#gives 90s hal jordan

[avianii]

Don't work with your parents- they have blackmail material in their wallets

this but with Top Gun (1986)

[katmaatui]

I'm confused, is the subpar art and writing you are referring to in that one post the new green lantern comic?

Yeah, the art's not my favorite and the writing is okay, besides the 50 dollars in the bank line it doesn't really feel like Hal? Its just generic hero guy, plus he's so young, why does he look so young, he should be like 45-50

[gelpensoncomics]

Guy Gardner: A Study of Heroes and Head Trauma

SO! It's July, which is disability pride month here in the United States where I live! I figured it would be appropriate to kick things off by talking about a character who has a mixed reputation, to say the least: Guy Gardner, Green Lantern. He's been around since the Silver Age of comics, and his characterization has been through some serious ups and downs over the years! But what if I told you that it's not inconsistent writing? What if I told you there is a lens with which to view his shifting behavioral patterns and at times abrasive and offensive personality that makes it all come into focus and make perfect sense, and it's all already there on the page? I'm here to give you that lens, and it's viewing Guy Gardner as a man who has suffered multiple traumatic brain injuries and managed to heal over time. Buckle up, this is probably going to be a long one, and it's pretty image heavy as I try to back up as much as I am claiming that I can.

So the first thing I will start with is establishing Guy's former baseline. This is not the post where I will go incredibly in-depth on Guy's full family history and his education, I'll save that for another time. Here, I simply aim to sum up. Guy Gardner met Hal Jordan for the first time in the 1991 title Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn, a volume that served as an updated backstory for the Silver Age hero after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Hal was in prison to serve a 90 day sentence for drunk driving. Guy Gardner was Hal Jordan's caseworker.

"What? Huh? That's Guy Gardner?" You, the hypothetical reader ask. What happened to him?!

A lot. A lot happened to him, and it took him from a man who gave the advice to "Use your rage! Don't let it use you!" to a man who is known as the rude angry ginger lantern. First off, he got hit by a bus. No, I'm not being metaphorical or making a joke. See, he quit his job as a prison case worker because he didn't like how the job made him feel, especially after he was caught up in a prison riot and threatened with death at the hands of a prisoner there. So he put his second degree to use and he became a teacher. Specifically, he became a physical education teacher for disabled children.And then there was an earthquake, and he was hit by a bus while attempting to rescue one of the students on a field trip he was running, nearly dying in the process.

Now, I will say: he got better. This time. See, no sooner had he recovered from this incident, as he was filling in for Hal as Green Lantern he was exploded in the line of duty and sent to a parallel dimension. In that parallel dimension he was tortured, and Sinestro used a dangerous and severe form of mind control that, when it was finally broken, left Guy... well, the comics call him comatose, but he is conscious, he is just not responsive to the environment around him or able to care for himself.

For years, he remained in this state, with his care at a top-notch hospital paid for by fellow superheros. And then, during the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, a miracle happened. Guy regained consciousness.

But the Guy who came out of that vegetative state wasn't the same man who fell into it. Or at least, not exactly. He was angrier. His fuse was shorter. Perhaps most upsetting of all, one of the first actions he took upon regaining consciousness was attempted grave robbery.

"Gelpens, what the fuck," you ask me. I know. It's a lot. Bear with me here. See, he didn't wake up on his own. The Guardians of Oa woke him up, using their tremendous cosmic powers to attempt to heal his brain damage so they could deploy him to help during the Crisis.

Sure, Guy got his strength back. He was able to function as a Green Lantern. But he still wasn't the same as he was before his coma. He stayed angry, and confrontational, and was frequently known to make inappropriate comments that failed to fit the setting he was in or the bounds of good taste. He had a constant chip on his shoulder, very different from the man who was concerned about controlling his anger so it couldn't use him.

This all came to a head in a series of events that is frankly infamous in comics circles. Almost every fan I know of who knows Guy Gardner knows about the time Batman got fed up with his confrontational rude attitude and laid him out with a single punch to the face.

The thing people don't remember about that punch is that, seeing as it was the 90s, and comics writers had learned a few things about the brain, they decided to use it to make... let's call it a running joke. See, after Guy regained consciousness, he was much more like the guy he was before all that head trauma. He was polite, cared about being a team player and not trying to prove himself, he didn't go for lethal force!

Of course, this didn't last. No, the whole 'joke' here was that Batman punched him hard enough to rattle his brain, and he would occasionally jump from being a sweet, friendly team player to, in the words of the narration box the first time he got hit on the head again, his new old "thoroughly rotten" self (I know). Slowly but surely though, Guy did get better, and start to stay better. His mood stabilized, he gained more self-control, he started making better plans and he was much less angry as a default. And it's kept going! This train keeps chugging along! He isn't so angry anymore! He has it under control!

And honestly? This moment, right here? This is the crowning jewel in my thesis, I think.

Guy has a Red Lantern ring and a Star Sapphire ring. For those of you less familiar with the extended Green Lantern lore, the Red Lanterns run off rage. The Star Sapphires are powered by love. Outside of willpower, the emotions that are the most powerful within him are his rage and anger, and his love for his friends. And what does he fuel them with, when it comes down to the wire? When willpower alone isn't enough? The thing he hates most is being filled with rage. The thing he loves the most is his friends.

So. I don't think Guy was ever just an angry, sexist, rude asshole at his core. Is he the same as he was before the injury, before all that happened to him? Of course not. Nobody goes through life completely unchanged by what happens to them.

I think he injured his brain and lost his ability to regulate his emotions and impulses for a while. The road to recovery was far from smooth. It just took him some time to heal and be in a place to act like the man he wanted to be all along. But in my opinion? I think he's there now.

[fancyfade]

For those who read lots of late 80s/ early 2ks comics...

Descriptions of plotlines by me, someone who has encountered all of these plotlines in the wild while reading 90s comics but not read any except final night fully:

Legends: the one where Godfrey was slandering the Justice League and Superman got sent to Apokalips, brainwashed to be Darkseid's minion, and then forgot about it.

Millennium: The one with all the manhunter conspiracies that I think was about the Guardians having sex?

Invasion!: The one about the alien invasions. Okay one of the ones about alien invasions. There was an alien alliance, they had a gene bomb that made meta humans.

