Geoff Johns doesn't hate Batman

I know several threads have been made about this topic and I'm sorry if these feels redundant at this point. I was originally going to post this in another "Geoff hates Batman" thread, but since it ended up too long I thought I give it its own thread. Here I'm simply going to counter the argument of "Geoff hates Batman and wants to make him look bad whenever he had the chance." Below are some examples of Geoff "not hating" Batman, and then I give a reasoning to the recent Lex Luthor-Batman relationship in FE and JL.

I used to think that Geoff hates Batman, but after thinking about it no, he loves the character, he has stated so, mentioned that Tomasi's B&R is one of his favorite series. Tomasi's portrayal of Batman is the exact opposite of Johns'. Here are more examples:

- Johns has repeatedly stated that Flash is his favorite character. By "Geoff is a fanboy who hates Batman" logic, Geoff would never put Batman over Flash right? Well, in Origin/War, Flash basically worshiped Batman. So, Geoff had his favorite character to worship the character he hates so passionately? No way.

- Johns is very close to Hal Jordan right? He spend years on the title, so you would think he would portray Hal stronger than Bats right? Well, in Johns' stories, Batman repeatedly embarrassed Hal (who was portrayed as a complete fool), and after that, inspired him to fight. For those annoyed by the "Who's Bruce Wayne?" moment, let me elaborate. Batman figured out that GL is Hal Jordan after seeing his name tag when he briefly took off his ring, and after revealing this revelation, Batman thought it was only fair to reveal his own identity. At the time, Hal was doubting himself because he was just a man, but Bruce unmasked to show him that he's also just a man, but they can still save the world. So Geoff portrayed Batman as an honorable, intelligent and inspiring leader, while Hal, who Geoff probably likes more, was portrayed as a complete moron.

- In JL: Origin/War, basically every single Leaguer was portrayed poorly. You would think that this was John's opportunity to make Batman look bad right? Wrong. Batman was the only character (other than Cyborg) who was portrayed strongly, he was actually mature. The others? Flash/Aquaman were just there as extras and barely did much (with the exception of the Shark moment with Aquaman), Hal and Shazam were immature morons, Diana was a crazy idiot, Superman was a horny bully.

- In Flashpoint, Batman was the central character alongside Flash.

- In Throne of Atlantis, Batman was arguably the most protected character in the story (besides Aquaman). He was standing there between SUPERMAN, WONDER WOMAN, AQUAMAN and OCEAN MASTER, characters who are extremely beyond Batman in terms of power levels. And get this, Batman actually hurt Ocean Master (Aquaman's brother and the main villain of the story who managed to beat the entire JL on his own) at one point in non-PIS fashion, a luxury that Superman and Wonder Woman didn't have. This was a golden chance for a "Batman hater" to make Batman look bad, but he didn't.

- In one issue of JL, after the League had just defeated Amazo, Batman deduced something regarding Amazo's interiors, and Clark asked him how could he possibly know this without X-Ray vision. Flash, you know, Geoff's favorite character, replies: "Because he's Batman". A line that every Batman fandoy loves, and every Batman hater dreads.

- If we're talking about a character getting humiliated, Geoff has made Superman look much worse than Batman in his entire run. Clark was knocked out by a small shard of K, he was mind-controlled in Trinity War and killed Doctor Light, he was absent during the entire FE story. Those are much worse than Flash or Hal making a small crack at Batman's expense or Lex pick-potting him. Yet, it is very well established that Geoff loves Superman. In a recent Q&A, in two words, Geoff describes Superman as "everyone's hero", and has written some of the strongest Superman stories ever, and seems to be on his way to writing another one. If we're going to assess weather or not he hates a character by his portrayal of them, he is more likely to hate Superman than Batman, but he has proven that he does indeed love Superman.

