Secret Warriors fizzled out after 30 issues instead of pruposed 60+. Ultimates showed a lot of promise but is pretty much a well made abortion. Avengers + New Avengers were full of ""epic""" grandstanding, important shit going on off-screen, underwhelming conclusions and badly defined arcs.
Plus the samey "look at me I'm a designer" look to every books and the cancerous "two-page spread with nothing but credits" that went to shit on practically every Marvel book.
Where's all the goodwill that makes people cheer for him on X-Men coming from?
Read his indie work. The design thing works best in black Monday murders where it's part of the storytelling. East of West and Manhattan Projects are just, I dunno how to describe it. He's a smarter writer than most people in comics and sometimes that's a hindrance but I like his non-linear plotting style, big ideas, and he has some genuinely endearing characters under his belt (Babylon in East of West or the Einsteins in Manhattan Projects) As for x-men, he loves the characters (said this is the first of his marvel books he didn't think of as a job) and he's saying all the right shit. He even is unhappy with his avengers run
Jose Murphy
>the first of his marvel books he didn't think of as a job Given his interviews, it is implied he's got no one above him to tell him "No" in regards to the story, which isn't necessarily a good thing.
Kevin Miller
>conveniently leaving out F4 and ALL of his indie work Fuck off shitter
Alexander Long
Well they could have shot him down during pitching stages, so the implication is they like what he has to offer.
He's talked about how his two favorite teams are essentially the X-Men and The Legion of Superheroes. Every writer should get a chance at their favorites, because they'll put the most effort into that.
Seriously, give East of West a look. It starts its final arc in September. Manhattan Projects is worth looking at as well, on extended hiatus though because he and the artist on the outs with each other. His Fantastic Four run is really good too.
Lucas Torres
I'm not saying he's a bad writer, though a lot of his past work has underwhelmed me, I'm saying that it's a double edged sword. Sure, people will put their most effort into their favorites, but people can also be really audience blind when it comes to their favorites and write stories for themselves and themselves alone. Not getting shot down during the pitch stage isn't a sign of quality when you consider every shitty thing ever published wasn't shot down during the pitch.
Hudson Lopez
East. Of. West. There's like 6 people that read it on this board for some reason. While it's not a Big 2 cape book, it's excellent and incredibly readable. You can catch up before X-Men starts, and should, as it seems like it'll wind up sharing more DNA with his X stuff than even FF and Avengers imo. Socio-political; factions, deals, quasi religious etc.
Ayden Green
well then that's just a matter of taste isn't it? What you thought was shitty somebody else probably saw value in.
Think about what you want in your capes, and ask yourself, "will Hickman fill that void for me based on past reading experiences?" If the answer is no and you have trepidation, then don't read it.
Luis Thompson
seriously. Gonna post one of my favorite moments in the series. Be wary, spoilers
There's a lot of posts like this these days. >I don't like ___, why does anyone? >Here's why I do. >Ok I'm not saying ___ is terrible i just don't like _____. >Ok. >Ok. >... >...
He's the exact person the X-men need right now. The X-men have been in a creative rut since AvX. Utopia was the last interesting thing that's happened with the franchise and that was a decade ago. Say what you will about the quality of Hickman's stories themselves, but you can't deny that he's someone that's good at bold, high-concept ideas. The execution of them may be lacking, but the X-men desperately need an "idea guy" right now. Will his X-men be good? Maybe, maybe not. Could be shit. But as far as someone to lay the groundwork for a new era of X-men storytelling? To force the X-men to evolve as a franchise? Hickman's your guy.
Elijah Jenkins
OP raises fair criticism but in general I enjoyed the plot to all those books. Execution wasn't perfect and he's terrible at sticking the landing, but there's enough good that I'm on board.
But I figure the hype is really cause most people are so starved for something with even a patina of freshnessness and some actual direction with X-Men.
Adam Adams
I dunno. For me it usually translates over well - Johns on Green Lantern and the JSA. Morrison on Doom Patrol. Priest on Black Panther. I know that's cherrypicking, but all examples are cherrypicking. I don't think Snyder wrote Batman very well for instance, but I think he wrote a lot of his villains pretty well. That's also cherrypicking a negative example
(mild Spoilers abound) Babylon getting free and seeing the world as a lake of fire fucked me up. Glad he and his ol' Pops at least got some time together.
This book could launch an entire imprint, not saying it should, as there's something refreshing about it being so concise, but there's so many incredible characters, concepts, etc. As great writers are wont to do (Morrison) it leaves me wanting more.
Noah Bennett
>he's terrible at sticking the landing Right, which is a very critique of a lot of his works. But this isn't an epic 60 issue run. It's two 6 issues minis that are laying the groundwork for the future of the franchise.
The only problem I have with Johns' love of GL was his handling of Hal Jordan's crimes in GL: Rebirth. I hate retcons like that.