Armageddon 2001: the one where Waverider pops up in everyone's solo title to view their futures and find out who monarch is. Monarch is the evil ruler of his future who killed all the superheroes.

War of the Gods: the one where Circe was gathering a bunch of artifacts and there was some characters associated with mythology showing up. and punching each other.

Eclipso: the Darkness Within: The one where Eclipso possesses people and Beth Chapel and Yolanda Montez die because nothing is more dangerous than being a C lister in a crossover plotline.

Bloodlines: the one where weird shape shifting vampire aliens drink humans ... spinal fluid? which kills many people but gives some people powers and creates some 90s heroes no one remembers anymore.

Underworld Unleashed: the one where Neron gives a bunch of supervillains powers for shits and giggles. Black Manta is actually-factually manta-ified and Blockbuster is turned into a future impulse and then nightwing villain.

Final Night: the one where the sun goes out due to sun-eaters. Hal Jordan restarts the sun by flying into it.

Genesis: the one where a "godwave" is bouncing around, having created gods on its first pass and creating metahumans or demigods on its second pass and altering with some people's powers and making some people feel depressed

DC One Million: The one where we saw some hypothetical future of what the universe would look like in the one millionth publication of DC, in the year 8000 something. I honestly can't remember what the plot was for this.

Our Worlds At War: Imperiex, some powerful space guy, is a threat to the earth. lex is president during this era and probably yapped at the heroes u are reading about.

[sunnyscript]

The urge to write a superboy and lilo & stitch crossover (with minor yj crossover) then explore all the f-up parts of Kon's "childhood"

Like exploring the grooming that child stars go through, sexual grooming( 23?yo woman dating a 16 uo expy, supervillain Knockout grooming him and calling him a "jail bait"), also the capitalistic need of the industry that doesn't give a flying f about kids dying (remember what happened to the superboy copycat?) , body image, Kon's desire to comform to people's expectation and the way he just REPRESS things, and tourism in Hawaii does to the locals, how capitalism and western colonization affect the life of of those who don't want to live the life™️ ( working 8 to 4 five day a week forever, buying a house where you put all these things you feel like you don't need ).... etc

THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS TO EXPLORE.

I want stitch and Kon to be friend. I want ”on to go full on Gemsworld around Stitch and Lilo and get introspective as hell. I want him to hate his brain.

I want the two neurodivergent icons to meet ( Lilo and Bart )

Likely, the story will be set in the late 90's or early 2010's.

Also, yj will have a poly in it.

And Hal Jordan will be Greta hayes' mentor as the spectre.

Also Cassie will be transmasc (and confused AS FUCK. Be like "I'm a straight but I feel weird about femininity" then go "wait I'm a lesbiab" "No, shit, actually I'm a bi girl" "Not a girl" "But like am I really a boy?" "Yes" "No" "Yesn't" "Maybe" "who gives a shit" "I do 😭" "Is my attraction to boy real????" "Wait maybe I'll feel less weird if I pass?" "But what if I don't?!" "Boy at least I know I love girls... But do they love me back tho?" "Kon I can't tell if I want to be you or fuck you to oblivion" "I kind of wanna make out with Bart or Cissie..." "How do I dress?" "I would wear a dress, if I looked masculine enough" "God do I have to change my superhero name?" "Wonderboy already exist..." "Bart what do you mean wonderman is available since he doesn't exist in that universe???" ....etc)

[pluckyredhead]

I can't speak for anyone else, but one of the reasons I'm reluctant to start Kyle's stuff is because of how badly it fucked over Hal - I'm not even a Hal fan, but a Wiki thumbnail of Emerald Twilight reads like Cassandra Cain's assassination under Beechen.

This is actually really funny to me, because the first Green Lantern comics I ever read were the 1990 series, since I'd heard about Kyle and wanted to read his comics - but what I didn't realize was that the first 50 issues of that series are Hal, leading into Emerald Twilight, and Kyle (who first appears in #48) takes over from there.

And oh man, did those comics make me hate Hal. He is domineering, entitled, and cruel. He combines being a huge asshole with being so completely convinced he knows what's best for everyone around him that by the time he decides to remake the world in his own image, I was like "Yeah, this tracks."

Now, having gone back and read every Green Lantern comic since 1960 in order, I know that this didn't start with the 1990 series, and it certainly didn't start with Kyle. Hal telling Guy's fiancee that he's dead and then almost immediately asking her out? Pre-Kyle. Hal dating a 13-year-old and then being incredibly cruel to her? Pre-Kyle. Hal mooching off of John indefinitely, and then when John tells him to get a job, robbing a diamond mine in apartheid-era South Africa and letting John take the fall for it? Pre-Kyle. Hal dismissing every woman he's ever dated as "crazy"? Pre-Kyle.

In other words, Hal is really only this shining golden hero in the Silver Age proper. From the start of Green Lantern/Green Arrow in 1970, you have about 20 years of a really fascinating narrative of a man who was once totally confident in who he was and how the world works, and what happens when it all crumbles away beneath him - when his girl doesn't need him to rescue her, when his sidekick doesn't want to be treated like a supporting character anymore, when his country and his politics aren't what he thought they were, when his faith in the Guardians is eroded more and more with every revelation. And then, of course, Hal's world crumbling becomes literal with the destruction of Coast City. It all dovetails really interestingly with the shifts in American pop culture away from 1950s homogeneity and towards diversity and inclusivity - culminating of course in the debut of Kyle, poster child for a new kind of sensitive, urbane masculinity that was popular in the 90s.

(I can't remember where right now, but I'm almost positive there's a comic somewhere where Barry says that Ollie ruined Hal because he made him question everything. But idk, maybe when you're part of the most dominant demographic in society and also a fucking cop, you should occasionally question things, Barrence?)

Anyway, this is all a really long-winded way of saying that when you read the previous few decades of Hal comics, Emerald Twilight feels pretty inevitable. This man was going to break, and it was going to be ugly. The dominant narrative that you'll find on wikis and in fandom and in the comics itself was that Hal's fall from grace was sudden and out of nowhere (which it has to be depicted as in modern comics thanks to the Parallax-is-a-giant-space-bug retcon), but it really, really wasn't.

