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I wonder how much Hal coming back genuinely brought all those HEAT goobers back to comics. Like technically they should have never stopped, right?
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Jun 17, 2020 21:14
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I was actually pretty cool with how Young Justice addressed things. "People did a bunch of stuff and the universe got changed" is a "Power Girl was from Earth 2 but then Earth 2 was erased" level of fresh air.
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Jun 17, 2020 21:25
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Fan response aside, Green Lantern in 2004 was a book perpetually floating between being in the 50s-60s on the sales chart. Rebirth is a book that kept gaining new readers over its six issues (thanks in part to 2nd/3rd/etc. printings) and ended up more than tripling sales from the last few years of the Rayner book. The relaunched Green Lantern book (starring Hal) was the #1 book of the month even though it came out in the middle of DC having a hot streak with all of the Countdown to Infinite Crisis books, Superman/Batman, etc. And in the past fifteen years since Rebirth, the Green Lantern franchise has supported two (and not that successfully, but sometimes 3-4) monthly books at a time, often with two or more of them placing higher on the sales charts than the single Kyle Rayner book did before it. I'm pretty vocally not a Johns fan in general, but he absolutely revitalized the Green Lantern franchise and made it a much bigger part of the DCU than it was before him. This obviously didn't work with The Flash, for a multitude of reasons. I wonder how much of the sort of Rebirth/post-Rebirth stuff was sort of a last-ditch effort to expand the Flash Universe, I've only read a few trades but there seemed to be a ton of "oh hey here are even more people with a connection to the Speed Force, and they all have different powers that are derived from the Speed Force!" and "There is also a Still Force and a Strength Force and the War of the Forces" and a bunch of other stuff that feels like an attempt to do the Red/White/Blue/Black/Clear/Ultraviolet Lanterns junk, but with running.
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Jun 17, 2020 22:28
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Edge & Christian posted:Fan response aside, Green Lantern in 2004 was a book perpetually floating between being in the 50s-60s on the sales chart. Rebirth is a book that kept gaining new readers over its six issues (thanks in part to 2nd/3rd/etc. printings) and ended up more than tripling sales from the last few years of the Rayner book. The various "Forces" definitely feel like that and it very much doesn't work in comparison to the Emotional Spectrum since there's not a good, evocative bridge like the spectrum has. Johns's Shazam is sorta doing something similar with the various Worlds and it also feels like it's trying to do too much all at once without a really good evocative bridge to connect the various worlds. The six/seven team members based on a letter thing made sense at least.
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Jun 17, 2020 22:41
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Anecdotal stuff here but I had at least read some Hal Jordan comics in my youth thanks to my brother's spotty comic book collection. I had never read a Barry Allen Flash ever (and I remember my brother having Flash comics). Sure Barry and Hal came out around the same time but it just seems Hal was a longer lasting character than Barry and when he came back in Green Lantern: Rebirth I at least knew something about the character .
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Jun 17, 2020 23:19
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Madkal posted:Anecdotal stuff here but I had at least read some Hal Jordan comics in my youth thanks to my brother's spotty comic book collection. I had never read a Barry Allen Flash ever (and I remember my brother having Flash comics). Sure Barry and Hal came out around the same time but it just seems Hal was a longer lasting character than Barry and when he came back in Green Lantern: Rebirth I at least knew something about the character . I got into DC comics well after Crisis so I'd never read a Barry comic either and honestly there didn't really seem to be a need. Barry felt like he served a better purpose being somebody for Wally to live up to.
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Jun 17, 2020 23:35
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Dawgstar posted:I got into DC comics well after Crisis so I'd never read a Barry comic either and honestly there didn't really seem to be a need. Barry felt like he served a better purpose being somebody for Wally to live up to. That's pretty much it. Everything iconic about The Flash as a character came during the Wally West Era. The only things from the Barry Allen Era that were pertinent were the rogues gallery and some of the supporting characters(even then, most were better fleshed in the West Era) and the whole lightning bolt and chemicals thing. Everything else anyone considers iconic about The Flash was done with West as the character.
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Jun 17, 2020 23:52
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Eh, I wouldn't say that. Barry Allen had some pretty dynamic moments (especially involving Reverse Flash) but Wally being the legacy hero who followed in the footsteps of a legend while being more fallible really was just a more interesting character than "guy who is basically written as Budget Wally or Without A Personality depending."
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Jun 18, 2020 00:26
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I do love that Wally got Barry convicted for that murder rap.
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Jun 18, 2020 00:56
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There is and was ever only one thing Barry Allen was known for. Dying. That was it, he went out as a hero and became a Saint to the characters that knew him.
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Jun 18, 2020 02:42
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Keltar posted:There is and was ever only one thing Barry Allen was known for. Dying. That was it, he went out as a hero and became a Saint to the characters that knew him. That's another reason people were pissed they brought him back. He went out like a boss. Why gently caress with that?
