The title is actually reflective silver. It causes my scanner to do some kind of recursive reflection thing until it just winds up gray. Or grey.
Wow! A comic book written by a big time science fiction writer! Let's read his Wikipedia to reacquaint ourselves with some of his best known work!
Among those topics was reducing costs for hospitals to which Niven offered the solution to spread rumors in Latino communities that organs were being harvested illegally in hospitals.
Holy shit! I just wanted to look it over and then mention the
Magic the Gathering card Nevinyrral's Disk! Wikipedia often suffers the same sort of loss of context through summarization that AI tends toward (though to a much, much, much ad infinitum lesser degree because at least it (usually) isn't full of blatant lies and outright plagiarism) so instead of just believing this quote outright, I followed the link to the article it was from to read the primary source.
Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.
“The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.
“Do you know how politically incorrect you are?” Pournelle asked.
“I know it may not be possible to use this solution, but it does work,” Niven replied.
“I cannot guarantee I’m going to be a great help to Homeland Security,” Niven said earlier.
The parts I don't love are the racism and the fact a group of science fiction writers formed an organization called SIGMA to help develop ideas to help the Department of Homeland Security in 2007. But the part I very much love is the part where Larry is all, "You know, my ideas suck." I'm sure he didn't mean it that way. I'm sure he was thinking the chodes in government were too stupid to understand his grandiose ideas which would probably make him hundreds of thousands of dollars if he wrote a book around them but was instead giving them away for free for some reason. I guess that reason is racism because he buys into the idea that illegal immigrants cause all financial problems? And that by maybe scaring them so that they don't seek emergency medical treatment when they need it is a winning idea? You'll be surprised that I didn't need Wikipedia to tell me that Larry Niven was a conservative.
After that, I'm not even going to look at John Byrne's Wikipedia. I'm depressed enough as it is!
Okay, I lied. I read it:
Byrne has never done drugs.
*shudder*
Okay, let's get on with the comic book!
It's cute that Niven and Byrne think immortals would use their immortality to sate their curiosity instead of trying to force their traditional beliefs on everybody else and keeping things from ever progressing. Forever.
The people of Maltus have decided that, being immortal, they will work diligently to answer all unanswered questions about the nature of the universe which seems at odds with my experience as a mortal creature. If I had more time, I'd simply waste more time. Ignoring all of the sexual assault because it's really just a metaphor for masturbation and wasting time, it's what Nicholson Baker's The Fermata is about. "Oh great! I've got all this extra time to actively pursue my writing and/or scientific experiments and/or philosophical queries! I'll surely use that extra time to do that and not to masturbate, play with the cat, or clean the house obsessively!" But maybe the people of Maltus were more disciplined than the people of Earth (and by "people of Earth", I mean "me and Nicholson Baker" (except not Nicholson Baker because he's actually written a whole bunch of books and he didn't even need to stop time or be immortal to do it. How?!)). Also they were more intelligent than our elders who know they're going to die but insist on retaining power and trying to keep the world the way they enjoyed the world while growing up instead of letting things change and progress. Fucking vampires, man!
So let's start over assuming the Maltusians were wise enough to spend their immortality making great progress in their knowledge of the universe and increasing the welfare and happiness of every other Maltusian. I'm assuming Byrne and Nevin, based on my comprehension of their Wikipedia pages, believed this could only happen on Maltus because they were so utterly bland and homogenous as a race and all deserved emergency health care. They didn't have to protect their hospitals by spreading awful rumors to marginalized communities so they'd be too scared to try to get healthy just so the majority could save a few bucks that don't even matter in the grand scheme of things, what with money being make believe but lives being real and finite (I mean, usually, you know?) and all that fucking matters at all completely. Did I call them vampires already?
Anyway, the Maltusians did have one tradition that they adamantly refused to go against: the search for how they and their universe began. Um, what? Why? Sounds like religious hogwash to me! Sounds like they read Earth's story of Noah's son Ham and were all, "We can not look on the generative organ of our making for if we do, we shall be cursed for generations!" What else could be the reason not to investigate how the universe came into being aside from superstition? How can you even divine all of the secrets of the universe if you ignore the question of how or why it exists?! Maybe the Maltusians were more like me than I first gave them credit for (not that anybody deserves credit for being like me! Maybe they deserve shame! But not credit!) and have the ability to simply shrug at the idea of meaning and beginnings. Would knowing why they exist change their motivations? Change the good feelings garnered by pursuing the things they loved? Changed the basic premise that all lives are worthy of life and don't need to be earned because the most precious thing in life is life?
Maybe I should read more pages! I bet they explain why they're not allowed to research "the secret of their own beginnings." I put that in quotes so you know I didn't come up with that exact phrasing. I would have been more like "how the universe shot its load and how that eventually forced them into the sterile existence of immortality". One thing I know about being immortal is that you don't have sex. Sex and death and evolution are inextricably tied together so if you're immortal, your species can't grow and change. Thus sterility!
Who forbade it? How do they know it will be the end of everything?
The Maltusians seem science- and evidence-minded which means I must assume that this person warning Krona does so based on evidence-backed experiments and hard-won scientific knowledge. But then why would Krona describe their warnings as "legends only a fool would fear"? Either Krona is crazy or he's the only real scientist on Maltus. And since everything is going to go to shit in a page or two because Krona did not heed the "legends", the answer must be "Krona is fucking nuts, dude." Krona's basically an anti-vaxxer. He's decided that the scientific research that lead the Maltusians to realize that learning any more about the creation of the universe would destroy the universe was hogwash simply because, well, he believed what he wanted to believe. Maybe he's more of a flat-earther who believes you can't believe anything at all until you've done the experiment and observed the thing first-hand. But then, shouldn't he have first done all the experiments that led to the realization that doing this experiment would destroy everything? No, of course not. Because people who disbelieve just the right amount to enable them to justify whatever they simply want to do aren't actually smart or intelligent or rational or scientific. They're just narcissists.