And it's actually Kyle who starts the process of redeeming Hal. Kyle has sympathy for Hal during Emerald Twilight itself. Kyle is basically the only person who sees not just the destruction that Hal is causing, but the pain he's in. Baby boy is Team Hal almost from the beginning, and Hal responds by...well, okay, by trying to kill him, but like five minutes after that he's fully in "I've only had Kyle for a day and a half, but if anything ever happened to him, I would kill everyone in this universe and then myself" mode. Hal stans in the 90s HATED Kyle, but actual Hal Jordan loves Kyle very very much and it is completely mutual.

Also then DC fell all over themselves giving Hal three redemption arcs in a row (Final Night, Day of Judgment, and GL: Birthright). Four if you count the Spectre series.

So yeah, basically, please don't avoid Kyle because you think he does Hal dirty! Hal did himself dirty, and he did it for decades. It's only his, like, three deaths and four resurrections that pull him out of the tailspin he was in long before Emerald Twilight. (And then he immediately goes into like eight other tailspins, because the man is a mess. But he is much more fun after he comes back to life than he was for a long time before he died.)

Also, Hal would want you to read Kyle's comics. Kyle's his favorite.

[bluejaysandblackbats]

Bloody Valentines

Fandom: DC Comics, Batfam, Young Justice 98, Titans, GL Corps, Legion of Super Heroes, Flashfam, New Gods

Summary: 90s vampire slasher AU

Chapters: 3/?

Characters: Dick Grayson, Joseph Wilson, Jason Todd, Charley Parker, Zatanna, Eddie Bloomberg, Daniel Cassidy, Chester Williams DC, Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, Lilith Clay, Raven Roth, Kole Weathers, Bette Kane, Donna Troy, Roy Harper, Jenni Ognats, Bart Allen, Virgil Hawkins, Richie Foley, Ayla Ranzz, Zoe Saugin, Rol Purtha, Darla Aquista, Lori Zechlin, Hal Jordan, Helen Jordan II, Orion DC, Lightray DC

Relationships: DickJoey, Daniel Cassidy/Zatanna, Jenni Ognats/Virgil Hawkins, Raven/Lilith Clay

Additional Tags: POV First Person, Unreliable Narrator(s), Vampires, No Capes AU, 90s Slasher AU, Homoeroticism, Horror, Slasher

Chapter Three: The Itch (Zatanna's POV)

"Put the knife down," the man in swim shorts raised his voice. I peeked around the corner, kicking myself for being neighborly. "We can talk about-."

"What is there to talk about? You all think I'm the Happy Harbor Butcher anyway!" the kid yelled. I took a breath and raised my book as I entered their cabin. The man shook his head, giving me away, and the kid whipped around.

"Oh crap! Hey, he's not in any danger. We were working on practical effects for my aunt-. See. The knife is fake," the kid explained as he pressed the trick knife into his palm. I let out a sigh of relief and hid my face with my book, and we all had a laugh.

The man approached me and rested a hand on my shoulder. "You okay?" he asked. "That must've really freaked you out. I'm Danny Cassidy, and this practical effects prodigy is my boss's nephew. He's the incomparable Eddie Bloomberg, the next big face of practical effects in horror." Eddie shook his head.

"Danny's the real genius... I'm just his humble apprentice," Eddie replied. I knew what he was up to. He figured all it took for me to fall head over heels for his friend, Danny, was a kind word or two.

Too late. I thought he was cute from the moment we locked eyes. I offered Danny my hand, and he took hold of it. "I'm Zatanna. My friends call me Zee," I whispered.

"Well, Zatanna... Are you spending the weekend up here too?" Danny questioned. I nodded. "Well, I hope you'll let me call you Zee by the time this weekend's over." He kissed my hand, and I flashed a smile at him.

"You guys up here for work?" I asked.

"Nuh-uh, I'm up here to meet friends," Eddie answered as he put the trick knife away. I set my book down on their table.

A tea kettle whistled, and Danny released my hand to go and turn it off. "Eddie invited me up with the promise of creative inspiration, but I think he just needed a ride. It doesn't hurt that we're making a movie about this place pretty soon," Danny replied, "But I'll be here, soaking in the beach scene... Maybe even check out the caves. What about you?"

"Call me crazy, but the place came to me in a dream... But it sounds like you guys are filming a nightmare," I whispered as it sunk in. They were filming a horror movie about the beach.

"It's just like any other beach... The movie's based on urban legend. Not backed up by fact at all," Danny reassured me.

I probably should've told him the truth. It wasn't a dream. It was a vision. Usually, I didn't travel to supernatural hotspots blindly like some ghost-chasing tourist, but anyone who could feel the magic there knew. Many people would be compelled to come there. My father called it an itch, but it was something different for me. It buzzed in my spirit as magic passed through my bones. I couldn't ignore the pull.

Danny offered me a cup of tea, and I accepted. He set a serving dish filled with tea bags at the table, and I made my pick. Eddie sat down and twisted a spoon in a jar of honey before dropping it into his mug. I grabbed a bag of berry hibiscus tea, which seemed like a step up from the chamomile at the cafes. I hated chamomile.

I shook the bag down and placed it in a mug. Eddie passed me a cup filled with spoons, and I gave myself a spoonful of honey for my drink, and Danny poured hot water from the kettle into our mugs before making his cup of tea. The warmth set my nerves at ease. "What do you do?" Danny asked.

"I'm a magician," I replied. I twirled the spoon around in my mug.

"Now I know where I've heard that name! You had a residency in Vegas," Danny replied. I bit my lip to conceal my smile.

"Yeah, have you seen my show?" I asked as I blew on my tea.

"Yeah, I saw your show three times. I've never seen anything like it," Danny replied.

I smiled a half-smile as I took a sip of my tea. "Thanks... Actually, I came over to see if you guys wanted to do a bonfire at the beach tonight? At seven-ish?" I whispered. The door slammed behind me, and I jumped.

A bizarre sensation shrouded the room, and I shut my eyes. I breathed through the feeling because I was much more sensitive than the others. At least I thought so. When I looked up, Danny and Eddie looked like they'd seen a ghost. Eddie stood up and left the room, and Danny took a sip of his tea and shook his head. "Gopher!" Danny called. "I'm sorry, this film is starting to get to us."

