I have to give credit where it’s due. Geoff Johns is a beast of a writer when it comes to this superhero stuff. I just finished Blackest Night #3, and it wasn’t the best comic of the week. It’s not the greatest super hero tale ever told. It’s probably not even John’s definitive work. What it is, is the most confident, structurally solid, modern-day superhero story I’ve read in a mainstream book in years. Kirkman does this kind of solid storytelling regularly, but that’s beside the point…

So I’m reading this and I’m traditionally a Marvel guy. I’m that fan that started when I was a kid, knew Claremont’s X-men like my own family, and regarded it as my responsibility to have a general geek knowledge of all comics, regardless the publisher. I knew the rough goings on of DC, but Marvel was my ‘place’, and remained so until about a decade ago.

Through reading the relationships and the legacies of the characters showcased in Blackest Night #3, I had to admit: DC EARNED this level of richness and texture.

This isn’t a review of the book, but an observation about the payoff that Johns (and, frankly, most of the DCU writers) achieves month after month. Characters have families in these books. There are ‘bat’ families and ‘speedster’ families, and “superman families’, and “lantern families”. Each character within the family brings their own dimension to the mythology and offers completely different additions to the respective teams to which they contribute (see J. Caleb Mozzocco’s fantastic breakdown of the new JLA), or to the legacies they’ve inherited.

More, characters grow and stories really seem to matter. Histories are recalled, and character changes are acknowledged. Characters grow into their paths, teams have purposes (and actual roles in the DCU), and if they don’t fit, they evolve to their proper places.

Without seeming too geeky, it’s fucking awesome in BN#3 seeing not only Firestorm meet Firestorm, but the differences between the two. Barry Allen has a fantastic conversation with Hal about calling him out on his bullshit, and there’s something geeky-fucking-cool about the fact that Tim, Dick, AND Daimen are running around as the OFFICIAL Bat Authorities over in BL: BATMAN #2, and all are equally important, all three are need each other.

DC has become this fantastic place with legacy and characterizations and superheroes, and continuity, and movement that is such a fun place to be with Morrison , Johns, and Tomasi leading the charge.

Then, I go over to Marvel – my home – and barely recognize the place. I’m all looking around and wondering, “are we STILL in Dark Reign?” “Who the heck ARE these people? “, and “What’s going on???” It feels like the Civil War/Skrull/Reign storyline has been going on for YEARS. Ultimate universe got destroyed, the mainstream heroes are still on the run, Spidey’s a swinging bachelor, Cap’s dead but we’re reading more old WW2 stories about him….

I simply can’t believe that these are Marvel comics anymore. It’s like a team of people who never really ‘got’ Marvel, have the keys to the kingdom and it’s crazy. There are some GREAT guys that work there and this isn’t an attack on the creative teams as much as the choice in the direction and tone of the company. It’s a bad day when Marvel treats the universe like an etch-a-sketch: Shake, erase, redo.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, guys. Just wanted to give props to Geoff Johns and DC as a whole. They clearly love what they’re doing and it comes through page after page.