How would you make Green Lantern sell?

[Doctor Bifrost]

Who knows a Star Sapphire/Black Canary spin off series might be interesting as well.

If they can give Star Sapphire some distinctive and useful powers, I would be all for this!

[Thor2014]

Star Sapphire solo with Carol.
Green Lantern starring Hal. Coast City adventures, he would stay on earth.
John as the GLC liason with the JL
Guy, Simon, Kilowogg and Jessica would be the GLC Honor Guard and would travel from sector to sector.
Kyle would become Ion again, and maybe work with the Titans.

Ideally I would have Jessica become Power Ring again and not be an official GL member.

[bigstupidjellyfish]

People forget that the GLC are basically space cops. Why are they fighting Zod right now? Shouldn’t they be solving space crimes? Stopping murderers, busting bank robbers, stopping space cartels, etc. There’s a beauty in simplifying things in comics, a medium where going balls out is the norm. Let them be detectives and crisis responders and other stuff. Each Sector is basically a “beat” anyways.

As for cast change ups, just do what I mentioned in another thread a while ago. Rotate the Earth Lanterns around. Put Simon in Hal&Pals and move Guy to Green Lanterns. Then after about a year of that, move Jessica to Hal&Pals and put Kyle in Green Lanterns, and so on and so forth.

[jbmasta]

If they can give Star Sapphire some distinctive and useful powers, I would be all for this!

On the Emotional Spectrum they're opposite the Reds, who have visions in pools of blood. Carol foresaw Kyle training in the different emotions, so if she can predict the future that has story potential as long as it isn't as horribly mishandled as the concept was in Marvel's Civil War II. Plus if the Star Sapphire powers also include reading compatibility, that's another way to get stories. Carol Ferris, Matchmaker from the stars.

[SmokeMonster]

I would more heavily emphasise the imagery, themes, and story tropes related to police / armed forces.

-Get a writer who excels with crime fiction like Ed Brubaker or Azzarello, and an artist like Sean Murphy.
-More chases, interrogations, evidence collection, robberies, hostage situations, etc.
-Storylines with undercover GLs, corrupt GLc on the enemy's payroll, etc
-Explore themes of racial profiling, the use of violence, abuse of power, etc.
-Have power batteries drain a lot quicker with GLs constantly checking their power levels to ratchet up the tension when GLs are caught in a firefight.
-Less tensionless lantern vs lantern fights (take a long break from the other corps).
-Less overuse of the color green.

Two books seems like enough.
-GLC, with John, Guy, etc.
-And I'd move Hal over to the GLs book to oversee his trainees. Include Kilowog as well. Maybe have them off a special mission in another region of the universe, away from the corps.

[Doctor Bifrost]

People forget that the GLC are basically space cops. Why are they fighting Zod right now? Shouldn’t they be solving space crimes? Stopping murderers, busting bank robbers, stopping space cartels, etc. There’s a beauty in simplifying things in comics, a medium where going balls out is the norm. Let them be detectives and crisis responders and other stuff. Each Sector is basically a “beat” anyways.

I think they're fighting Zod because they're space cops. They believe (or, until moments ago, believed) that he conquered a planet of innocent natives through the use of force. He's also an escapee from the Phantom Zone who has committed numerous violent crimes in a variety of jurisdictions (going all the way back to his homeworld of Krypton), and is considered likely to do so again.

Why I don't understand is why they're not apprehending Lobo and locking him in a sciencell, instead of just nodding their heads agreeably while the remorseless sociopathic genocidal murderer serves on Batman's spin-off Justice League team. (Yeah, that's justice for ya!)

[Trey Strain]

-- The property isn't selling.

-- Two space-based Green Lantern titles won't sell. One has to be based on Earth. Hal is the obvious choice to base on Earth because he has the history here.

-- Six Earth Lanterns is at least two too many.

If you recognize that, then what to do with the original four is easy to figure out.

[AquaLantern]

As many has pointed out the Green Lantern titles are not the only book floating in the 20,000.

And as much as you want it to happen despite many objections getting rid of Simon and Jessica won’t solve anything.

