If you could redesign the lantern emotional spectrum how would you do it?

[colonyofcells]

For a new explanation for the source of energy, maybe the guardians built lots of artificial green suns around OA and these are the energy sources for the Green Lantern Corps.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

It’s a spectrum — a continuum of colors. There’s an infinite number of wavelengths of visible light, just like there’s an infinite number of, well, numbers between 0 and 1.

This is a crucial point: why are the colors of a supposedly universal principle being determined in terms of the human eyeball? And since the human eye has cones tuned to pick up red, green, and blue frequencies, with all other colors registering as blendings of these three, why aren’t there only three Lantern Corps?

I think you need to take a step back and actually think about what you're saying here. You want Johns (a human being) to devise a corps based around a wavelength of light that would be impossible for him to see?? What would be next: the infrared corps?? The reason that the seven corps are based around the seven wavelengths of light that humans can see is because they were created by a human writer. Expecting him to create more based on something that humans are incapable of even witnessing would literally be expecting him to do too much.

And as for why there aren't three Lantern Corps, well, I'd imagine its because if Johns did go that route, people would be asking why he didn't include any other colors. Its quite simple.

[Justin Jordan]

This is why it's nice to get the creators in here every now and then, may I ask why that never made it into the comics?

I honestly don't recall - I'm not a hundred percent sure that I am remembering that bit right.

I know for my stuff with New Guardians I ended up not using a lot of the weirder stuff because of space versus story.

By way of a for instance, one of my ideas for the New Gods, which we didn't use, is that they usually exist simultaneously in every universe in the Multiverse, but they can pull those aspects out and concentrate on one universe. The effect of this was that their power level was variable - if they were spread out, they were about as powerful as they were depicted in, say, Wonder Woman. If they pulled themselves into one universe, they were nearly omnipotent.

But that ultimately didn't serve the Godhead story, and in any case, would have eaten up a lot of story and page time explaining it fully. And there's only so weird you can go on a mainstream comic without losing a decent part of your readership. Unless you're Grant Morrison.

(Who had a similar idea of how the New Gods worked, as it happens, which is maybe the only time I have ever thought of anything Morrisony)

But the space thing actually comes up a lot. You've got twenty pages an issue and maybe six issues to play with, under normal circumstances, which isn't as much space as it sounds for telling some types of stories. Take the idea in this thread about having space armadas and armies fighting - not a bad idea. But it's logistically challenging. There's a reason you don't see a tremendous amount of that in comics - it eats up space like a mofo and it requires a lot of work out of the artist in terms of tracking the battle through three dimensions.

It's by no means impossible, it's just hard to do that and advance a story and do some in twenty page chunks that are satisfying to the reader. It's one of those things that comics is actually probably less suited to doing than novels or movies, because it hangs in the middle ground. A book can rely entirely on your imagination, and movies can show the battle moving, which is important.

This actually came up in my last arc of New Guardians - there WAS going to be a battle between a character and an entire alien fleet, but after writing it, I realized it didn't add enough to the story to justify giving it the space it needed.

[Dataweaver]

I think you need to take a step back and actually think about what you're saying here. You want Johns (a human being) to devise a corps based around a wavelength of light that would be impossible for him to see?? What would be next: the infrared corps?? The reason that the seven corps are based around the seven wavelengths of light that humans can see is because they were created by a human writer. Expecting him to create more based on something that humans are incapable of even witnessing would literally be expecting him to do too much.

And as for why there aren't three Lantern Corps, well, I'd imagine its because if Johns did go that route, people would be asking why he didn't include any other colors. Its quite simple.

Sorry if I was insufficiently clear. What you were responding to here was meant as an illustration of what happens when you get too technical, as often happens when you start viewing these things as science fiction — as opposed to space opera, where technical rigor takes back seat to cool factor. And as I said before, Green Lantern is firmly in “space opera” territory.

Incidentally, I have no problem in theory with supplementing the seven “color corps” with six more “spectrum corps”, three below visible light (infrared, microwaves, and radio — oh, look; Air Wave!) and three above (ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays). The fact that you can’t see ’em doesn’t mean you can’t do anything with ’em.

