Manic Monday--Forever Evil 2?!?

You know what I'm sick to death of?

I'm sick of comic books glorifying criminals.

I'm tired of unrepentant crooks being made the "anti-heroes" of their own titles.

I'm tired of creators who think that it's "cooler" to be a bad guy than a hero.

Why, back in my day, they never had books that would do such things. Back in my time, they...

...never mind.

From Walt Disney The Beagle Boys #17 (1973)

Spoiler Saturday--Luther Is Kinda Dumb...Or Is It Just The Author

In this week's Forever Evil #6 [no real spoilers, this is from the first page], Lex Luthor lectures Batman with his version of the old "heroes cause the villains" chestnut:

Whoa whoa whoa. Let's go back to that first balloon:

Here's the problem: this statement is pretty untrue. And since the whole point of this terrible, terrible mini-series is to make Lex look smart and badass, to have him say something so stupid kind of blows your whole mission statement.

The "fact" of not "a single occurrence of metahuman violence or extraterrestrial or interdimensional incursion" until the heroes of the nu52 showed up 5 or 6 years ago is, well, not a fact. It's an un-fact, flat out wrong.

How? Well, for one example...YOU'RE FREAKING STANDING NEXT TO BLACK ADAM, LEX. Even in the nu52, he got his powers centuries ago.

How about Demon Knights, which established plenty of metahuman action and extradimensional incursion centuries ago? Or Stormwatch, which protected Earth from alien incursions for centuries? OK, you can say maybe Luthor didn't know about those...ancient history, secret organizations that may have been wiped out by time travel, etc. That doesn't make him look any smarter. And surely he knows of Vandal Savage, who was just in the Secret Society Of Super-Villains. And Madame Xanadu is still around, as is the Demon, and...

And what about the events of Superman Unchained? We learn that The Wraith came to Earth decades ago. Luthor worked with Sam Lane during the early years of the nu52--did he deceive Lex? And we thought he was supposed to be smart.

What about the Daemonites? Issues of Voodoo and Grifter established that they've here for awhile (until, like all Jim Lee projects, they died from creator and reader apathy). And Superman fought Helspont a couple of times, establishing his ancient history. And Lex is supposedly so obsessed with Superman that he follows his every move. How could he not know about this?

I'm sure there are plenty of more examples in nu52 titles that I haven't followed.

So, is Lex Luthor just being ignorant when he says that there was no metahuman violence or alien incursion until the Justice league showed up? Or is Geoff Johns just not paying attention to what happens in other comics? Or, does he just not care? In his zeal to make Luthor a badass and to pump up the bizarre idea that heroes are really bad for us and villains good, is Johns just going to ignore the history of his shiny new universe AND make Lex into a dolt?

And this is just one of the reasons why Forever Evil is, by far, the worst thing that Johns has ever written.

And Then There Was The Time That The Fantastic Four Saved The DC Universe?!?

And lo, there came a time when the Marvel heroes had to rescue the DC Universe:

Special bonus: the close up of Namor's hinder...

This wasn't just a cover stunt, either. Aliens invade the Earth, so the call goes out:

But the best heroes are kinda busy...

So the other guys come to help:

Let's focus on The Thing The Watchamacallit:

But thanks to an alien ray...

Oops...

Uh-oh...

Actually, I rather like this one...

I really, really want a Ben Grimm toy like this...

Anyhoo, Superman eventually shows up and saves the day.

Enjoy the Inferior Five while you can...I have it on good authority that next week in Forever Evil #6, Geoff Johns will bring them back just to have Superwoman graphically dismember them, just so we know the being from an evil universe is actually evil....because WRITING!!

From The Inferior Five #10 (1968)

The Man Who Put The Justice In Justice League

So, what's the big news this week?

Oh, yes, Lex Luthor is joining the Justice League.

No, this isn't Bizarro-World or Earth-Pi.

Geoff Johns tells us we will see

the post-'Forever Evil' world with the lines being a little bit blurry between good and bad and seeing what kind of heroes it will take to not just protect the world, but defend the world.

Blurry? Really?

In a separate interview at Newsarama, Johns tells us that, "I think evil is very relative." (Not just relative, mind you, but "very relative.")

Oh. OK. Let's look at "relative" and "blurry," shall we?

In Action Comics #23.3 (a.k.a. Lex Luthor #1):

Just hours after being released from prison, Lex blows up a space shuttle, and the four astronauts on board, just to make Superman look bad:

This is the man who will be in the Justice League.

Deliberately killing four people to just to make Superman look bad.

Blurry lines. Evil is very relative.

And when his assistant, Casey, tries to do the right thing and report this monstrous crime?

This is the man who will be joining the Justice League.

The man who slaughters astronauts and throws women off of roofs.

Blurry lines. Evil is very relative.

Ah, you say, but that issue was scripted by Charles Soule. Perhaps it doesn't reflect Johns' conception of the character. Even though the book leads directly into the first page of Forever Evil #1, where Johns has Luthor threaten to throw a man out of a helicopter and kill his wife and son. We still shouldn't judge Johns' Luthor by this story.

Well, then there is Forever Evil #2, wherein a Johns-scripted Luthor is helped during the crisis by security guard Otis--a harmless man who admires him--and Luthor has him killed just to test out how well Bizarro works:

This man will be on the Justice League.

Blurry lines. Evil is very relative.

Maybe at the end of Forever Evil, Luthor will go through some amazing moral transformation, and no longer be the mass murderer than Johns and company have portrayed him as in the nu52, Touched by an angel, or such.