Which leads us to "Why did he have Lex make a fool out of Batman?" I'm going to compare it to a Pro-Wrestling tactic. Chris Jericho, is an established WWE wrestler, a multiple time champion, and is considered by many a Legend in the business and a future Hall of Famer who has several 5-star matches under his belt. At Wrestlemania 29, the federation's biggest show of the year, Chris Jericho wrestled a young up-and-comer called Fandango in his first official match. Fandango was booked to beat Chris Jericho clean in the ring. This gave Fandango a major boost and people actually noticed. As for Chris, he recently just made his return, the crowd went wild and no body even remembered that loss. Every time Jericho returns, he loses to the younger guys, or at least, if he beats them, he makes them look worthy of facing him, and he usually ends up losing the rematch anyway. This is called "putting over" the younger talent who are trying to get established. No matter how many times Jericho loses, his legacy is intact, the crowd will always cheer for him and pay attention to his promos and matches, and no one will ever remember those losses. On the other hand, a win over Jericho can make a young guy's career, and give him a major boost. Back to Batman and Lex Luthor. Geoff is trying to re-establish Lex as a character, in this case, he wants to portray Lex as a good guy, and so he's using Batman to "put over" Lex Luthor in the intelligence and resourcefulness department. FE will be remembered as one of Lex Luthor's most defining story-arcs. As for Batman, is his legacy really going to be affected by a story-arc, that had another character in the spotlight, where the writer had some fun at his expense? No. Batman has several other titles where he's portrayed as the main character, a cross-over story arc that stars a different character doesn't hurt him one bit. And besides, if you read JL#31, Batman "got his momentum back".

Thanks for reading, sorry for the long thread and I hope this cleared things up.

I'll post this for a third time. Have yet to be sufficiently countered.

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There's also this key piece of dialogue from Forever Evil:

"You know, Batman's not so scary in the light. I mean, ever."

Oh, and this dialogue exchange from JL #30 is just a classic:

BATMAN: (referring to Lex Luthor) "He's an insect. But bats EAT insects." <--- Yes, he literally made Batman say that.

FLASH: "How long have you been waiting to say that? And do you have a little black book with badass Bat-comebacks in it? Never mind. I just checked."

Let's not forget that in Forever Evil, Batman needed to be saved from Copperhead...TWICE!

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Oh, and the more Johns writes him, the more transparent he becomes. Take this user "ImTheDamnBatman" for example.

First, he made this thread where he thought all the Geoff Johns hate was silly, and that Johns wasn't biased about Batman at all:http://www.comicvine.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/why-do-people-say-geoff-johns-hates-batman-1535217/

Then 4 months later, the same user creates this thread where he completely bashes Johns for his mediocre portrayal of Batman:http://www.comicvine.com/batman/4005-1699/forums/so-i-finally-got-around-to-reading-forever-evil-1569527/

I would challenge anyone who doesn't believe Johns hates Batman to look at everything I just posted, and then tell me there isn't at least a precedent that's been set.

@anjales: very nice work.

@justthatkid: No, I'm expecting Batman to not act like a childish idiot and demand that a bunch of super villains follow his orders. In fact, your comment only served to elucidate the absurdity of that scene.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Perfect characters to have interact with Bats then, right?

Copperhead is at the bottom of the totem pole of Batman's rogue's gallery. No amount of distractions should allow frigging Copperhead to get the upper hand on Batman...twice!

How many threads of these do we have?

@justthatkid: Gawd no. He fills the role of a fodder villain perfectly. Name me a critically acclaimed Copperhead story. Oh wait...

That's for characters with a bad reputation, but who are powerhouses. Hal Jordan, Aquaman, Flash, Black Manta, Captain Cold, etc. And he does that by fleshing out those character's mythologies. He doesn't do it by making the character get the better of an opponent he wouldn't have a chance against normally.

I m getting tired of this flame war we should lock this thread there are already enough of them,no matter how much john try he cannot make batman unpopular or "human" (sarcasm)

LOL @ comic fans, and people wonder why they're looked down upon.

At least 10.

Under Johns in the same year, Copperhead was one-shotted by Black Canary in Throne of Atlantis. Somehow talk of his "potential" only crops up when Johns thinks he should be murdering Batman.

Can't agree with OP, I have more problem with Johns' characterization of Batman than his feats. And his treatment of other JL members only make it even worse. He's been writing JL for 3 years and still Flash, Superman, Cyborg, WW hasn't done anything worthy to mention. They have been treated like less than supporting characters. And his Earth One book is one of the worst characterization of Batman.

@jaken7: Alright I just read one of your posts in the first link and I'll try to give you an effective reply.

Let's talk the recent FE-JL encounters. The quotes you posted were simply small jokes at Batman's expense. Everyone knows Geoff is a fanboy at heart, like all of us here, and he was probably just having a little fun with the character with a few jokes at his expense.