"No, I felt it too. I think it's just one of those days," I half-lied. Danny followed Eddie, and I was alone. I could hear them talking through the door, but I couldn't hear half of what they were saying.

I finished my tea and slipped away. I walked down the trail toward my bungalow, feeling something looming outside my vision. I rushed back to my cabin before a hand grabbed my wrist. I shrieked. The person released my hand. When I turned to see their face, I relaxed my shoulders and sighed.

"Jesus Christ, Chester," I whispered, "I didn't think you were coming."

"Yeah, I've been here for an hour wandering in circles looking for you," Chester replied, "Good thing I ran into you. Doesn't this place give you the creeps?"

"Don't tell me you're scared," I teased. Chester smiled.

"No way," Chester replied, "Just paranoid... Besides, you were the one that screamed bloody murder the second I caught up with you." I laughed with him. Nothing like getting the daylights scared out of me by a completely harmless friend to calm my nerves. That and a well-welcomed smoke on the beach.

Oh! I forgot to mention. I invited Chester. He was a friend of a friend's friend and a real sweetheart. That and I didn't want to be alone that weekend. "Hey, Zee? Got you a surprise from my garden," Chester smiled as he gave me a small box.

The box contained a small airtight container filled with weed. We went to my cabin and smoked for a while before I finally let it slip. "Who's the Happy Harbor Butcher?" I questioned. Chester turned to me on the couch, and we maintained eye contact for what felt like forever.

"Aww, no thanks, Kid. I'm out of here-."

"Chester, come on," I whispered. I grabbed his arm. "It was a simple question."

"I've got two rules for camping. No urban legends and no night hiking," Chester replied.

"Don't-. Don't leave. I won't ask about it again," I replied, "Do you want a soda or something?" Chester nodded, and I grabbed two from the fridge to keep him calm.

We should've left that day. I think I'll regret that forever. The pit in my stomach told me there was more to Happy Harbor Butcher than an urban legend, but the itch kept me there. I couldn't leave. Whatever energy drew me there kept me trapped by curiosity.

[thevindicativevordan]

Any thoughts about the recent Dawn of DC announcements ?

Let's see if the new DC is the same as the old DC.

DC's official press release says that 20 new books are coming, and they only revealed 10 (one of which was last year's Round Robin winner), so 10 more books are coming that have yet to be revealed. Let's take a roll call:

Unstoppable Doom Patrol by Dennis Culver and Chris Burnham - Burnham has me excited, Culver has me skeptical. All of Culver's DC work thus far has been lousy. His Justice League Incarnate book with Williamson was the weakest of the Infinite Frontier trilogy, his Future State Gotham book was really bad, and Doom Patrol is a great team that demands unorthodox writing. Rooting for Culver to surprise me here because God would I love to have a good Doom Patrol book with Way never coming back at this point. Can't believe it took DC this long given the success of the DP HBO Max series. Jane having a new alter that places her in the role of the Chief is a cool idea at least.

Superboy: Man of Tomorrow by Kenny Porter and Jahnoy Lindsay - I voted for this, I'm glad it won, I've enjoyed DC Mech, I expect I will enjoy this. I'm praying Lindsay gives Conner a new costume, it's time to ditch the 90s look for something new. No more looking back for Conner, that terrible Fitzmartin YJ mini was right about one thing: we can't live in the past. He needs a new modern costume, and a story that reestablishes who he is in a post Jon Kent world. This and PKJ Action are seemingly going to accomplish that, both in terms of who Conner is on his own, and who he is in the Superfamily. Given the long wait between when this series was announced as the winner and when it is finally coming out, there shouldn't be any delays at least.

Green Lantern: Hal Jordan by Mariko Tamaki (Artist TBA) - Tamaki is mostly good with a few misses, her Tec, Supergirl: Being Super, and (apparently I haven't read it) Crush & Lobo books were good, her Wonder Woman run not so much. In fairness that was blatant movie synergy and didn't leave her much freedom to work with. I liked her Tec run and this appears to be aiming for something similar. Hal back in Coast City on Earth, rebuilding his life here is exactly the kind of thing they should have done after the Johns era's nonstop cosmic epic. Give me revamps of old Hal Earth villains beyond Hector Hammond that we haven't seen in a while, Hal struggling to make friends with the neighbors the way Tamaki had Bruce do in her Tec run, and put Hal and Carol back together again, and I'll be happy.

Green Lantern John Stewart by PKJ (Artist TBA) - Now this has my attention. Giving PKJ another book means they trust him, giving him a John Stewart book - who may end up being the main DCU Lantern if that HBO Max GL series actually gets made - means they view him as one of their up and comers. He's expressed a lot of love for and desire to work in GL before, he's set up plot threads for GL such as the Revenant Queen threat that would give John his own Rogues which John desperately needs, and I obviously am a huge fan of the cosmic storytelling over in Action which I fully expect will be repeated here. DC Cosmic has been crying out for a worldbuilder to flesh it out more for ages, this is an exciting choice. My hunch is that John will be dealing with another Aspect of Olgrun, since there are six more out there unaccounted for. Inject some of that Warworld Saga storytelling into Green Lantern, let's get John a love interest, and maybe Stewart will finally get that equivalent to Johns run on GL with Hal which his fans have been begging for. Sampere is a huge GL fan who has history with PKJ before, I would say he's a natural choice for this book, but he likes Hal more so I could see him ending up on Tamaki's book instead.

Cyborg (Creative Team TBA) - Wish I could be more excited for this, but I have to know the team and the pitch before being interested. Too many Cyborg stories rehash the same "am I a man or a machine?" crap for me to pull this sight unseen.

Batman: The Brave & The Bold by Tom King and Various Artists - King got robbed of his 100 issue Batman run so I guess he's going to make up for it by doing secondary Batman books forever. Does Batman really need another team-up book given World's Finest already has him teaming up with Superman and the rest of the DCU? I'll be reading this so I guess I'm part of the problem, but I really wish King would take on another of the A-Listers. All he does is Batman books, C-Listers, and the occasional dabble in the Superman sphere. I want to see him tackle another Justice Leaguer's ongoing, give him an Aquaman or Martian Manhunter book since everyone else seems to be claimed. Apparently he's shifting back towards the mainline DCU ongoings after spending a couple years doing minis of dubious canonicity. Looks like creative teams will rotate and since Rob Williams is here and he's a writer not an artist, guess he's next up after King.

