90s DC was really the best it ever was. They always seemed to have well thought out plans while doing insane shit & constant forward momentum changes that created or elevated new characters while giving old characters great send offs or transformations to stay relevant.

James Robinson, while never perfect, did this really well with Starman, the JSA relaunch etc. He made new Legacy characters while simultaneously using the older characters in new ways & making them popular again

That Geoff Johns, who got big spinning out of or taking over Robinson's stuff took to heart the EXACT OPPOSITE LESSON of this & systematically got rid of any of the new characters to replace them with the ones we'd all moved on from is so depressing

Young Justice? No we need the Wolfman Titans. Kon-El is now Conner Kent. Impulse is now Kid Flash. Also completely wash them of what makes them great

Kyle Rayner? A NEW Green Lantern? No we need DC's second most boring character Hal Jordan back. Oh J.M. DeMatteis wrote his heart out giving us an entire Spectre Hal mythology & supporting cast? Nah, never happens. Hal is the best Green Lantern

Most of the new JSA characters? They take on the old Legacy costumes and titles or are phased out of the title

Infinite Crisis? A big ol mess to use as an excuse to change as much of continuity as he wants back to how he liked it as a kid

And finally when DC allows Barry Allen to return Johns makes him so special and so important that it kills the Flash Family and the ENTIRE DC Universe because it's all so wrong & done with no real creative evolution or plan. It's full regression

DC basically put Johns in charge of dictating its Universe with Didio for 20 years where they looked at all the amazing NEW stuff they'd made & systematically made sure to regress all of it to make it look like the DC they remembered as kids. They just gave the worst people power

Everything Johns has ever done, even when it's good material, has been to turn back the clock & actively cut young characters off at the knees unless he's specifically stuck with them at a certain editorial time. He tricks you into thinking he's doing the DC Legacy thing

It's hard getting older & seeing with context & perspective that Johns seemed to do his most positive stuff when an editor said no to him. In many ways his work did some of the worst long lasting damage to this company. That's fucking crazy to me! Fucks me up these days