Krona somehow built a machine that could gaze into the past. I'm guessing he just used the designs of other machines used by Maltusians to gaze into the past which were used in experiments that led to the prohibition on gazing into the past too far. Krona sets the machine's dial to "not quite the beginning of our universe because I want to develop a little tension" and gazes upon a point some relatively short time past the creation of the universe. He sees a galaxy resting in the palm of a Maltusian hand (which is similar to the human hand (which is similar to probably 99% of sentient creature's hands for some fucking reason (although based on the cover of this book, maybe only 50% of creatures have human-like hands?)). Krona then thinks, "A-ha! A clue! Maybe if I set the dial to 'the actual beginning of our universe' I should see the face of the Creator as They think, 'I'm going to create a universe!'"
It doesn't work out as he planned. It actually works out as the legends he should have feared planned!
My belief, through years of scientific study since about the age of 13, is that Krona just got hit in the face by the most magnificent cosmic load of Creator jizz. Obviously the generation of the universe made by a Creator who made us in Their image would be done via ejaculation. The Creator spunked Their cosmic spunk into the vast uterus of empty space and that was the beginning of everything (although that sounds more like the way fish do it. Is God a massive Salmon?). Except instead of one single spermatozoa fertilizing one single ovum, every single sperm in this Creator's jizz fertilized some part of the vacuum of space (like fish cum all over river caviar!), giving birth to galaxy upon galaxy upon galaxy. Maybe observing this moment was like a mother walking in on their child masturbating just at the point of climax, fucking up the entire orgasm like when you try to hold in a sneeze, or filling the Creation with the shame felt by the Creator at the moment of Creation. The Creator was so startled and embarrassed by being observed that the universe was inherently fucked up after this moment. Obviously, the way time works, it was always fucked up and the cause of it being fucked up was Krona's observation of the Creation. It's just that exactly how that presented itself wouldn't be noticed for billions of years. Like a poorly laid foundation, the effects only show themselves over a long period of time.
The Maltusians believed that Krona's observation led to the creation of evil in the universe. But the narrator, whom I'm going to assume is Ganthet based on the title of this comic book, says that is a lie. He doesn't go on to explain how it's a lie because the story moves forward billions of years to a scene on Earth with Hal Jordan in a bathrobe.
Don't let Ganthet's fancy dress distract you from Hal's bare leg emerging from his bathrobe in the panel above. Hot diggity dawg!
Hal Jordan worries about people discovering his secret identity when they see a little blue pimp come to his motel room door but I think he should worry about other assumptions being made about his sexuality. What do you call somebody who can only get off if they're fucking an Oompa Loompa? I know they're orange and Guardians are blue but I grew up with an Apple IIe where every image was blue and orange or purple and green so I don't see color (as long as it's blue, orange, green, or purple, obvs). I guess I just see size?
Hal Jordan, showing a surprising ability to simply follow a Guardian's orders instead of questioning it for eight to ten issues, agrees to help Ganthet save a Maltusian offshoot of their species here on Earth. But first he must charge his ring because it's the smart and responsible thing to do.
Oh, never mind then! Hal Jordan probably has no reason not to trust a strange Guardian.
Is the ring really charged if Hal Jordan doesn't recite his cute little Green Lantern pledge of allegiance while doing it? I'm not a filthy pinko communist so I'd have to answer in a frenzy of raging testosterone, "Fuck no!"
Luckily for Larry Niven and John Byrne, Hal Jordan agrees with me.
I say "luckily" because if I had even the slightest inkling that the writers weren't treating Hal Jordan's character correctly, I would write the most slanderous and libelous things about how their parents managed to conceive them that even I'd feel slightly embarrassed for them. Not that I don't already feel slightly embarrassed for them but at least it's for documented reasons and not because of lies I just made up which I instantly believed myself. I mean, Larry Niven actually joined a group of other sci-fi writers, a group called SIGMA, that believed they'd be such an intellectual think-tank that they'd be able to come up with all sorts of terrible ways to use the United States of America's Secret Police for the benefit of — checking notes — white people! John Byrne I'm just embarrassed for because he's never done drugs. (Also maybe his belief that Superman isn't an immigrant because Jor-El packed him in a space uterus.) Come on, man! Live a little! Try some opioids at the very least! You might chill out over the sort of people you can't stand and let them live their lives without your fucking pre-packaged judgments!
I bet John Byrne has done drugs but he just believes if they were prescribed by a doctor, it doesn't count. But let me tell you, as somebody who never did non-prescribed opiates, the ones the doctor prescribes you are really fucking good. At first I didn't think they did anything but maybe ease the pain because I was alone at home when I first took them and just hung out playing computer games. But then I took them at an old office job and holy shit did those things make me give zero shits about my terrible and idiotic co-workers! It was fucking bliss! We should all be on opiates at all times forever. Hmm, maybe that's why they're so dangerous! I've never done them again and I still think about how magical that moment was 20+ years ago!
After charging his ring, Hal and Ganthet set off to wherever the danger is. On the way, Hal tries to get more information out of the little blue sexpot.
"You come to my human world to seek help from me, a human, and then blame all the evils of the world on humankind? Oh, um, yeah. Fair, I guess."
Does Hal's insistence on knowing which race needs saving seem a bit suspicious to you? Why do you need to know, Hal? If Ganthet says the wrong kind of people, will you opt out of the mission? Shouldn't any people in trouble be worth going out of the way to save? I mean, obviously not the Palestinians. Duh!
That was terrible, terrible, mean-spirited satire! I try to avoid satire because both sides of any issue being satirized always miss the satire and then everybody reads what you've written in exactly the wrong kind of way! Instead of repeating myself in a new way, let me just repeat myself from 2014 in an actual quote from the Internet legend known as me!
"Are jokes where guys demand that women make them sandwiches demeaning to men or to women?! Who is the butt of a joke like that? It seems the asshole that expects to be served simply based on gender is the butt of that joke but men rarely seem to be upset by it. That’s the problem with satire! It proposes a situation in which to ridicule one thing you ridicule some other thing that doesn’t deserve to be ridiculed! So if somebody has a scene in a play where a man orders a woman to make him a sandwich, thus showing what a sexist, lazy ass the man is, men watching the scene will say, “That’s right! Get in the kitchen!” It’s hard to shame people that have no shame at all, and men have the least amount of shame of anyone!"