Green Arrow by Josh Williamson and Sean Izaakse - Williamson has been building up to this since the start of Infinite Frontier, cool that he's finally announcing the book. I'll admit I'm annoyed it's opening with a "we have to find Ollie who is lost out in the Multiverse!" arc, I'm sick of the Multiverse and I'm tired of DC "building up" to doing what everyone is asking them to. Just write a damn Green Arrow back where he's in Star City/Seattle interacting with the Arrow Family! Maybe Williamson doing a Multiverse story with a smaller cast will be more palatable, I did enjoy his Flash run after all.

Shazam! by Mark Waid and Dan Mora - Other than Superman proper this is probably the book Waid has been dying to write the most. He, Morrison, and Gail Simone pitched to take over the Marvel Family way back when, I bet he's got loads of ideas on how to revamp the character, and his ideas will probably be better received than Johns' revamp was. Solicit sounds great, Mora on art (and apparently still doing art for World's Finest, dude is a machine) is perfect, and Waid's handling of the Fab Five over in WF has shown he can handle younger characters still. Should be fun in the same way WF is.

The Penguin by Tom King and Stefano Gaudiano - Hah that's a pretty great team for a synergy book. King's Penguin in his Batman run was... well he seemed to be teasing that Penguin had sex with actual penguins, so clearly his take on Penguin is untraditional to say the least. Pitch seems interesting enough, Penguin back in crime because the government forced him back in as their agent is intriguing.

Steelworks (Creative Team TBA) - On one hand hell yes a new Steel book! Tell me Greg Pak is writing this and I am there day one. If it's not Pak however then I have qualms. The brief description in the press release makes it seem like John Henry is giving up on being Steel and handing over the role entirely to Natasha, and I've got no interest in that. S&L make me into a Nat fan but I love John Henry more, and I am not going to be happy if DC's idea of celebrating his 30th is him handing over the role to his niece. He better be the main protagonist and he better get to suit up and be Steel. Glad that DC has enough faith in PKJ to start spinning new series out of what he's doing.

Only two Bat books so fuck it, let's call it a win. Satisfied overall with the creative teams announced, for those that were actually announced, DC is playing it safe but after Infinite Frontier took risks and bombed that's exactly what I expected to happen. I guess the next event is going to be called Knighttime and will be another Batman event. Ugh. Also is that red circle with a bird supposed to represent Penguin, because it sure looks a lot like Hawkman’s symbol. Maybe a new Hawk book will be announced as part of the second wave? For the second wave I want books for Zatanna, Aquaman, Vixen, Justice League Dark (use the Shadowpact name if we're keeping the JL on ice for a while), Suicide Squad, and Legion of Superheroes, but as an opening lineup? I'm pretty happy with this!

[plutonicmirror]

Zero Hour (1994) #0 [and Zero Hour in general]

Let’s continue my Zero Hour first reading. After skipping some filler tie-in issues, I reached the finale. Again, funny numbering gimmick with a 0 issue. I think Marvel also had something similar with their -1 issues back then. Oh, the 90s!

Hal Jordan Parallax reveals his master plan: “I’m gonna erase the universe so hard, I’m gonna create a new one where everything is right and everyone is happy™”. Classic case of a hero reacting to tragedy the readers are supposed to know about the Emerald Twilight story arc, but I’m LARPing as a snot-eating 10yo in 1994 who just started reading comics and doesn’t have enough attention span to know the lore with absurd amounts of cope and a plan that sounds extremely good on paper, but that other heroes must oppose because morality yadda yadda yadda. Looking at you, Injusticeverse.

Shout-out to my man Danger, a D-lister that was brought to the final fight fOr a ReAsOn. I’m gonna be honest, I skipped his tie-in because I couldn’t give a fuck about who he was. I usually like me some B/C/D/Z listers, but I also don’t give a fuck about DC’s Titans and his book was apparently tied to that whole mess so I was like “meh, next”. I mean, this young dude is a nobody right....?

*one trip to a comics wiki later*

Oh...

Ahem, moving on. The Spectre shows up looking for REVENGE after all of the JSA folks get ultra aged up or straight up deleted from existence, even though they had previously asked him for help and he was like “nah that’s human bullshit, I ain’t movin’ any finger”. Good job, asshole.

So yeah, remember our D-lister? Turns out his power (which is absorbing energy and making explosions) is specifically needed to counter Parallax’s new Big Bang. So our heroes’ plan is...to recreate the universe exactly as it was. So basically Parallax’s plan but done by them because fuck you Parallax, you don’t get to play God. Except...it doesn’t come out exactly as it was, because there’s “““subtle changes”““. In a meta way, this event was supposed to be a soft reboot to fix some of the fuckery that Crisis on Infinite Earths (a big event I haven’t read yet out of fear) caused. Was it accomplished? According to Comic Pop’s Back Issues video on this event... it kind of wasn’t. Sidenote, I highly recommend that channel’s Back Issues series, after reading an event it’s fun to watch a recap that adds background bits for the uncultured (like me) even if I sometimes feel the critique of the host is too harsh.

A not-Killing-Joke’d Batgirl from another timeline who temporarily sided with Parallax because she was doing her best “I want to be a real boy” Pinocchio impersonation got killed in the heat of the moment, so the other normal-powered hero in the room (Green Arrow) gets pissed at his former bestie. After this whole event he ragequits btw and apparently a common joke is that many readers think that should be the standard reaction to the whole thing.

Parallax is seemingly killed but it’s comics so he’ll be fine, trust the process. If I recall correctly, Hal gets to be the new Spectre for a while [*Vietnam flashbacks of Identity Crisis*]. I forgot to mention that the current Green Lantern of the time Kyle Rayner and Wally West were also “killed off”. Again, they’ll be fine. I just didn’t care enough to read a wiki and find out how they come back. But that bit brings us to this “oh yeah, that happened” moment:

Power Girl was pregnant and gave birth to a baby with the help of Wonder Woman who conveniently decided to play midwife instead of stepping up to the threath. Bue hey, guess who also was sort of born in the aftermath of this event? That’s right, I was! So surely that means that baby is a very important char-

Whoops, nevermind.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE WHOLE EVENT:

“7/10 it was alright” - IGN.

