"In brightest day, In blackest night, No evil shall escape my sight...."
Green Lantern is something of an unusual superhero.
For one thing, the name doesn't apply to just one character. Fearless Hal Jordan, principled John Stewart, cocky Guy Gardner and twentysomething slacker Kyle Rayner are all humans beings who have possessed a green power ring at some point or other (Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott received his powers from an altogether different, magical source).
In fact, it's worth noting that there are/were thousands of alien Green Lanterns as well, as they all form part of the Green Lantern Corps, a kind of intergalactic police force put in place by the all-powerful Guardians of the Universe to combat evil and ensure order across the various star systems. So, yes, Green Lantern is one of the more sci-fi-ish of comic book superheroes, with grand extra-terrestrial adventures that take the current Green Lantern of Sector 2814 far from earth.
What's also interesting, and unusual, about Green Lantern is that he's incredibly powerful - potentially even more so than Superman. When it comes to Green Lanterns willpower is everything. They need only channel their will through their power ring, and by concentrating, they can make anything they imagine a reality. Need to subdue a powerful opponent? Will unbreakable green shackles into existence around his wrists. Need to generate a force field? Combine willpower and the ring yet again. Purely on its own the rechargeable power ring will allow the Green Lantern to fly (typically beyond light speed), travel between dimensions, speak in any language and access the most expansive informational database in existence.
The point is: Green Lantern is not some masked neighbourhood vigilante. He operates at an epic level with epic abilities that may put off a lot of readers who like their fantasy at least confined to this planet. I'm normally one of those people. However, on the recommendation of a retailer at this year's ICON games & comics convention (I was looking for a good standalone superhero tale), as well as the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Moore's Green Lantern shorts in DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore, I picked up my first ever Green Lantern trade paperback. Green Lantern: Rebirth, by writer Geoff Johns and penciller Ethan Van Sciver, collects all 6 issues of the award-winning 2004-2005 miniseries that resurrected and redeemed the "greatest Green Lantern of them all," Hal Jordan.
Without going into too much detail, in 1994, shortly after Superman died and Batman was paralysed, during DC's "intense" period, Green Lantern Hal Jordan went insane when his home city was decimated. He slaughtered his way through the Green Lantern Corps, killed most of the Guardians and even destroyed the central battery that gave all the rings their power. Then he tried to destroy the entire universe. Hal eventually came to his senses and kind of redeemed himself through self-sacrifice, but the other DC heroes would never trust him again. And although Green Lantern sales were flagging at the time (Evil Hal Jordan was used by DC as a way to pass the Green Lantern mantle to the younger, hipper Kyle Rayner), the company's treatment of Hal Jordan, a long-time embodiment of law, order, principles and courage, angered a lot of fans. Hal Jordan was the great Silver Age Green Lantern after all, and remains the most iconic of the Green Lanterns in popular culture.
Green Lantern: Rebirth attempts to rectify the situation, explaining exactly why Jordan did what he did in the early 1990s, as well as restoring his honour, and, most importantly, restoring him to life as well. Prior to 2004, for almost a decade, Hal Jordan served as the ghostly host of God's Spirit of Vengeance, the Spectre.
Green Lantern: Rebirth also crucially does a lot of explaining in regards to Green Lantern history and lore - particularly in regards to the colour yellow. For those who don't know, yellow has traditionally been the Green Lanterns' weakness. They cannot affect anything or anyone of that colour due to an "impurity" in their rings. In Green Lantern: Rebirth, the reader finally discovers what exactly this impurity is.
Out of interest, Green Lantern: Rebirth is also apparently recommended reading if you wish to follow DC's big crossover series of the moment, Blackest Night which is also written by Geoff Johns, and has to do with the existence of power rings of different colours, which require the channeling of different, darker and more dangerous emotions.
Although Green Lantern: Rebirth includes a brief summary of characters and important events at the beginning of the book, I do admit that as a noob reader of the series I found the book a tad on the confusing side. It also never helps when you're not emotionally invested in the characters, due to a general unfamiliarity with them.
Rebirth is also one of those tales where chaos is unleashed early on, with explanations for unexplained events only arriving much later - no doubt to keep readers, desperate for answers, buying the miniseries when it was originally released in individual comic form. Anyway, no matter how beautifully crisp and clean Van Sciver's linework is, sometimes it's a bit difficult to work out what's going on in the midst of frequent massive explosions, and powerful characters going mad.
