Doomsday Clock (2018) #2

Upon reading this issue of Doomsday Clock, which is regular length instead of extended like the first, I’ve decided I’m done. I don’t care about the identity of the new Rorschach. I don’t care how Rorschach gets on with Batman. Don’t care how Veidt gets on with Lex Luthor. Or why the Comedian’s back? Or did Dr. Manhattan create the DC Universe–Johns just integrates the big rumors about the series into the book. Why not. There’s nothing else to do.

The jumping off point isn’t the cliffhanger or the trip to Earth One. It’s Batman. It’s Bruce and Lucius Fox arguing over whether or not Batman is necessary. Maybe it’s in current DC continuity, I don’t know. Something about the Superman Theory, which I thought was the name of a bad comics convention bar band, but whatever. Don’t care.

Johns isn’t trying. He’s also got a gross sexist opening he can’t get away with because he’s Geoff Johns and craven and Gary Frank’s art lacks any subjectivity. It’s too objective for gross sexist bank managers. Frank’s art invites a lot of examination Johns’s writing really can’t support. Frank’s at least trying. Johns is not.

So. No more. Clock is stopped for me.

Unless the villain’s Lobo at the end and Johns is daring the original creator to sue. But maybe not even then.

Doomsday Clock #2 (February 2018)

So. No more. Clock is stopped for me.

Unless the villain’s Labo at the end and Johns is daring the original creator to sue. But maybe not even then.

CREDITS

Places We Have Never Known; writer, Geoff Johns; artist, Gary Frank; colorist, Brad Anderson; letterer, Rob Leigh; editors, Amedeo Turturro and Brian Cunningham; publisher, DC Comics.

Doomsday Clock (2018) #1

There’s one big problem with Doomsday Clock. It exists.

And a lot of it is worse than one might expect. Apparently, in 1992, after the plan at the end of Watchmen didn’t work out, the United States elected Robert Redford president. Only he isn’t a hippie dippy Robert Redford, he’s President Trump. There’s even a wall.

So, you know, if you want to read Doomsday Clock to make fun of Geoff Johns’s writing… it provides a lot of opportunity. Is it worth reading for that reason? Depends on whether or not you want a lot of fodder for mocking Geoff Johns.

Or maybe you just want to see Gary Frank “Gary Frank” a Watchmen sequel. Only one where the DC Universe gets involved. And that crossover–albeit to a different, somewhat darker DCU (I think, has DC changed Superman’s origin lately)–gets to have the Watchmen panel layout.

You think Frank and Johns weren’t going to ape Watchmen down to the panel layouts. Please. Doomsday Clock is craven and desperate.

It also seems to be implying, after Watchmen, Nite Owl feels so shitty about Rorschach dying he takes up the mask, as it were, and lives his life aping him. Or something. It’s dumb. It’s a Watchmen sequel written by Geoff Johns. Of course it’s dumb.

It’s kind of sad how dumb it gets. Especially when Johns brings in some costumed villain sidekicks for NuRorschach. They’re terrible enough maybe they were in Before Watchmen. But I’ve blocked that previous desperate attempt from DC to turn Watchmen into a brand name from my memory.

I finished Before Watchmen though. I’m not sure I really want to see what Johns and Frank have cooked up for them in After Watchmen.

I do want to know if the team refers to themselves as The Watchmen though. I really, really hope they do. If you’re going to show the world you’re an exceptionally pedestrian writer, you might as well do it on a corporate Watchmen sequel.

Is Doomsday Clock worth the read to intellectually dissect it and roast it? For five dollars? In this economy?

Doomsday Clock 1 (January 2018)

There’s one big problem with Doomsday Clock. It exists.

You think Frank and Johns weren’t going to ape Watchmen down to the panel layouts. Please. Doomsday Clock is craven and desperate.

I finished Before Watchmen though. I’m not sure I really want to see what Johns and Frank have cooked up for them in After Watchmen.

Is Doomsday Clock worth the read to intellectually dissect it and roast it? For five dollars? In this economy?

CREDITS

That Annihilated Place; writer, Geoff Johns; artist, Gary Frank; colorist, Brad Anderson; letterer, Rob Leigh; editors, Amedeo Turturro and Brian Cunningham; publisher, DC Comics.

DC Universe: Legacies (2010) #10

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The story ends before Infinite Crisis, with an OMAC showing up and attacking the narrator. The narrator’s nurse at the assisted living place ends the issue suggesting he’s full of crap, which ends Legacies on a decidedly negative note. Not because the reader would believe he’s a loon, but because it’s such a mundane thing, being elderly and dismissed. It’s a defeat. What’s the point of getting all excited about the superheroes if the elderly are being dismissed in the DC Universe? What, is Superman going to deal with nuclear proliferation next?

