"Beware Their Power" - Green Lantern Mythos Appreciation 2021

[Holt]

Looks like there may be an animated Green Lantern project coming up.

[Redjack]

This seems like a decent thread for the type of nitpickery I'm about to engage in, rather than the GL review thread. The current title is (thus far) good clean fun, and I don't want to spoil it by being an aging fanboy jackwagon.

So here's my whine: For the last few decades, the "universe" of the DCU has gotten increasingly tiny.

In olden days, the Legion of Super-Heroes took care of the Milky Way, and rarely stepped foot outside it. Along the way, they established dozens, if not hundreds of alien races. Daxamites, Durlans, etc. - all planets within the Milky Way.

This was cool, because if there were that many sentient races in one galaxy, just imagine how many might be lurking in the billions of other galaxies out there.

Over the years, more and more races got added to the Milky Way ledger. Twenty-two planets from Vega. Thanagar. Rann (it's right next door!). And so on.

Again, cool. More races in the Milky Way means the potential for so many more beyond it, right?

And the Green Lantern Corps was where we got a taste of that potential. Xudarians, Korugians, Barrions, J586ians... they all showed off the promise of what was out there beyond our galactic neighborhood.

And in the old days, it was always just a taste. Green Lanterns rarely came together at all. Perhaps they passed each other briefly on Oa during a (rare) personal audience with the Guardians. Or maybe they were sent on a (rare) mission to help out a fellow GL. But they didn't travel in packs. They were lone wandering knights, patrolling their immense sectors as they saw fit, but always at the beck and call of the inscrutable whims of the Guardians.

That all ended during the first battle with Nekron, when the whole Corps was summoned for the first time. It was cool, but it opened the floodgates. After the Crisis, seven GLs were hanging out on Earth. After Rebirth, it was common to see dozens of them flitting about Oa for some damn reason. The universe, once an immense void with a few Green specks of light scattered about it, increasingly felt like it it was crowded with GLs.

It didn't help that writers, both for GL and elsewhere, kept muddling up the difference between "galaxy" and "universe." Every time writers grabbed for "representative" aliens across the breadth of reality, they kept reaching for Thanagarians, Coluans, Tamaranians, end other Milky Way stalwarts, forgetting that there are literally 100+ billion other galaxies to choose from. Other writers kept making the Milky Way intersect more and more GL Sectors, straining mathematical credulity.

More recently, a 21st century version of the United Planets has been formed in the DCU. Even though its membership is once again dominated by the same old Milky Way planets (Dominators, Khunds, Tamaranians, Thanagarians, etc.) it's apparently somehow got enough juice to take over patrolling 1/3rd of the known Universe (known by the Guardians, that is... that should be a pretty huge chunk). Darkseid only wishes he could establish that much universal dominion that quickly.

What I'm saying is, universes should be big. DC's is getting smaller all the time.

I told you I was an aging fanboy jackwagon

As of issue #2...

You probably won't have to worry about any of that for the foreseeable future.

BIG universe. FAR fewer GLs in it (for now).

And, as to the physical scale of the DC Universe...

well.

A lot of people have been playing fast and loose with that for decades.

I will not be one of them.

[Frontier]

Looks like there may be an animated Green Lantern project coming up.

I hope it's a Sinestro Corps. War adaption...

[Gaius]

Looks like there may be an animated Green Lantern project coming up.

Hopefully the GLs are done better than the last continuity.

[Gaius]

[ducklord]

As of issue #2...

You probably won't have to worry about any of that for the foreseeable future.

BIG universe. FAR fewer GLs in it (for now).

And, as to the physical scale of the DC Universe...

well.

A lot of people have been playing fast and loose with that for decades.

I will not be one of them.

I dig. And, to be clear, I'm not aiming this in your direction, as your first couple o' issues have made it obvious that you "get" the whole "cosmic should be cosmic" thing (which is why I dumped all this in a "mythos" thread rather than polluting a "review" thread). And while I'm not sure that fewer GL's are necessarily a solution to my admittedly Old Man Yells At Cloud issues with the franchise, if the stories are cool, who am I to kvetch?

I think my issues around the corps of the last (of god, it's been) 20+ years has been its ongoing portrayal as something of a standing army/tactical police squad, rather than a (very) spread out bunch of knights errant. Even Morrison, who totally centered his run around one GL, couldn't resist the temptation/coolness of having four or five GL's tag along with him for long stretches at a time, as though those GL's didn't have their own sectors with their own crises.