The contrarian in me doesn’t hate it like most nerds out there do, but it’s certainly not the greatest event ever written. Granted I went in without knowledge of a lot of stuff, like how was I supposed to make sense of what was happening in the Hawkman tie-in issue aka the whole “let’s try to solve the problem of having multiple origins for this character by literally merging them all into one” thing? How could I know what CoIE fuckery needed to be fixed if I don’t know the big impact of CoIE besides Supergirl being killed off (this fact is cultural osmosis at this point)? Did it matter to me in the long run? Not really, because it’s not like I feel compelled to keep reading DC continuity and make sense of it for the time being. The art was good, the colors were pretty, the Parallax suit was rad, the pose Ollie made at the end was Jojo-esque and dramatic, Batman fucking off from the final fight via being killed was good.

Now, the tie-ins. Some of them were fun, some of them were a drag to read because I had no idea of background info for most of them. Almost all of the Superman tie-ins were fun to read with the exception of Steel because I was tired of wiki-hunting when I reached his issue, shout out to the alternate Jor-El and Lara, the Alpha Centurion and the “Superman tries to save the Kents during the chronal rift” stories (Superman vol. 2 #93, Adventures of Superman #516, Action Comics #703 respectively). The Legion of Superheroes and adjacent issues were extremely confusing to me as a casual but oddly engaging. I had no idea what was happening but it was sort of fun. It revived my itch to read LoSH comics even if I’m still feeling overwhelmed at the mere thought of going further with that task. Oh yeah, the silent Green Arrow issue was a lot of fun! (Green Arrow vol. 2 #90).

The characters introduced were a mixed bag. On one hand we have Bart Allen aka Impulse, who was created in the prequel to this event and was sort of interesting. But then the chronal rift time erasure bullshit happens and since he’s from the 30th century he basically does nothing of importance... Alpha Centurion, as I mentioned, was a fun read in his Adventures issue but in the core event he was... a convenient minion. Thriumph? Thriump was an annoying character, one of those “oh yeah he was totally there in the beggining of the big team but the big name characters just don’t remember tee hee!”. Don’t worry though, he would later die of a cold. Or something like that. Extant felt edgy throughout most of the core issues and the tie-ins, he really had that Madara Uchiha endgame villain energy...until he was revealed to be just a pawn that was just rebelling. And then he fucks off. Shout-out to this specific goofy panel:

Tie-in issues skipped: Anima #7, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #31, Damage #6, Robin vol. 2 #10, Showcase ‘94 #10, Steel #8, Team Titans #24 (yeah, this team got erased from existence and I just couldn’t care), The Darkstars #24. Also skipped: all of the Zero Month aftermath gimmick #0/soft reboot issues.

New Year’s resolution when it comes to DC? I’ll get around reading the 70s Green Arrow and Green Lantern book. Ever since I found some academic paper on it that mentioned the words environmentalism and malthusian I was like “ok wtf I have to read this”.

Tytyty for reading my blog.

[scorchedhearth]

Followed you for your superior content on Jason, but now the lanterns are slowly becoming my blorbo-in-laws because of you *shakes fist at the sky*

If I decided I wanted to give Guy, Hal, John, and Kyle a try, what would you recommend as a good one-shot to read? (For all of them, or one for each if there isn't a good book with the four)

glad to see the near-constant glc posting is working :]

the one story that got me interested in them is one of the stories in the 80th-anniversary comics, "four". the way they're all written and the history and comradery shown between them really pulled me in and made me curious to read more of them, i do recommend it if you want to get a feel of what glc stories can be like and the tone of their modern comics. i read the 80th-anniversary book before anything because i saw panels from it on twitter and read through the whole thing and while i missed a LOT of contexts and details for all the characters, it did succeed in making me curious and wanting to know more about the overall lore and history of the lanterns, and it might for you too

another book that i highly recommend for those four is green lantern (1990). hal, guy, john and kyle as you might know them and as they're often portrayed online are mostly a post johns, and especially hal jordan & the green lantern corps, version (the four corpsmen quote comes from that last book), and while johns stuff is still interesting and worth reading, i cannot in good conscience recommend venditti and hj & the glc, it's a pretty putrid book with its messages and treatment of characters. now they're basically '4 dudes in the corps' while before that in the 90s, it was at first hal, guy and john, and kyle gets there later and he's the only gl while the other three do their own thing, so their interactions and relationships are different than what they are now. and i recommend it because it has some of my favorite characterizations, but also explores the relationship between the first three well in the first issues, and then later on weaves a very interesting picture of all four (and alan scott too) up until the last issues. i'd say read the first dozen issues for hal, john and guy interactions, and then from emerald twilight/kyle introduction and his interactions with the others. i'm using these reading lists, they're really good

[about-faces]

In terms of blatant editorial injustice, are Inferno re: Madelyne Pryor and Emerald Twilight re: Hal Jordan basically inter-company equivalents?

I am sorry to admit that I know very little about the editorial fuckery behind poor Maddie's character arc. I have tried to catch up on X-Men from the Wein/Claremont issues onward, and recently even started working through New Mutants, but I always got derailed so I never even made it to Maddie's introduction (I don't think).

As for Hal, I certainly know a great deal about THAT whole situation, having grown up with it and following the whole debacle in the 90's. That situation was such a formative experience, shaping my views of editorial and fandom alike in ways (mostly negative) that still color my opinions of both.

When I do get around to Inferno, I imagine I will be pissed at the mishandling of Madelyne Pryor because mishandling and derailing characters is an incredibly sore spot for me even now. I still hate how Gilda Dent and Maxwell Lord are both irrevocably stained in the eyes of DC and fans alike, and now--after reading Wonder Woman from Perez onward--I'm pissed about how the same can be said for poor Vanessa Kapatelis.

Unlike Hal Jordan, these are all supporting characters, just like Maddie. And they always--always--get the raw end of the deal. They're pawns to be sacrificed to affect the main characters. They get twisted and discarded and no one gives them any thought because they don't matter as much as the protagonists.