[esquire415]

To those who say to go back to just Green Lanterns: that ship sailed a long time ago, way back in the Silver Age with Sinestro and Star Sapphire. (Granted, before Green Lantern: Rebirth, they were merely different colors for the most part, with little in the way of deeper meaning; but even back then, you had Green having a vulnerability to Yellow.)

Personally, I’d keep the Spectrum the same; but I’d differentiate the Corps more, so that they feel even less cut-and-paste than they currently do. “___ Lantern Corps” goes away as a general designation (kept only by the Green Lantern Corps), and the use of rings to channel one’s Light is done only by two of the groups.

• Instead of the Red Lantern Corps, you’d have the Crimson Hunters. Emphasize their feral nature, and go with collars rather than rings — or internalize the power gems the way the Star Sapphires do.
• This one’s going to be unpopular: instead of Larfleeze being the only living weilder of the Orange Light, with all other “Orange Lanterns” being sentient ring constructs, he’s the CEO of the Amber Syndicate, a mega-corporation populated by employees ranging from greedy thieves and con artists to traders who practice enlightened self-interest. Instead of rings, members of the Amber Syndicate wear their power gems pinned to their business suits, a la cufflinks or lapel pins.
• Sinestro runs a terrorist organization known as the Scions of Sinestro. They don’t exist merely to cause fear for its own sake; rather, they exist to harness fear to serve Sinestro’s interests. What would become of them without Sinestro’s leadership is an open question.
• The Green Lantern Corps are “space cops”, as they always have been.
• Instead of a Blue Lantern Corps, the Order of Adara is a priesthood of sorts. Their “power gems” are mounted on headbands, giving something of a “mystical third eye” imagery.
• The Indigo Tribe is fine as is, save only for their power gems being mounted in piercings (usually earrings) rather than on rings.
• As is currently the case, you don’t have a “Violet Lantern Corps”; you have the Sisterhood of the Star Sapphire. Yes, its membership is exclusively female; and yes, that’s sexist. Instead of rings, they internalize their power gems. Like the Order of Adara, the Sisterhood is a quasi-religous order.
• The Black Hands (not Black Lanterns) aren’t zombies so much as they’re parasites, consuming the Light to live. Play up the original Black Hand’s schtick a bit more.
• There are no White Lanterns, any more than there are Brown Lanterns or Purple Lanterns. (Browns, Purples, and Whites are composite colors, not monochromatic like ROYGBIV.)

I had the same problem with the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum. I thought Johns' concept was brilliant but the execution was disappointing. It wasn't well thought out. Johns should have done more research to create a more solid foundation of his GL mythos. It already fell apart by the fact that some of those used to power the rings are not even emotions but mental ability (willpower/courage), attitude of mind (hope and greed), character trait (greed) and state of being (life and death). Even Compassion is simply a variation of love and sadness, not a distinct emotion so it should be lumped together with love (the Violet corps). It's also interesting to note that the Yellow energy works differently from the other colors in order to empower its wielder. Maybe Johns should not have called it an Emotional Spectrum. He should have used a term that encompasses not only emotions but mental attitudes and character traits associated with the color. Perhaps rename it to Instinctual, Abstractual, Empathic or Existential Spectrum (for lack of better term) because the wielder EXISTS from the empowerment of the energy of his dominant emotion/character trait/state of mind/etc.

The visceral or primary emotions are happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust. The secondary or social emotions are such things as pride, jealousy, embarrassment, and guilt. The writer should have used the Wheel of Emotions by Robert Plutchik as a reference.
plutchik_flower.jpg

Here's a discussion about it at ComicVine from a few years ago:
http://www.comicvine.com/emotional-s...e-psyc-570727/

And here's the suggested concept by PumpkinBomb of ComicVine:
http://www.comicvine.com/profile/pum...pectrum/62233/

I like your concept in that each corps or group have a distinct name and possesses a unique power. They also have different ways to power their energy and have different vessels to wield and charge their power. The ring for example should have only been unique to the Green Lanterns. Maybe the Amber Syndicate should have wristbands instead of pins. Maybe another group wear them on their belt. Order of Azure or Azzurro would be more appropriate for the Blue Lanterns. Star Sapphire is actually blue so that should be renamed Star Amethyst. The Green Lantern Corps is sometimes called Emerald Knights.