Now, let's discuss the FE crossover in general. The main premise was basically that the readers are going to root for the bad guys to beat the bigger bad guys. The tagline was "Evil vs Relative". The Crime Syndicate were the REAL evil bad guys while Luthor and Co. were Relative. Throughout this story, the justice league were absent, Johns is basically telling the readers that in this story there are no heroes, the bad guys are in charge and it's up to the bad guys to save the world. There's no place for heroes. The world of FE is shaped in two ways, either through the Evil way as in under the control of the CS, or through the Relative Way, as in saved by Lex Luthor's team of bad guys. Enter Batman, who's still trying to shape the world in the "Hero" way, which simply didn't work anymore during this story. Catwoman's statement "They're in charge" wasn't a shot at batman personally, it was Geoff's statement that, in this story, the heroes aren't coming, the bad guys are the only hope against the real bad guys, in order to do this, the world will be saved their way, not Batman's or the JL's way. This wasn't a Batman or JL story, the stars of FE were Lex Luthor and his team, Batman was simply a side character used to make the main characters look good. Refer to my wrestling comparison above. Batman was used to "put over" the bad guys, because it was a defining story-arc for these bad guys, not Batman. Batman's lucky he was in this story at all.

Batman gets saved in his own books sometimes. It's something that I personally don't like but got used to, and it isn't a statement of the writers hatred for the char. Kevin Smith is a huge and well-known Batman fan, yet he had a guy in a donkey mask save Batman several times. He also had him wet himself...I don't see anyone accusing Smith of hating Batman and deliberately making him look bad. Is it poor writing? Of course, but not because the writer hates the character, it's just plain old bad writing. In the case of the Batman/Copperhead encounter, it wasn't even THAT bad, it's not like Copperhead was about to deal the death blow before Luthor/DS intervened. Batman was fighting a villain, and someone else took him out, to Batman's surprise, because he didn't need the help but got it anyway, because the world doesn't work by his rules anymore, another example of the villains being in charge.

Now for the insect joke, okay that was a hilariously bad line. Btw, a suggestion, try reading that line in the most obnoxious Christian Bale voice ever, you might find it funny, you're welcome:) Seriously though, another example of poor dialog or Johns simply having fun with the characters. Johns had Hal acting like a doofus in other stories, doesn't mean he hates him. And since Flash was here, in previous issues, (as mentioned in more detail above) Flash was basically kissing the ground that Batman was walking on. A small joke here in there doesn't hurt anyone and is far from a statement that Johns hates Batman. If we're talking about bad lines, Frank Miller had Batman utter worse stuff in TDSA and AS.

And if you read some of the examples I posted above, there are several instances where Johns portrayed Batman as a competent and important member of the League.

As for the GL encounters from Origin, here's how I thought it went down. So Hal was struggling to fight this monster and with Batman's help managed to beat it. GL was gloating about how awesome he is, then discovers that Batman is "just a guy in a bat suit" with no powers. And look at Batman's facial expression, he's actually smiling. In the movie adaptation of this story, Batman actually stops, turns around, gives Hal a smile, then walks away while Hal is standing there confused. This is what that scene told me: Green Lantern possesses a powerful ring that enables him to fight fire breathing monsters. Batman can fight and beat those same monsters, but only by being a "guy dressed in a bat suit" without having any powers, he's THAT good, hence the rare bat-smile, and hence Hal screaming "Are you freaking kidding me!?". He's surprised at the fact that a guy with no powers can fight the same dudes he can, making him look like an idiot becuase he gloating that he can handle anything. This was Batman owning Hal literally "because he's Batman". If there was anyone portrayed poorly in that scene, it was Hal, not Batman.

As for the unmasking scene, I'll simply repost what I posted above. "For those annoyed by the "Who's Bruce Wayne?"/unasking moment, let me elaborate. Batman figured out that GL is Hal Jordan after seeing his name tag when he briefly took off his ring, and after revealing this revelation, Batman thought it was only fair to reveal his own identity. At the time, Hal was doubting himself because he was just a man, but Bruce unmasked to show him that he's also just a man, but they can still save the world. So Geoff portrayed Batman as an honorable, intelligent and inspiring leader, while Hal, who Geoff probably likes more, was portrayed as a complete moron.

I hope I answered your arguments.

@justthatkid: Well yeah, but at least my thread is unique in the fact that I'm defending Johns. :)

@jake_fury: Thx!

@anjales: I'll answer each of your individual points if I have the time later, but for now, let me just say this: you are most certainly a glass half-full kind of person.

Yes he does, let's all move on please.

@anjales: So u r admitting that John is a bad writer? I think he is not fit 4 writing Justice league

For years Batgod made the JL look like morons. No one cared. But when Batman is taken down a peg, the fanboys whine and moan. I like Bats but he has had this coming.

Beata

@spidey_jackson: Good 4 u if it makes u happy

@blackhawk000111: It does, thank you.

