Originally Posted By: Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man
Johns is not even a writer, he's a salesman. His work is just "isn't this cool?" with no real storytelling. fear is a color? willpower is a color? Superboy Prime wants to now inspire fear when Johns himself had him wanting to be a beloved superhero so badly that he would kill anyone in his way?
I remember when he started out he gave an interview and said he learned a lot about storytelling from working for Richard Donner on Lethal Weapon 4. This bugged me for several reasons. First, Lethal Weapon 4 was the shittiest part of a shitty series. Second, Donner isn't a storyteller, he's a director. Superman was written by someone else, Donner merely directed. And Superman isn't really a good piece of storytelling, it's an event movie that is built around visuals jokes and a good cast. Johns is just bad. I loved his stuff at first until I realized he was just repeating the same shots (the heroic pose panel that's in everything he does so identical that you know he's scripting it like that) and mind control (JSA, Flash, Rebirth) and the little fanwank moments (lots of references to his message board posters). Add onto that the constant stupidity. I think people like him for the same reason Britney Spears is rich, he tickles their fancy with his junk food stories that are sugary sweet but ultimately leave you with nothing but nostalgic "winks at the camera."
