Philosophía
"The devil made me do it"
Originally posted by Digi
No offense intended, Phil. I was reading your entire posts. I just stated my opinion. I suppose I just can't get as worked up over Johns' treatment of Spectre as some of you do, so it causes me to downplay the inconsistencies.And no, I don't think DC should change Spectre just to fit Johns' vision(s). But I don't think he's the only writer who would treat him this way, or who would have similar problems.
But bringing up his FC arc a while back doesn't refute my point. Yes, they established his position and power. And no, they haven't done anything to change that formally. But my point was, they should do that, imo. Because when I read an arc and it includes Spectre, I groan. Because A. He should be powerful enough to end most threats with a simple decree, B. He's probably going to job somehow to make the threat seem credible, and C. Not every arc can come up with a decent philosophical reason for God not to want to intervene or not granting him the power to overcome the problem, so there will be times when he has to be dealt with in stupid ways. So has Johns treated him horribly? Yes, no argument there. But, as before, such treatment eventually is inevitable given the character's nature. So I just ignore his presence in any arc these days.
So I heartily dislike Spectre as a character. He should be removed from DC Earth to the extent that his non-involvement isn't questioned in each new arc. Do we wonder why Eternity didn't stop Marvel's Civil War? No. And that's the kind of treatment Spectre should get.
Yeah, I'm a fan of the character, so that pretty much explains why I'm more angry at the way Johns is portraying him.
I agree that he wouldn't be the only one who would have a problem telling a similar story given how powerfull Spectre is but, like I said, the problem is that it's not just
this story in which Geoff Johns has written him that has made him look awfull. He's done this countless times, even when he didn't have to. I can excuse a writer for having to make away with a character, even if it makes him look bad in the process and doesn't bother to do him justice, but if he does it repeatedly, and sees him as nothing other than "Hey, this character I'm writing can slap away Spectre
aswell!" then it becomes a problem.
I also don't agree with your depowerment solution and I'm leaning twoards what you wrote in the last paragraph. Taking him away from DC Earth/Superhero world would allow the character more space to develop without all these 'Why didn't he intervene there ?' problems. Or hell, like Juntai said, just simply not include him in the event. It would be a hell of a lot better than what we're getting now.