Beata

@spidey_jackson: Keep reading John JL u will find ton of fan service

@jaken7: Glad my threads could help.

OT: Jones hates Batman. It's blatantly obvious.

@onemoreposter made some really points. I don't care if Johns hates Bruce or not but his Batman is very unlikable.

Johns hates Batman cause Batman is one character that has a geoffcon shield on him,and what is Johns without the geoffcon? nothing.

Thats precisely why Johns had Deathstroke kill him right? so much for potential. Power Ring,Johnny Quick and Outsider had plenty of potential too didn't stop Johns from having his pets murder them in cold blood.

I don't really think the part of JL where he reveals identity to Hal was bad, but his characterization in Throne of Atlantis that you thought made him look good, just made him come off as a douche to me. Johns loves writing Bats as a dick.

And according to one of JakeN7's pics... he actually said Batman was a dick at one point lol

Nothing can really excuse the Hal punching Batman moment. That was just silly on so many levels.

He has no idea how to write him, and knows little about what his character means

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These are some of the scans from EO. Here Batman let's a man get mugged, behaves like a dick in almost the entire book and is a complete idiot. Johns also implied he is a lunatic.

Far as I can see here,all the pro Johns posters are just sticking fingers in to their ears and refusing to listen,we've given plenty of evidence backed by logic,in return we get the same not BatGod,Batman with limits yadda yadda.

Read a JL book for once,Tower of Babel didn't last years.

Geoff Johns's Fan reaction:LA La la la I m not listening!!

@rustyroy: @blackhawk000111: Just for the record, I think you missed the point of what im trying to say. I'm not here to tell you that Johns is a good writer, or that I like the way he writes Batman. I was simply pointing out that his poor writing of Batman doesn't stem from a personal grudge against the character and that he's purposely trying to make the character look bad to favor the characters he likes. What I'm here to say is that his writing of Batman from either his poor/unique understanding of the character or in order to serve a particular purpose like I mentioned above. I even presented examples of him making Batman look good at the expense of characters he likes. By that. Weather you think Johns is a good or bad writer is entirely up to you, and yes, his JL book has suffered from poor characterization of certain characters, but at the same time, he has a few strong stories under his belt like Flashpoint, Throne of Atlantis, Secret Origins, Up Up and Away etc..

@anjales: I dont care if he hate batman or not,I just hate the way he write batman.

@anjales: Johns is a good writer, I loved his Flash run, and he can make a character very likable, that's why I was excited about the first EO novel. GL, Superman, Flash were badly written in the JL book too but Johns made them very likable in their solo books, so I thought EO was going to be good, it had great art, the previews looked good, it was a different Batman in a universe disconnected from other heroes, so he didn't have to make Batman look good or bad at the expense of other heroes, and there was no need for Batgod because of lack of superpowered heroes or villains but he made me hate my favorite character. If you want to know how Johns feels about Batman, how he imagines him in his mind, read EO, you can see what he thinks of Batman, he could have made him likable, his version of what Batman should be, his new and cool Batman but he made him act like a dick because that's what he sees him as, Johns doesn't think Batman is a hero, he thinks he's a lunatic in a Batman costume. That's why its hard for me to believe he likes Batman. I understand what you're saying but you have to agree that he's Batman is very unlikable and even OOC for the most part.

I don't think he hates Batman, but he certainly doesn't respect Batman.

Superman getting affected by Kryptonite was fine, and totally in line with the character. And he wasn't mind controlled, but Atom found a way to manipulate him. All of that happening was in line with the character and his flaws, knowledge, personality etc. I.e. none of it was out of character.

That isn't the case with Batman as written by Johns, who has unmasked in public, allowed Lex to pick pocket him and unmask his identity...., all of that is out of character because he is meant to be obsessively cautious and aware as much as he is possibly of all of his surroundings. He should have expected Luthor would suspect he is Batman for example.

@rustyroy: I agree with most of the things you said. Yes his Batman is unlikeable, and does suffer from poor writing, but I have a hard time believing that a writer of Johns caliber would sink low enough to intentionally poorly write a character because he hates him. This poor interpretation of the character doesn't stem from Johns hatred of Batman, it just stems from a unique interpretation of the character that happens to be unpopular. That's all I was simply pointing out, and I feel that most fans here just blindly ride the hate bandwagon and start grasping at straws to prove that Geoff has a juvenile grudge against a fictional character.

@blackhawk000111: fair enough

@anjales: Can I get a quote or source from when Johns said he loves Batman?

