Rebirth of a Delusion (Of Lanterns & Things)

Did you miss me?

Yes, it's been a hectic year--buying a home tends to add a whole lot of complications to a perfectly productive life. You've still seen me lurking around Facebook and Twitter, and I've even taken up co-hosting duties alongside Ragin' Rick Hansen and Captivatin' Karl Fink on The Incredible Hulkcast starting with Episode 28. But now, I hope to be back to where it all started, right here at Delusional Honesty. Because honestly, if nobody's posting a thing here, why the heck do I even keep this site around?

So, think of this as the rebirth of delusions, or maybe the rebirth of honesty. Whatever sounds better.

And, like any decent column of mine should, we begin with a green character.

But no, not that green character.

What?!?

Allow me to explain.

Everybody remembers when "The New 52" started, right? It's been about 2-1/2 years now and many of you are probably wondering why that moniker even still matters. (Meanwhile Marvel Comics is on their second "Marvel NOW!" campaign, entitled, appropriately enough, "All-New Marvel NOW!" Insert groans and sighs if you wish, but at least they didn't reboot continuity as a sacrifice to the elder gods of Burbank, California. Ahem.)

Anyway, one of the books that relaunched during "The New 52" that wasn't quite relaunched as much as the others--am I still making sense?--was Geoff Johns' perennial favorite, Green Lantern, the book on which he'd worked nonstop since late 2004. Johns seized the reins of a series that was a very modest seller, and in one month more than doubled circulation. He raised a middling book to the top of the heap where, after a fashion, it's remained ever since. Not just that, but the book has spawned an increasing number of spin-off series, becoming one of DC Comics' largest franchises, right up there with the Superman, Batman, and Justice League corners of their universe. (Hooray, he says sarcastically, for diversity in the marketplace.)

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 The series and its spin-offs have flourished in spite of Johns' and DC's own Icarus moment. Yes, I'm talking about the much-maligned, overlong, banal Green Lantern film of 2011. You remember, it was the one that was supposed to be the start of a franchise that didn't have "bat" or "super" somewhere in the title. Instead it was a tragic misfire that tried to cram too many incredible concepts into two hours, and ended up exactly that--not credible--in the eyes of theatergoers everywhere. With a budget of some $200 million US, ol' GL racked up an embarrassing domestic box office total of some $116 million and a foreign B.O. total of $103 million. (Unsurprisingly, a sequel is stuck in development hell.)

I've had a long, off-and-on association with the Green Lantern character. It began in late 1984, courtesy writer Len Wein and artist Dave Gibbons, as well as a little comic shop in East Liverpool, Ohio, where my father bought me the book. In the story--which to this day invites comparison to Denny O'Neil and Luke McDonnell's deconstruction of Iron Man the previous year at Marvel--Green Lantern Hal Jordan has quit the Green Lantern Corps, and the Guardians of the Universe--they who lead the Lanterns--have assigned another Earthman, John Stewart, to fill the ring, er, suit.

It was the era of Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show on ABC-TV, and Super Powers also meant a series of limited series by comics legend Jack "King" Kirby. It also meant a line of action figures made by Kenner Toys, each of which included a mini-comic starring the same hero as was in the package. There were even tie-ins like hot chocolate. I'm relatively certain that one of those tie-ins--I'm thinking the figures--had a special offer for 3-month subscriptions to a few choice DC titles. That's how I learned about the Legion of Super-Heroes, and that's also how I began following Green Lantern in earnest.

Maybe it wasn't the best time to come aboard the series, what with John Stewart learning what it meant to be a Green Lantern all over again, and Hal Jordan trying his best to get back to the Corps. (Much later I bought the Green Lantern/Green Arrow trade paperbacks and learn of Stewart's first outing as a GL.) Still, there was something inherently interesting enough about the characters that I renewed with another 12-month subscription as the long, slow countdown to issue #200 began. (By "countdown" I mean it literally, as each issue's title literally counted down, beginning with #194's "5.")