Once the answers do arrive though, the narrative becomes a lot easier to comprehend (even for a series noob) and Johns deserves a lot of credit for absolving, and resurrecting, Hal Jordan without resorting to typical comic book ridiculousness. What happens makes sense given the characters involved.
Johns also ensures the reader reevaluates the common fan theory that Batman's character opposite is Superman. With Batman harbouring a hatred for Hal Jordan, and frequently overruling John Stewart and the other Green Lanterns in the Justice League, it soon becomes apparent that Hal Jordan is his polar opposite. While Batman draws his strength from fear and darkness, Hal Jordan is all about hope and light. As a Batman fan, I had certainly never thought of it that way before. And ultimately Rebirth gave me a lot more respect for Green Lantern.
Speaking of Green Lantern, as I'm sure many geeky types out there already know, after years and years of being tossed around in development purgatory at Warner Brothers, a Green Lantern film is finally coming our way. Shooting is set to start in early 2010 for the latest superhero epic, with a release date of 17 June 2011.
Green Lantern stars Van Wilder himself Ryan Reynolds as test pilot Hal Jordan, and the film is directed by Martin Campbell, the man who has given us 2 of my favourite recent Bond flicks, Goldeneye and Casino Royale. In all honestly I think I'm more excited about Campbell's involvement as opposed to Reynolds. I'm sure Reynolds will be fine, but he's not quite my Hal Jordan - other frontrunner Bradley (The Hangover) Cooper seemed like a better option to me. Also, I'm not a fan of actors who hog choice roles, and Reynolds already has a major superhero role coming up, when he stars in a Deadpool movie (a solo spin-off from X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Plus he was also in Blade Trinity.
Anyway, in terms of other notable Green Lantern movie news, there will be something inn the region of 1,300 visual effects shots in the film, and there are rumours that Rorshach and new Freddy Krueger, Jackie Earle Haley will play Green Lantern's nemesis, rogue Lantern, Sinestro. That's certainly a rumour I can get behind!
For one thing, the name doesn't apply to just one character. Fearless Hal Jordan, principled John Stewart, cocky Guy Gardner and twentysomething slacker Kyle Rayner are all humans beings who have possessed a green power ring at some point or other (Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott received his powers from an altogether different, magical source).
In fact, it's worth noting that there are/were thousands of alien Green Lanterns as well, as they all form part of the Green Lantern Corps, a kind of intergalactic police force put in place by the all-powerful Guardians of the Universe to combat evil and ensure order across the various star systems. So, yes, Green Lantern is one of the more sci-fi-ish of comic book superheroes, with grand extra-terrestrial adventures that take the current Green Lantern of Sector 2814 far from earth.
What's also interesting, and unusual, about Green Lantern is that he's incredibly powerful - potentially even more so than Superman. When it comes to Green Lanterns willpower is everything. They need only channel their will through their power ring, and by concentrating, they can make anything they imagine a reality. Need to subdue a powerful opponent? Will unbreakable green shackles into existence around his wrists. Need to generate a force field? Combine willpower and the ring yet again. Purely on its own the rechargeable power ring will allow the Green Lantern to fly (typically beyond light speed), travel between dimensions, speak in any language and access the most expansive informational database in existence.
The point is: Green Lantern is not some masked neighbourhood vigilante. He operates at an epic level with epic abilities that may put off a lot of readers who like their fantasy at least confined to this planet. I'm normally one of those people. However, on the recommendation of a retailer at this year's ICON games & comics convention (I was looking for a good standalone superhero tale), as well as the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Moore's Green Lantern shorts in DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore, I picked up my first ever Green Lantern trade paperback. Green Lantern: Rebirth, by writer Geoff Johns and penciller Ethan Van Sciver, collects all 6 issues of the award-winning 2004-2005 miniseries that resurrected and redeemed the "greatest Green Lantern of them all," Hal Jordan.