This whole bit where I quote myself has a term that I made up that should have caught on but just hasn't for some dumb reason: Onstage Masturbation Cage. The actual definition, which I made up because I made up the phrase, is that thing a person does where they've said something or made up a term that caught on and not enough people know that they said or did that thing so, years later, they have to bring it to everybody's attention. I mostly made up the saying when that fucking dork who claimed he came up with the term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" wrote an article years later about how he wished he'd never come up with it but you know he wrote the article to remind everybody that he was the one who came up with it.
By the next page, Ganthet and Hal have arrived at their destination: Ireland!
No wonder Ganthet buried the lede.
Now I'm curious about Ganthet's one joke. How do you live for as long as Ganthet has lived and never tell more than one joke? Is he joking now about the number of jokes he's told? Or about playing a joke on himself? Earlier when Hal insisted on charging his ring the old fashioned way, Ganthet seemed fairly disappointed in Hal's inability to let go of rituals or to trust in others. After Hal charged his ring, Ganthet said snidely, "All better, now?" Wasn't that a joke? Or was that just pure, dripping, utter condescension?
Basically what we're learning here is that Leprechauns are Guardians of the Universe. I guess that makes sense because they're short and they hoard wealth and power? Do you think Niven came up with this idea while trying to figure out how to scam Little People out of health care? Or was he just reading an old Green Lantern comic book and was all, "Ha ha! These guys look like Smurfs! Whoa! Great idea, Larry! Let's call DC and pitch that as a story!" Then DC was all, "Larry, Smurfs aren't real." So Larry was all, "Um, what about Leprechauns?" And DC was all, "Pure gold! They're not real either but at least we don't have to pay for the rights to use Leprechauns! Cha-ching!"
Hal and Ganthet arrive at a massive tree where the Leprechauns live. But it's already been abandoned!
Wait a fucking second. Guardians live in trees? Like squirrels? And Wolfriders?!
Hal and Ganthet do not discover any Leprechauns. It turns out they were driven out by civilization. Hal Jordan is all, "Wait. Ireland is civilized? Bullshit!" But then he flies over a hill and sees some houses and he's all, "Imagine that! Even in Ireland!" I'm not actually making Hal sound more stupid than he actually sounds in the comic book.
"Holy shit! They even have cars?! That run on potatoes, right?"
Just like every other marginalized people, the Leprechauns fled west. But even further west into the uncivilized forests of Ireland, Hal and Ganthet discover the Leprechauns' abandoned tree hostels. They determine the Leprechauns left his area about 500 years previously, right around the time the Tudors attempted to colonize the whole of the island instead of just a few bits. Hal categorizes 500 years ago as "the beginnings of European colonization" but that sounds like a simplistic view of "civilization", if you ask me. And by "simplistic", it's possible I mean white supremacist! I said possible!
It's also possibly not that and I'm assuming Hal's first observation that civilization drove the Leprechauns away from their home means that his second observation that another Leprechaun encampment was abandoned during European colonization equates "civilization" and "European colonization". That would be on me, possibly looking for more reasons than the thousands I already have to hate Hal Jordan. He could also be hinting at the opposite of white supremacy, pointing out some Thomas Pynchon-type observations about how the main feature of colonialism, at its most basic level, is murder and control. And the Leprechauns, who managed to live just fine on the island with the Celts and Vikings and later kings of Ireland, just couldn't abide British rule. Éirinn go Brách, man! Éirinn go Brách!
I suspect when Ganthet said the danger to the race they needed to save was "humankind", he actually meant Europeans. Or maybe just the fucking English, man! I know David Mitchell is dressed as a Nazi when he says, "Are we the baddies?", but, you know, think about it.
Don't get me wrong! I love so much about England. But you know somebody truly loves something when they're able to point out how shit it can be. Who wants to love something so strongly that they decide to ignore the flaws and not make it better because if you acknowledge the flaws, you acknowledge it's not the best? I'm looking at you, dimwitted American patriots. I bet I love America more than you do which is why I hate so much of it!
See? Fucking England. Imagine how many other supernatural creatures were destroyed by imperialism?!
Hal Jordan has yet to ask about Leprechauns being real. He seemed less surprised that they were hunting Leprechauns than that Ireland was civilized. He does finally ask Ganthet how a branch of the Guardian family tree wound up on Earth. He does not ask why they became obsessed with pots of gold, top hats, and marshmallow shapes.
Ganthet's story doesn't explain how the Maltusians were super science freaks with an edging fetish (you know, looking back at history but not all the way back!). His story portrays the race as magical beings that could do anything with their minds. And also that they were immortal beings who kept having children which seems unlikely if you believe in evolution. But if you don't believe in evolution, sure, why not? These beings are already moving mountains and causing the extinction of entire species with a single thought. Anyway, the children were the problem because they weren't mature enough to not constantly think dangerous and annoying creatures out of existence every few days. Obviously a mature person would never do anything impulsive like that which meant they had to get rid of the children. Seeing that they can think things into non-existence, I quickly came up with a really easy solution to the problem! But the Maltusians did not consider the genocide of their children. Their first solution to the problem was to stop having sex. It was too dangerous! Also, remember how the universe was created by an act of masturbation? They probably decided masturbation was more important than sex in a decentering move billions of years before Derrida's parents masturbated.
Ultimately, Maltus became a barren wasteland due to everybody wishing shit they didn't like out of existence. If this were Earth, it would be as if nobody could enjoy ketchup because some assholes in Chicago were all, "Not on my hot dog!" But then nobody would remember Chicagoans because I would have been all, "What the fuck? Take my ketchup? You're out of here!" So the Maltusians had to split up the sexes so they wouldn't have any more rotten children. But even before they came to that conclusion, some Maltusians had already rocketed across the universe in search of other planets to completely ruin. Like Wolfriders! I'm starting to think Byrne and Nevin may have borrowed a bit from Elfquest in the lore of the Maltusians.
Visual sexual metaphors!
