A Sign That DC Are Really Screwing Up the Green Lantern Franchise
We all like to read great creator owned stories, and small press titles. But admit it, you all love a good bit of superhero action right? It’s OK, I won’t tell anyone!
So, some people love Superman, some Iron Man, some Captain America etc. I’ve always had a special attraction to Green Lantern. To give you an idea how much, take a look at my Green Lantern figure collection:
Give it a click to see a bigger image. For those of you too lazy to count, there are 37 figures there, as well as a collector’s metal ring set, lots of plastic rings, and a light-up lantern. You can probably imagine how much my wife likes these, right I also have several Green Lantern shirts, and an awesome Sinestro Corps shirt.
I’m quite enjoying Geoff Johns’ treatment of the main title, even though I am finding the new retconned origin story a little forced (note to Glen: sorry). What I was really loving up until recently was the relaunch of Green Lantern Corps by Dave Gibbons. Dave created a brilliant title with a great emphasis on getting to know all of these new, and less exposed, GLC member. It was just a brilliant title, exactly the kind of mainstream book I like to read. Then all of a sudden DC told Dave Gibbons that they have a rule that writers have to be changed once per year on all DC titles, and they replaced him with Peter Tomasi, the editor of the book. This was, of course, a complete lie, as Geoff Johns has been writing Green Lantern for years now. They pulled the same stunt with Marv Wolfman over on Nightwing, also replacing him with Peter Tomasi. Something smells fishy here! I dropped Nightwing after 2 issues, due to his Winick-esque fan boy approach. I kept reading GLC though, because it was in the middle of the Sinestro Corps event, and he was really just riding in the wake of Geoff Johns. After the event was over, the title seemed to take a real nose dive. Tomasi’s approach is really, really, quite tacky and cheesy. There is no longer great character work going on. The book seems to be all about Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner, and a bunch of hangers on. These hangers on are the same characters that Dave Gibbons made shine so brightly. Now they just feel hollow and 2 dimensional.
The current story in GLC features Mongul and Black Mercy Plants. Great! We’ve never had that before! Ohhhhhhhh, but there is a twist, Mongul has a yellow ring now, and he has changed the Black Mercy plants to give people dreams of their greatest fears, instead of their greatest joys. Lame! Tomasi actually spent about half an issue informing the reader who Mongul was, and what a Black Mercy was. Thanks for wasting 10 minutes of my life! As if the story wasn’t inane enough Tomasi has gone and retconned what a Black Mercy is. Now it turns out that the original Black Mercy was planet sized and sent out it’s own children to spread joy throughout the universe. It just didn’t realize that the children were killing everyone they attached to.
I am a huge Green Lantern fan, but I just can’t continue to read this crap. DC, please stop this, get someone good writing this title!
In other news, DC released their new Green Lantern figures this week. I’m very tempted to buy them, but I have to fork out the down payment on a house this week, so maybe I will wait a little while Yeah, I know I already have 3 Sinestro figures, and 2 Star Sapphires. The Batman is a little tacky though, and I don’t really get the point of it. Oh well!
Related posts:
- The Daily Review - Green Lantern #32
- Comic Book Review - Superman #677
- The Daily Review - Wolverine #66
- Help, I think my brother is a Skrull!
Nice figure collection there Ed! I loved GL when I was a kid — I started off with a bunch of Silver Age reprints featuring Hal and Barry Allen teaming up on all sorts of wacky adventures, and then later on I discovered the mold-breaking Green Arrow/Green Lantern series by Denny O’Neill and Neal Adams. Amazing stuff!
I managed to stick with the Johns relaunch for about a year, despite all the routine failures of logic produced by the JohnsTM Predictable Plot Machine… but it was the OYL stuff that really put the thing beyond the pale for me. In one story, Hal went from hero to casual killer… and all so Johns could tell his laughably forced Hal-as-POW gee-I-didn’t-charge-my-ring-before-I-left story…! Even worse, none of the other DC characters even noticed Hal had started killing again. Considering the big deal they made out of his behaviour as Parallax, you’d think Hal’s offhand choice to off a few hundred of his enemies rather than arrest them would raise a few eyebrows. Utterly pathetic!
GLC had so much potential — but DC seems determined to flush that thing down the drain too. Didn’t anyone at DC Editorial actually *read* the old GLC books? Bah!
The second guy down, with the robotic face - is he giving me the finger.
No more dolls. No more. I hate them.