[Assam]

Some people just need to get over the idea that Green Lantern is a franchise which can continuously sell huge numbers. This series has never been able to do big numbers for a long span of time. Alan's original book was doing so poorly that it got taken over by his canine sidekick. Hal's had a history of not doing so great, low sales being the reason we got Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Emerald Twilight at different points. Kyle was still selling well at the time he lost the role of solo GL, but he wasn't doing amazing numbers wise. The financial success Johns brought to the franchise isn't normal for it and it was never going to last forever. During those years, yes, it was able to serve as a rival to Batman. But that's over now. It's just another DC franchise which is capable of pulling in some pretty good numbers and could possibly reach higher numbers again some day in the future. And yes, both books are still doing pretty good. At 28K at issue 37 and 25K at issue 39 respectively, the latter having actually gone up in sales with its most recent issue, not only do they currently outsell a LOT of DC's other titles, but factoring in how far ahead issue wise these books are issue wise compared to others, it shows them as doing even better. Could they be selling better? Yes. I think Hal N' Pals could be less alienating to fans of the other characters and Green Lanterns could use a much better writer, I loved Humphries' run but Seeley has gotten myself and others to drop, but I fail to see anyway to deliberately repeat the success the franchise had in the 2000's; it was lightning in a bottle.

So all of that is to say, do for these books as you'd do for any other franchise: Get good writers and artists, promote them well and treat the characters equally. It's the most that can be done.

Oh, and since I missed the other GL threads Trey made during my ban and it sort of applies here, I guess I'll toss out what I'd do with the franchise books wise.

Green Lantern Corps: John's book. He's always working with different aliens. Occasional appearances from the other humans, primarily Guy.

Green Lanterns: Simon and Jessica's book. Show them moving past their rookie status.

Green Lantern: Frontier: Hal, Kilowog, Razer and Aya in the Interceptor. GL Animated was brilliant and taken long before it's time. I can't think of a set-up I'd rather see Hal in currently.

I'd give Kyle the League spot and put Guy on a revived JLI.

How is his test pilot origin outdated it's one that can work in any given period of time?

Not the near future. 10-20 years from now, test pilots will be a thing of the past and everything will be automated or controlled remotely. Obviously this won't be a problem for Hal's backstory for several decades, but it will eventually stop making sense.

Make Jessica a Blue Lantern and maybe Baz a Yellow Lantern. Would lessen the number of earth GLs and add some other colored earth Lanterns which are sorely lacking.

Also would definitely be interesting to see character and story wise.

Out of curiosity, did you read Humphries' Green Lanterns? There was an entire arc about them questioning if Green was really the color that suited them best and ultimately, it was, willpower being the emotion in them above all else. Making these two other colored lanterns is just as arbitrary as Trey's belief that they should go be Batman characters.

I'd have swapped Simon for the Blue and Jessica for Yellow though.

Again, I must ask if you've read Green Lanterns. This is actually worse than the above idea, as making Jess yellow would actually be character regression. Jessica's arc has been about how, despite the fact that she'll always live with anxiety, she has more than enough willpower to overcome her fears.

Too many Earth lanterns. Get rid of all except maybe one or two

There are too many Green Lanterns.

Lord I hate this way of thinking. I hate it when people say there are too many BatFamily characters and I hate it here. The assumption here is that getting rid of a few of the Gls would somehow increase sales. It would not. In fact, sales would go down. The majority of long term fans aren't just 'Green Lantern' fans who will take whatever's given, no, we all have our favorites. And we all dislike certain characters as well. Get rid of all but one or two and DC will LOSE the fans of all the others. As I mentioned above, part of the reason Hal N' Pals doesn't sell as well as it could despite having four popular characters in it is because of how it's branded and promoted. Having Hal's name in the title and continuously bringing up how he's the greatest Green Lantern ever isn't exactly a good way to entice fans of the other three.

But okay. Let's just say that, somehow, this made sense. Culling some of the Lanterns would result in higher sales. Those other 4? They're still beloved characters, whoever they may be. Same thing for a lot of the Bat characters that people say are unnecessary or dilute the brand. I don't hide my dislike for plenty of characters. I'm always one to express my dissatisfaction with a line-up or a character getting a book. But you know what I don't do? Say that the characters I don't like should just go away. Just go away and never come back. Because I know that even if I don't care for a character, often, tens of thousands of other people do. And when people express these ideas that “There should only be one or two Green Lanterns” or “Batman doesn't need anything but Nightwing, Robin and a Batgirl”, you are effectively saying that you want to make those tens of thousands of people sad and angry. I've lost most of my favorites plenty of times, as have many others, and it sucks. So again, let's say that, for whatever reason, only having one or two Gls would equal 5,000 or 10,000 more regular readers and make a bit more money for DC. As fans, we have no stake in those numbers; DC isn't just gonna stop making GL books any sooner than any other books. But just for the sake of wanting the franchise to look better financially, you are saying you're willing to make tens of thousands of people sad and angry.

And that pisses me off.