Like their Creator, the Maltusians spread their seed (i.e., themselves) all across the universe, creating millions of Maltusian-related offshoots across the universe. One of those colonies was on Oa where the Guardians became sexless little prick teases who decided to force everybody in the galaxy to live orderly lives. Others became High Ones that ended up fucking wolves. Some were lost, like those that landed on Earth.
And some invented the Hyborian Age.
After 500 years of fleeing westward away from civilization, the Leprechauns made it about sixty miles further west of the last place Hal and Ganthet looked. They're hidden away from modern man in an Irish forest on the western side of the island making me think M. Night Shyamalan's family stole at least two ideas for their films from the Leprechauns, The Village and The Watchers. If Hal Jordan starts aging uncontrollably, I'll update my list of stolen films to three.
How long before Hal starts bullying them for their pots of gold?
The Leprechauns, like the Wolfriders before them, have no memory of being a spacefaring race. The only pogroms they remember are the ones caused by the despicable and disgusting human beings. Well maybe if they'd share their pots of gold, they could have gotten along with mankind! Selfish magical pricks.
Hal's first thought when he and Ganthet land among the Leprechauns is, "At least they're not attacking," which says way fucking more about Hal Jordan than the Leprechauns. To Hal, "primitive" means "barbaric" means "violent" unlike "civilization" which he believes means "cultured" which means "non-violent". It's nice when your brain allows for simple modes of thinking that rely on stereotypes and broad generalizations. The problem with being too understanding and open-minded is that you don't get to punch people in the face very often and Hal Jordan fucking loves punching people in the face.
"Not true, my friend. Hey, have you heard that hospital emergency rooms are stealing Latino organs?"
Ganthet explains the concept of the Green Lantern Corps to the Leprechaun Chief and invites them to join. The Chief, being a Leprechaun, scoffs at the idea of instilling order across the universe. Does Ganthet know nothing of the race of people he's come to rescue? Why would Leprechauns want order?! Aren't they known for mischief? I guess they're also known for making shoes, according to Wikipedia, so maybe Ganthet's planning on a Corps redesign? Maybe instead of a ring, the Green Lanterns' power will reside in their shoes.
The story still has a long way to go so maybe Ganthet will eventually explain why he wants to save this one group of a million offshoots of his people. Maybe, like everybody else, he just wants their gold.
I cannot stop getting Elfquest vibes off this story.
While Ganthet tries to convince the Leprechaun Chief to give up living freely in the forests of Ireland and come be laborers on Oa, Hal Jordan meets an elder Leprechaun named Percival. Hal is all, "That's a fancy human name!" And Percival is all, "Fuck you, you insulting prick!" Then Percival explains the history of the Leprechauns and their long relationship with humans from all over the world. Percival explains that, like Forrest Gump, he took part in every great moment in human history, poisoned people with random chocolate candies, and will probably die a virgin.
I guess it's canon that Guardians fucking love butter.
If you didn't understand that last caption, it's okay. Just realize that there's more to the history of our world than Western Traditions in literature and religion. Most of the stuff you believe were discovered or created by European civilization in the 19th and 20th centuries actually weren't. I'd wager that the imperialist drive toward colonialism and stealing the world's wealth actually caused European civilization to destroy more than it ever created. That doesn't mean I suddenly hate myself! Far from it! I love my Spanish ass heritage even if the Spanish were the fucking Great Old Ones of the New World! I mostly disregard the hodge-podge but probably mostly German half of me because I absolutely loved and adored my mother's parents and their siblings. Too many of the people on my dad's side have turned out, unsurprisingly, to be Trumpers. Even my cousin Robert who is married to a Mexican woman and was all, "I don't love Trump's immigration policy but you should give him a chance!" And I was all, "UNFRIENDED", because he's way too old to need me to explain how fucking irresponsible he was being with his vote and toward his family. Anyway, my mother was 3rd generation Spanish born in America but still 100% Spanish blood because, um, my grandparents couldn't find anybody else that would date them in the Bay Area? Mostly because they lived in a major Spanish and Portuguese community and the Portuguese were all, "Ew! Spanish?! When we were in Hawaii, we were the overseers and they were the lowly sugar cane pickers. Gross!" I had a Great Uncle who had to pretend to be Italian to date a Portuguese lady. But that was a long time ago! By the time I was growing up, in the 70s and 80s, nobody cared about all that baggage. Although the community was so tightknit that my grandmother knew almost every grandmother of every friend I ever made in junior high or high school. It was always a shock to have my friend's grandmother come to pick them up at my grandmother's house and seeing my grandmother hustle down the steps excitedly to go talk to an old friend.
What the fuck was I talking about? Oh yeah! How much Ganthet just destroys a stick of butter. And not in a Last Tango in Paris kind of way.
Percival decides he'll join the Green Lantern Corps since Ganthet made the offer and it doesn't please Ganthet, even though Ganthet just offered every single fucking one of them the opportunity to join the Corps.
Nothing like an old ageist!
Nothing proves more that you basically remain the same youngish person throughout your life than one old man judging another old man on their looks when they look exactly as old as the man they're judging. My hypothesis is that everybody "settles" into a certain age which they're most comfortable at some point in their lives and that's how they see themselves until they die. It's why some young people act so old and some old people act so young and some 30-somethings act 30-something. People have two ages: body age and brain age. Body age changes throughout your life; brain age remains mostly static.
Anyway, Ganthet is being a huge dick here (and not in a way that makes people drool helplessly and lick their lips). Ganthet made an offer. Percival accepted that offer. Ganthet is basically immortal so doesn't believe he is "old" but he can't see that it's the same for Percival, one of Ganthet's own kind. I rarely find that I agree with the Guardians and, well, this is just more proof of that. Give Percival the job, you asshole!
The debate between Percival and Ganthet doesn't play out in a contest of logic and rational arguments. Instead, everybody in the forest gets hit with some kind of psychic blast and Ganthet declares that there's no time to waste! His greatest fear is coming true! But what is that fear?! What's Ganthet so scared of that he needed a Leprechaun to stop it from happening?! I hope it isn't some force that makes people age super fast.
