John Stewart Appreciation Thread

[Johnny]

People are still trying to put the blame on Hal Jordan of the 2011 movie's failure? With Neal Adams it's understandable, he co-created the John Stewart character, makes total sense to want to protect him, but for people to blame that movie's failure on who the main character is seems even more absurd today when we've seen movies about virtual unknowns make twice the money that household name characters have.

Venom, with scathing reviews, made more than twice the bank that a Star Wars movie did. Which proved critical reception doesn't really mean anything anymore.

Black Panther made almost a billion and a half, which proved the notion that superhero movies with black leads not making money is a myth.

Aquaman made in 3 weeks what Man of Steel made in its entire run, which proved the perception of the character being a joke didn't mean anything as well.

At this point its irrelevant which characters are chosen to be featured, the only thing a movie studio needs is a good crowd pleaser. GL 2011 wasn't a crowd pleaser, hence it failed. If the next Green Lantern movie is not a crowd pleaser, it's going to fail as well, regardless of who the featured character is.

[DragonsChi]

Some people will always miss the point entirely and see what they want to see for the rest of their lives. LOL

[Johnny]

Bad comedians would never accept they're bad comedians. Denial is a powerful thing.

[DragonsChi]

Bad comedians would never accept they're bad comedians. Denial is a powerful thing.

No were in any of my post was I trying to be funny. Ironic maybe but funny ....no. But its clear you can’t see that either soo moving on.

[Johnny]

No were in any of my post was I trying to be funny. Ironic maybe but funny ....no. But its clear you can’t see that either soo moving on.

You've done a bad job in basically every point you've been trying to make. I wasn't even trying to call you out specifically with my comment about the GL movie, I merely addressed the bolded part of the Neal Adams quote about the movie, since I've been hearing the same thing from some fans ever since the movie crashed and burned.

[DragonsChi]

You've done a bad job in basically every point you've been trying to make. I wasn't even trying to call you out specifically with my comment about the GL movie, I merely addressed the bolded part of the Neal Adams quote about the movie, since I've been hearing the same thing from some fans ever since the movie crashed and burned.

Sure thing buddy lol

[Johnny]

Sure thing buddy

[Iconic]

Neal Adams is the real Green Lantern MVP.

[Vampire Savior]

It's my personal opinion John Stewart was intentionally held back during the Geoff Johns years. I can't prove this, but I'm led to believe it based on his use, or lack thereof. I don't think it was due to his race, but instead because he wasn't Hal Jordan, and Didio, Johns, and maybe Tomasi wanted Hal Jordan to clearly be the standout character. They may have felt John being on the cartoon presented a misconception of what Green Lantern was supposed to be based on the comic books. It's pretty suspicious that every other character always seemed to have something to do except for John Stewart, who had been relegated to just cameos, or just had depressing stories that put him in impossible situations, like when he had to blow up Mogo and break that other Lantern's neck. In Geoff Johns final extra sized Green Lantern issue, I remember John only had like 2 lines. It was kind of hard to keep stretching the benefit of the doubt.

I don't think they were racist, or at least I'm not going to accuse them of something that damning without better evidence. It was probably a typical case of people liking and not liking comic characters. However, it appears they weren't aware enough to realize what they were doing had an especially bad image when, out of four characters, the three white ones have something to do and the black one, who was arguably DC's most recognized black character, for better or worse, never did. I guess it wasn't out and out racism, but there is something especially insidious about the simple lack of awareness, or maybe even lack of caring, that looked to have been going on there. When I think on it a little more, it's difficult to believe they were completely unaware, because I remember there would be discussions about it publicly online on DC's own message boards.

[DragonsChi]

It's my personal opinion John Stewart was intentionally held back during the Geoff Johns years. I can't prove this, but I'm led to believe it based on his use, or lack thereof. I don't think it was due to his race, but instead because he wasn't Hal Jordan, and Didio, Johns, and maybe Tomasi wanted Hal Jordan to clearly be the standout character. They may have felt John being on the cartoon presented a misconception of what Green Lantern was supposed to be based on the comic books. It's pretty suspicious that every other character always seemed to have something to do except for John Stewart, who had been relegated to just cameos, or just had depressing stories that put him in impossible situations, like when he had to blow up Mogo and break that other Lantern's neck. In Geoff Johns final extra sized Green Lantern issue, I remember John only had like 2 lines. It was kind of hard to keep stretching the benefit of the doubt.