[Johnny]

But you know what I don't do? Say that the characters I don't like should just go away. Just go away and never come back.

Well, kind of.

Hal Jordan- If he'd either stayed dead or stayed the Spectre, he'd be #6 or #5.

[Assam]

Well, kind of.

Know you were half joking but even if you ignore that I also really enjoyed him as the Spectre, there's still a big difference between having a well told tragedy as a once great hero falls to his lowest, becomes a monster who kills even his closest friends and ultimately attempts to redeem himself by sacrificing his life for the world...and just shooing characters off.

[AngryComicBookNerd]

Some people just need to get over the idea that Green Lantern is a franchise which can continuously sell huge numbers. This series has never been able to do big numbers for a long span of time. Alan's original book was doing so poorly that it got taken over by his canine sidekick. Hal's had a history of not doing so great, low sales being the reason we got Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Emerald Twilight at different points. Kyle was still selling well at the time he lost the role of solo GL, but he wasn't doing amazing numbers wise. The financial success Johns brought to the franchise isn't normal for it and it was never going to last forever. During those years, yes, it was able to serve as a rival to Batman. But that's over now. It's just another DC franchise which is capable of pulling in some pretty good numbers and could possibly reach higher numbers again some day in the future. And yes, both books are still doing pretty good. At 28K at issue 37 and 25K at issue 39 respectively, the latter having actually gone up in sales with its most recent issue, not only do they currently outsell a LOT of DC's other titles, but factoring in how far ahead issue wise these books are issue wise compared to others, it shows them as doing even better. Could they be selling better? Yes. I think Hal N' Pals could be less alienating to fans of the other characters and Green Lanterns could use a much better writer, I loved Humphries' run but Seeley has gotten myself and others to drop, but I fail to see anyway to deliberately repeat the success the franchise had in the 2000's; it was lightning in a bottle.

The same can be said about The Flash, it's had its ups and down. I don't think anyone's expecting GL to do what it did at the height of Blackest Night, but I think we'd all kill to see the same numbers that Flash is currently enjoying. Each month that goes by seems to go one step away from that goal.

[Frontier]

Kyle was still selling well at the time he lost the role of solo GL, but he wasn't doing amazing numbers wise. The financial success Johns brought to the franchise isn't normal for it and it was never going to last forever. During those years, yes, it was able to serve as a rival to Batman. But that's over now. It's just another DC franchise which is capable of pulling in some pretty good numbers and could possibly reach higher numbers again some day in the future.

Sort of like Hickman's FF run which proved the Fantastic Four can be a high-selling title with the right creative team and mission statement.

But similarly with GL they just couldn't keep the momentum going with the next run, and GL had way more spinoffs under Johns then Hickman's FF had.

The movie's failure didn't help any.

And yes, both books are still doing pretty good. At 28K at issue 37 and 25K at issue 39 respectively, the latter having actually gone up in sales with its most recent issue, not only do they currently outsell a LOT of DC's other titles, but factoring in how far ahead issue wise these books are issue wise compared to others, it shows them as doing even better. Could they be selling better? Yes. I think Hal N' Pals could be less alienating to fans of the other characters and Green Lanterns could use a much better writer, I loved Humphries' run but Seeley has gotten myself and others to drop, but I fail to see anyway to deliberately repeat the success the franchise had in the 2000's; it was lightning in a bottle.

And, to be honest, sales for comics in general are in dire straits these days.

So all of that is to say, do for these books as you'd do for any other franchise: Get good writers and artists, promote them well and treat the characters equally. It's the most that can be done.

Agreed.

Green Lantern Corps: John's book. He's always working with different aliens. Occasional appearances from the other humans, primarily Guy.

I think this is probably the most solid and smart choice you could make with John, especially since Van Jensen expertly utilized this status quo during his run.

I miss Guy and Kyle's friendship.

Green Lanterns: Simon and Jessica's book. Show them moving past their rookie status.

We already basically have this.

Green Lantern: Frontier: Hal, Kilowog, Razer and Aya in the Interceptor. GL Animated was brilliant and taken long before it's time. I can't think of a set-up I'd rather see Hal in currently.

Honestly, as much as I loved Green Lantern: The Animated Series and would kill for a book based on that show's premise...I am so done with Hal in space.

He's just been stuck there for so long, and away from his family and friends on Earth, that I could really just use a book with one or two arcs of him on Earth.

I'd give Kyle the League spot and put Guy on a revived JLI.

Kyle would feel weird on the League now given how long it's been since he's been on it and how he hasn't really interacted with anyone in the League for years.