Everybody suddenly considered, at the same time, the idea that someone as well-regarded in the science fiction community as Larry Niven wanted to spread rumors that would get Latinos killed.
The thing Ganthet fears is that somebody might retell the joke he once told. So that's what's about to happen and he must stop it immediately. So Percival is hired because the interview process is called on account of somebody somewhere telling a joke they shouldn't tell. I wonder if it's my dad?
Here's a thing about my dad and jokes: if he just told the horrible jokes that came to his mind while everybody around him went, "Jesus Christ, really? Holy shit, you suck", I'd be fine with it! If you believe in your right to tell a terrible joke, tell the terrible joke! But what I can't stand is when he would say, "You can't joke about anything anymore!" And I was like, "Oh, you can't? But you do! All the time! What's worse is that you want to start debates about shit that doesn't matter and, in a weird twist, you want to defend the obviously terrible side!" Actually, I didn't say any of that. I just spent four or five visits with him thinking those things, hoping maybe he'd just give it a rest, and then cut off contact with him. Because why waste my fucking time on a man who couldn't even be there for me from 2 to 18? Maybe in 11 more years, I'll call him from out of the blue and say, "Well, that was the amount of time you spent drunk before entering recovery and trying to get me back in your life!"
Oh, you thought this was some kind of "review"? No, no! Sorry! It's my therapy!
I hope it's not the joke about the sound a chainsaw makes that Phil Newby told me in 5th Grade because that one is so racist and it's been stuck in my head ever since, like a mental Tourette's.
I will not repeat the joke. I'm sure the Internet knows what it is. Go find it yourself. But I don't recommend it because then it's in your head for life and, believe me, you don't fucking want it there. I don't mind having sick jokes in my head like "What color were Christa McAuliffe's eyes?" or "Why can't the Go-Gos have a baby?" But there are some I've been told over time that I really wish I could Total Recall out of my brain like taping over an old VHS tape. Just fill a portion of my brain with static. It would be better! Although then I might actually go full Total Recall and be all, "Why is this part of my memory missing?! I need to figure it out!" Then that would become the rest of my life, looping from remembering to forgetting until the day I die.
There's an interlude 1/3 of the way through the book. This is it:
Uh-oh. It's beginning to sound like a rape joke.
If the joke is piercing the veils of time to peep on the sexual creation of the universe, it kind of is a rape joke. At the very least, it's a breech of privacy and consent joke!
Ganthet seems to give up on saving the Leprechauns after the Chief and his people refused to join the Green Lantern Corps because he, Hal, and Percival blast into space to stop a joke from being told. So is that part of the story over? Does Ganthet just shrug and figure the Leprechauns have free will and if they want to be destroyed by the encroachment of human civilization, he can't make them choose otherwise? But it seemed so important! Maybe the important part, since Ganthet doesn't explain anything to anybody, is that he needs at least one Leprechaun to save the universe. Or maybe finance the saving of the universe?
Hal, Ganthet, and Percival head into deep space as Ganthet explains the concept of the Green Lantern Corps to whoever bought this book and still needs it explained to them. Just in case, you know! Every comic book is somebody's first comic book, so they say. Imagine this being your first comic book! I'd bet you'd think you picked up a porn mag what with that sexy little blue minx running around telling Hal Jordan what to do.
"Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm. Interesting, interesting. But does the little blue Oompa Loompa fuck?"
After Ganthet describes how the Corps works, he then says, "But forget all of that! This problem has nothing to do with space but with time! And we don't have some 3600 sector time system to help fix it."
Ganthet explains that what they felt in Ireland was a major corruption of space-time. He pointed out that they happen occasionally but most Guardians just ignore it because time is somebody else's problem; the Guardians just deal in space. But recently, the main power battery on Oa tore itself apart because of one of these corruptions. So Krona decided to tell the joke that Krona told so long ago: he would look back to the near-beginning of time and see what the fuck's wrong with the space-time foundation. What he saw was a massive hand with a huge load of nebula in the palm of its hand, a classic depiction of a post-jerk-off moment. So then Ganthet looked a little further back and Whammo! Cosmic Bukkake! The difference between what Krona saw and what Ganthet saw was no in the observed but in the observer. Ganthet did not, for one second, believe that the universe was created via masturbation.
Is Ganthet saying they need to look further back than the money shot? Is Ganthet admitting that he needs plot in his porn?
Ganthet explains how he himself didn't bust a nut watching the universe bust a nut so, being all backed up and ready to blow, he built another time viewer to look back even further.
Oh shit that sounds sexy.
I'm going to skip over Ganthet's method of discovering what he discovered because it makes no sense. It seems to entangle the idea of the beginning of the universe with the beginning of the Maltusian people. It's also possible that Krona's sin was looking back to see how the Maltusians were created and not the universe but I've re-read all of the salient parts of the story about five times so far and it's really not that clear. But the way Ganthet explains why this image of the hand is a lie seems to point to how the prohibition of viewing the past was set up so that nobody could ever see the early history of the Maltusians. So, you know, whatever.
Anyway, what Ganthet discovered was that the Maltusians were exactly like any race you'd imagine: they weren't civilized but brutal and then they became civilized when it was the obvious way for them to survive and then they eventually became all-powerful. Ganthet surmises that the masturbation origin story was set up by somebody who didn't want any Maltusian enemies discovering that they could time travel to a point in the past where the Maltusians were vulnerable. A kind of smoke screen or ADT yard sign to keep people from fucking about with the Maltusian past and destroying them.
Ganthet explains that even the story of Krona was even riddled with lies and inconsistencies to help bolster the fake origin story. Because Krona, like Ganthet, didn't stop after he got creamed in the face. He built another time viewer. Except this one would allow him to view the very end of the universe!
Krona believes in the circular universe theory, I guess. It's Ouroboroi all the way down. Or something.
Let me guess: Krona saw an ass, puckered from orgasm achieved via self-abuse?
New Kink Achieved: Single Person Human Centipede.