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Jun 18, 2020 03:18
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I kind of liked the Kyle Rayner never had the baggage of Wally. Yes he had big shoes to fill bit he was an absolute nobody when he got the ring. Rayner felt like my Green Lantern because those were the Green Lantern books I bought, not read from my brothers spotty stash.
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Jun 18, 2020 03:21
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I think the timescales matter a lot for all of this stuff. Barry Allen was The Only Flash* from 1956 to 1986, or thirty years. Wally West became The Only Flash from 1987 to 2007, or twenty years. He had been a supporting character for 24 years prior. Flash: Rebirth was in 2009, or 33 years after Barry stopped being The Only Flash. Meanwhile, Hal Jordan debuted in 1959 and was never technically the *only* Green Lantern, but was the only one to have his own comic for about a decade. Guy Gardner first became a/the Green Lantern in 1968, and John Stewart first became a Green Lantern in 1971. Throughout the 1980s, Green Lantern comics would star a combination of all three (plus Kilowog, Arisa, Tomar-Re, and other Green Lanterns) often in an ensemble cast that generally featured Hal Jordan in the lead. All of this ended in 1994, when Emerald Twilight killed/villainized/depowered everyone mentioned above, leaving only Kyle Rayner, who debuted in 1994 as The Only Green Lantern. Rebirth came a little over a decade later. This honestly explains why one the initial changeovers had different levels of fan anger, in terms of familiarity: with the Flash, a character who had been around and intertwined with the original for 80% of his history steps in to fill the role after a noble sacrifice. In Green Lantern, a character who had been around for 35 years goes crazy, kills a bunch of his friends, and is replaced by someone brand new. This isn't to say one was guaranteed to be good and the other bad, but it explains why some of the nuttier portions of fandom created Hal's Emerald Attack Team when they didn't forge Barry Support Squad in 1987. After the original Flash died, Wally was the only Flash and built his own legacy for over two decades, racking up a longer and deeper publication history than Barry Allen ever had. Barry mostly existed as a literal or figurative ghost for 23 years. The gap between Emerald Twilight and Green Lantern: Rebirth in contrast was just over ten years, which is still a long time, but significantly shorter and meant a lot more people at least had some sort of childhood memory of Hal, or of John Stewart, Guy Gardner, Kilowog, etc. Plus these characters never truly disappeared; Hal was always around as Parallax or the Spectre, Guy Gardner had his Warrior phase, Jon Stewart did some stuff I don't actually remember. I think I lost my original point, but another good one (beyond the fact that the Emotional Spectrum is easier to grasp than the Words That Start With S Forces) is that Green Lantern was an ensemble book for large chunks of its run and the return of the Green Lantern Corps in Rebirth heralded the return of all sorts of characters and concepts. The return of Barry Allen in Rebirth meant the return of Barry Allen. Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 03:24
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Kyle Rayner felt like a fitting Green Lantern for my generation, a creator whose guiding theme is that anything is possible as long as you can imagine it. Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz feel like fitting Green Lanterns for the current age, two people of color whose true villains aren't space tyrants or alien bugs, but racism and anxiety.  Speaking of which, what's in the Green Lantern 80th Anniversary thing? I can't find it on Comixology. Is it just old stories compiled together or is there new content?
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Jun 18, 2020 03:30
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Now I'm trying to figure out what happened to Stewart during Rayner's tenure. He had his own series in Mosaic but that was still Jordan. Jordan tussled with Rayner early on Rayner's run during Zero Hour, and Rayner had some crossover with Warrior/Guy, but I don't recall any interactions with Stewart at all.
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Jun 18, 2020 03:40
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Madkal posted:Now I'm trying to figure out what happened to Stewart during Rayner's tenure. He had his own series in Mosaic but that was still Jordan. Jordan tussled with Rayner early on Rayner's run during Zero Hour, and Rayner had some crossover with Warrior/Guy, but I don't recall any interactions with Stewart at all. Stewart joined the Darkstars and then got paralyzed by one of Darkseid's kids a couple years into Rayner's run, which was reversed by Jordan before he sacrificed himself to reignite the sun.
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Jun 18, 2020 03:44
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Edge & Christian posted:I think the timescales matter a lot for all of this stuff. I agree with your broader point about how the shift from Barry Allen to Wally West was a cleaner transition that preserved more history and conceptual ground than Hal Jordan->Kyle but I think there's kind of a weird math error here in that 1987 to 2007 is only twenty years. It's just a weird little slip but I think it kind of undercuts the part of your argument about Wally having a long dignified run versus Kyle's relative blip of "just under 20 years" (although Green Lantern: Rebirth came out in 2004-2005 so I guess the point still stands that Hal's absence was relatively shorter than Barry's).