The series changed hands from Wein and Gibbons to Steve Englehart and Joe Staton, but the stories kept their cosmic bent, featuring such key GL concepts and characters as Star Sapphire, the Predator, Katma Tui, the ring's yellow impurity, and more. During the crossovers with the Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series (which I wasn't even reading then), I even saw Guy Gardner get a GL ring for the first time!

Alas, right after the 200th issue, with the book's name officially changing to The Green Lantern Corps even though Hal had regained his ring, I was no longer interested. (Funnily enough, my subscription ended the month before, with #199.) In fact, I was no longer interested in DC at all, and would remain so until I rediscovered Firestorm, whom I remembered from the Super Friends cartoon. (And you can read all about my obsession with the character starting here. See how we all tie things together at Delusional Honesty?)

So, how did I pick up Green Lantern all over again? And how exactly does the answer lead to the horrendous pile of trade paperbacks I've had stacked in my library room?

Well, now that would be like skipping to the end, wouldn't it?

See you next time!

~G.

DCnU: The New Continuity - Crisis Of Infinite Events (4)

(DCnU Continuity Series:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5)

This article is the fourth in a series analyzing a concept that has been one of the major underpinnings of comic books since Stan and Jack decided to have each series in their new line of Marvel Comics build on the others before. Here, I'm going to transition from the continuity craziness of the nineties...to the continuity craziness of the 2000s. And you'll see special attention paid to crossover events, a throughline from the last few entries. We're running a bit long, so within the next few days I promise to bring it all home with how DC Comics' "New 52" figures into the mix.

Before the sixties, comics stories only rarely referenced each other, but with a new breed of comic came a new breed of comics fan interested in seeing how disparate elements in the universe connected. While Marvel developed their own, at first tightly-knit continuity, DC experimented with alternate realities across which their adventures took place. In the seventies, when comics' direct market took shape, the shared universe concepts especially took root as did a more fan-centric atmosphere. This was the age of the Omniverse fanzine and the Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man tabloid-size crossover. The crossovers between companies stopped in the eighties, with companies finding value in having their own characters all team-up in line-wide events that haven't stopped to this day. In Crisis on Infinite Earths DC sought to do away with their Multiverse concept in favor of a streamlined, more "realistic" lineup, but only created more problems that would plague them for decades.

The New Spider-Man & The License of Power (Blame Film Class!)

(Updated to include Bill Foster & Jaime Reyes in my roundup.)

It's been a crazy week, kids, and it's only gotten crazier with yesterday's announcement that half-black, half-Hispanic teen Miles Morales will become Marvel's new Ultimate Spider-Man in this week's Ultimate Fallout #4 by Brian Michael Bendis & Sara Pichelli. I figured I'd touch on the hubbub and make a point that dovetails, ever so lightly, with my articles on continuity (the second of which, no kidding, is coming really soon).

New costume. New Spider-Man. Art by Kaare Andrews.

So, there's a new Spider-Man, and in a move apparently inspired by African-American comedian Donald Glover's desire to land the role of Peter Parker in next summer's Amazing Spider-Man film, he belongs to a racial minority. With this move, Marvel makes Spidey the next in a long line of superheroes who've been "replaced" by a minority character. This practice has been more common in DC Comics of late, with co-publisher Dan DiDio having launched an aggressive campaign to add diversity to their line-up of super-heroes.

Looking at the trend of "replacing"--always temporarily--major super-heroes with minority characters, I thought it interesting to be able to tie the concept back to something I worked on, years ago, back in film class! Y'see, once upon a time I took a class in colonialism in cinema, and the paper I worked on for my final was a dissection of the Blaxploitation genre. I introduced this concept of the "License of Power," in which I put forth the idea that the blacks in these films weren't really as in control of their destinies as the filmmakers would have one believe. Rather, the colonial relationship--which is essentially between master and subject/slave--was left intact, consciously or subconsciously, with power firmly resting in the hands of whites.

Fresh from the 70s Blaxploitation craze, and still Marvel's most popular black hero.