But it sure looks like, even if that is true, he won't be reformed to the extent that he is willing to confess to, and pay the penalty for, his crimes. He's not in jail, not in some remote hermitage praying for forgiveness--he's in the Justice League. Instant reformation, instant sweeping of any past crimes under the rug.

Lex Luthor in the Justice League. Justice League. Justice, as in what the 4 astronauts, Casey and Otis won't be getting any of. Because I will bet you any amount of quatloos that whatever happens, they will never be mentioned again. Past crimes? Oh, they have nothing to do with the all-new, all-lovable Lex Luther.

That is the type of "heroic" universe Johns and his stunted, adolescent moral sense want us to believe in--that the vilest murderer or dictator can simply say, "Hey, I've seen the light," and they can walk away unpunished from piles of bodies.

This is a universe where acts of murder are so heinous and so warping to the world that they created Batman. And Robin. And...But if you commit murders? No problem, as long as you're an interesting character. In Geoff Johns' conception, it seems, if Joe Chill were to see the light, he could just join the Outsiders, and never have to serve a day for murdering the Waynes. Because "evil is very relative", to Johns, means "no consequences."

"Blurry lines," Mr. Johns? You, sir, are the one who is blurring them. "Evil is very relative?" Perhaps you could turn that keen moral sense on yourself and your writing, and figure out where your work falls.

That seems unlikely, though.

Prediction--Justice League Like Lightning?

I made this prediction on Twitter a few weeks ago. But now that the house ads have started running, I want to make sure I'm on the permanent record here:

The "Justice League 3000" will turn out to be the surviving members of the Crime Syndicate, beaten in Forever Evil. They've fled to the future to pose as reborn heroes, pulling a Thunderbolts.

Tune back in a few months for the I-told-you-so's.

Spoiler Sunday--Forever Evil #2, And The State Of DC

All right folks, there's a little rant coming, and it involves spoiling the hell out of one part of this week's Forever Evil #2.

So if you don't want to be spoiled on that, click away and come back another time, after you've read it. It's OK, we won't be upset.

Spoilers will commence after the 3 pictures of the Little Brown Jug, because 42-13, that's why!

See you after the jump...

All right, so the Crime Syndicate has taken over Earth, and turned off all the power, because, well, they're evil.

Luthor is puttering around the basement of LexCorp, when he encounters...

Otis!!!

Lex decides that, despite the fact that the project is only halfway done baking, he must prematurely activate project B Zero (Get it? GET IT?!?!?!?!?)

Well.

Let's recap.

*Geoff Johns has given us a Luthor employee named Otis to (once again) invoke the 1978 Richard Donner film.

And then he has the character graphically killed in cold blood, just to show us (once again) that Luther is EEEEEEEEEVIL. So yes, that's a perfectly fitting tribute to Superman: The Movie.

*Johns has made nu52 Bizarro a grisly killing machine, which is exactly what Superman fans are looking for: their classic Silver Age characters turned into bestial savages.

*Johns (aided and abetted by others) have turned Luthor into a mass murderer who rivals the Joker in the number of bodies he's responsible for. In Forever Evil #1, Lex quite specifically threatens to kill a man who won't sell his business, and goes on to threaten to drive his wife to suicide by turning their son into a junkie and giving him an overdose. In Action Comics #23.3, written by Charles Soule, Luthor quite casually kills 5 of his employees, as tests of loyalty and/or to lure Superman, and threatens to kill several others if they fail him (Why the hell would anyone work there?). This story leads directly into the first page of Forever Evil #1.

Well.

Now, your mileage may vary here, but this is not really a characterization of Luthor that I prefer. Johns' (and others') constant need to up the ante on what a bastard Lex is have turned him from ruthless business man into utter sociopath, taken to the extreme where his body count is as high as Hannibal Lecter. That's not a particularly good interpretation of Luther, if you ask me. (Not to mention, it has the effect of making Superman look like an utter chump--Luther's going around slaughtering folks, and the Man Of Steel can't stop him, and doesn't even know?!?)

Yet this is the character Johns has made the "hero," the point of view character for Forever Evil. Seriously. He would rather show Lex Luther slaughtering innocents in this fight, than show our heroes in battle with their evil counterparts.

Why? Because for several years now, Johns has had nothing but disdain for heroes. He just likes villains better.

This demonstrates why, in my opinion, the #FireDiDio movement is a bit misguided. It assumes that Co-Publisher Jim Lee and Chief Creative Officer Johns don't want the nu52 to be like this, but they're just puppets of Dan DiDio's svengali-like influence. They're powerless figureheads forced to dance to DiDio's whims. Geoff Johns isn't writing the comics he wants to write--he's being forced to do this!

Which is hogwash. I'm not privy to internal DC politics, but an awful lot of trends that people decry about DC these days are clearly and obviously Johns' trademarks, themes and motifs he's been giving us for nearly a decade. Never-ending crises and crossovers? Dumping legacy heroes and replacing them with the "originals"? Making villains the stars? Having villains "shockingly" kill someone (again and again) to show how badass they are? Graphic ultra-violence? Guys, those are all Johns' moves, through and through. This is the guy who made the original Superman a bad guy in Infinite Crisis and had Superboy-Prime knock Pantha's head off.

So if you can get DC to fire DiDio, more power to you, I guess. But there is zero reason to think that would change anything creatively at DC, anything at all. If Johns is still there, it's still going to be the same old, same old.