tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post5549005373228317408..comments2024-02-22T02:31:34.108+00:00Comments on Too Busy Thinking About My Comics: "But I Did It. And I Still Do": Last Thoughts On Geoff Johns & Matters Of Life & Death In "Blackest Night"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-47141127406913932462010-11-15T08:42:15.506+00:002010-11-15T08:42:15.506+00:00Hello J:- as always, you raise some excellent poin...Hello J:- as always, you raise some excellent points. I'd quite forgotten, for example, about Day Of Judgement. Perhaps we might see Mr Johns's work in introducing so deliberately this uncertainty back into the DCU as a mark of his continuing maturity as a writer, with his approach embracing the need for uncertainty more as he learns his craft in greater and greater depth. Again, I say that not as a fan, but because his work in Blackest Night is so rigorous and morally consistent that uncertainty must have been part of his intent. Your example of the Earth-2 Superman staring into the void is another piece of evidence, perhaps, of a writer trying to bring the shadows of the DCU into view without in any way compromising the sheer superhero-ness of it all. Those are fascinating examples. Ah, for the chance to ask Mr Johns a few questions about the matter, especially now you've mention what you have.<br /><br />Thank you for the kind words about the point concerning anxiety. It was something which really struck me when first trying to get to grips with the Lee/Ritko Spider-Man. Of course, anxiety is a commonplace concept in historical and literary analysis, but it does no harm to transfer the concept to the world of comic books!Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246781681702128600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-19313490941889360792010-11-15T02:13:15.242+00:002010-11-15T02:13:15.242+00:00There does seem to be a perpetual rotation between...There does seem to be a perpetual rotation between certainty and uncertainty in the DCU, doesn't there? At least since the Anti-Monitor destroyed a thousand realms and rewrote the rules of time travel, the superheroes have vacillated between grave uncertainty (epitomized perhaps by the Superman of Earth-2 staring bleakly into the void) and banal certainty (Johns' own <em>Day of Judgment</em> comes to mind). Johns' recent retooling of the DC cosmos into something uncanny and undecipherable could bear some fruit, but I guess time will tell.<br /><br /><em>And without that anxiety, there's no morality in a modern sense.</em><br /><br />What a pregnant sentence. We must discuss this at greater length some day.J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02124903563459448051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-35876217062507419832010-11-12T23:09:47.096+00:002010-11-12T23:09:47.096+00:00Hello J:- I think you've put your finger on th...Hello J:- I think you've put your finger on the problem of the afterlife in superhero universes. The possibility of doubt disappears and characters cease to share one of the major problems with living in a partly-secular "modern" world, the fear of death and lack of clear and imposed purpose in life. I'm going to have give what you say even more thought, but I think that Mr Johns may have found a way to square this particular circle. It's not, I think, that he's denying the existence of an afterlife of sorts, but he's destroyed the possibility of seeing what our heroes have experienced as the be all and end all. After all, Swamp Thing found Alec Holland and Linda in Heaven, and Green Arrow met the Flash there, but Heaven obviously isn't what they understood it to be. Nekron had control over who visited there and who got to leave, meaning that the afterworlds of the DCU are part of a much wider mystery. Even The Entity is a vague principle. There's no definitive spiritual cosmology being sketched out, but rather the opposite. What this does is allow Heaven, Hell and all the other realms to remain, but their nature and purpose is no longer clear. And that means that the likes of Hal and Barry are now in as much doubt as you and I are, and forced back to making sense of their lives rather than accepting some pseudo-divine plan.<br /><br />I do hope that Mr Johns doesn't try to make matters any clearer, and I hope his influence at DC means that others don't either. One of the problems, I think, about superhero comics has been, and has been for a long time, a lack of anxiety, a lack of any existential crisis, in the characters which bounce around them. And without that anxiety, there's no morality in a modern sense. I think there's a case for arguing that Johns has returned doubt as a fundamental principle to the DCU, and so made the certainty of spiritual survival and purpose that existed at least from Superman's return into something far less comforting.<br /><br />And that's why I'd side with your lovely comment about "gods and imps that live above their world". (I love that phrase.) I quite agree. And I think that Johns has been exceptionally clever in doing this. I may find it difficult to always warm to his work, simply as a matter of taste, but I admire alot of what he does, as I guess is obvious, and I'm very much an admirer of how he works so seriously in what seems like a remarkably typical take on the superhero.<br /><br />Thank you for the link to the article on the Great Darkness. It's such a good example of what happens when creators try to create a spiritual coherence out of symbols which are perhaps better used to express the unknown in an unsystematic way. <br /><br />Of course, if the coming months see one cosmic certainty in the DCU replaced by another, I will make a point of throwing up my hands and noting that you were there discussing this very process in these comments. I’d like to believe that Blackest Night is one conceptual patch that'll stick.Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246781681702128600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-67336012961388476192010-11-12T20:50:17.097+00:002010-11-12T20:50:17.097+00:00"But I do know one thing, Barry. When you tol...<em>"But I do know one thing, Barry. When you told Black Hand we were the ones that give life purpose, you were right ..... Ganthet thinks there's a bigger picture to it all. One we'll eventually see ... I don't know."</em><br /><br />This is one of the problems with trying to insert real world philosophies into these shared superhero universes: How could Hal possibly doubt there's a "bigger picture" when he and his comrades have seen the things they've seen? Everything from Superman's recent ascent into the "Platonic" realm of the Monitors, to the team-ups with the New Gods, to Hal's own time as the literal embodiment of the Wrath of God should keep anyone in the DCU, but especially the superheroes, from questioning the existence of a "bigger picture." Usually I'd chalk this sort of thing up to a writer ignoring the shared universe conceit in order to make a point about the real world, but <em>Blackest Night</em> itself gives us a being who is the avatar of the Creator of the physical universe. Elements of Johns' own story conflict with Hal's commentary. Grief is one thing, willful ignorance another.<br /><br />I understand that Johns has used his storytelling to work out his own experience with death, particularly the death of his younger sister (I believe some of his <em>JSA</em> stories are especially keen on these themes). It just seems odd to me that he would try to make a metaphysical point—at least I assume that's what he's attempting—in a story that directly contradicts that point. Maybe Hal's comment that "we [are] the ones that give life purpose" works if they are rebelling against the hordes of gods and imps that live above their world—i.e., as an act of willful hubris—but not as a passing observation.<br /><br />Also of passing interest is Johns' old <em>JSA</em> storyline "Princes of Darkness," because the characters there make a trip into the <a href="http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Darkness" rel="nofollow">realms of Darkness</a> and talk about how it preexisted the Light of creation. I assume this was Johns taking his ideas in <em>Blackest Night</em> for an early test drive. There's also a thematic tie to Moore's "American Gothic," although Johns undoes the truce between Darkness and Light for his own story.J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02124903563459448051noreply@blogger.com