John Stewart: Green Lantern Appreciation 2020

[SecretWarrior]

I'd be down for swapping John with Jessica over on Odyssey. i'd drop Orion for Fatality, bring back and cement Cyborg, Starfire, and Azrael on the team, then from there focus on exploring the more weird ancient planets and civilizations in the ghost sector while battling Darksied; Tactician to Tactician. Kyle had Parallax, Hal had/has Sinestro, let's develop a Darksied and John nemesis saga.

John, Dex-star, Blackfire, Fatality, Cyborg, Azrael, and Starfire is a eclectic group with a lot of cosmic connections and story potential.

John is better off with the big names on Earth rather than off planet. I like seeing him develop deeper connections as a part of the Big 5.

Darkseid isn't going to be John's personal nemesis any more than General Zod, though it would be cool to see them interact. John also has relationships with Parallax and Sinestro, but on the 4th World I could see him continuing to develop his friction with Grayven.

John should have his own book to continue to flesh him out. DC can reprint the stories for the Wal-Mart collections, broadening their demographic appeal.

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Cool constructs that would make great toys:

[SecretWarrior]

[The Whovian]

It would be nice to see John having his own book, especially after all what's going on now. I desire to have him being the lead character in the Green Lantern Corps, while he's on the Justice League.

What other alien supporting characters would you guys like to see writers have more focus on?

Kilowog, Katma Tui, Arisia and the humanoid with antennae that appeared in Green Lanterns with Jessica (I forget his name).

[lemonpeace]

John is better off with the big names on Earth rather than off planet. I like seeing him develop deeper connections as a part of the Big 5.

Darkseid isn't going to be John's personal nemesis any more than General Zod, though it would be cool to see them interact. John also has relationships with Parallax and Sinestro, but on the 4th World I could see him continuing to develop his friction with Grayven.

John should have his own book to continue to flesh him out. DC can reprint the stories for the Wal-Mart collections, broadening their demographic appeal.

--

Cool constructs that would make great toys:

I agree, I would love to see John on earth standing toe to toe with the biggest names but the question was what aliens I'd want to see him with. I for one am disinterested in another thinly veiled soldier tale for John with the Green Lanterns, I rather see him bouncing of a multitude of different aliens throughout DC's cosmology in a more dynamic way than DC seems willing to with him leading the Green Lanterns. What makes characters great are their ability to be plugged into a diverse array of consequential situations within it's given universe, especially in comics. Darksied could easily be a nemesis for John if they choose to go that direction and develop it, and constantly putting John against D-list, G-list, Z-list character only further enforces his subpar treatment. If they can set up an ongoing personal antagonistic relationship between Jessica and Darksied, you can't tell me it's impossible to develop a nemesis relationship between Darksied and John.

John needs to be doing more than just appearing next to the "Big 5", his catalog needs to start standing next to theirs and he needs to be able to be looked upon as being in their level. what good is him appearing next to Batman Superman, Wonder Woman, whoever, if at the end of the day people don't see him as being as important as them so when the Anti-moniter or Superboy Prime, or Darkseid show up, he'll be conveniently injured or in the background , being of no consequence, while the "Big 5" or 3 or 7 do carry the story. DC has proven that, as they see it, John's development or usage comes second or third to a lot of other heroes around him. so if he's on earth I don't want him dealing with the Justice League exclusively, I could care less about a Justice League. if he's on earth. start with defining where's at and where he's from, start with returning to him to his roots as an architect and an activist, start will fleshing him out and letting him be more than a soldier archetype; as far as John is concerned, I don't care about the "Big 5".

comics seem to believe in this philosophy of "rub off" popularity, and I'm starting to feel that mentality is reaching a point where it's actively detrimental to characters of color like John. DC devotes to much time just putting their characters of color next to what they really wanna right about without much caring to actually develop the character, expect points for including them, then expect popularity and development by proximity. then once they yield no fruit, they drop the character in the void of obscurity until they need to parade them out again. We saw it with Duke Thomas, we saw it with Jaime Reyes, we've DEFINITELY seen it with Vixen, and we've just seen it with John in Snyder's run.

[SecretWarrior]

I agree, I would love to see John on earth standing toe to toe with the biggest names but the question was what aliens I'd want to see him with. I for one am disinterested in another thinly veiled soldier tale for John with the Green Lanterns, I rather see him bouncing of a multitude of different aliens throughout DC's cosmology in a more dynamic way than DC seems willing to with him leading the Green Lanterns. What makes characters great are their ability to be plugged into a diverse array of consequential situations within it's given universe, especially in comics. Darksied could easily be a nemesis for John if they choose to go that direction and develop it, and constantly putting John against D-list, G-list, Z-list character only further enforces his subpar treatment. If they can set up an ongoing personal antagonistic relationship between Jessica and Darksied, you can't tell me it's impossible to develop a nemesis relationship between Darksied and John.

John needs to be doing more than just appearing next to the "Big 5", his catalog needs to start standing next to theirs and he needs to be able to be looked upon as being in their level. what good is him appearing next to Batman Superman, Wonder Woman, whoever, if at the end of the day people don't see him as being as important as them so when the Anti-moniter or Superboy Prime, or Darkseid show up, he'll be conveniently injured or in the background , being of no consequence, while the "Big 5" or 3 or 7 do carry the story. DC has proven that, as they see it, John's development or usage comes second or third to a lot of other heroes around him. so if he's on earth I don't want him dealing with the Justice League exclusively, I could care less about a Justice League. if he's on earth. start with defining where's at and where he's from, start with returning to him to his roots as an architect and an activist, start will fleshing him out and letting him be more than a soldier archetype; as far as John is concerned, I don't care about the "Big 5".

comics seem to believe in this philosophy of "rub off" popularity, and I'm starting to feel that mentality is reaching a point where it's actively detrimental to characters of color like John. DC devotes to much time just putting their characters of color next to what they really wanna right about without much caring to actually develop the character, expect points for including them, then expect popularity and development by proximity. then once they yield no fruit, they drop the character in the void of obscurity until they need to parade them out again. We saw it with Duke Thomas, we saw it with Jaime Reyes, we've DEFINITELY seen it with Vixen, and we've just seen it with John in Snyder's run.