I don't think they were racist, or at least I'm not going to accuse them of something that damning without better evidence. It was probably a typical case of people liking and not liking comic characters. However, it appears they weren't aware enough to realize what they were doing had an especially bad image when, out of four characters, the three white ones have something to do and the black one, who was arguably DC's most recognized black character, for better or worse, never did. I guess it wasn't out and out racism, but there is something especially insidious about the simple lack of awareness, or maybe even lack of caring, that looked to have been going on there. When I think on it a little more, it's difficult to believe they were completely unaware, because I remember there would be discussions about it publicly online on DC's own message boards.

It should be noted that no one actually accused anyone of being racist. Some assumed as such due to the overall short-sightedness of there stance. The term used was bias. You can be bias or hold some prejudice without being a racist. To a degree the very nature of being human implies that we all have our own individual biases against each other, that will play a role in what we do and say. Some people may just have extreme biases that cloud their overall judgement. That is what I think that played in effect with John Stewart. I do think his color played a role in it but overall it was just do to biases those men had at the time. I do not think that it was the only thing that kept them from pushing John, however.

As to the bold... thank you. That right there is what I was referring to in my initial post. If people just acknowledge that something was up and that it was mess up John Stewart fans wouldn't tread back on it as much. Whenever people someone owns up to something it allows others to move on. Its the continual denial of it that cause people to dwell.

If it's a duck then call it such and try to convince anyone otherwise.

[Johnny]

It's my personal opinion John Stewart was intentionally held back during the Geoff Johns years. I can't prove this, but I'm led to believe it based on his use, or lack thereof. I don't think it was due to his race, but instead because he wasn't Hal Jordan, and Didio, Johns, and maybe Tomasi wanted Hal Jordan to clearly be the standout character. They may have felt John being on the cartoon presented a misconception of what Green Lantern was supposed to be based on the comic books. It's pretty suspicious that every other character always seemed to have something to do except for John Stewart, who had been relegated to just cameos, or just had depressing stories that put him in impossible situations, like when he had to blow up Mogo and break that other Lantern's neck. In Geoff Johns final extra sized Green Lantern issue, I remember John only had like 2 lines. It was kind of hard to keep stretching the benefit of the doubt.

I don't think they were racist, or at least I'm not going to accuse them of something that damning without better evidence. It was probably a typical case of people liking and not liking comic characters. However, it appears they weren't aware enough to realize what they were doing had an especially bad image when, out of four characters, the three white ones have something to do and the black one, who was arguably DC's most recognized black character, for better or worse, never did. I guess it wasn't out and out racism, but there is something especially insidious about the simple lack of awareness, or maybe even lack of caring, that looked to have been going on there. When I think on it a little more, it's difficult to believe they were completely unaware, because I remember there would be discussions about it publicly online on DC's own message boards.

I think what it all boils down to is they wanted to bring back a character they treated poorly in the past and fans gave them a ton of crap for it over the years, so they wanted to do it in the biggest way possible. After Rebirth became a huge success, they went full throttle since "the main guy" was back and his book was selling like hotcakes and that's who Green Lantern was going to be for new fans at the time. When you look back at Rebirth and the beginning of Johns' run, even though it didn't discard everything like the Kyle run did before, you can tell it was still specifically designed to bring in a new audience.

