Sources: www.newsarama.com and www.comicbookresources.com
Geoff Johns: Spotlight Panel
Johns is teasing surprise guests for the Green Lantern movie panel in Hall H tomorrow.
He spoke early about his role in expanding the DC brand into other media saying he wanted to work everything including “Green Lantern, Blue Beetle, Wonder Woman and 100 Bullets” into other media, saying “We want it done well and done properly.” Chief amongst his work on this front was the test footage made for a proposed “Blue Beetle” live action show, who Johns noted he helped introduce in “Infinite Crisis.”
They run a Blue Beetle Live Action Test Video…
Johns is hinting there may be a connection between Blackest Night and the Lazarus pits. Look for answers in Brightest Day.
Johns spoke about making “Blackest Night” like a zombie movie and how he sits around his apartment thinking about how he might be able to escape a real life zombie attack. “I’ve got two windows I could board up in about five minutes, and I’ve got a gas grill on my balcony that I could make food off of for a few months, so I’d be set,” he joked.
Johns surprised many of the audience by saying Parallax is in the GL film and now they want more.
Of criticism, Johns says he loves what he does and believes in what he does and nothing else matters. When he approaches GL, even though it looks Star Wars, it’s all about emotion. It’s as much about looking inward about looking outward.
You won’t wait until 2011 to see Wally West says Johns.
Johns admitted that he originally had 25 issues of Superboy in “Adventure Comics” planned, however it came down to some extent to “Superboy versus Green Lantern movie” in terms of his work time. “I’ve got to prioritize. I could have stuck on that book and phoned it in, but I didn’t want to do that to you guys.”
Asked after the Twitter-proposed crossover between Green Lantern and Marvel’s Iron Man that he and Matt Fraction were batting about, Johns responded to the question of “Who do we pray to to make that happen?” with “I don’t know…maybe Odin?” He then said, “I would love to see Hal Jordan in Iron Man’s armor because he’d kick ass in it, and I’d love to see Tony Stark trying on Green Lantern’s ring because he’d suck at it.”
Johns just announced they’ve started work on a Suicide Squad video game. Very violent.
Barry Allen is totally different says Johns. His morality is really interesting. This is somebody dealing with speeding and slowing down.
The Blue Beetle show is still in development but Johns says he has plans for lots more characters getting the spotlight too.
Johns says there’s a lot of characters he’s like to see grow more popular like Metamorpho and Katana. But he’s happy with elevating the ones he has so far and that creating new characters is also a joy.
The Green Lantern movie costume has come up. Johns said it will not have nipples. He says when you see it in motion and the final actual costume, he has faith that the purists will be very happy.
RE: Batman Earth 1 (Graphic Novel) – Johns says Batman will be terrible at what he does. His gadgets don’t work, his Batmobile breaks down. It’s not a comedy, he’s just not perfect yet. Alfred will be very, very interesting.
Johns has been given a print of cereal mascots as Lanterns and is now going through how they all make sense. He knows way too much about cereal.
“I certainly have no plans to leave ‘Green Lantern.’ It’s still my favorite book to write, and it has all of my favorite characters,” Johns said to a theoretical question of when he might move on from the title and why. If there comes a time when Johns has to leave GL, Editor Eddie Berganza believes it will only be when he retires. Johns says he has never thought about leaving.
Johns says he knows something about development of a Wonder Woman movie in the months and years ahead but can’t say anything other than that.
A series is planned to follow up on “Blackest Night” and “Brightest Day” which Johns already has a name for, however Berganza again was very strict about him revealing the info. Johns did say it would be slightly different than the previous two stories had been.
Johns will work on the upcoming November 2011 “Green Lantern” animated series, of which he said “It’s CGI and it’s the whole Corps and a lot of other familiar faces.”
Johns says there’s a lot of discussions about Shazam outside of comics.
Johns is having a hard time keeping a secret he is going to reveal this weekend.
The final question was about DC’s proposed move to Los Angeles from its longtime home of New York City. Johns declined comment saying, “Everything out there is speculation.”
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