To drive a narrative forward, to be the "hero," blacks were licensed a measure of power that made them capable of accomplishing their tasks within the narrative. The implicit license transferred the whites' power onto the black protagonists (and sometimes antagonists), with the implication that without white interference, the blacks would be unable to succeed. The other side of the coin was that the "license of power" was not indefinite and did have particular conditions. If the licensee didn't follow through on the assigned task(s), or if he exceeds his authority, then the white men who have granted him such power were obligated to strip the character of it.

I went through a number of examples in the Blaxploitation genre to prove my argument, using films like Mandingo, Blacula, Shaft and Black Caesar. (In the end, I did get an "A" on the paper, so I suppose my claims have a degree of merit.) Which, of course, brings me to the License of Power as it applies to superheroics.

There is a dearth of truly original minority super-heroes in comics. Obviously Luke Cage, Storm and Black Panther come to mind at Marvel, while Black Lightning, Bronze Tiger and Vixen are solid if not particularly well-known examples at DC. While it's grown difficult for new characters to gain a foothold in the comics market, it's even more daunting for an original minority hero to find that niche. Since the sixties, it's become a common trope for the Big Two to develop a new minority hero by introducing them in the mold of an established white one. In all the below cases, the "license" idea refers chiefly to the passing of the tights.

John Stewart, forerunner of the minority replacement heroes. Art by Neal Adams.

• John Stewart: Introduced in 1972's Green Lantern #87, Stewart wasn't even the first alternate selected to be the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. He was only selected when Guy Gardner was comatose with brain damage. He was often a "substitute" Green Lantern during the late seventies, and stepped up to be the sector's only Green Lantern when Hal Jordan briefly quit in the early eighties. Hal Jordan has struck him down as Green Lantern, most notably when Hal as Parallax put an end to his life as the first human Guardian when he destroyed Oa's Central Power Battery. Interestingly, he's the Green Lantern the public finds most familiar, due to his appearance in Cartoon Network's Justice League Unlimited animated series.
• Bill Foster: Originally a lab assistant to Dr. Henry Pym, Dr. Bill Foster assumed the identity of Black Goliath in the seventies, using Pym's growth formula while Pym himself enjoyed a career as Yellowjacket in the Avengers. Later, he took yet another of Pym's noms du guerre, Giant Man. Much later, he surrendered the Giant Man name and powers to Pym, but eventually returned only to be killed during Marvel's Civil War.
• Jim Rhodes: Introduced in 1979 as billionaire industrialist Tony Stark's pilot, Rhodey didn't take the spotlight until 1983. Denny O'Neil and Luke McDonnell took Stark out of the Iron Man armor, having relapsed into alcoholism, and gave the armor to him. Rhodey wore the armor for over two years, until Tony actually fought his friend and diagnosed him with a physiological condition over wearing armor not meant for him. Afterward he rarely wore the suit, but upon Stark's "death" a few years later he donned the "War Machine" armor, which he's done off and on for years, mostly at Stark's discretion, often clashing with his boss and friend and even losing the armor. (Stark never had an alien armor bail him out of a jam!) He currently moonlights as "Iron Man 2.0."

Rhodey takes center stage as the new Iron Man. Art by Luke McDonnell.

• Isaiah Bradley: In the revisionist era of the early 2000s, African-American creator Kyle Baker posited that after Steve Rogers was given the Super-Soldier Serum that made him into Captain America, the U.S. government tried to duplicate the lost serum by experimenting on black men. The storyline evoked similarities to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, and Isaiah Bradley was its biggest success, first becoming superhumanly powered (the "Black Captain America") but eventually falling victim to ill effects that left him incapacitated in his later years. Eventually Rogers learned of his existence and sought reconciliation, feeling guilt for what had happened to Isaiah.
  
