John Hennings on Hiding the Geoff Johns Comics From the Children

John Hennings, an occasional visitor here at HU, had a comment on Matthew Brady’s post that I wanted to highlight.

Like others in this chain, I appreciate what Matt did here. I read Sinestro Corps War, then dropped out, then looked back at Sinestro Corps War and was genuinely ashamed I’d read as much of it as I did. I gave away the comics years ago because I knew I’d never read them again. I also wanted to make sure my children would never find them, because I didn’t want them to think less of me. So by articulating what was bad about these comics, Matt gave voice to something that was important to me.

All that said, Johns is not an awful writer. He’s written other stories I enjoyed, because I’m precisely the middle-aged nostalgic fan he is targeting. I loved the Alan Moore stories these were based on, and still do. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps are not my all-time favorite superheros in the vast sea of spandex, but they’re definitely first tier. The whole concept of the Guardians and the Corps has proven itself fertile ground in which to raise an incredible variety of enjoyable, imaginative science fiction stories. I like heroism and hope and weird planets and time travel and parallel dimension versions of characters I know well. I like individual variations on a good costume theme and buddies banding together to save the day. If you can’t get me to open my wallet for your Green Lantern story, you need to examine your work — and I haven’t spent a dime on Green lantern in years.

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