5 Reasons The Emotional Spectrum Ruined Green Lantern Comics

If Green Lantern: Rebirth is any indication, DC: Rebirth will eventually lead to a narrative that is great as a pitch, but will ultimately peter out without any satisfying resolution when Geoff Johns has to turn his attention to some other aspect of DC Entertainment, or the universe gets rebooted again. Those first few years of Green Lantern comics showed such promise, similar to how electrifying the DCU is with all of this possible Watchmen talk, but it’s clear that things got away from Johns as time went on.

In the last couple of years leading up to his departure from the title in 2013, it seemed like Johns was just dragging out what few ideas he had left, but lacked the time to really flesh out - sort of like the DC equivalent of Brian Michael Bendis. The more influence he had over the line, the more events he was tasked with writing, the more Green Lantern suffered. We had one opportunity for things to be reset in a more workable fashion in 2011 when The New 52 debuted, but Johns used his editorial power to completely spare his work from any changes, aside from adding more Jim Lee lines to the costumes. But even though things were starting to head south leading up to him leaving, when we read what happened after he left, it was clear we had no idea just how bad things could get. In the hands of other writers, Johns’ ideas led only to garbage.

There’s no doubt that Johns did Green Lantern a tremendous service. If you look at the state of things in 2004 and compare them to now, yes, things are much better for the character and franchise as a whole. But if you look a little closer, you can see the real problem: Geoff Johns fixed Green Lantern by breaking it all over again. It’s like how you introduce foxes to your ecosystem to kill an overpopulation of rabbits. Now the rabbits are all gone, but the place is crawling with foxes. Johns managed to reintroduce the tentpole elements of the Green Lantern concept, but he accidentally forced all of this detritus to accumulate that no one else can utilize. By most accounts, the current Green Lantern books are seeing improvement, but that kind of feels like the sentiment of an abused housewife who believes things are getting better because she didn’t get smacked today.

Maybe Johns should never have left the title. Maybe he should’ve written it for damn near twenty years like Claremont. If you look at Johns’ career, a lot of his decisions seem to be motivated by a desire to make the DC Universe look more like it did when he was growing up. Maybe some new hot shot writer will come along and systematically dismantle all of Johns’ work to make the Green Lantern comics look more like they did when he (or she) was a kid. Maybe that writer will be put in a position of strong creative influence and bite off more than could be chewed. And maybe ten years after we’ll be complaining about it.

Are you tired of the Rainbow Corps? Or do you love them and hope they never go away? Was their creation a mistake or the best thing to happen? Hash it out in the comments!