• Jason Rusch: Ron Raymond, a.k.a. Firestorm, floundered from series to series after DC canceled his own long-running title in 1990. What else could DC do but relaunch the character with a new secret identity? While they wisely reinstated the dual personality that marked the Firestorm entity since his creation in 1978, it nonetheless remains expressly clear that Jason originally received his power as direct result of Raymond's death during Identity Crisis. And when Ron returned in Blackest Night, DC quickly relegated Jason to the voice in his head, going the way of his predecessor, Martin Stein.
• Crispus Allen: Originally introduced as a Gotham City detective in Detective Comics, he graduated to a role in Gotham Central before being murdered by a crooked cop named Jim Corrigan, not-so-coincidentally also the name of DC's original Spectre, an entity of immense power committed to vengeance against the guilty. Allen became the new Spectre, wearing the raiment longtime DC fans associated with the (for now) deceased, original Corrigan. Often, especially in big events, this Spectre is largely interchangeable with his earlier counterpart. (Death is a great way to inherit the "license," innit?)

Ryan Choi, Asian replacement for Ray Palmer, the Atom. Art by Ariel Olivetti.

• Ryan Choi: DC introduced the Chinese scientist specifically to add even more color to its diversifying line in the wake of Infinite Crisis. Created by Grant Morrison and Gail Simone, Dr. Choi was a previously unknown protege of the previous Atom, Ray Palmer, and took over the role when Palmer went conveniently went missing during the earlier Identity Crisis. He not only became the Atom, but he also took Palmer's place on the staff of Ivy University.
• Jaime Reyes: Also spinning out of the end of Infinite Crisis was this Hispanic variant on the Blue Beetle character, picking up where previous versions Dan Garrett and then-recently-deceased Ted Kord left off. The source of his powers was the same magical scarab used by Garrett, the first Beetle. He has had a three-year run in his own title, followed by a regular second feature in Booster Gold, becoming his partner in the same way as Ted Kord was before him in the Justice League International.
• Tyrone Cash: The Ultimate Marvel universe had one previous flirtation with changing races in Dr. Leonard Williams, the retconned-in "First Hulk." Introduced in Ultimate Comics Avengers by Mark Millar and Leinil Yu, Williams worked with Banner on the Hulk experiment, and became a Hulk that kept his intelligence and used his smarts to fake his death and set himself up as a gang lord in South America, surrounded by gangstas and hoes, embodying the very worst of the "Black Buck" stereotype. He also took the place of the "real" Hulk for a time.

They say this cat Hulk is a baaaad motha'--shut yo'mouth! Art by Leinil Yu.

• "Thunderbolt" Ross: Only a minority in the sense of his age group (originally to have been nearly 70 if older stories were judge, but edited to be in his 50s), Ross became a Hulk oddly similar to his predecessor, a sharp counterpoint to all previous gamma-enhanced individuals. Since being defeated by the Hulk, he keeps his power under writer Jeff Parker so long as Banner and Captain America deem it appropriate (i.e. as long as sales don't falter).

Finally, we come to Miles Morales, the alliteratively-named (just like Peter!) new Spider-Man. Unlike the majority of the previously-named characters, because it's the Ultimate Marvel universe and not the regular one, this change has a chance of sticking a bit longer than the rest. Indeed, he stands the chance of disproving the tried-and-true colonialist view of replacement heroes, in an in-story if not a meta context. Will the grand experiment succeed? You decide!

Miles Morales is a member of one of the fastest-growing minority classes (which will, we're told, become a sizable majority in the U.S. sometime later this century if trends continue). Besides that, we really don't know anything about the new Spider-Man; he's a blank slate and will continue to have only the barest hint of characterization until the new volume of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man arrives in comic shops in September. Although it will be interesting to see someone other than Peter Parker behind the mask for a change (Ben Reilly doesn't count, and Hobie Brown did it for all of five seconds), I can't help but feel Marvel's energies would have been better spent introducing the "next great character in the Ultimate Marvel firmament" who happens to belong to a minority, instead of just promulgating the next in a line of seemingly endless iterations of their number one hero. It's a publicity stunt either way, right? What would have been better than having several new heroes--white, black, Hispanic, Indian, Asian, whatever--trying to live up to the legend begun by Spider-Man, a young kid who could have been any one of them behind that mask that didn't give a hint to the identity or race of the person behind it? Imagine the development of several original characters inspired by Spidey, all under the event umbrella, "The Hero Who Could Be You!"