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Jun 18, 2020 04:52
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How Wonderful! posted:I agree with your broader point about how the shift from Barry Allen to Wally West was a cleaner transition that preserved more history and conceptual ground than Hal Jordan->Kyle but I think there's kind of a weird math error here in that 1987 to 2007 is only twenty years. It's just a weird little slip but I think it kind of undercuts the part of your argument about Wally having a long dignified run versus Kyle's relative blip of "just under 20 years" (although Green Lantern: Rebirth came out in 2004-2005 so I guess the point still stands that Hal's absence was relatively shorter than Barry's).
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Jun 18, 2020 04:54
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I also have a bad habit of seeing 20xx and assuming "oh, so this decade" and getting the math wrong in either direction.
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Jun 18, 2020 05:02
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Edge & Christian posted:In Green Lantern, a character who had been around for 35 years goes crazy, kills a bunch of his friends, and is replaced by someone brand new. This isn't to say one was guaranteed to be good and the other bad, but it explains why some of the nuttier portions of fandom created Hal's Emerald Attack Team when they didn't forge Barry Support Squad in 1987. Barry Support Squad: the wholesome, or at least old-timey, version of BSS?
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Jun 18, 2020 05:34
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Space Fish posted:Barry Support Squad: the wholesome, or at least old-timey, version of BSS? Don't tempt me
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Jun 18, 2020 05:40
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BrianWilly posted:The titular WW series is...there. I like so much of what's in here, but the actual plot -- if you can call it that? -- is the hottest of messes. Surprise Phantom Stranger out of nowhere! Sir, this is a good pagan establishment, we don't need more theological complications up in here thanks. I was really hoping that Rebirth would see the Phantom Stranger go back to being a... well, stranger. But it looks like we're gonna stick with that "literally Judas" thing, huh? 
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Jun 18, 2020 06:20
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TwoPair posted:I was really hoping that Rebirth would see the Phantom Stranger go back to being a... well, stranger. But it looks like we're gonna stick with that "literally Judas" thing, huh? He has an easy fix as he already had a couple of origins including one where he stabbed Jesus with the spear of destiny. Judas can’t be the phantom stranger as that is the origin of Dracula
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Jun 18, 2020 06:30
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TwoPair posted:I was really hoping that Rebirth would see the Phantom Stranger go back to being a... well, stranger. But it looks like we're gonna stick with that "literally Judas" thing, huh? I always hated that. The multiple choice past heavily leaning to him being an exiled angel was awesome. It also explained why so many magic users not only greatly respected him, but felt confident in his ability to take on The Specter.
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Jun 18, 2020 06:36
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Just thinking about how good the other Lantern Corps were and how bad the Flash Forces turned out. I think the Green Lantern run by John's suffers from being too long but he really expanded the mythology in good and interesting ways. A person who doesn't have super strength but instead is strong because they draw power from an alternative dimension of pure physical force? OK sure, that is fine. A random person who gets access to the... Sage (?) Force and gets... Uhh... Telepathy (???). I know let's bring back the Turtle but instead of making him a criminal genius the Flash has to actually outthink let's... Uhh... Give him the awesome power of slowness. Still Force is dumb, but at least the Sage force exists so it isn't the absolute bottom of the barrel. Thinking about how many interesting characters the Sinestro Corps that no longer exist makes me sad. Just give me a Karu-Sil solo series you cowards!
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Jun 18, 2020 11:35
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bobkatt013 posted:He has an easy fix as he already had a couple of origins including one where he stabbed Jesus with the spear of destiny. Judas can’t be the phantom stranger as that is the origin of Dracula My personal favorite origin for him is 'You Shall Tarry Until I Come Again' but it is silly to make one definitive.