For my money, if you see a couple of GLs together, something especially bad is going down. If you see five, Darkseid's trying to snuff out a galaxy. And if more than half of them are in one place, the Anti-Monitor must be in town with a lobster bib, y'know?

For the last couple of decades the GL Corps seems to gather en masse to celebrate every Taco Tuesday. And that just ain't right.

[Gaius]

Green Lantern Annual #1 solicitation

"Once an agoraphobic scared to even leave her room, Jessica Cruz overcame her fear to become a Green Lantern and face the darkest and deadliest threats in the universe," reads the publisher's description.

"But now, Jessica's gone from overcoming fear to using it as a weapon. When Yellow Lanterns attacked the Green Lantern Sector House she took refuge in when the Central Power battery was destroyed, Jessica turned the tables on them, giving them something to be afraid of, as she beat them one-by-one. But now that she's been offered a place in the Sinestro Corps, will she accept?"

Green Lantern 2021 Annual has a cover by Bernard Chang and a variant cardstock cover by David Nakayama.

[EmeraldGladiator]

I dig. And, to be clear, I'm not aiming this in your direction, as your first couple o' issues have made it obvious that you "get" the whole "cosmic should be cosmic" thing (which is why I dumped all this in a "mythos" thread rather than polluting a "review" thread). And while I'm not sure that fewer GL's are necessarily a solution to my admittedly Old Man Yells At Cloud issues with the franchise, if the stories are cool, who am I to kvetch?

I think my issues around the corps of the last (of god, it's been) 20+ years has been its ongoing portrayal as something of a standing army/tactical police squad, rather than a (very) spread out bunch of knights errant. Even Morrison, who totally centered his run around one GL, couldn't resist the temptation/coolness of having four or five GL's tag along with him for long stretches at a time, as though those GL's didn't have their own sectors with their own crises.

For my money, if you see a couple of GLs together, something especially bad is going down. If you see five, Darkseid's trying to snuff out a galaxy. And if more than half of them are in one place, the Anti-Monitor must be in town with a lobster bib, y'know?

For the last couple of decades the GL Corps seems to gather en masse to celebrate every Taco Tuesday. And that just ain't right.

In a way I get your point but in another way following your rules means I never "meet" Arkiss Chummunk, I don't get the Salaak Guy banter, I don't get to see more of Arisia my favorite alien GL, or Laira, Kreon, Hollika Rahn or Torquemada. Yes the universe threatening events are coming way too often these days for both the GLC and the DCU. I can see how the SCW was the only necessary GL wide event necessary in modern era the rest of them First Lantern et all are not necessary. So I am all for saving the GLC wide events for the Anti-Monitor or Darkseid level threats. However the GL franchise would seem very small if Hal only got to interact with John, Guy, Jessica, Kyle and Simon. I want to see him with Arisia from time to time. Though I am jazzed about Hal working with Sojourner.

[Frontier]

Green Lantern Annual #1 solicitation

Just want to point out that Jessica usually really looks up to Hal...

[liwanag]

Green Lantern Annual #1 solicitation

why jessica? why?

[WebLurker]

why jessica? why?

Seems like changing rings is something writers like to do with GL characters. Don't like it myself, but let's see if this's just a fake out or a short-term thing. Worst case scenario, it's inevitable that a long-running comics character will eventually have changes that you don't like and will "have" to wait out until the reset button is pushed.

[Johnny]

Just want to point out that Jessica usually really looks up to Hal...

Do they call it "subverting expectations" now?

[Gaius]

Green Lantern #5 solicitation;

story by GEOFFREY THORNE
art by TOM RANEY & MARCO SANTUCCI
cover by BERNARD CHANG
ON SALE 8/3/21
$4.99 US | 40 PAGES | FC | DC
card stock variant by JULIET NNEKA Price US $5.99
Suicide Squad movie variant by FELIPE MASSAFERA

As Far Sector’s Jo Mullein begins to investigate the suspects most likely responsible for the destruction of the Green Lantern Corps, she winds up face-to-face with one of its greatest enemies—Sinestro. Was this the former Green Lantern’s plan all along? Did he destroy the Green Lantern’s Central Power Battery so his Sinestro Corps could take over the empty sectors of space? While Jo searches for answers, John Stewart attempts to fight his way out of the uncharted and unregulated dark sectors of space—with no ring to help protect or guide him. Searching for the other missing Lanterns, John realizes they may not all make it home.

Variant for the Annual

[Frontier]

No matter the Corps. Jess' costume is super skintight .

[Gaius]

No matter the Corps. Jess' costume is super skintight .