John Stewart: Green Lantern Appreciation 2022

[4sake Baned]

I mean it has to be an AU, John’s got to be at least more then a decade or maybe even two older then her.

Not to mention Jo is bisexual so John may not even be her preference.

Not really 30-40s date 20s all the time lol

[SecretWarrior]

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Yeah I agree, Anthony, but I don't think a story that involves racism should be in a revised John Stewart origin story imo.

Really? Hard disagree on that. I think the character was specifically created to address race and racism.

[SecretWarrior]

[Sodam Yat]

Really? Hard disagree on that. I think the character was specifically created to address race and racism.

Yes, the character was created specifically to address race and racism originally.

We didn't see that in John's revised origin in Van Jensen's run (although it was short). But then again his mother was a speaker and activist as we saw in Zero Year.

[John Venus]

Which issues deal specifically with John's origin in Van Jensen's run?

[SecretWarrior]

Which issues deal specifically with John's origin in Van Jensen's run?

Secret Origins (Volume 3) #9

It was written by Van Jensen and published on January 28, 2015.

[SecretWarrior]

[sifighter]

Not really 30-40s date 20s all the time lol

Just feels awkward is all I’m saying

[skyvolt2000]

Which issues deal specifically with John's origin in Van Jensen's run?

The Green Lantern/Huckleberry crossover issue gave a HINT of it too.

[4sake Baned]

Just feels awkward is all I’m saying

Cool agrees to disagree

[BohemiaDrinker]

Really? Hard disagree on that. I think the character was specifically created to address race and racism.

He was, yes, and there's nothing stopping the character to address those issues in present day or in a bunch of flashback stories if that's the case. However, regardless of the intention behind his creation, he is arguably the highest profile black superhero DC has, and origin stories are usually entry points. As such, "look how the world treats him as inferior because of his ethnicity" is not a good look, specially if we take kids into account. Black people want beautiful glowing flying heroes too (I know I did when I was a kid) to look up to, and that should be, IMO, the aim of a new or revised John Stewart story.

We still have Black Lightning (and real life :| )for the other stuff

[Redjack]

... Black people want beautiful glowing flying heroes too (I know I did when I was a kid) to look up to

yep. all of this.

[Sodam Yat]

He was, yes, and there's nothing stopping the character to address those issues in present day or in a bunch of flashback stories if that's the case. However, regardless of the intention behind his creation, he is arguably the highest profile black superhero DC has, and origin stories are usually entry points. As such, "look how the world treats him as inferior because of his ethnicity" is not a good look, specially if we take kids into account. Black people want beautiful glowing flying heroes too (I know I did when I was a kid) to look up to, and that should be, IMO, the aim of a new or revised John Stewart story.

We still have Black Lightning (and real life :| )for the other stuff

This!

I think this is one of the reasons why a lot of people of all backgrounds from what I've seen has been fond of him as a character when they watched his animated appearance in the JL/JLU cartoon show. He was never written as some outsider character, who gets wrongly treated, because of his race. He was definitely a beautiful glowing flying hero in that show. That's the character, who drew me into comics.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

He was, yes, and there's nothing stopping the character to address those issues in present day or in a bunch of flashback stories if that's the case. However, regardless of the intention behind his creation, he is arguably the highest profile black superhero DC has, and origin stories are usually entry points. As such, "look how the world treats him as inferior because of his ethnicity" is not a good look, specially if we take kids into account. Black people want beautiful glowing flying heroes too (I know I did when I was a kid) to look up to, and that should be, IMO, the aim of a new or revised John Stewart story.

We still have Black Lightning (and real life :| )for the other stuff

I'll agree to disagree because I think John Stewart has one of the all-time great introductions, chewing out a bunch of racist cops for hassling a bunch of people for playing chess. I really don't see anyone topping that. That's as foundational to me as a dying Abin Sur handing that ring to Hal Jordan. However, I understand that John represents different things to different people. I just think, if you're going to give John a new origin, you've got to strive to keep the strongest elements of the original version.

This isn't to say that John Stewart can only be used to talk about race. He works perfectly fine in other kinds of stories, otherwise I wouldn't be a fan of the character.