Maybe young Miles Morales is right. Art by Sara Pichelli.

Ah, but there we go, again. The last Marvel "hero" of any sort to really resonate with so-called fans is Deadpool, created in 1991. And the last minority character to really strike a chord was Luke Cage, created in 1972. (Does Bishop count? Where is he now, anyway?) And neither is really in the public eye--that honor belongs to Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and don't get me started on him. Perhaps it's better to endlessly regurgitate the old stuff in new ways--and in this case, the same tired colonialist tropes--simply because it's better to take small chances like changing a beloved character's ethnicity than take a bigger chance like trying to do something truly new, interesting, and perhaps, just perhaps, original.

Give us some heroes, Marvel. Don't give us a bunch of musical masks.

~G.

Meow Mix (Awaiting the Emerald Hairball)

So, on the eve of another potential turkey in the making, it occurred to me, you guys don't know the secret story of how I first (and, for that matter, only) saw that hairball of a movie...

Yeah. That one.

I don't remember what movie I bought to get that Movie Cash to see Catwoman, but get it I did. It had to have been something good, because I can't see buying a DVD just to get one ticket to see one lousy movie I likely wouldn't have seen otherwise. There was a theatre, not too far away from where I lived at the time, probably newly opened not long before, come to think of it. I do believe I went on opening night. And I almost didn't see it at all. Would you believe that?

It's true! The fates tried to steer me away and I stubbornly forged onward. Y'see, when I went to purchase a ticket for the movie, the girl selling the tickets gave me one for the wrong film. Maybe it was the latest Harry Potter. Like an idiot, I actually fussed and said I really wanted to see Catwoman. (Stop smirking!) If you came to the theatre and had a pass to see one crappy movie, but the theatre gods took pity on your poor soul and gave you a ticket for a completely different, highly-reviewed movie, you'd probably not have hesitated, not have refused. But yeah, I did. I'm a sucker.

When I got to the actual auditorium in the theatre, it was one of the smallest screens in the place, with probably only 60 or so seats in it. I sat a few rows up. It was one of those stadium-seating theatres. Soon, a duo of older women joined me in the theatre, sitting in the row behind me. The real terror then began when the lights dimmed and the projector ran. However bad I could have conceived it, the end result was worse. It started out as just boring but veered off into "unintentionally hilarious" territory.

And I laughed.

Yeah, pretty hard.

Patience Philips gets murdered? Tee-hee. A cat breathes green fumes on her and gives her super-kitty powers? Bwa-ha-ha. Her boss gets skin like "living marble" because she's been using some funky skin cream for too long? Hee hee, ha ha, ho ho! I admit, I laughed hard enough that the women behind me had to shush me. Still, I kept up with the giggle-fits. And don't get me started on poor pretty boy Benjamin Bratt, unable to act his way out of a paper bag. Or maybe it was all just the limiting script. Y'know, that award-winning script. The Golden Raspberry winner for Worst Screenplay, just like the movie won other similar awards, for Worst Picture, Worst Actress, and Worst Director.

Worst DC film ever? I don't know. Unlike Marvel, who in my opinion has a few turkeys here and there, Catwoman has a lot of company. Superman III and IV. Batman & Robin. Jonah Hex. The Return of Swamp Thing. And, oh yes, we daren't forget Steel.

Are we ready for Green Lantern to join such illustrious company? Worse yet, are we ready to see the $200-million project deliver a black eye to DC's line of feature films, which have been, let's face it, pretty unspectacular aside from the majority of their Superman and Batman franchises? Comparatively, Marvel has had great success in bringing their characters to life on the silver screen. Can DC catch a break? I'm beginning (heh) to doubt it.

~G.