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Jun 18, 2020 12:52
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Madkal posted:Now I'm trying to figure out what happened to Stewart during Rayner's tenure. He had his own series in Mosaic but that was still Jordan. Jordan tussled with Rayner early on Rayner's run during Zero Hour, and Rayner had some crossover with Warrior/Guy, but I don't recall any interactions with Stewart at all. John started showing up in GL during Rayners run as a supporting character. The man was a an architect and darn good at the job, he used his former experience as a GL and Darkstar to aid Kyle. At one point Stewart became a target for a vengeful woman who wanted Stewarts head on a pike for the whole Mosaic failure but they were able to best her so he had his time to shine even if he wasn't in the main role. He pretty much stayed a supporting character until Rebirth happened. I much preferred Stewarts role as an architect than a marine, making him a typical marine type felt so black role typecast to me, I remember someone writing in thanking the writers for not making him the generic black marine until again Rebirth happened. I like to think Rebirth and all the various Crises since the original are the results of the universe trying to right itself due to Hal Jordan succeeding at doing a Zero Hour and no one knows it, it's why he was the big shining star for a come back, why a giant 60's style bug was actually responsible for his fall and he even got to punch Batman and put him in his place. Hal got ultimate power and wanted the "icons" back in power so that meant so many successors or former side kicks got the raw end of the deal and continue to be jerked around, it's why history keeps changing and warping, it's fighting back against the manipulations Jordan is secretly pulling so people like him can stay as the "golden hero" and why Barry even came back so Hal could have his best friend again even if it means people like Wally and his family get screwed over. As long the so called icons are in place Hal's happy. The Last Call fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 23:08
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https://twitter.com/Newsarama/status/1273670788357513219?s=20
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Jun 19, 2020 01:16
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Madkal posted:Anecdotal stuff here but I had at least read some Hal Jordan comics in my youth thanks to my brother's spotty comic book collection. I had never read a Barry Allen Flash ever (and I remember my brother having Flash comics). Sure Barry and Hal came out around the same time but it just seems Hal was a longer lasting character than Barry and when he came back in Green Lantern: Rebirth I at least knew something about the character . This is, amusingly, the opposite of true. GL struggled more often and earlier than Flash, to the point where there was a significant period of time where the only GL comics were as backups in the ever popular and consistent Flash comics. Edge & Christian posted:
Also, while they weren't HEAT levels, Waid has stated that both he and Messner-Loebs (who Waid edited for on the Flash run before him) got constant angry letters and a couple of threats demanding they bring back Barry. It's part of the reason he wrote The Return of Barry Allen, to completely stomp out the idea that Barry was coming back. So much for that, but it is the best Flash story so that's something. Two Tone Shoes fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Jun 19, 2020 |
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Jun 19, 2020 02:13
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Funny we’re having this discussion the same week that Flash appears in Green Lantern. Weird rear end issue that harkens back to when Hal worked for a toy company. And I like the touch that Hal and Barry call each other by their full first names.
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Jun 21, 2020 04:21
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Open Marriage Night posted:Funny we’re having this discussion the same week that Flash appears in Green Lantern. Weird rear end issue that harkens back to when Hal worked for a toy company. And I like the touch that Hal and Barry call each other by their full first names. Halagar and Baragar?
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Jun 21, 2020 05:27
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Codependent Poster posted:Halagar and Baragar? Halagar Barryagon
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Jun 21, 2020 05:29
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Two Tone Shoes posted:Also, while they weren't HEAT levels, Waid has stated that both he and Messner-Loebs (who Waid edited for on the Flash run before him) got constant angry letters and a couple of threats demanding they bring back Barry. It's part of the reason he wrote The Return of Barry Allen, to completely stomp out the idea that Barry was coming back. Great Thawne story too. Via actually giving him a motive for his crazy evil.
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Jun 21, 2020 05:29
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Wait, at one point they were going to have Geoff Johns be a part of the Milestone relaunch? Why?
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Jun 21, 2020 09:35
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Yvonmukluk posted:Wait, at one point they were going to have Geoff Johns be a part of the Milestone relaunch? Why? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiQw4L2P4e4
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Jun 21, 2020 09:43
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Yvonmukluk posted:Wait, at one point they were going to have Geoff Johns be a part of the Milestone relaunch? Why? He probably wanted to relaunch the line the way he remembered it.
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Jun 21, 2020 09:47
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I remember reading the first issue of Icon where there's a police stand-off and Icon wants to go weigh in and Rocket tells him "You think the cops are sitting around waiting for a flying n-word to drop out the sky and do their job for them?" And naturally when he does go up to them they try to arrest him. God bless Dwayne McDuffie.
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Jun 21, 2020 11:52
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I am always extremely amused with how popular Miles Morales has become that DC already had a book that was Black Spider-Man but just didn't want the Milestone guys to get a cent. Static Shock was a really fun book and he is a perfect way to do a young solo character that isn't just instantly shoved into Teen Titans. I am glad a combination of mass protests and Bendis always aggressively pushing for more diversity has finally maybe caused DC to offer a better selection of books. I asked a friend to name a black character, at all , in a current DC title that wasn't Suicide Squad. We managed to get to three before we had to give up. Maybe DC will manage to add a LGBT character to some series too while they are at it.
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Jun 21, 2020 13:15
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Black Lightning and Duke in Batman and the Outsiders Kid Flash in Teen Titans John Stewart in Justice League Cyborg in Justice League Odyssey Kid Lantern in Young Justice Naomi is either in YJ or Action Comics or something That Young Animal Green Lantern book I can't think of any others
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Jun 21, 2020 13:34
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Roth posted:Black Lightning and Duke in Batman and the Outsiders Vixen. Black Lightning's daughters Thunder and Lightning. Bronze Tiger, who is not currently on the Squad.
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Jun 21, 2020 13:55
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