The Big Picture: Going Green: Part I

[Optimystic]

Wow. I had no idea that was Kyle's origin. Hal was evil for almost 10 years?

They'd better keep that shit out of the movie continuity is all I can say. PLEASE, we don't need all this "comics are weird" baggage in the more accessible medium.

 

[gCrusher]

Looking forward to Part 2.

 

[Sovereignty]

Kudos Bob, I thought that was your best written episode yet.

Perfect pacing! I am excited for next week!

 

[daxterx2005]

I prefer Bob talking about comic books than to him cutting down other people's opinions in movies.
These are always classy and fun to watch

 

[lralowicz]

No. It's not trolling try.

I must be coming from wrong part of the world (Europe) because each time there
is a "Comics are ... (something)" episode my:

I...
DON'T...
CARE...

sign pops up.
(...)

You're not alone. I'm a Canadian who loves comics, but never got into DC or Marvel superheroes. Or superheroes in general unless they were being written by Warren Ellis. But I was a teenager in the 90s when the North American superhero comics industry was about selling tits and ass to 30-year-old fanboys with annual crossover events and multiple variant covers. Didn't really appeal to me.

Luckily there was an alternative for more goth/supernatural comics fans like me: DC's Vertigo imprint, which had its best stuff in the 90s: Gaiman's Sandman, Ellis' Transmetropolitan, Morrison's Invisibles, and Ennis' Hellblazer and Preacher.

I still like these episodes though--they give me a lot of insight into what I missed all those years ago.

Yeah... I was not exposed to American comics industry till I was about 18. I am raised on European comics. Like Yans, Thorgal or Funky Koval. And they are not really about super-heroes. More of a regular people in not so regular worlds (last post apocalyptic human city, Vikings at middle-ages or distant future space opera). They don't have such a crazy followers going bananas over every little detail (I'm sorry... I meant sensible middle aged people deeply interested in comics art medium ). Maybe because they are a short series of books so there is no place for "experts" on what, why, when and who.

BTW... All comic enthusiasts. If anyone can pick them up in English they are worth checking out.

 

[Plurralbles]

I would love to know how HEAT got started considering that there was no internet at the time.

I would assume that they met eachother and networked trhough comic book stores and newspaper editorials/from the readers-things. You'd be surprised wha tpeople can do without the internet- they're simply too lazy now or consider the internet too efficient.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

In defence of the Hal Jordan Green Lantern fanboys, what made the Green Arrow/Green Lantern comics so interesting was their completely opposite views on how to deal with any given situation, even though their couldn't be a larger power gap between "bow with boxing glove" and "magic super ring that can twist the fabric of space time". Taking away that convesrtative outlook actually cut down on the diversity of the DC universe. Political diversity, NOT ethnic diversty mind you, but less diversity none the less. DC had plenty of more liberal leaning heros (including superman) so why DC felt it needed to make "hip" the companies third most popular character is a questionable at best. Was it worth 10 YEARS of demonstrations against it, no, but all I am saying is, DC shouldn't of done it in the first place.

Of course, that is 90's comics in a nutshell...

 

[Redd the Sock]

Ah now that takes me back. Always prefered Kyle on Principle. I just prefered the underdog versus the experienced bad guys, and while I could understand the anger at Hal's treatment, I think a lot of it came from just the denial that a superhero could suffer a mental breakdown. HEAT was often the vocal minority as sales jumped with Kyle (perhaps the only reason he hung around.) I'd hesitate to say they won, as given the new versus nostalgic nature of comics it was inedivible that Hal would come back at some point regardless of HEAT's actions.

I don't know if you'll cover it in part 2, but it does seem remiss to forget Hal's tenure as the Spectre for several of those 10 years. Still, a lot of the weirder crap coming up.

Now if you want a challenge, two words: The Flash. Straightening out that mess might take a mini-series from you.

 

[beema]

I lol'ed about the convoluted comic story continuity stuff. So true. These new superhero movies rekindled an interest in comic stories for me, so I've been poking around on the internet to see what the actual stories were. I've already spent a bunch of hours on Wikipedia reading plot synopses for various comics and crossovers and I was quickly overwhelmed with the dearth of tangled information. I would indeed pause every few minutes for a "wtf." Not just at some of the retcons and divergent series continuities, but also at the pure goofiness of some of the plots and characters.

I soon remembered part of why I gave up on comic books:
too much shit to keep up with.

Every month there'd be some new crossover, where in order to keep up with the story of one comic series, you'd have to buy books from 5 other series you probably didn't otherwise care about. They were obviously a big marketing scheme, but ultimately it made me lose interest in all involved parties. I think I stopped reading X-Men during the Phalanx Covenant, and I stopped reading stuff from the Image universe a few years later because of the Extreme Destroyer one... or something.

For a while after that I went to Manga, but those were really hard to keep up with since I had to special order them and often missed out on several books in a series. Plus they were expensive as crap.

 

[krellen]

I seriously have to wait until next week until I get to hear the good part?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 

[SlothfulCobra]

Kyle Rayner is neater I think, but I haven't read the comics, so I don't really have much of an opinion. I loved Green Arrow in the Justice League cartoon, because it was just the most ridiculous thing that he was coming out with all this politically charged stuff in the wake of a giant monster destroying a city. Maybe Hal Jordan had that going for him.

We all know that the one true Green Lantern is Guy Gardener. His name is alliterative! That's more than enough qualifications.