Without going into too much detail, in 1994, shortly after Superman died and Batman was paralysed, during DC's "intense" period, Green Lantern Hal Jordan went insane when his home city was decimated. He slaughtered his way through the Green Lantern Corps, killed most of the Guardians and even destroyed the central battery that gave all the rings their power. Then he tried to destroy the entire universe. Hal eventually came to his senses and kind of redeemed himself through self-sacrifice, but the other DC heroes would never trust him again. And although Green Lantern sales were flagging at the time (Evil Hal Jordan was used by DC as a way to pass the Green Lantern mantle to the younger, hipper Kyle Rayner), the company's treatment of Hal Jordan, a long-time embodiment of law, order, principles and courage, angered a lot of fans. Hal Jordan was the great Silver Age Green Lantern after all, and remains the most iconic of the Green Lanterns in popular culture.
Green Lantern: Rebirth attempts to rectify the situation, explaining exactly why Jordan did what he did in the early 1990s, as well as restoring his honour, and, most importantly, restoring him to life as well. Prior to 2004, for almost a decade, Hal Jordan served as the ghostly host of God's Spirit of Vengeance, the Spectre.
Green Lantern: Rebirth also crucially does a lot of explaining in regards to Green Lantern history and lore - particularly in regards to the colour yellow. For those who don't know, yellow has traditionally been the Green Lanterns' weakness. They cannot affect anything or anyone of that colour due to an "impurity" in their rings. In Green Lantern: Rebirth, the reader finally discovers what exactly this impurity is.
Out of interest, Green Lantern: Rebirth is also apparently recommended reading if you wish to follow DC's big crossover series of the moment, Blackest Night which is also written by Geoff Johns, and has to do with the existence of power rings of different colours, which require the channeling of different, darker and more dangerous emotions.
Although Green Lantern: Rebirth includes a brief summary of characters and important events at the beginning of the book, I do admit that as a noob reader of the series I found the book a tad on the confusing side. It also never helps when you're not emotionally invested in the characters, due to a general unfamiliarity with them.
Rebirth is also one of those tales where chaos is unleashed early on, with explanations for unexplained events only arriving much later - no doubt to keep readers, desperate for answers, buying the miniseries when it was originally released in individual comic form. Anyway, no matter how beautifully crisp and clean Van Sciver's linework is, sometimes it's a bit difficult to work out what's going on in the midst of frequent massive explosions, and powerful characters going mad.
Once the answers do arrive though, the narrative becomes a lot easier to comprehend (even for a series noob) and Johns deserves a lot of credit for absolving, and resurrecting, Hal Jordan without resorting to typical comic book ridiculousness. What happens makes sense given the characters involved.
Johns also ensures the reader reevaluates the common fan theory that Batman's character opposite is Superman. With Batman harbouring a hatred for Hal Jordan, and frequently overruling John Stewart and the other Green Lanterns in the Justice League, it soon becomes apparent that Hal Jordan is his polar opposite. While Batman draws his strength from fear and darkness, Hal Jordan is all about hope and light. As a Batman fan, I had certainly never thought of it that way before. And ultimately Rebirth gave me a lot more respect for Green Lantern.
Speaking of Green Lantern, as I'm sure many geeky types out there already know, after years and years of being tossed around in development purgatory at Warner Brothers, a Green Lantern film is finally coming our way. Shooting is set to start in early 2010 for the latest superhero epic, with a release date of 17 June 2011.
Green Lantern stars Van Wilder himself Ryan Reynolds as test pilot Hal Jordan, and the film is directed by Martin Campbell, the man who has given us 2 of my favourite recent Bond flicks, Goldeneye and Casino Royale. In all honestly I think I'm more excited about Campbell's involvement as opposed to Reynolds. I'm sure Reynolds will be fine, but he's not quite my Hal Jordan - other frontrunner Bradley (The Hangover) Cooper seemed like a better option to me. Also, I'm not a fan of actors who hog choice roles, and Reynolds already has a major superhero role coming up, when he stars in a Deadpool movie (a solo spin-off from X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Plus he was also in Blade Trinity.
Anyway, in terms of other notable Green Lantern movie news, there will be something inn the region of 1,300 visual effects shots in the film, and there are rumours that Rorshach and new Freddy Krueger, Jackie Earle Haley will play Green Lantern's nemesis, rogue Lantern, Sinestro. That's certainly a rumour I can get behind!
Comments
I've always liked Hal Jordan and all, but I tend to prefer John Stewart. I just like his kind of no-nonsense attitude. Plus, I hated Guy Gardner so much that it's a natural reaction to like Stewart.
Why DC made Guy Gardner, I'll never know. Sure he's brain damaged and everything but damn, he's obnoxious.