How would you make Green Lantern sell?

[Trey Strain]

Add a dozen more Earth Lanterns.

That would work for sure.

[The Dying Detective]

Perhaps one should just limit the amount of earth based Green Lanterns to what is already has been created and just put them places that are suitable for them.

[Trey Strain]

Perhaps one should just limit the amount of earth based Green Lanterns to what is already has been created and just put them places that are suitable for them.

That might be a good idea, if there were enough places to put them. But there aren't! It's a matter of squeezing the proverbial ten pounds of poop into a five-pound bag.

[The Dying Detective]

That might be a good idea, if there were enough places to put them. But there aren't! It's a matter of squeezing the proverbial ten pounds of poop into a five-pound bag.

So you say but theoretically you should be able to by just simply dispersing them throughout the DC Universe in ways that not only make sense and keep them there except for the occasional team-up story. I would follow some of the other plans that have been suggested and put Hal on Earth as the primary Green Lantern as well the main member of the Justice League. Place Kyle on the Titans as a senior member. The Titans themselves while having their own adventures will serve in the rotating position of den-mother for the sub-teams like Young Justice and Teen Titans. And while Hal takes care of Earth Guy will be part of a group of Green Lanterns who handle the rest of their sector. John will be the leader of the Green Lantern Corp with him at the head of the Guardians council. And Simon and Jessica will be the rookie members sent there for training and often work together with their alien colleagues. Nevertheless John will be the primary protagonist of the Green Lantern Corp title with Simon as the deuteragonist and Jessica as the tritagonist of the title. Honestly it tends to depend on one's creative muscles sometimes. Because even I am not sure this plan will work speaking as fledgling writer who know nil about the business and needs to test his theories.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Edit: The original set up was cancelled numerous times throughout DC history, at one point having to settle for backups in a Flash comic.

I swore to myself I would stay out of this thread because I knew it would inevitably turn into yet another pissing contest between various GL factions, but I need to address this particular point, because it's an old idea that got trotted out a lot during the Kyle vs. Hal/John/Guy/GLCorps flame wars of years past.

Green Lantern has been cancelled exactly twice. That's it. Once during the end of the golden age with Alan Scott, and a second time at the end of the initial Green Lantern/Green Arrow run.

Since then, while sales on GL have gone up and down based upon the relative quality of the stories and creative teams, the comic has never been cancelled since GL/GA was revived (minus the SJW angle) in the late 1970s.

In 1988, the GL comic was ended, not cancelled, because editor Denny O'Neil wrestled the franchise away from Andy Hefler so that it could be the main draw of his Action Comics Weekly experiment. When that failed, Andy Hefler regained control of GL and the monthly comic returned and proved so popular that it spawned three spin-offs for John, Guy and the GLCorps respectively.

When Hefler was promoted, his assistant Kevin Dooley took over and did not get along with the writer Gerard Jones (which, in retrospect, has elevated Dooley in my mind). The GL books floundered, prompting DC editorial to dump Hal & the GLCorps for new character Kyle Rayner with Ron Marz.

Kyle proved successful, but, eventually, his stories, also hit a creative slump and sales declined, prompting DC to bring back Hal, John, Guy & the Corps with Geoff Johns at the helm. This was even more successful, making the GL books among the most popular books they published, as they had been under Andy Hefler's tenure in the early 1990s.

My long-winded point is that Green Lantern has consistently been one of DC's top comics, along with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and The Flash. And, just as each of those characters have seen creative and sales declines over the decades, the one thing that has always proven to bring in readers is exactly the same: Tell great stories.

[Trey Strain]

I dunno, Bored. A comic with four Earth Lanterns in it has flopped. Will it work if they put two more Earth Lanterns in it? I kinda doubt it.

[WillieMorgan]

I dunno, Bored. A comic with four Earth Lanterns in it has flopped. Will it work if they put two more Earth Lanterns in it? I kinda doubt it.

You know what Trey? I'm almost rooting for someone at DC to introduce yet another Earth Lantern in the next couple of years. Just to see your response .

[Shadowedeyes]

Be that as it may, the OP has stated that putting a good writer on it is not allowed as a solution. It must be something writer-proof.

Very little is writer proof in the field of writing, so the OP will probably end up disappointed.

[Trey Strain]

You know what Trey? I'm almost rooting for someone at DC to introduce yet another Earth Lantern in the next couple of years. Just to see your response .

That wouldn't surprise me one bit.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I dunno, Bored. A comic with four Earth Lanterns in it has flopped. Will it work if they put two more Earth Lanterns in it? I kinda doubt it.

As I have mentioned in earlier threads, Steve Englehart was able to juggle SEVEN Green Lanterns on Earth quite successfully in the Post-Crisis era, so, yeah, a good writer should have no problem handling four, six, or more.

Again, there's no magic formula for success. Just good comics.

[Trey Strain]

So you say but theoretically you should be able to by just simply dispersing them throughout the DC Universe in ways that not only make sense and keep them there except for the occasional team-up story. I would follow some of the other plans that have been suggested and put Hal on Earth as the primary Green Lantern as well the main member of the Justice League. Place Kyle on the Titans as a senior member. The Titans themselves while having their own adventures will serve in the rotating position of den-mother for the sub-teams like Young Justice and Teen Titans. Guy will be on a sub group of the Justice League that takes care of special missions the League do not normally take on. John will be the leader of the Green Lantern Corp with him at the head of the Guardians council. And Simon and Jessica will be the rookie members sent there for training and often work together with their alien colleagues. Nevertheless John will be the primary protagonist of the Green Lantern Corp title with Simon as the deuteragonist and Jessica as the tritagonist of the title. Honestly it tends to depend on one's creative muscles sometimes. Because even I am not sure this plan will work speaking as fledgling writer who know nil about the business and needs to test his theories.