The "problem" was John was the other GL character who was already familiar to a new audience and they could've just as easily given him his own book or mini-series, which would not have prevented their plans for Hal at all. I think they just wanted the "main" Green Lantern at the time from every standpoint, be it comics or other media, to be Hal Jordan since his return was so successful, and John Stewart was the only character who could've presented a potential "issue" for that, when you know that realistically it wouldn't have been the case. They could've both easily co-existed in a prominent fashion just like Peter and Miles do. Hal could've still being pushed in a big way without disregarding John the way they did. It's not like people were going to forget about John Stewart just because they didn't see him in outside media or he didn't have his own book anyway. Nowadays they use Jessica outside of comics pretty often and John occasionally shows up in animation or video games as well, so they don't seem to have the "only Hal" mindset anymore, but at the time Hal was their guy whose return was red hot and John got the short end of the stick. Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver were even told that if they wanted to, they could've killed off Kyle in Rebirth, so if they were willing to get rid of the character that carried the franchise for a decade, it's no surprise they perhaps didn't think much more of John Stewart despite his popularity. He just wasn't going to be part of the plan at the time.

[Vampire Savior]

That's why I don't think it's a good idea for DC's foremost black superhero to be John Stewart. He's in too much of a problematic situation. He is in a spot where the white version is almost always going to trump him, even if they coexist, and I don't even begrudge that of Hal Jordan or whoever writes him, because he's been Green Lantern for 50 years, and I don't think it's a good idea to cast that aside just so you can have a black superhero. And even if DC were to do that, the controversy would be immense. There are already people who complain that Hal Jordan keeps having to get pushed aside for diversity, and if that were to happen, it would be a valid complaint.

I do believe John should have been treated better in comics, however.

While not my favorite characters (I much prefer John Stewart over them), Black Lightning and Vixen are at least their own characters. Ideally, for me at least, DC would create someone entirely new from the ground up, and arrange for them to be a strong leading character with a strong independent world, yet still have good inter-connectivity with the wider DCU. DC tried with Cyborg, I guess, but the attempts were poor and I don't think Cyborg was the right character for that anyway.

[Cosmic Emerald 23]

At this point, I think DC will start pushing all the other lanterns even more when the GL movies start....if they start. I have more hope in the movies since Aquaman is doing so well. When they see that the general audience is embracing different lanterns instead of just one, they'll probably drop the "only one" mentality. I get where you're coming from, multiple times I have grappled with the thought of John not being the best choice because he was in competition with 5 other characters and always gets trumped by one in particular, whether it's on purpose or not. But I just don't see DC creating that new black hero that leads his own franchise. Like I said, if they really wanted to, they would've done it instead of their half-assed attempt(s) with Cyborg, the WORST character for the job.

I think DC could've ran with Black Lightning, Firestorm (Jason), and Vixen due to them being on the JL during the GJ Green Lantern era. But yet again, issues arose. I've heard that Black Lightning's creator doesn't want others writing him, so he's been getting held back. Jason's time as Firestorm got cut short cuz they wanted Ronnie back, and Vixen, well they didn't put much effort into her.

I still stand firmly behind my desire for a passionate writer to come in and write John as "The Shit", just as Hal got with Geoff Johns. Stewart needs his solo with a genuine push so we can see what he can do in that situation, regardless of status.

[goku200]

People are still trying to put the blame on Hal Jordan of the 2011 movie's failure? With Neal Adams it's understandable, he co-created the John Stewart character, makes total sense to want to protect him, but for people to blame that movie's failure on who the main character is seems even more absurd today when we've seen movies about virtual unknowns make twice the money that household name characters have.

Venom, with scathing reviews, made more than twice the bank that a Star Wars movie did. Which proved critical reception doesn't really mean anything anymore.

Black Panther made almost a billion and a half, which proved the notion that superhero movies with black leads not making money is a myth.

Aquaman made in 3 weeks what Man of Steel made in its entire run, which proved the perception of the character being a joke didn't mean anything as well.

At this point its irrelevant which characters are chosen to be featured, the only thing a movie studio needs is a good crowd pleaser. GL 2011 wasn't a crowd pleaser, hence it failed. If the next Green Lantern movie is not a crowd pleaser, it's going to fail as well, regardless of who the featured character is.

The GL Film would do much better with stewart as the lead

[Johnny]

The GL Film would do much better with stewart as the lead

I'm not sure another Green Lantern movie would do better with any character, if it's still as bad as the previous one.