Also, Moviebob, you should've mentioned how the original Green Lantern is made of wood. Comedy gold.

 

[ritchards]

Big GL fan here, so nothing was surprising for me.

Except HEAT. Knew nothing of that. Are they responsible for the reboot that made me give up on the series then?

I wasn't a big fan od Ron Marz's stuff. I loved what Gerald Jones was doing and was pissed they took him off it.

 

[Mstrswrd]

Could someone explain to me how this buisness with the colors really works?
I mean with superman it is like "Here is Cryptonite!" "Blarg" is it the same way with the green guy and a yellow shirt?

In case no one has answered already, here: The Color yellow is the color of evil, or, rather, fear. The Green Lanterns do not acknowledge their own fear, so they literally can not use their powers on yellow things; for an example of this, go read Allstar Batman, in which Batman has Robin paint a room yellow so that the Green Lantern can't use his powers on anything in the room when he steps ito it.

Eventually, I don't remember who, but one of the GReen Lanterns (possibly the younger one Bob spoke of) came to understand fear, and conquered, well, Yellow.

Later, each emotion got a ring for it; Red is anger, yellow is Fear, etc.

 

[SlothfulCobra]

Could someone explain to me how this buisness with the colors really works?
I mean with superman it is like "Here is Cryptonite!" "Blarg" is it the same way with the green guy and a yellow shirt?

In case no one has answered already, here: The Color yellow is the color of evil, or, rather, fear. The Green Lanterns do not acknowledge their own fear, so they literally can not use their powers on yellow things; for an example of this, go read Allstar Batman, in which Batman has Robin paint a room yellow so that the Green Lantern can't use his powers on anything in the room when he steps ito it.

Eventually, I don't remember who, but one of the GReen Lanterns (possibly the younger one Bob spoke of) came to understand fear, and conquered, well, Yellow.

Later, each emotion got a ring for it; Red is anger, yellow is Fear, etc.

What if one guy thinks it's yellow, but another person thinks it's green?

 

[Netrigan]

I was hoping for a recap of the story where Hal gets it on with the under-age alien girl.

Girl physically ages from 13 to 18 in the space of two pages (thank to the ring artificially aging her) and three pages later, Hal is totally hitting it, much to everyone's horror.

Hal Jordon was never really known for his sound judgments.

 

[Netrigan]

Could someone explain to me how this buisness with the colors really works?
I mean with superman it is like "Here is Cryptonite!" "Blarg" is it the same way with the green guy and a yellow shirt?

In case no one has answered already, here: The Color yellow is the color of evil, or, rather, fear. The Green Lanterns do not acknowledge their own fear, so they literally can not use their powers on yellow things; for an example of this, go read Allstar Batman, in which Batman has Robin paint a room yellow so that the Green Lantern can't use his powers on anything in the room when he steps ito it.

Eventually, I don't remember who, but one of the GReen Lanterns (possibly the younger one Bob spoke of) came to understand fear, and conquered, well, Yellow.

Later, each emotion got a ring for it; Red is anger, yellow is Fear, etc.

What if one guy thinks it's yellow, but another person thinks it's green?

In a story written by Larry Niven, Green Lantern defeated another GL by running away really fast and color-shifting his green beam into a yellow one.

The above explanation is the one ret-conned into the book a few years ago. Before that, it was just an arbitrary weakness with no rational explanation. One villain even got away with a (I kid you not) *invisible* yellow force field... the writer not understanding that something invisible by definition can't be yellow.

I read Green Lantern for quite a long time... and its strange how I can't point to any particularly good stories.

 

[Mstrswrd]

Could someone explain to me how this buisness with the colors really works?
I mean with superman it is like "Here is Cryptonite!" "Blarg" is it the same way with the green guy and a yellow shirt?

In case no one has answered already, here: The Color yellow is the color of evil, or, rather, fear. The Green Lanterns do not acknowledge their own fear, so they literally can not use their powers on yellow things; for an example of this, go read Allstar Batman, in which Batman has Robin paint a room yellow so that the Green Lantern can't use his powers on anything in the room when he steps ito it.

Eventually, I don't remember who, but one of the GReen Lanterns (possibly the younger one Bob spoke of) came to understand fear, and conquered, well, Yellow.

Later, each emotion got a ring for it; Red is anger, yellow is Fear, etc.

What if one guy thinks it's yellow, but another person thinks it's green?

Do you mean the color itself, like they have some kind of vision problem, or do you mean the personification of color as representitive of emotion? If it's the second one, then it's not up for debate in the D.C. universe; each color is bound to it's emotion in the D.C. mythos, and even if you have a conditioned fear of, say, the color Purple, and love the color yellow, the Yellow power ring is literally powered by fear; if their is fear in the universe, then the yellow power ring will exist (to the best of my understanding. Someone more well versed in DC lore can explain it better).

 

[MrDefo]

Bob, I checked. It's a slow movie week. Do part two of this on Friday okay? Please? I hate having to wait an entire week.

On a side note, I was one of the few who really liked Kyle Rayner, and I wished he could have been more. Having an artist be in charge of what is probably the most creative macguffin outside of the cosmic cube is a great idea. Oh well.

 

[PureIrony]

Wait, how is this a bad thing? Political issues not withstanding, DC completely raped Hal Jordan's character.

Fans had a right to be angry and protest; they turned a decades old hero into a supervillain in an incredibly cheap, contrived way. Them winning should be a good thing.