Liam Campbell
It is indeed an epic run, that's just the very start. He's in it for probably longer than the previous runs. And absolutely more control, as he chose an entire line, creative teams included, to run concurrently.
Gavin Stewart
Hickman talked about a few years ago doing spins off for the different nations. Like 4-issue miniseries, which would be cool as hell. He was trying to do something similar with MP but again he and Pitarra fell out (I'm still salty we never got to the atomic messiah stuff
Damned if I know. People raved about Secret Warriors, and there was me looking at it, going "the entire premise is that Hydra was secretly running SHIELD for SHIELD's entire existence, even as SHIELD was foiling Hydra's plans for world domination. That's the most retarded pitch for a comic I've ever heard."
Lucas Martin
>the entire premise is that Hydra was secretly running SHIELD
You clearly didn't read Secret Warriors then
Easton Young
his GL is good though. Even the bad moments aren't as bafflingly bad as other comics. I admit I wasn't a fan of anything post-Blackest Night until the relaunch, but he's good with Hal and Sinestro
Connor Bell
the southern leader is the best character, rotten terrible bastard that he is
Tyler Gomez
it literately can't be worse than any X-Men comics of the entire decade the franchise is at rock bottom
Ian Walker
I don't think he writes characters all that well, or if he does, he really doesn't focus on them all that much. Maybe it's just too subtle for me and I'm a brainlet, but the rest of his writing always shines for me in ways his characters or don't.
Caleb Perez
He's at least writing the flagship X-comic that comes after and probably overseeing the rest of the line
Hunter Roberts
>Morrison on Doom Patrol. Priest on Black Panther. Serious doubts for Morrison and you're completely wrong on BP
Nicholas Bennett
I've only read his FF run and East of West, but I love both of those
Jaxon Clark
He has some stock character archetypes he relies on (the brainy yet silly child The tortured genius The too clever bastard guy[(like the old man in the pictures from East of West above] Messianic Prophet etc.) but he writes those archetypes well. I think he sometimes has trouble tailoring his voice to fit characters so he'll pick characters he already knows how to write for like Doom or Reed
Juan Cook
Johns on Green Lantern and JSA are very bad
Michael Williams
What didn't you like about it? Did blaming everything on an evil alien entity not quite cut it for you? I've heard other GL fans complained that the recon undermined Hal's character development.
Easton Wright
He's fooled idiots into thinking that he's smart so idiots praise him thinking they look smart.
Austin Hill
>the recon undermined Hal's character development Yes, that's exactly why. Hal didn't need all of his crimes excused. He'd already redeemed himself by making the ultimate sacrifice in Final Night The same thing happened to Daredevil in Shadowland.
Ayden Bennett
I find it weird how the Cereal Lord did this to himself. He wrote Day of Judgement after all. Johns made Hal into Spectre because he was selected to be the new Spirit of Vengeance but really the Spectre is really the Spirit of Redemption and Hal was elected for the guilt he felt. Then he goes, "nah, let me fuck my shit up, senpai." I don't get this self-destructive behavior.
Jacob Flores
Making Hal as Spectre was seen as stupid by all of comic book fandom. The few that did give it a chance and read the ongoing found out that there are no stupid ideas, just stupid executions and Hal Spectre was great but since Johns didn't write that he didn't care.
Austin Rogers
I just want someone with some fucking style on the x-men it's been so generically bland and bad for so long
Christopher Martin
That idea has been around since Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD days, it's not as if it came from nowhere.
Austin Allen
In my opinion Hickman is way too good to be a writer for capeshit. Capeshit is low-quality writing and Hickman is trying to give it more credibility but of course adhd manchild readers always complain about how this doesn’t make sense (because they are not paying attention fyi) and how boring it is. I wish he would stop writing capeshit because capeshit doesn’t deserve him.
Caleb Scott
I agree about the stupid execution part. DeMatteis kind of screwed the pooch on that series. I really liked the the Spirit of Redemption angle and Hal needed some serious redemption. I'm glad Hal is back to being a Lantern, the Spectre era should have been him atoning the final stages of guilt and doing good like some sort of cosmic My Name is Earl type story and he could come back to the world of the living right after his karma is set like Deadman. DC has great cosmology, I like Neil Gaiman's quick reference to him in the Books of Magic as God's vengeful angel of death who rebelled and playing up the redemption angle the spirit of the Spectre also learns redemption because before then with the body of Jim Corrigan, he was too quick to anger under Ostrander's run.
Ok I'm going off on a tangent but yes it's been nice talking comics with you, user.
Logan Richardson
>DeMatteis kind of screwed the pooch on that series Stopped reading right there, opinion discarded.
Charles Murphy
He's Marvel's Geoff Johns
Kayden Baker
At least he fucking tries, unlike the rest of them
Tyler Parker
I got the first volume in a humble bundle. It was good shit and got me hooked
Hunter Morales
no, that's Aaron
James Harris
no, it's completely shit all the way through, bad beginning to worse end, get some standards