Ganthet doesn't understand how Krona linked the end of the universe with the beginning of the universe because Krona was simply using a time viewer. How the fuck did viewing the end while also viewing the beginning link the two? Surprisingly, Ganthet leaves it at "in a manner even I fully do not understand" instead of screaming, "Quantum entanglement!" Krona's real crime was never viewing the creation of the universe (or the creation of the Maltusians). That was all obfuscation and legerdemain to protect the Maltusians. What Krona did do was introduce entropy to the beginning of the universe so that entropy could suck off great quantities of its potential via a massive time glory hole. This caused the universe to be born old.
So, um, the universe has aged faster than it was supposed to? I guess M. Night Shyamalan did steal the idea for three of his movies from this series.
The universe being born old made Ganthet sad because now he can't stop thinking about all the civilizations that will never exist that should have existed if the universe had the energy it should have had to live billions of years longer. Except that's not how time works and since Krona caused the universe to lose billions of years of energy, the universe has always lost that energy, thus no civilizations were killed. Only the POTENTIAL of those civilizations were destroyed and, putting myself up as Exhibit A, waste of potential isn't a crime.
Ganthet goes on to explain to Hal what this means and even though it's on the same page as that last scan causing me to fuck up my whole "I'm going to scan one image from every page of this book", who fucking cares? Nobody knew that was a rule I'd made until right now! And what are rules except for things simply daring people to not follow? So fuck you, me! I'm doing what I want!
"I learned this stuff that I'm telling you and it drove me crazy. Good thing you're too stupid to understand."
What's interesting is Ganthet began this story telling Hal, "Let's see how [this story] affects just you, Green Lantern of Earth." So Ganthet didn't know beforehand that it wouldn't drive Hal Jordan mad! Also, um, Ganthet is insane? Is that why he's hunting Leprechauns and worried about a joke? I suppose, getting serious for the first time in over two thousand posts, Ganthet knows somebody is about to sew the end of the universe's butthole to the mouth of the beginning of the universe and he needs to stop it before the universe loses another few billion years of its life.
Percival assures Hal that he isn't crazy anymore because he took a vacation. Hunting Leprechauns was his vacation. But it was also work because he now needs to train Percival to help stop the pervert attempting The Universe Centipede 2: The Bungmouthening. Anybody else suddenly feel like creating a mini-universe into a sock all of a sudden?
Nothing good has ever begun with "First let me insert this into you."
Hal Jordan was going to save his questions until after Ganthet was done training Percival but I guess he loses his patience and interrupts. He wants to know who they're going to be battling. Ganthet either tells Hal Jordan or he continues to have a mental breakdown because his vacation was too short.
Larry Niven thought, "I can't guarantee I'm going to be a great help to DC's future profits with the idiotic fucking names I'm giving the characters I created."
Why would the children of a union between a male Maltusian (a Guardian) and a female Maltusian (a Zamarron) need power rings? Wouldn't they have the same powers as their parents? Or do the power rings prevent them from using their powers like the little assholes child Malthusians are known to be? Fucking kids ruined everything. Dawahlipokpok and Churascurrochimchar know they're being hunted by Ganthet and his minions. But they were hoping that they'd be left alone long enough to do whatever the fuck they're trying to do. Maybe they were less dimwitted than Hal Jordan and Ganthet, enabling them to avoid going insane when they learned about the universe being born old. And now maybe they're going to fix it. Or, like the scientists in Old, maybe they're going to use the time dilation for experiments!
Here's something about Old you don't want to think about too hard: in the movie, two six year olds have sex. Remember that thing I said earlier about Body Age and Brain Age? Yeah. So, you know, two six year olds have sex. Let's all give a nice, slow golf clap to M. Night for pulling that one off! Or just throw up. I don't know! Watch the movie! It's not technically like I'm portraying it! Although, obviously, it is. I've spent way too many words on this already!
The two horniest Maltusians in the universe.
Dawhollahollapokpok and Chirrichirrichoochoo's daughter, Dorrenchatiktok, interrupts her parents because she doesn't want to hear them reminisce about how they were so horny that they risked destroying the entire universe by having snotty children. She points out that Ganthet and the others are getting so close that they might interrupt their operation. And what is that operation? Dawhoopadoodeedo hints that they're trying to undo Krona's sin! So am I supposed to be rooting for this nuclear family? Or should I continue to root for the insane old man, the Leprechaun, and Mister Punch First, Never Ask Questions Later? Also this family is fucking hot.
I hope Ganthet doesn't defeat these rogue Maltusians by throwing water at them because then I'm really going to be critical of Mister Shyamalan.
They've been travelling in space for a week?!
Don't worry about Hal's reaction in the previous panel. Ganthet hasn't asked him to kill anybody or anything like that. He actually asked Hal to flee from the battle. You know, the opposite of what Hal loves to do (punch people in the face). This not punching people in the face thing really goes against his deepfelt ideology and moral philosophy. You don't live your entire life staking your reputation on bar brawls and then feel comfortable fleeing from a battle. I wonder if Ganthet also asked him to piss himself? If he covers himself in piss, he can't be affected by other power rings!
"Think like scientist, Hal! Flee from battle! Piss your trousers! Scream in fear!"
Ha ha! I love making fun of nerds! Stupid nerds think they're so much smarter than I am, studying and researching and figuring out how the world works. Such a waste of time when you can just draw simple conclusions from gut instincts and proclaim you're smarter than they are in so many different ways!
Let me take a moment to actually get some review shit out of the way. I know I don't discuss the art of the comic books I read nearly enough being that the art is over 50% of the total experience. So I am going to rectify that here in a short paragraph. I really enjoy Byrne's art. I don't think I've read too many comics drawn by him over the decades I've been reading. But his style is effortless. It doesn't distract and unobtrusively raises the entire experience to a new level. Part of that isn't just his art. His layouts are doing a lot of the work. Panels flow seamlessly from one to the next, hinting at an overarching animation effect even when the camera angles change constantly to keep things from looking too static or boring. I'm impressed! Okay, back to my general stupidity.
Hal Jordan lets his ship construct dissolve as he makes a show of defense against the Malthusian youngsters.
If Hal does piss himself, will he break his little oxygen cocoon and die in space?!
