6 Reasons Watchmen Should Stay Out Of The DC Universe

4. Geoff Johns Shouldn’t Get His Hands On Them

The disappointing Before Watchmen books should be proof enough that these characters are best left alone, but if there’s one writer who should not be working with them is Geoff Johns. Not only is he past his prime and distracted by his other duties, he’s likely to end each issue on a cliffhanger (end of second issue: Rorschack shows up and asks for beans!) and it’ll be awful to read a million “My name is Dan Dreiberg” caption boxes. But if we truly are past the point of no return and Watchmen in the DCU is inevitable, there is a perfect alternative to Johns staring them right in the face: Tom King.

Everyone’s saying his twelve issue Vision series is this century’s Watchmen anyway, so why not? King clearly understands darkness - not the edgy grim-dark of the New 52 and Superboy-Prime punching Pantha’s head off, but the darkness found lurking beneath the surface of the suburban family.

Geoff Johns shines when he’s condensing a long history of elements into a more palatable form that can be used to tell stories moving forward. That’s what he accomplished with not only Green Lantern and Flash but others like Hawkman and Aquaman. The heroes of Watchmen don’t have a complex history that needs to be distilled, so Johns’ skills are lost here. It’s like Brian Michael Bendis writing a character who isn’t verbose. It’s not his area of expertise.

Johns may get a lot of credit for a lot of great stories, but he’s responsible for a lot of garbage as well. Superboy-Prime changing reality by punching it really hard was all his idea. Shoving an angsty parental death into Barry Allen’s past was also his. Replacing minorities that had taken up heroic identities with the white originals? Check. Ruining Green Lantern with the Emotional Spectrum? Big check. Assuming he’ll do right by Watchmen is overly optimistic.