Geoff Johns’ Ex-Wife Comes to His Defense Against Accusations Of Racism Regarding Justice League and Krypton
JB Augustine
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After being accused of racism by Cyborg actor Ray Fisher and the public, the latter over the recent reveal that he pushed back on the prospect of making Superman’s grandfather black on SyFy’s Krypton, Geoff Johns’ ex-wife has stepped forward in his defense.
Source: Green Lantern: Rebirth v1 Issue #1 (2004), DC Comics. Words by Geoff Johns, Art by Ethan Van Sciver.
Related Report: Geoff Johns Nixed Idea Of Superman’s Grandfather Being Black in Krypton
USA Today reached out to the former Mrs. Johns, Anissa Dorsey, and she is standing by him. In a statement, she said she “will always believe he is innocent of these racist stories and fictitious allegations against him.”
“I am a proud, beautiful, strong, and intelligent black woman from Louisiana and I ran to California to escape real racism,” Dorsey’s statement continued. “Geoff has enjoyed and been a part of a black family since 2000 and someone’s bad feelings cannot erase that time nor the truth.”
Johns was married to Dorsey until 2008. Currently, he is married to an Asian woman. This info is primarily per All Caps Comics founder and former DC artist Ethan Van Sciver, who has also publicly defended his friend and colleague against Fisher’s charges.
Source: Ethan Van Sciver Twitter
Related: Ethan Van Sciver Receives Special Thanks In Zack Snyder’s Justice League
Still, Fisher maintains Johns and then Warner Bros. and DC heads Jon Berg and Toby Emmerich did not want “an angry Black man” to be the center of Justice League.
One conversation where Fisher says Johns was trying to sell him on playing Cyborg like Quasimodo has been singled out by the actor. “I didn’t have any intention of playing him as a jovial, cathedral-cleaning individual,” Fisher said to The Hollywood Reporter. “It was like he was assuming how Black people would respond rather than taking the advice from the only Black person – as far as I know – with any kind of creative impact on the project.”
Source: Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021), Warner Bros. Entertainment
Fisher added that this conversation was the last time he had spoken with Johns. This is is telling, as it indicates he hardly talked to the veteran comic writer and film producer at all.
From a personal standpoint, Fisher’s biggest gripe with Johns is how he believed the veteran creator to have been an “enabler” – one among several named by Fisher – of Joss Whedon’s conduct during reshoots. Everything else he alleges, down to the incident behind the scenes of Krypton, comes from second-hand intel. The incident from Krypton was shared by Bridgerton actor Rege-Jean Page and former Superman & Lois writer Nadria Tucker, a controversial figure in her own right.
Source: Krypton (2018), SyFy
Cosmic Book News, siding with Johns’ camp, points much of this out and adds, “Fisher has yet to actually prove anything and a former federal judge and lawyer that worked the Justice League investigation also said Fisher’s racism claims are baseless.”
CBN further speculates Fisher and others may have acted on behalf of Zack Snyder to get back cinematic control of DC, with site Editor and Founder Matt McGloin writing, “What is also interesting is that the article at THR is blaming Fisher’s actions on Zack Snyder, as the [THR] article offers: ‘For their part, Warners sources contend that Fisher was being manipulated by Snyder, who hoped to reclaim control of the DC film universe.’”
Source: Warner Bros. Pictures YouTube
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