Let me break that down.

-- Kyle in Titans. -- Good idea.

-- Hal on Earth and designated as "the greatest." -- Good idea to get him back to Earth. Bad idea to designate him as "the greatest."

-- Guy in a Justice League B comic -- Bad idea. I wouldn't put my worst enemy in a Justice League B comic.

-- John in a space comic. -- Not necessarily a bad idea. I'd put him in JL though and put Guy in the space comic. But if John gets the space comic, then Guy should go in the real Justice League.

-- Baz and Cruz in the space comic. -- Bad idea. Geoff Johns made that mess. Let him come up with a solution for it.

So we're really not all that far apart.

[WillieMorgan]

There are a lot of assumptions in your post - about why people are fans of John, Jessica, and/or Simon; about which characters fit most nicely in a "quality" title; about why Green Lantern titles are not selling as well as well as one might hope. It's not clear to me that they're well-founded.

It's true that there are a couple of assumptions in that post, which the other poster shouldn't really have made. His main point is quite right though. If a creative team were to come on board with a big idea to reinvigorate the property then they should just be allowed to get on with it. Being scared to move the franchise forward for the sake of a few hardcore fans doesn't help anyone. If GL becomes crucial reading for all DC fans then that's the way forward. Not that I'm personally advocating leaving certain characters in the shade.

That wouldn't surprise me one bit.

I don't doubt that. Similarly unsurprising is your insistence on keeping this thread going by making the same tired points over and over again and ignoring anyone that logically disproves them.

[Trey Strain]

It's true that there are a couple of assumptions in that post, which the other poster shouldn't really have made. His main point is quite right though. If a creative team were to come on board with a big idea to reinvigorate the property then they should just be allowed to get on with it. Being scared to move the franchise forward for the sake of a few hardcore fans doesn't help anyone. If GL becomes crucial reading for all DC fans then that's the way forward. Not that I'm personally advocating leaving certain characters in the shade.



I don't doubt that. Similarly unsurprising is your insistence on keeping this thread going by making the same tired points over and over again and ignoring anyone that logically disproves them.

What has anyone "logically disproved?"

Do you want something done with Baz and Cruz as Earth Lanterns? Is that your sticking point?

Maybe I'm missing something, but that seems to be your dispute with me. I don't like them as Earth Lanterns, and you do. All right, you can like them.

DC can ride out their title until it goes under. I believe you've advocated that. But what do you want done with them?

Let me add though that this is just another example of DC causing problems among its customers by gratuitously splitting the fan bases. They do that again and again, and always with bad results.

[mrbrklyn]

There are a lot of assumptions in your post - about why people are fans of John, Jessica, and/or Simon; about which characters fit most nicely in a "quality" title; about why Green Lantern titles are not selling as well as well as one might hope. It's not clear to me that they're well-founded.

There is little assumption about why those characters were created. They were not created in order to improve the story. They were created in an attempt to give greater diversity to title. When politics motivates and drives the title, the title always suffers. When a contributer has a sig line that he is having a fit until all these minority charactors are given titles, there is no need to assume anything with regard to his post. He is telling you flatly. But here is why it fails. These silver age charactors where a product of a time, place and culture. They succeed when they remain close to that formula. GL didn't die over time from any disfunction of its mythos. It fell to a larger economic trend which involved a strinking audience, partly as a result of a dieing newsprint industry. And even when they brought it back, they continued with inferior story telling and subpar art, replacing substance with soap opera, and then twisting it into a team book thanks of Dave Gibbons. Green Lantern was a simple concept centered an a Man, his oath and a power battery. It has been flipped on its head.

What DC invests into it is what they will get out of it. Perez, Austin and Wolfman turned a ragtag title like Teen Titans into hit. The trick it to not try to twist a successful charater into something he is not. I am just reluctant to discuss the trend to force minority charactors into scripts in this thread. I will only say that great minority charactors best come when writers of those backgrounds step up and create great charactors based on there experiences. There are examples, not enough, but they exist. As long as minority representation is unrepresended in the creative class within comics, we will continue to has poor representation of quality creations that are embedded with the experiences and ideals of those subcultures. Ironically, my favorite minority charactor was Shadowman who was greated by 3 veteran white creators for Valient.

[WillieMorgan]

What has anyone "logically disproved?"

Do you want something done with Baz and Cruz as Earth Lanterns? Is that your sticking point?

Maybe I'm missing something, but that seems to be your dispute with me. I don't like them as Earth Lanterns, and you do. All right, you can like them.

DC can ride out their title until it goes under. I believe you've advocated that. But what do you want done with them?

God, the lack of self-awareness....

There is literally a post just above us that we could comfortably close the thread with (#220). You'll ignore that and keep pushing your reboot, 'too many Lanterns' narrative on us regardless.

I don't have a 'sticking point' Trey. What should DC do with Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz once 'Green Lanterns' inevitably falls below the cancellation rate and is a goner? It doesn't matter to me. I'll carry on reading their title (which, by the way, is up to issues 42 and 43 next month. That's a failure? Then it's a good failure to have. Again, you'll conveniently ignore that.) until that happens and then wait and see. Whatever DC do with the GL franchise after that will be of interest to me. I'm not interested in over-thinking things and pushing my own personal agenda on sites like this. It's just comic-books, a hobby, something I enjoy.