Ignoring Batman for a second ,Geoff Johns is known to act on fanboy impulses and play favorites.

@onemoreposter: A few weeks back he did a Q&A on Reddit and was asked what characters he likes and what series does he currently follow. He named several characters, Batman included and mentioned that he loves what Tomasi is doing with him in B&R, and that it's currently one of his favorite series.

@entropy_aegis: Okay then, by that logic, he favors Batman over Green Lantern,as he made him look good at Lantern's expense several times. He also had Flash, his favorite character, worship Batman, and speek highly of him over several times. Yeah clearly he plays favorites. That's just an internet rumor people came up with to make themselves feel better about this.

Lots of extreme views on here. I don't JG hates Batman, but just doesn't get him like other characters.

@saren: Aquaman sent Superman flying from a sucker punch, which means that Superman didn't roll with it.

I think he just likes writing characters up to suit the story.

You're not getting it are you? it's not a question about the number of fights Batman wins or does something useful,it's not even about the jerkass personality,we can roll with it. No Johns thinks Batman has to struggle to even accomplish the most basic tasks,if Johns was a Batman writer Bruce would spend 12 issues learning how to fly the plane.

More like he writes characters who give him a boner,cause Deathstroke and Black Manta had no reason to be in Forever Evil.

I don't even know what you're replying to. I was talking about Copperhead, not Aquaman and Superman.

Think I've said it before, but I will say it again:

I don't think Johns hates Batman, but OTOH I don't think has the necessary writer-capacity to write Batman, which is not helped by Johns massive fanboyism towards certain characters that just happen to share books with the Dark Knight marred with an astute knowledge of how fandom views both.

• Before Johns: Hal has (to the general comic audience) become a shallow Tom Cruise stand-in.
• Add Johns: and nearly the first thing he has Hal doing is lamp the man who masters more MA forms than he has fingers and toes. Reaction; from Hal fans: "OMG thats soo cool!" Reaction from Bat-fans: "WTF?!"

@saren: Yes, I know, but my point is that Geoff also wrote Aquaman as powerful enough to send Superman flying from a punch. I can understand Aquaman not breaking his hand, but sending Superman flying?

That's as improbable as Copperhead being a threat to Batman. Geoff doesn't dislike Batman, he just writes down Superman and Batman from time to time.

- Superman got knocked out by Darkseid's omega beams In JL and needed Batman to come save him.

- Got tagged by Cheetah, a villain that should never tag him.

- Got sent flying by Aquaman, one shotted by Orm.

- killed Dr. Light, accidental or not, that's the only significant thing he did in FE/Trinity War.

- refused to escape Firestorm because he was afraid of himself.

- Lex Freakin' Luthor saved the day in FE, Supermsn has yet to beat anyone in JL before I say save the day.

I guess Geoff hates Superman.

@entropy_aegis: Please don't change your argument just to fit with my response. You said Geoff writes based on his own preference, I proved otherwise. Well, from what I'm seeing most of the arguments are: "Waa Hal punched Batman, Waa Lex pickpotted Batman, Waa Geoff called him a dick". . I never said Geoff is a good Batman writer, his poor portrayal comes from his poor interpretation of the character, not his bias. And you're exaggerating. Show me an example of Batman struggling to do something as "simple" as flying a plane.

@superguy1591: Exactly.

Yes he does.Johns writing is driven by fanboy impulses,that's something his fans acknowledge and is blatantly evident from his work,this is the guy who killed Owen Mercer in Blackest Night and brought back Digger in the same story(and turned Owen in to a remorseless killer before offing him),why exactly do you think that happened? this is the guy who stripped Captain Cold off his powers months after another writer gave him those powers,again what's the point? I'll tell you,it's either Johns way or the highway. If this hack goes out of his way to play favorites and wank certain characters then it's stands to reason that he hates the character who receives the exact opposite treatment from him. You can keep making excuses for him,I honestly dont care and the person you just agreed with spends every day on this forum hating on Batman and his fanbase,all you're doing now is closing your eyes and pretending it's not happening.

@entropy_aegis: No offense, but you're the one who's closing his eyes and pretending. The stuff you mentioned mean nothing. So he stripped Cold of his powers, does that mean he hates Cold? Because he seems to have made Cold a member of the Justice League and a key player in the defeat of the syndicate Please make an argument besides "he hates him cause I said so" to counter my actual arguments and examples regarding Batman, or else we'll just have to agree to disagree and move on. And I'm still waiting on that example.