While I still take what happened to Hal very personally, and while I also think Hal's never fully recovered (because of Johns' trying to retcon everything instead of actually embracing Hal as a flawed person), I can at least say the he managed to come back from the editorial fuckery, more or less.

But Gilda, Max, and Nessie won't. Not without a lot more work, care, and effort than most creators/editors are willing to give supporting characters. So on that basis, I'm gonna guess that Maddie likely got the more raw deal than Hal.

[daydreamerdrew]

From Doc Shaner’s podcast interview with The Comics Cube:

Duy Tano: What do you feel about the fact that upon announcing this people were immediately looking for Billy, because, you know, they just wrapped up this first arc of the new Green Lantern series where John Stewart was the main Green Lantern and I think throughout the whole thing people were asking 'where's Hal Jordan?'

Doc Shaner: Right.

Duy Tano: Which is- Hal Jordan has just had a series with Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp, I just, I don't...

Doc Shaner: Right. Which if, not to put my own reading on it, I feel like the end of Grant and Liam's Green Lantern story was pretty clear about 'hey, why don't we give Hal Jordan a break for a little bit.' Like, Hal's had a pretty good run in recent years, he doesn't need to be the Green Lantern all the time. Which, personally, I agree with, and I say that as a fan of Hal. And I feel much the same about Billy. It's not that I like Billy any less, I still like that character so much, but I don't think there's anything wrong with putting Billy on the shelf for just a little bit and seeing what we can on earth while he's up there. Because this corner of the DC universe, I feel has so many amazing characters that don't as much room to breathe because of Billy.

Duy Tano: Was that true of like the whole DC universe, like there's a lot of characters that don't get a lot of room to breathe because in their little corner someone's always the primary guy.

Doc Shaner. Right. Yeah. It's just like all the Wally West fans from the 90s stuff. You would say to those folks, like, we wouldn't have that if they didn't put Barry on the shelf for a little bit. Same thing for Barry folks, it's like we wouldn't have had Barry Allen if we didn't put Jay Garrick up on the shelf for a little bit. And so on and so forth. And I think the 'Billy Mary' thing is especially frustrating because Mary's been around forever. It's not that we're taking a new character and shoving it into the role. This is Mary. She's been around longer than most superhero characters around today.

[fancyfade]

Positive version of the poll... for those who read lots of 80s/90s/early 2ks comics...

Descriptions of plotlines by me, someone who has encountered all of these plotlines in the wild while reading 90s comics but not read any except final night fully:

Legends: the one where Godfrey was slandering the Justice League and Superman got sent to Apokalips, brainwashed to be Darkseid's minion, and then forgot about it.

Millennium: The one with all the manhunter conspiracies that I think was about the Guardians having sex?

Invasion!: The one about the alien invasions. Okay one of the ones about alien invasions. There was an alien alliance, they had a gene bomb that made meta humans.

Armageddon 2001: the one where Waverider pops up in everyone's solo title to view their futures and find out who monarch is. Monarch is the evil ruler of his future who killed all the superheroes.

War of the Gods: the one where Circe was gathering a bunch of artifacts and there was some characters associated with mythology showing up. and punching each other.

Eclipso: the Darkness Within: The one where Eclipso possesses people and Beth Chapel and Yolanda Montez die because nothing is more dangerous than being a C lister in a crossover plotline.

Bloodlines: the one where weird shape shifting vampire aliens drink humans ... spinal fluid? which kills many people but gives some people powers and creates some 90s heroes no one remembers anymore.

Underworld Unleashed: the one where Neron gives a bunch of supervillains powers for shits and giggles. Black Manta is actually-factually manta-ified and Blockbuster is turned into a future impulse and then nightwing villain.

Final Night: the one where the sun goes out due to sun-eaters. Hal Jordan restarts the sun by flying into it.

Genesis: the one where a "godwave" is bouncing around, having created gods on its first pass and creating metahumans or demigods on its second pass and altering with some people's powers and making some people feel depressed

DC One Million: The one where we saw some hypothetical future of what the universe would look like in the one millionth publication of DC, in the year 8000 something. I honestly can't remember what the plot was for this.

Our Worlds At War: Imperiex, some powerful space guy, is a threat to the earth. lex is president during this era and probably yapped at the heroes u are reading about.

[whirlibird]

I posted 15,221 times in 2022

That's 4,249 more posts than 2021!

10 posts created (0%)

15,211 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@themadcapmathematician

@randomizedred

@phoenixyfriend

@orange-catsidy

@professorsparklepants

I tagged 14,096 of my posts in 2022

Only 7% of my posts had no tags

#wrestling - 1,691 posts

#aew - 1,078 posts

#kits - 585 posts

#misc - 559 posts

#fate - 403 posts

#queue - 319 posts

#fandom - 314 posts

#death note - 289 posts

#tropes - 281 posts

#cm punk - 265 posts

Longest Tag: 134 characters

#shelley was trying to tear sabin's acls again not 2 minutes ago and as soon as the match ends theyre back to being like this instantly

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

do i need to make a pinned post to tell people im not this whirlibirb person. please. this keeps happening. i dont care about whatever internet drama happened but it is SPILLING over into my backyard and i need some kind of shotgun to shoot at the sky and holler at people to get off of my property

6 notes - Posted April 15, 2022

#4

DC for the blorbo meme? :3

this is against the spirit of the meme but i think i can make all of these about hal jordan. i apologize in advance