Saiz only handles a handful of pages then Derenick takes over. It must be at that point DC finally stopped pretending they cared about Legacies being a professional job. Derenick’s expressions get hilarious at times.

The backup is an Infinite Crisis prologue with Blue Beetle. Nice Frank art, I guess, but totally useless.

Kind of like the series.

Tom Strong (1999) #7

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Moore finishes the story with an unexpected conclusion, one he hadn’t hinted at earlier and should have. Tom Strong’s birthday was coming up. It ends at his birthday party (and the Millennium City Y2K party). It’s a great scene, but it’s sort of tacked on.

This issue is significant for one major reason. Moore talks a lot about race. Sure, it’s in the extremes of Tom Strong having a bastard son with a Nazi superwoman, but Moore doesn’t flinch when putting those two up against Tom’s black wife and his mixed daughter. Most mainstream comic books completely avoid the discussion (or just don’t have any black characters).

This issue has a flash forward, not flashback, but Frank and Smith. It’s not the best Frank art, but it’s good. Moore’s writing isn’t as strong on that portion though.

It’s a decent issue, some good surprises… but there’s no kick to it.

Superman: New Krypton Special (2008) #1

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Someone has pointed out Johns casting Lois Lane’s dad as a jingoistic, sadistic supervillain really just is… you know, the Hulk, right? I mean, someone besides me. It’s so startlingly uncreative, one has to wonder.

This New Krypton Special does raise a couple interesting ideas—one is the People of Kandor being, well, basically stupid jerks. It doesn’t make me want to read the series, however. Oh, another moronic move—a bad guy named “Agent Assassin?” I mean, that one’s worse than the Image stuff.

There’s some great art. I love the way reading Frank’s pages feels like one’s reading a sequel to the Christopher Reeve movies. It’s too bad Johns’s plotting on everything else is goofy. Woods and Guedes are good too, Woods being better.

It’s too bad Johns shoved New Krypton into a nice memorial to Jonathan Kent. It sort of undoes that whole sequence, the subsequent nonsense.

Superman: Secret Origin (2009) #6

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So after making everyone wait for months, DC put out this piece of crap?

I mean, it’s not terrible, but it’s garbage. Frank’s artwork is visibly hurried, with Superman looking different in every other panel and the Christopher Reeve likeness looking traced when he uses it here. Lois looks funny, more of the hurrying.

As for Johns, it’s like he was trying to see how many endings he could do in one issue to give Frank the chance to do full page panels.

It’s completely moronic conclusion to the last three issues too, but particularly to the last one, as General Lane is reduced to a cartoon joke. Lex is a goof too.

What’s funniest about the comic is how self-important Johns writes it. It’s clear no one edits his scripts.

I think it’s about a five minute read. People waited three months for a five minute read. That’s value.

Superman: Secret Origin (2009) #5

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Ok, so Johns finally did something completely unexpected. He made Superman the Hulk. General Sam Lane–I think that’s Lois’s father’s name anyway–is a psycho warmonger who tries to kill Superman.

Funny how John Byrne is known for Superman and the Hulk and Johns is playing with both here.

There’s some decent character scenes, not as much Christopher Reeve in the Frank art but some… A lot of the scenes play well. Superman posing for Jimmy seems really stupid.

But Johns doesn’t have a good narrative structure here or in the series overall. This issue, like the last, is sequential, while the first two issues weren’t tied by an exacting structure.

It’s like Johns can’t decide if he’s doing Man of Steel or something else. The confusion isn’t helping.

Some of the problem probably stems from Johns’s handle on Superman being a tad trite.

It’s a passionless mechanical story, completely unnecessary.

Superman: Secret Origin 6 (October 2010)

So after making everyone wait for months, DC put out this piece of crap?

As for Johns, it’s like he was trying to see how many endings he could do in one issue to give Frank the chance to do full page panels.

It’s completely moronic conclusion to the last three issues too, but particularly to the last one, as General Lane is reduced to a cartoon joke. Lex is a goof too.

What’s funniest about the comic is how self-important Johns writes it. It’s clear no one edits his scripts.

I think it’s about a five minute read. People waited three months for a five minute read. That’s value.

CREDITS

The End; writer, Geoff Johns; penciller, Gary Frank; inker, Jon Sibal; colorist, Brad Anderson; letterer, Steve Wands; editors, Wil Moss and Matt Idelson; publisher, DC Comics.