This is where I come clean as one of the few reviewers on the planet that didn’t see Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi’s Sinestro Corps War as being completely without fault.
The fault, or a lot of it anyway, lay in the backup features, which I felt (broadly speaking) were just taking up space in the backs of books that were therefore shortened. “Tales of the Sinestro Corps” explored the arcane and sometimes interesting backstories of the antagonists—but really just served as an object lesson in exactly how in love with his own writing Geoff Johns is. Because Johns—who will gladly sacrifice anyone else’s established continuity for the sake of a single good story—clearly cherishes the continuity he builds for himself. So much so that he has to immortalize it in these little backup stories instead of keeping it in the back of his head for later use or just reference. Characters would get a six-page backup story and then appear for about that much space in the entire story; it was bizarre and seemed unnecessary, but at least it was free.
Fast-forward to today, and the release of Blackest Night #1 was of course accompanied by Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1. On the one hand, seven times as many corps means the chances of getting all the desired stories told for free in the back of Green Lantern wasn’t going to happen. On the other hand…well, they aren’t any better or more valuable than the Sinestro Corps stories were…and this time you get them packaged nicely together for four bucks. I bought the first one—which I have very little substantial to say about, because the stories themselves were so insubstantial and devoid of real consequence that they don’t seem to warrant it (although the “main” feature, longer than the others and featuring a central character, is the story of Saint Walker and the art by Jerry Ordway is wonderful)—but I won’t make that mistake again. The next pair of Tales of the Corps issues can go unpurchased and I’ll surely feel no poorer for it, just like I didn’t feel like I missed anything when eventually I stopped reading the “Tales of the Sinestro Corps” backups in GL.
What do you think, ‘Rama readers? Am I missing something?
July 15th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Let me get this straight. You didn’t like the first backups in the Sinestro Corps storyline because they took up space and you felt they were inconsequential. Fine. I get that.
DC rectifies your particular gripe by putting the very similar “backups” in a separate comic so they don’t take away from the story and you can choose NOT to buy them this time. And you’re complaining about that, too?
The answer is yes. You are missing something.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
The “Tales of the Corps” flesh out characters that regular readers of GL and GLC have become familiar with for the past year and a half so if you don’t have any sort of investment in these characters of course these “Tales” will come off as kind of hollow. To really appreciate, for example, Saint Walker’s tale you need to have some understanding of the Hope Corp and Saint Walker’s unflagging optimism in the face of insurmountable odds. Otherwise the story is just an odd fragment about a Twi’lek wannabe. Mongul’s tale was just plain macabre fun. The Indigo tale was a bit too enigmatic for my tastes though so touche on that one. But I’d say, yeah, you might be missing something.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Not at all. All three tales ended with me saying “so what.” In particular, the Indigo Lantern story ranks right up there with the weird hand gestures made by Black Bolt during the Illuminati one-shot. Boo to $3.99 for a book that adds nothing to the overall story.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I learned 3 things from tales of the corps actually (Vague spoilers ahead)….
1 Saint Walker is a tragic character (who could actually remain hopeful after that???)….who it looks like isn’t too long for the DC Universe…
2 Baby Mongul is really a punk (of course I can use harsher language but I felt bad for that lil alien race)
3 We all naturally assumed the Indigo Corps would be naturally “good” and side with the green and blue…BOY WERE WE WRONG!!! They may actually be a bigger wild card than the yellow, violet and red combined…
July 15th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
you’re missing character pieces which is rare in comics. You don’t need the stories but it enhances the characters in the main books because you get a feeling of who they are and where they came from, what motivates them. The stories are about the characters and if you don’t get that then don’t bother reading anything at all.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Actually, I wanted to get this, especially after seeing that it continued the Blue vs. Orange war. The $4 price made me leave it.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
I enjoyed the ancillary TotSC back-up stories. I think they help to flesh out the backstories of some of the members that, due to the sheer number of them, all couldn’t get the “screen time” needed to make us care about them. If they came at the expense of trimming back the Sinestro Corps War storyline, I think that’s okay, because more often than not, stories do have fat that can be trimmed.
July 15th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
..
I “created” a character:
“The Johns”. Or rather, “The Geohns”. (Just for effect.)
His origin is, as yet, undefined. But it’s grim and gritty to say the least. Some torture, a little rape. Just to keep it “real”.
He is a multi-dimensional mercenary who roams the world correcting “Continuity” (whatever THAT is), adding and subtracting as his subjective whims dictate. Kind of like Deadpool with a computer.
Suffice to say, there is much violence in his “fixes” and he leaves the worlds he visits no better than they were before.
He doesn’t wear a mask, but his steely gaze and his word processing program are enough to send the sternest fan-boy to question their own memories.
..
July 16th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Wow - did Geoff Johns kill your kitty or something? Comments like:
“just served as an object lesson in exactly how in love with his own writing Geoff Johns is. Because Johns—who will gladly sacrifice anyone else’s established continuity for the sake of a single good story—clearly cherishes the continuity he builds for himself.”
are frankly unprofessional. Has Geoff ever told you that he ‘gladly sacrifices’ continuity?
Boo hoo for you! Get over yourself.
