Geoff Johns to Leave Green Lantern in May

[JME2]

From Comic Book Resources

Well, we knew this day was coming sooner or later. Truth be told, he probably should have bowed out 3 years ago after TBN.

But it also means that "Wrath of the First Lantern" will end up being his endgame and will have a lot of ground to cover and set up.

[Ahriman238]

Well, it's been a hell of a run. Many high points, more than a few low ones too, but on balance I think he was excellent for Green Lantern.

[JME2]

I certainly don't envy whoever succeeds Johns.

Despite the high and low points, he's created the (as far as I'm concerned) definitive GL run. Those are big shoes that are going to be hard to fill (if at all).

I don't even know who DC has on a list of candidates. I doubt it's Morrison as he's moving away from mainstream comics once his Action Comics and Batman Inc. runs wrap. Tomasi's possible

Speaking of Tomasi, I'm also curious about one other thing: What happens to the other GL books now?

Are Tomasi, Bedard, and Milligan staying on board or will they jump ship given their arcs have been anchored to the larger story Johns has been telling?

[JME2]

Update: The solicitations for May are up and they answer my question.

Tomasi, Bedard, and Milligan will all be ending their runs on GLC, GL:NG, and RL and leaving with Johns.

Holy shit.

[Havok]

You think this is a move to redirect Green Lantern to a more movie friendly style?
I think part of what makes DC so hard to adapt to the screen sans Batman is that they are too fantastical. Even with Superman it is a chore to keep him "grounded" so to speak. GL is just ridiculously out there and while Johns run was great for comic books, it is horrible for film IMO.

[JME2]

Yeah, I'm wondering about what the post-Johns direction will be and if it will try to make it more reader-friendly.

[JME2]

So, with 4 issues to go, Johns doesn't have much time to start wrapping up loose ends from the run. The big ones for me are:

* Where is Larfleeze's family?

* Is Hector Hammond still alive or did Krona kill him to get Ophidian?

* Will Black Hand remained trapped in the Chamber of Shadows?

* Will Hal and Carol finally get together for good?

* And as he's not on the final cover, where the hell is Sinestro?

Also, as Tomasi's ending his GLC run, I want to know where the hell Sodam Yat is. That's a thread that's been dangling for 2 years and with everybody in trouble because of Volthoom, they could really use a Daxamite GL right about now.

[JME2]

Seeing where we are now and where Johns will have to be for the finale, it's hit me that he's found a great way to bookened his run.

Rebirth was about Hal coming back from the dead and fighting for his life and the lives of his friends.

"Wrath of the First Lantern" will see Hal make his way back from the dead again to fight once more for the lives of his friends.

A nice, almost perfect symmetry. I don't know if Johns planned it that way, but it works nicely in selling the idea that the epic has entered its last act.

Looking over the credits for the last issue, I also love that it's not just Doug Mahnke on the art duties. Ethan Van Sciver and Ivan Reis are coming back one more time.

Say what you will about Johns' writing, but I respect how much he values his artistic collaborators. It's touching and fitting that the man who re-defined the visual look of the Lanterns for the 21st Century and the man who gave us the Sinestro Corps War and the epic scope that followed, are coming back for one last bout of ring-slinging.

[Havok]

How many times has he died? Geez.

[JME2]

How many times has he died? Geez.

This is his second time -- third if you count the few seconds he was a Black Lantern during TBN.

Black Hand killed him and Sinestro -- with help from the Guardians -- just before the "Rise of the Third Army" crossover began (though we know now that Black Hand deposited what's apparently Nekron's realm).

That was also something I loved about the annual. Ethan Van Sciver on art, Black Hand, Hal and Sinestro powerless in a graveyard -- it was coming full circle with both "Secret Origin" and Rebirth and made me wonder at the time if Johns was entering his endgame.

Now we know he was. And the whole 'death' all justified because the entire run has been a story of birth, life, and death.

I'm not calling it a parable for living, but the way it's focused on the power of emotion, of how it drives our lives, of trying to live without fear when we're surrounded by so much of it -- there is a reason why Johns' run means so much to me, why I've connected with it in a way that I don't think I have with any other comic run.

[Tomzilla]

Geoff Johns's 'Green Lantern: Rebirth' is what got me interested in the Green Lantern character. The 'Sinestro Corp' arc made me a fan. 'The Blackest Night' is one of my favorite comic book stories because it's just so damn epic. 'War of the Green Lanterns' was anything but boring. I haven't read the Third Army arc yet but I will soon enough.

So yeah, Geoff Johns helped shine more light on Green Lantern than any other writer before. It's never boring when he writes banter between Hal Jordan and Sinestro. I didn't even like Hal Jordan that much before Geoff Johns. I was intrigued by his run as the Spectre, which was a good twist, but he always came off two-dimensional to me. Now he's a far more relatable character.

I absolutely love what he's done with Sinestro. Sinestro has so many layers and motivations, I'm never bored when he's on panel.

Anyway, I'll definitely tune in to see how the 'Wrath of the First Lantern' storyline goes. I hope it's a satisfying resolution. I'm confident it will be.

[Havok]

So what is Johns moving on to?

[JME2]

So what is Johns moving on to?

Johns said on DC's main site yesterday that he'll be focusing his attention on developing the Justice League-corner of the DCU.

So, he'll remain as the ongoing writer for Aquaman and Justice League. He'll also be launching the latter's companion book Justice League of America this month (which will feature Simon Baz on the lineup; Johns used ROT3A to plant the seeds for Baz's recruitment).

Both League books will be building towards Trinity War, DC's 2013 event and a story which Johns has been building towards since the last issue of Flashpoint back in 2011.