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most) - i didnt care about hal jordan at all until i was told that he was sky crazy. i had just seen come from away so any character that Just Wants To Fly is immediately my beloved. anyway then i shotgunned a bunch of green lantern comics and found out that theyre all deranged. love them all! but especially hal.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped) - again Hal Time. i could probably make a collage of every time he gets grabbed like the damsel from king kong. spiritually he is making a squeaky toy noise every time.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave) - Hal Is Absolutely Not Underrated but i think outside of the GL fandom most of the green lanterns get sorta neglected. f in chat for the dceu just having No Lanterns. even in dc comics fandom i think a lotta people just think of hal as the generic lantern, like how guy gardner is thought of as the rude ginger guy that batman punched once. theres more to them! they have layers, like onions, like ogres.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week) i think this the only one i CANT make about hal but also, like in all superhero comics?? if you see YOUR favourite appearing briefly in someone else's run, you go poggers.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave) - PARALLAX HAL. HAL'S HOT GIRL SUMMER. POSTER CHILD FOR MALE HYSTERIA. LOVE THIS BITCH. dc wanted to reboot GL and get a new boy, so how do we get hal out of the picture? destroy his city and make him go full wandavision trying to recreate it and all the people that died! the guardians say no, so he snaps and murders them, as well as like....all the other lanterns on his way to doing that. crushed by his failure to protect his people, he decides the world is fucked and the only way to fix it is to start it over. cue zero hour, where he very nearly managed to reset the entire universe! the death toll was ENORMOUS! he got shot through the heart by his best bud oliver queen before he could finish it though. this triggers ollie's depression arc WHICH IS A WHOLE OTHER THING,,, anyway. well he got shot but he got better because he's hopped up on ultimate cosmic power and whatnot. the 90s comics continue while he is moping in outer space until a sun eater almost destroys the earth, so he comes back and throws himself into the sun to reignite it, dying for realsies this time. and on top of all that the CHANEL THIGH HIGH BOOTS? THE CAPE? iconic. later all this was retconned to be because he was possessed by a yandere space worm that was in love with him. which is also hilarious. someone deworm this man. after he died he became spectre for a while, until kyle rayner dragged his corpse out of the sun and he got to be a lantern again.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason) - hal really is most fun when he's fucking going thru it so like. Yeah. top 10 moments is when he's uncharacteristically quiet and looking blankly and ominously into the middle distance, so Every Character Who Was There For His First Hot Girl Summer is just like:

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell) - he already went to hell like, twice. once it was with superman. they had a great boys night out. vaguely related but i think sinestro once went through an orpheus and eurydice-esque journey into the underworld and/or spectre hal's subconscious?? and then also one time he and sinestro shared a ring and ended up yeeted to the Death Dimension together. sinestro got himself out so hal had to fling himself off a cliff and Fall To His Death to solve this problem. you can put a lot of icarus flavour into this guy

7 notes - Posted February 12, 2022

#3

drac collecting both mina and jonathan and having them nicely arranged on one bed. reverse unicorn hunter

21 notes - Posted October 3, 2022

#2

DOES ANYONE HAVE A GIF OF THE GAY LITTLE WAVE THAT ENJOU DOES AT THE END OF THE THREE REALMS GATEWAY OFFERING QUEST. PLEASE.

61 notes - Posted February 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

SHAKING AND CRYING AND FROWING UP!!!!! shoutout 2 my friend crane for turning calcifer!john into a gif!!!

547 notes - Posted September 5, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[evilhorse]

Give me my ring back.

[httpsobi]

TEAM, MEET... GREEN LANTERN, AT YOUR SERVICE!

WARNINGS/TAGS + sfw, gender neutral o/c or reader insert, vague descriptions of violence, blood and injuries from fights.

A/N + it's a ghost town in here but enjoy!

★ chaotic on the verge of war criminal but also somehow calm, mature paternal figure

★ gets the feral 'i will bite your ankles off' from hal, gets the calmness more from john ♥︎ has probably bit hal at least 5 times when she/he/they were little

★ pretty battle smart, and while she/he/they aren't physically the strongest in the team without her/his/their constructs, has knocked out people with a punch ♥︎ dumb as HELL as a civilian for some reason... like god where does her/his/their intelligence go in daily life

★ best described as the golden retriever/husky friend. smart (sometimes), dramatic, dumb 90% of the time, friendly, clingy

★ most likely part of the og (also known as the cadmus mess) ♥︎ or at least a witness

★ if she/he/they were directly a part of cadmus, probably was going to be grounded for life by the corpse men

★ if she/he/they weren't, probably arrived with the leaguers n' laughed their ass off the WHOLE time the sidekicks got yelled it ♥︎ until they got scolded by john

★ great buddies w/ everyone on the team ♥︎ somehow manages to be good (even great?) buddies with connor ♥︎ i love the idea that connor's this blank n' dead faced dude then there's just someone who's never stopped smiling ♥︎ had a bet w/ robin n' artemis to see how many pranks they could pull on wally before he caught on. it was a tie between all three of them when they all unknowingly set up traps in the same room at the same time n' wally caught all of them

★ calm n collected during fights, usually the one saving kid flash from his demise when he decides to run off like an true idiot ♥︎ often jokes about them being the new speedster n' green lantern duo until they actually turn into them n' she/he/they are just like "... fuck."

★ despite the fact that they are mostly calm, has gone manic n' insane a couple times during battle ♥︎ most likely times: battle w/ amazo, fight with the injustice league, episode 16 in the simulation (i see them going manic as a way to give the rest time to escape, ends up 'dying' to the beams)

★ makes fun of batman like it's her/his/their full time job. they do it like rent's due next month ♥︎ it's a hal jordan thing- started when he would babysit her/him/them n' had no one to cover for him during JLA meetings so she/he/they grew up witness batlantern bicker n' fight like there's no tomorrow

★ the team LOVES listening to her/him/them talk about their time on other planets. ♥︎ m'gann clings onto her/him/them so much when she first joins the team cause like "omg! someone who is spends time off earth!"

★ if she/he/they got a chance to face hal or john during s1e26 when they were under klarion's control, you best believe she/he/they beat his ass n' proceeded to take photos with them unconscious ♥︎ definitely did the rapper poses where they squat with like prayer hands or peace signs over their unconscious bodies ♥︎ if she/he/they had social media for their green lantern persona, you BET they posted it with no context n just "😈🙏🏻🥱🗣" ♥︎ did it w/ p much every other male leaguer too ♥︎ left the women alone cause 'respect our big sexy buff talented women' ♥︎ made robin email the photos to all the leaguers as holiday cards

★ as the team grew n got older, she/he/they either joined nightwing in leading the team or moved on to the justice league w/ zatanna n' rocket ♥︎ probably preferred staying w/ nightwing tho ♥︎ 10/10 is the :D bubbly nice fun mentor who's all joking n' giggles then she/he/they go into missions n' the younger team members are like "what in the hell"

all work n' writing is work of @httpsobi. i ask you please do not copy, rewrite, translate or post on other platforms without my consent.