Ganthet told Hal that the kids had power rings so this is Hal Jordan using his genius brain to deduce that these must be the kids based on things other than that they have rings. Hal's nothing if not a free thinker!
I thought for sure that Hal Jordan would get one look at the daughter and be all, "I've got a new plan, Ganthet! I'll seduce her, have sex eight to twelve times, turn her evil by breaking up with her, and then, um, profit?" But instead, he sticks to Ganthet's stupid plan.
Is seeing this much of a woman's ass sex? Because if so, high five! I did it!
The siblings choose not to chase after Hal which, I'm guessing by the cover, is part of the plan as Hal returns with nearly the entire Green Lantern Corps. Instead, they stick around to battle Percival and Ganthet, the two old pieces of shit that will, almost certainly, be a cake walk.
What was the easiest thing people could compare something super easy to before cake walks were invented? Do kids today even know what a cake walk is? It's like musical chairs but with, um, cake! Or is it more like walking mixed with Bingo and also there's cake? I think there was always a bunch of cakes and multiple people would win a cake so it couldn't have been like musical chairs. It was more for old people and little kids anyway. Musical chairs could turn into a fucking melee. I hated that shit.
What a prick. Ganthet knew his training wouldn't be sufficient!
Ganthet's plan for Hal Jordan is far more scientific than "Run away and get some help", which I should have guessed. But then I'm not a scientist so I don't know how scientists come up with all their fancy mumbo-jumbo! I'm just a guy who bullies scientists and all I've ever seen them do is run away with their lab coats flapping as they scream for the cops. But cops, being bullies, recognize game so they never arrest me for bullying scientists. They just come up and laugh and fist bump me and say shit like, "Fucking nerds, amirite?" And I'm always all, "Yeah! Totally! You stupid fucking pigs." Then they run away crying too!
I've never pissed on an old man with a friend but I imagine it would looks something like this.
Also, I may have pissed on an old man but you'll never know because I lie so much in this blog. It's the only way I can also tell truths that are hard to believe! But, no, I've almost certainly never pissed on an old man. Or anybody, for that matter!
Oh shit. I just remembered my cousin once pissed on somebody's leg at a concert at Shoreline Amphitheater in the grass section. That was fucked up. Remembering now how fucked up that was makes me not want to leave any doubt at all that I ever pissed on anybody. I have not! Scout's honor!
Also I'm not a scout so, you know, take that as you will.
Oh, um, anyway, Ganthet's plan: send Hal off at the speed of light so that when he blasts his ring backward at the speed of light, the wavelength becomes shifted and the beam becomes yellow instead of green! Now that's the kind of thing a science fiction author should be coming up with instead of spreading rumors in Latino communities about American hospitals and organ stealing!
This is a good example of why I can't fucking stand people who think "common sense" is enough to understand the world.
If you left all knowledge up to the people who worship common sense, you would live in a world where we know next to fucking nothing. Who would have figured out that light can't go faster than the speed of light? Who would have figured out this red-shifting thing if we just used common sense to think about it. We'd have some chucklehead going, "If you're travelling at the speed of light and you turn on a flashlight, surely the flashlight's light goes twice the speed of light. Done. Solved. And light must go in all directions at once at the same speed with no difference at all to what's being observed. Boom! Easy! Next!" We'd also never get past the idea that the sun revolves around the Earth because, you know, common sense backed by visual evidence. We don't feel like we're moving so the Earth can't be spinning but the Sun goes around the Earth so the Sun must be the object moving. Bam. Done. Common sense! If your world is based around common sense and gut feelings, you live in the most fucking ignorant state imaginable. Get the fuck out of here! Go read a book!
Hal's trick works and destroys the male sibling's ring. But it doesn't stop him because — surprise! — the ring wasn't what gave this Maltusian his power! Fucking duh! That's just common sense, man! Stupid scientist thinks he knows better than me!
Ha ha! Suck it, big brain!
Let's check the scorecard! I guessed that maybe this rogue Maltusian family might be trying to fix Krona's error. Bang on! I guessed that the rings were just to help the immature kids control their power so that they don't obliterate the universe with their wishes. Bang on again! I probably guessed some other stuff too but I don't want to brag.
Hal loses contact with Ganthet so now he has no idea what's happening because he flew too far away, too fast. Now when he looks back at the battle, he simply sees what was happening a minute previous. Or something. I don't know! I don't need to understand this shit to live an enjoyable life! But that also doesn't mean I have to be all, "That doesn't sound true to me. I will not believe any scientists who point it out." Some people live their life full of joy, other people live their lives full of meh. Fuck those people, man!
Luckily for Hal and his sexiness, the female sibling comes after him to do battle.
Oh yeah. He's definitely going to turn her.
I don't actually think Hal's going to seduce this woman. But that doesn't mean I can't wish for it or look it up online thanks to Rule 34.
Two-thirds of the way through the book now! I should take a break!
Hal and Ganthet also take a break from consciousness for some time. When they awaken, they find they've been captured by the Dawalispokpoks! But not Percival. He's still floating out in space somewhere being kept alive by the things Ganthet inserted into him.
Oh come on! These Maltusians just had this perfectly-sized contraption lying around their ship?!
The Maltusians have tuned their Timeviewer to the moment Krona linked the past with the future. But the tracking won't stabilize and they can't get a clear enough picture to do whatever the fuck they're going to do. Time being what it is, it hardly matters what they're going to do because it's already been done. Either what they do will be the actual cause of the universe losing a billion years or they'll have no affect on Krona as he causes the universe to lose a billion years. For creatures who profess to be the smartest beings in the entire fucking universe, they don't know shit about time. Just like most Flash writers!
See how fucking dumb they are? Who cares if they pull the same trick?! Your ring is already gone, ya fucking black hole brain!