I agree with what you're saying for the most part. It would be easy to have John just fade into the background, which is what he's been through in both Justice League and Green Lantern stories-- Someone to add color to the page but not a key player. That's one of the reasons I'm liking Venditti's writing on Justice League right now. His John definitely pulls focus and plays a role in every issue.

John should have a relationship with big villains like and including Darkseid-- Just saying that John's "Joker" or "Lex" won't be Darkseid. It is or will be a Green Lantern character.

While he's still on the Justice League, John should continue to develop in his own book and build a library of great stories.

[SecretWarrior]

[Cosmic Emerald 23]

Some ideas for John's villains:

1) Sinestro
- Gotta get the obvious and most important one out there first. They've been flubbing his interactions with Sinestro in the modern era quite a bit, considering their initial interactions when John first took over as GL of Earth. Sinestro was actually giving John props for his skills, with John not wanting compliments or validation from a villain. Nowadays, Sinestro just sh*ts on John, treats him like he's a straight b**ch and asserts that Hal is just better than him in every way, as if he's not a worthy adversary. They gotta take it back to their original standing in where Sinestro respects John as an adversary, but take it further. They should approach each other like they're playing a game of chess against each other. Rather than just charging at each other attempting to slug it out, they often come to standoffs like oldschool westerns, acknowledging both their superior tactical prowess. Although he doesn't have the connection that he does with Hal, where he hates him because he turned on him and ratted him out, he would come to have a special hatred for John because he has to slow down and be careful. He knows he can't just have a punchout with John and be done with it, because John not only has the power to put him down, but the intellect as well. When John is present, he has to be prepared for his countermeasures and create countermeasures for those and any other possible ones, thus hindering his progress with whatever plan he has. Sinestro can really have a special rivalry with all the Earth Lanterns, they just have to have their personalities and special traits be put to actual use in a meaningful way.

2) Fatality
- She'll be a temporary villain as she's after John for revenge yet again, but then he becomes a White Lantern to restore Xanshi to finally end that cursed plague of a chapter in the character's life. They don't become a couple but she forgives John and they both move on, possibly having her show up as an ally in his future adventures.

3) Grayven
- Since Darkseid will always be more of a Superman villain and since he's the one who paralyzed John, I feel it should be quite easy to set up an intense animosity-filled rivalry where John feels borderline hatred towards Grayven for taking part of his life from him, but having to overcome those dark feelings and not fall victim to hatred and revenge, but enact justice. Idk if it's in continuity at this point so if it's not then they can set up something from scratch.

4) Starbreaker
- Cool cosmic vampire with tremendous potential to be a universal threat, good powerhouse for John to keep in check by flexing his own power. One thing to note is avid making him look like Sinestro, maybe change his skin color to blue in his redesign for good measure.

5) Tattooed Man
- A revamp of the Mark Richards version could be interesting. Since he was a former Marine just like John (I know we're trying to get away from the marine stuff but hear me out), so they could spin it that he was part of John's group and was actually a close friend of John's. Their friendship would start to be strained as Richards starts displaying more savage and bloodthirsty behavior as a result of his damaged psyche from service, which John would obviously take issue with (kinda like an altered version of Wolverine and Sabertooth). It would become permanent after their chopper crashes and he is presumed lost after search and rescue ops fail to find him. Surviving alone in the jungle for a period of time, he comes across an old hermit mystic that teaches him the ways of grafting sentient tattoos onto his body at his command. Taking some inspiration from his OG story, he believes that everyone is a wicked sinner with each tatt representing their sins, and that he is justified in enacting his form of "justice" by brutally punishing them with death. It would be a story of the hero having to fight an old friend that went off the deep end (kinda like Kakashi vs Obito for you Naruto fans out there). Obviously his tattoos would have to be a match for GL constructs.

6) Solomon Grundy
- A cool callback to the OG Alan Scott, as Grundy was one of his personal enemies. Since Scott has a tendency to not stick around in the main universe, I figure bringing back Grundy to his original hero (albeit a different version, but you get the idea) would be a nice way to give him consistency and a defined place in the DCU instead of random big strong guy that pops up any and everywhere if the writers just feel like using him. Also, since modern GLs don't have the wood weakness, just give Grundy the ability to deteriorate GL constructs/energy, that way he's a viable threat to all Lanterns, more importantly to a powerful and seasoned one like John. Also, it would be a symbolic parallel, as Grundy would exist to break things down, while John exists to build.

[SecretWarrior]

Great list-- I could see him having it out with the Manhunters, Krona, and Atrocitus too.

On the Sinestro point-- Absolutely. Thaal should be aware that all GLs inherit their rings, including him.

[SecretWarrior]

[HandofPrometheus]

I'm ready for a new hairstyle for John. Artist are making me dislike his cut. I'm all for dreads/braids with a beard.

[Cosmic Emerald 23]

I'm ready for a new hairstyle for John. Artist are making me dislike his cut. I'm all for dreads/braids with a beard.

Or at least let him grow out his hair like Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther

[SecretWarrior]

Other cuts:

[SecretWarrior]

[The Whovian]

I like his current cut but I wouldn’t be opposed to a new one if it looks good.

[SecretWarrior]