I think Kyle being on the League, for me, would depend on what roster you put him with.

Not the near future. 10-20 years from now, test pilots will be a thing of the past and everything will be automated or controlled remotely. Obviously this won't be a problem for Hal's backstory for several decades, but it will eventually stop making sense.

Maybe that's something they should start addressing if they could actually get Hal back to Earth for longer then an issue or two and actually focused on his personal life.

But we're not getting that with any of the four Earth Lanterns at this point.

Though I think as long as there's a sensible role Hal can still have at Ferris Air, since aeronautic companies will probably still be a thing, and that gets him flying, he'll adapt.

Out of curiosity, did you read Humphries' Green Lanterns? There was an entire arc about them questioning if Green was really the color that suited them best and ultimately, it was, willpower being the emotion in them above all else. Making these two other colored lanterns is just as arbitrary as Trey's belief that they should go be Batman characters.

It could be fun as a one off to see them with different colors for a time.

Again, I must ask if you've read Green Lanterns. This is actually worse than the above idea, as making Jess yellow would actually be character regression. Jessica's arc has been about how, despite the fact that she'll always live with anxiety, she has more than enough willpower to overcome her fears.

I'm actually kind of curious to see what Jess with a Yellow ring would be like and how she'd adapt to it.

Lord I hate this way of thinking. I hate it when people say there are too many BatFamily characters and I hate it here. The assumption here is that getting rid of a few of the Gls would somehow increase sales. It would not. In fact, sales would go down. The majority of long term fans aren't just 'Green Lantern' fans who will take whatever's given, no, we all have our favorites. And we all dislike certain characters as well. Get rid of all but one or two and DC will LOSE the fans of all the others.

I don't think there are too many Lanterns or that DC needs to get rid of them to achieve any kind of success, but I do think there are too many for the current books to be able to maintain indefinitely, especially when you have four sequestered into one book.

I mean, seriously there's enough Earth Lanterns to form their own League and I expect we'll probably see that at some point.

But when you're in a comic book economic climate where X-Men and Spider-Man can barely hold on to any spinoff titles, and Batman is only doing marginally better, it's hard to manage all the characters you have at your disposal.

As I mentioned above, part of the reason Hal N' Pals doesn't sell as well as it could despite having four popular characters in it is because of how it's branded and promoted. Having Hal's name in the title and continuously bringing up how he's the greatest Green Lantern ever isn't exactly a good way to entice fans of the other three.

I think people assume the book doesn't give the other three Lanterns as fair a shake as it actually does and isn't just a "Hal Jordan is awesome" book, but I do understand why that title and certain solicit descriptions are an issue for people.

Although I think just having all four Earth GL's together, including Hal, would be enough of a turn off for some people with or without the branding or title.

But okay. Let's just say that, somehow, this made sense. Culling some of the Lanterns would result in higher sales. Those other 4? They're still beloved characters, whoever they may be. Same thing for a lot of the Bat characters that people say are unnecessary or dilute the brand. I don't hide my dislike for plenty of characters. I'm always one to express my dissatisfaction with a line-up or a character getting a book. But you know what I don't do? Say that the characters I don't like should just go away. Just go away and never come back. Because I know that even if I don't care for a character, often, tens of thousands of other people do. And when people express these ideas that “There should only be one or two Green Lanterns” or “Batman doesn't need anything but Nightwing, Robin and a Batgirl”, you are effectively saying that you want to make those tens of thousands of people sad and angry. I've lost most of my favorites plenty of times, as have many others, and it sucks. So again, let's say that, for whatever reason, only having one or two Gls would equal 5,000 or 10,000 more regular readers and make a bit more money for DC. As fans, we have no stake in those numbers; DC isn't just gonna stop making GL books any sooner than any other books. But just for the sake of wanting the franchise to look better financially, you are saying you're willing to make tens of thousands of people sad and angry.

A little late in saying this, but it's good to have you back Assam .

[Digifiend]

Again, I must ask if you've read Green Lanterns. This is actually worse than the above idea, as making Jess yellow would actually be character regression. Jessica's arc has been about how, despite the fact that she'll always live with anxiety, she has more than enough willpower to overcome her fears.

It's regression in another way. As Power Ring, she was a villain. Wouldn't putting her in the Sinestro Corps make her a villain again, and this time without the excuse of a sentient ring controlling her?

[Frontier]

It's regression in another way. As Power Ring, she was a villain. Wouldn't putting her in the Sinestro Corps make her a villain again, and this time without the excuse of a sentient ring controlling her?

Not really. She was only out of control a bit before Batman helped her regain her senses.