He also indicated that while Doug Mahnke's leaving GL with him, the artist is at work on another project with him. My guess is that it's Shazam-related given Billy Batson's been the backup feature in Justice League and current backup artist Gary Frank will be working on the second volume of Batman: Earth Two. And we know the Marvels are tied to Trinity War, so that's another strike in that theory's favor.

[JME2]

There's one big loose end I forgot to mention last night: The Emotional Entities.

The Butcher, Ophidian, Parallax, Ion, Adara, Proselyte, and the Predator were all cut loose at the end of WOTGL and unless I'm mistaken, none of the writers have followed up on their fates.

Will Volthoom be targeting them? Or will they be drawn in this final battle? Might the new White Entity also intervene?

[Havok]

Marvel is my favorite hero in the DC stable. What has been going on with the Marvel family?

[JME2]

Marvel is my favorite hero in the DC stable. What has been going on with the Marvel family?

Johns has been revamping Billy, Black Adam for the post-Flashpoint DCU.

Here's the gist of it.

[JME2]

I absolutely love what he's done with Sinestro. Sinestro has so many layers and motivations, I'm never bored when he's on panel.

One of my favorite bits from the entire run is the SCW prologue's backup tale, where Lyssa Drak retells Sinestro's first encounter with Hal. What I love is that it starts with a reprise of the same flashback from Rebirth, showing it from Sinestro's perspective. But here Johns takes a curbe by showing the two of them bonding on the flight to Abin's grave and Sinesto's heartfelt advice once they pay their respects.

Johns and Van Sciver had already revamped Sinestro into a cold, fear-obsessed fascist 2 years earlier. But for me, this is the first indication of the depth that Johns was going to explore with the yellow ring wielder. And you're right: more often than not, Sinestro has been the major selling point. He might just be the most realized character Johns has tackled -- and that's saying something given everything he did with the Flash Rogues.

I also love everything he did with Abin Sur, picking up where Alan Moore had left off in the 80's and really making Abin an essential posthumous character in the mythology. Abin's death is the catalyst for Hal's journey (well, second catalyst after Martin Jordan's death), but even long dead, Abin's actions continued to have reverberations across the cosmos, from the recording of the Blackest Night prophecies to the creation of the Indigo Tribe.

[JME2]

I've been thinking things over and does anyone else think Carol may die in the finale?

The solicitations for GLNG's last issue indicate the team will suffer a loss in the final battle against Volthoom and the Guardians.

True, anyone on the team could bite it. But in addition, there's still the matter of the prophecy Atrocitus made to Hal 4 years ago during "Rage of the Red Lanterns", that the Guardians would murder his greatest love.

And his love for Carol and desire to finally make their relationship work is what's kept Hal going since he was discharged at the end of WOTGL. It could also act as a bookend to the death of Hal's father -- something that has been a key element of Johns' take on Hal.

[Panzersharkcat]

I'm hoping not. She'd end up being the third (Katma Tui and Alexandra DeWitt, unless I missed somebody) lover of a Green Lantern to get stuffed in the fridge.

[Tomzilla]

Anyone else want to see Nekron and the Anti-Monitor return? They both have played such a prominent role in Geoff Johns's Green Lantern saga, it'd be nice for them to have a cameo.

I still remember shrieking like a geek when I saw the Anti-Monitor, Sinestro, Parallax, Superboy Prime, and Cyborg Superman all in the same place--and wondered how the hell they could possibly top that. They did, which is not only awesome, it's what I've come to expect in a Green Lantern finale.

[JME2]

Anyone else want to see Nekron and the Anti-Monitor return? They both have played such a prominent role in Geoff Johns's Green Lantern saga, it'd be nice for them to have a cameo.

Because Simon and B'dg are about to confront Black Hand, the Nekron issue will likely come up. And I don't know what the Anti-Monitor's post-Flashpoint status is.

At the very least, I hope we get final page not unlike the last page of Johns' original Flash (Wally running with illustrations of all the characters Johns had created in the background).

I still remember shrieking like a geek when I saw the Anti-Monitor, Sinestro, Parallax, Superboy Prime, and Cyborg Superman all in the same place--and wondered how the hell they could possibly top that. They did, which is not only awesome, it's what I've come to expect in a Green Lantern finale.

I remember being stunned at how heavily Johns had stacked the deck against the GLC and how in the hell they were going to get out of this one.

The best part was that the resolution never felt like a deus ex machina. It flowed naturally from what Johns had set up (ex. War World).

[JME2]

The other question about possible deaths is whether or not Sinestro's going to bite it.

On one hand, Johns put a great deal of time and effort into giving the mythology back it's main antagonist.

On the other hand, will Johns resolve his take on the character and leave him open for future writers or will he close the arc he's given Thaal?

The question of whether or not Sinestro can be redeemed has been floating since "Rage of the Red Lanterns". We've even seen Sinestro, under the influence of a green ring, showing remorse for his subjugation of Korugar and acknowledging that fear is not always the answer.

Likewise, for everything he's done to Hal, Johns has also shown that deep down, Jordan wants to believe his old friend can be redeemed.

So where will Johns take this? Will Sinestro sacrifice himself to stop Volthoom and the Guardians? Much hinges on the state of the other Corps when the dust settles, so we'll have to see.

[JME2]

I'm hoping not. She'd end up being the third (Katma Tui and Alexandra DeWitt, unless I missed somebody) lover of a Green Lantern to get stuffed in the fridge.

Well, we have our first look at the post-Johns GL and it looks like Carol will still be with us.

So which of the New Guardians bites it then?