Thursday, November 13, 2014

Johns-Month(and a half): Stars And S.T.R.I.P.E.


Welcome to Johns-Month(and a half) where I will take a look at some of the comic-books written by Geoff Johns.
Some says he is a genius, who has only improved DC Comics. Others says that he ruined it.
What do I think? ... I'm actually not sure... So I will reread, as well as pick up new comics written by Johns and see if his genius is overshadowed by his mistakes, or if he might just be one of the greatest comic book writers of our time.
First up, his very first comic: Stars And S.T.R.I.P.E.
After her mother gets married to a guy named Pat Dugan, Courtney Whitmore must move away from all her friends and now former hometown to Blue Valley. She is less than trilled about it, and decides to get revenge on her new stepfather. She soon finds a way to do so, after discovering that Pat used to be Stripsey, histories only adult sidekick to the now dead teen-hero known as the Star-Spangled Kid. She steals the Star-Spangled Kid's powerbelt and costume from Pat's private belongings, in order to tick Pat off.
But Courtney soon finds herself in deep water, as Blue Valley is attacked by super-villains and weird aliens, and must fight side-by-side with Pat, despite none of them liking each other that much.
What really sells the book is Courtney and Pat's unwillingly partnership. Pat doesn't want Courtney to wear his old friend's costume, but he can't really do anything, since Courtney threatens to tell her mother about his secret identity. And Courtney can't get rid of Pat, since he can track her whenever she activates the powerbelt, and therefor joins her in fighting bad-guys in his robotic suite as S.T.R.I.P.E.
This series was written in the good old days, where individual issues was still a thing. So instead of one long story told in four issues, we have a couple of short ones, which I actually miss in todays comics. And for his first series, Johns does a pretty good job. It got plenty of humor, evil art-teachers, blue aliens with a pretty impressive plan to conquer the planet, the first super-heroine with braces, and fun art by Lee Moder. Sure, not all of it is perfect, but it's still darn impressive for a first time as comic-book writer.
In fact, this series impressed the comic-book giant James (FREAKING!!!) Robinson so much, that he offered Johns to become the new writer of the possibly most important series of John's career; JSA!
Which I will review next time...
I'm Waezi2, and thanks for wasting time with me.

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