The other issue are the colors. Modern scientists now believe that Indigo (blue-violet) is actually not a single wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum. Newton included Indigo later to match the number of notes of the heptatonic scale. It's controversial but according to the wiki, what Newton named as blue is actually cyan and what he named as indigo is actually blue. So the name of the colors of the rainbow should have been Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue and Violet. There is no Magenta (or Purple) a mix of red and violet has no wavelength in the spectrum. In fact, the Star Sapphire look more magenta or purple than violet in the comic books and animated series which is kinda annoying, at least get the color right.

[colonyofcells]

Not using emotions as the explanation would allow for more colors and even some groups using the same color. A simple explanation for the different colors can be different groups are tapping into different wavelengths of energy. For the energy users, I would include the Thunderers of qward, Shadow Demons of the anti monitor, Manhunters, Darkstars, etc. The black lanterns don't need to be zombies anymore.

[Dataweaver]

esquire415: Welcome to the forum!

The thing to bear in mind is that Johns wasn’t working from a blank slate. He already had the following facts which needed to be maintained in some form:

• The Green Lanterns weild green light, are known for their courage, and have a vulnerability to yellow.
• Sinestro weilds yellow light.
• Star Sapphire weilds purple light. (Johns was able to compromise somewhat on this by shifting from “purple” to “violet”, but only by playing fast and loose with what “violet” means.)

The result is an unholy mishmash of ideas, but at least it conforms (mostly) to the above facts — something that would not have happened if Johns had referenced Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions. It’s not scientifically accurate; but hey, it’s a comic book, not a doctoral dissertation. Really, aside from my initial complaints about the various groups being a little too cut-and-paste, my single biggest complaint is that Johns didn’t draw on the existence of characters such as Shade and Obsidian (and perhaps even Eclipso) when he developed the concept of the “Black Lanterns”.

I’ll get back to you once I’ve had a chance to follow the links you provided.

colonyofcells: I definitely prefer the notion of the different colors having deeper meaning, though I’m not locked in to using the “rage/avarice/fear/willpower/hope/compassion/love” spread that Johns settled on. If the colors are entirely arbitrary, then what’s the point? Likewise, I like how the interactions between the different colors is more than just a seven-color variation of rock-paper-scissors.

[Dataweaver]

One notion that I wanted to try out once (before Earth 2 dragged it through the mud) was what the mystical counterpart to the Emo Spectrum would be. You know: the Parliament of Trees lies at the heart of the Green; the Red is linked to the animal world (i.e., “nature red in tooth and claw”). I’ve seen the Blue being associated with water and ocean life, and orange associated with fire (which would have linked in nicely with Effigy). Could some consistent spectrum of powers be cobbled together out of that?

[Bruce Wayne]

I honestly don't recall - I'm not a hundred percent sure that I am remembering that bit right.

I know for my stuff with New Guardians I ended up not using a lot of the weirder stuff because of space versus story.

By way of a for instance, one of my ideas for the New Gods, which we didn't use, is that they usually exist simultaneously in every universe in the Multiverse, but they can pull those aspects out and concentrate on one universe. The effect of this was that their power level was variable - if they were spread out, they were about as powerful as they were depicted in, say, Wonder Woman. If they pulled themselves into one universe, they were nearly omnipotent.

Wow they really should do a secret files and profiles type one shots for creators to explore some of these background ideas.

[Ascended]

Skipping these pages, but....

I dont know how I'd do it. I'd have to put some thought into it. But I think, just off the top of my head, I'd get rid of the visual light spectrum concept completely. Im fine with the rings being fueled by an emotion, but the rainbow thing is pretty limited. It only deals with a sliver of the actual light spectrum, most of which we cannot see. So I'd likely do something that takes into account all the wavelengths we can't observe. That in turn would likely lead to some vastly different Lanterns; I doubt a Corps that gets its power from the ultraviolent end of the spectrum would function just like the typical Greens, for example.

If I get the time and have the inclination, I might read through this thread. Someone is bound to have an idea I can steal and/or build from.

[esquire415]

There's actually a book written about the concept of the Green Lantern called "Green Lantern and Philosophy"
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gree...=9781118003299

Here's a preview (pp 1-45 and 221-253)

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Lantern-...and+Philosophy

Chapter 20: Magic and Science in the Green Lantern Mythos
https://books.google.com/books?id=Bo...ectrum&f=false