July 16th, 2009 at 5:29 am
@zram - No complaints about them publishing it separately, only disappointment at myself that I took the bait, knowing full well the project was probably not for me.
@tralfaz - I’m glad there are character moments somewhere in “event” comics, yeah. I loved the Barry stuff this week, even though I haven’t liked Barry since his return. But I’d rather go get “Manhunter” or “The Perhapanauts” for my character-driven stories. These characters just don’t do it for me.
July 16th, 2009 at 5:58 am
The St Walker story was strong, the others were Secret Files filler.
Every writer plays favorites with characters they create and what stories they choose to revere,and which ones they want to pretend never happened. For me personally, I’m “ok” with the bulk of John’s work until he starts relying on “silly science” to justify making changes up as he goes along for the sake of an expedient panel to get on with the fightin’- Legion of three worlds is a great example of this as conner needed to regenerate for 1000 years “just like superman when he died”(except not), suddenly needing electrical legionaires to fire at the cosmic treadmill to make it work (despite decades of never requiring that detail before), or the lightning rods ressurecting a de-aged bart allen without requiring someone else to die (which specifically was a big plot point in one of john’s own stories).
No one creator is probably as important to the DC line (IMO) as Geoff Johns, the guy who made a career book killer like Hal Jordan into one of the strongest titles in the line, but I do think we could benefit from a ‘less is more’ approach instead of having him stretched too thin.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:15 am
I felt the same way because my store usually puts connected stories in my box and then I can choose to buy them or not. My wife picked up my comics yesterday and I was lukewarm to the comic. After reading it, I found that while it didn’t offer much to the Blackest Night story as far as being a tie-in goes, it still offers more depth to the characters. I think its a good thing because it doesn’t cut into a Green Lantern or GL Corps issue with backgrounds of characters we may or may not care about.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
@Chad - Nope, he’s never said that. But I think it’s a fair conclusion to draw based on a number of his stories, and I think he’d be willing to admit that continuity, while important, comes second to a good story. A distant second.
That said, Geoff is very good at crafting some very good stories. It would be hard to find anyone who’s said more enthusiastic stuff about his BOOSTER GOLD work than me, and I’ll be the first to admit that GL is one of DC’s top books since the end of INFINITE CRISIS.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I completely disagree with the opinion Russ has of Geoff Johns and his writing, but I don’t see anything unprofessional about it. You confuse “professionalism” with “coddling big name talent so they don’t dislike you”.
And, if you’re going to be rough with a big name writer, Geoff seems like the best one to pick. Not that he deserves it, but he gives the appearance of being able to take the criticism and roll with it. He possibly dismisses it, but he doesn’t throw a hissy fit or go off on a rant (on panels or Twitter) that I’ve ever seen. In fact, his way of dealing with upset fan questions about why he killed certain characters has been the tongue-in-cheek, “we needed Black Lanterns”, which seems to show that he maintains his sense of humor through any lashing out by the fans.
Though I don’t know that he won’t dislike you after such a harsh critique. But I think coverage of comic books would be better if less people worried about. I happen to know of a writer for a major comic book site who almost had a feature column pulled away from him because the talent who would be answering the weekly questions got bent out of shape about a review the site writer had given him. If more people didn’t confuse professionalism for coddling, there might be less diva-like behavior behind the scenes.
July 17th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
this is the kind of content they should put online to boost their web presence. it was certainly not worth a purchase.
July 18th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Kevin - Thanks for that defense. Not becuase it was defending me so much as because you’re EXACTLY RIGHT about what I see as the biggest problem in the fan press in general, and comics journalism in particular. A few times when I’ve brought my old sensibilities as an ACTUAL reporter to bear on my work in the comics industry, people HAVE thrown fits. There’s one creator who threatened violence against me on their message board, and who has never once spoken to me on the record before or since. But frankly, I don’t care.
Geoff is an interesting case, as frankly I love his work (speaking broadly) but am close enough to it to see the flaws. Even the best painter sometimes leaves a brushstroke behind that his critics will see. I’ve spoken to him on a personal level a number of times and always gotten along, but he’s never done an interview with me (I’ve tried many times). Ultimately it’s not worth being “friends” with someone, as a critic, if it’s going to render you unable to review their work. Maybe it would if he was providing me content, but I’d like to think he (like Marc Andreyko) would have thick enough skin to roll with a few harsh words and still come back the next month.
July 18th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I think that since this entire Blackest Night story is really founded on an Alan Moore short story in an issue of Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual back in like 1986 that there always exists the possibility to find a diamond in the rough. Was that story of Abin Sur at all necessary, no, did it add a very chilling and challenging backstory to how Abin Sur came to crash land on Earth…yes
So in a sense, Tales of the Corps if nothing else, pays homage to the way Blackest Night truely got started. One and done backstories don’t need to actually play into the larger narrative in a tight way in order to be interesting and entertaining. In fact sometimes you can be TOO interconnected, much in the same way the Star Wars prequels interconnected with episodes IV-VI in completely inconsequential ways that actually hurt the storytelling over all.
July 18th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
kent, I have to say that I almost enjoy your comments. You’re a very thoughtful reader who is capable of having intelligent conversations with people you disagree with, and making me think of angles I hadn’t considered. Thanks!