years, it seems overdoing violence and gore to the point of self-parody is slowing becoming the standard.

I guess you guys also don't watch a lot of Anime either, heh.

I do actually

*I guess in fairness to Bendis, apparently that scene was not written to be that gory originally. It was something the artist decided to do for whatever reason. So, maybe it's just a case of artists feeling the need to amp up the violence to 11. Either way, the point more or less still stands.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I believe Bendis mentioned in an interview that he expected the scene to be censored when he wrote it, but it wasn't and then Coipel just went buck-wild on the actual image.

I agree about the Siege panel, though. Not necessary and ultimately just kind of out of place compared to the rest of the story, which was all about the heroes picking themselves back up and finally putting an end to the unprecedented power the villains had come to wield.

 

[Kurosawa]

In that Siege panel, Bendis might as well just had them draw a picture of himself ****ting on Kirby's grave. Because that was what he was doing. Bendis can rot in hell.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Er... wait, how? I don't really see how Kirby enters into it...

 

[Kurosawa]

Kirby created Marvel's Ares. It's his character. So you have a visual of a Kirby character being brutally and graphically killed. Same principle as with Psycho Pirate, which is why I found the way he was killed insulting to Fox and Murphy Anderson.