The daughter is rightly concerned that they have not found Percival's body. Her father is all, "Good! Problem solved then!" But then she's all, "But if we can find even a strand of his DNA, we can clone him and then I can convince myself that I didn't murder him!" Wow! She's got a weirder sense of ethics than Batman! "If I can clone another being from tissues of the being that I killed, then I haven't actually killed anybody, have I?! I mean, sure, the consciousness of the person I killed ceased to exist at the moment of death and cloning a new being with all of that person's memories [pretending that's how it works] doesn't actually bring the first person back to life. But it will fool everybody except the dead person, even the clone will think they've always been alive, so who actually cares about the dead person at that point?"
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, two characters, Barkley and Doctor Pulaski, refuse to use the transporter because they can't wrap their heads around it not being a suicide/cloning machine. Everybody around them tells them they're worrying over nothing, so much so that they eventually use the transporters. Later they learn that Riker has a clone from a transporter malfunction which, you know, means Barkley and Doctor Pulaski were the only non-clone characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation right up until they were forced to use a transporter. If you can't see how a second Riker being created by the transporter is evidence that my hypothesis that the transporter definitely is a suicide/cloning machine, I'm not going to go into it. I've done it elsewhere on this blog and it seems pretty obvious and I've already spent way too long on this fucking comic book that is not at all about Star Trek.
Hal and Ganthet have been imprisoned in the cockpit of the space craft so they can listen to the family discuss their plans. Hal hears the daughter express her sadness at having possibly killed Percival and it causes him to be stupid, like usual.
You have no idea if she cares about human life! She's sad about killing a Leprechaun!
Ganthet, becoming frustrated with this whole mess, yells at Duwhalipoddypodpod to tell him what the fuck he's trying to do. The Maltusian explains that he's the guy who came up with the whole masturbation myth of the creation of the universe. He created the vision and the block which was supposed to thwart scientists from looking into the past but it only made them so curious that eventually Krona fucked up everything and pre-aged the universe. Or, you know, Doowopwopwopdoowopwop is about to do that while erroneously thinking he's about to stop Krona. Has nobody remembered that Krona was simply using a Time Viewer?! How could he have sewn the universe's mouth to its own ass through a television?
I'm going to be pretty angry at all of these characters if it turns out Dawlakispokpok winds up being the cause of universal energy loss because these are Guardians and they're so much smarter than me and even I know time can't be changed! Have they not seen Lost?! Or, you know, if it is changed, it just creates an alternate timeline while the original timeline still exists, flaws and all! Have they not seen Primer?! Oh, never mind. I think the only movie these asshats have seen is Back to the Future.
You can tell he's the bad guy by the way he steeples his fingers while he explains his evil plan.
Even as this poorly named idiot continues to explain his plan, it's obvious how totally wrong he is and that he's going to be the one to create the link. Krona is fucking using a television set while you're using a machine that can punch a person through time! Bah! What am I raging about?! Even if I could explain it simply to them, it's already happened! I can't stop them any more than they can stop Krona (even though they don't have to). They're going to fuck up everything and then rend all of their garments as they realize what they've done.
Mmm-hmm. Okay. Sure. You're going to create a link between the end of the universe and the moment where Krona exists. Got it. Don't see any problem with that. Nope!
Meanwhile, Percival reappears having not died at all. He battles with the siblings for a few pages which I've decided not to scan because you've seen Green Lantern fights so many times before! Somebody conjures up a ball so somebody else conjures up a bat so the original person conjures up a mitt. You don't need to see a few scattered panels of yet another one from 1992! Although you might want to see Percival's pornstache.
Is he obsessed with knights simply because Jordan mentioned there had been knights named Percival in human literature?
Look, I tried. I tried to read the entire thing slowly, one page at a time, so that I didn't wind up writing 20 paragraphs on the first five pages only to sum up the last fifteen pages in one paragraph. I've held out as long as I could! Here's what happens: Percival gets his ass kicked over and over again by the Maltusian son. So he makes a construct that's intangible, causing the son to fly through it at a speed too fast to stop before he smashes into his parents' Time Fucker Upper. Everything goes haywire and — you're not going to believe this — the machine sucks a bunch of entropy into the past! It wasn't Krona's fault at all! It was the Fuckedupnamerburgs!
It was an easy guess to make! I've read enough Doom Patrol to know that the happy little nuclear family are always the bad guys. Also The Outsiders when they literally battled The Nuclear Family.
Even after entropy destroys the husband and almost kills Hal, Hal still needs it all explained to him.
I'm not saying I'm smarter than all the other readers who also almost certainly figured out what was happening here. I'm saying the Maltusian family were the biggest fucking morons in the universe. After Oedipus, I mean.
Man, now I feel bad. I know you can't change time and thus can't change your fate so why am I so angry at these guys? If they hadn't done what they'd done they never would have had to to what they did to make what happened happen! How do you fight that?!
Ganthet seems really upbeat about the whole thing so I think he knew this was all going to happen. This whole thing was all part of his vacation! Like a ride at Disneyland, he knew it was on tracks but that didn't make it any less exciting to experience!
The mother and son surrender but Darthartheen was out searching for Percival's DNA in space when it all went down. She missed the big show but returns to find her father's entropy-laden skeleton floating in space. When she touches it, her hand gets entropified and becomes a skeletal horror. Then she flies off to never appear again because her name was so stupid. Or maybe she does. I'm sure Geoff Johns or Grant Morrison pulled her into one of their weird overdramatic and grand tales full of comic book trivia and old timey nostalgia. Unless this character just happened to be a bit too popular for them, having been in
Ganthet's Tale which seems like it was probably a big deal? Did this shit affect canon much? Does anybody, after this, ever talk about how one of the Green Lanterns is a Leprechaun?
Green Lantern: Ganthet's Tale Rating: A+. While I can fault the Maltusians for being so stupid, I can't fault the rest of the comic book. Fuck! I can't even fault the Maltusians! We're all Fate's bitches, man! What I really love is how coherent the story is (except for needing a Leprechaun. Maybe that was just some of Ganthet's vacation fun. Maybe he just knew, owning his own Time Television Set, that he'd need Hal and Percival there with him). And I guess I'm a fan of Byrne's art and layouts? How the fuck do I own a comic book that's both well-written and well-drawn?! Other than
Elfquest and two-thirds of
Cerebus, I didn't think I owned any comic books like that!