Green Lantern Corps #18

John Stewart, Indigo Lantern Sniper. 50 calibers of compassion.

Last issue of Green Lantern Corps, Volthoom fucked with Guy Gardner. Now it's John's turn to see how his past might have been if a sociopath were directing history and making John's decisions for him.

I guess John is always going to be a supporting character since Volthoom is screwing with Fatality in this issue as well.

The multiple Lantern Corps have faced several crises so far in the Reboot. I'm pretty sure every crisis began because of the Lantern Corps. Invictus was destroying planets due to Larfleeze's past actions. Other planets were being destroyed by the Keepers of the Power Batteries because their source of power had been taken away when the Guardians decided to stop storing batteries on the Keepers' homeworld. Sinestro and Hal waged a battle against the Yellow Corps enslaving his homeworld. The Guardians of the Universe created the Third Army to kill everything. Guy and John battled for their lives against the Alpha Corps. Black Hand of the Black Lantern Corps returned to cause trouble. Volthoom is the First Lantern and the source of the Guardians' power, and now he's going to remake the universe. I'm getting the feeling that the universe would be much safer without this fucking police force. Nobody wants you coming in to their neighborhoods, you assholes!

Volthoom begins by telling John Stewart he was a coward for not saving his mother when she was assassinated while running for political office. Volthoom is a dick that trades in regrets and could-have-beens. He can't change the universe so he's going to remind everyone that their life could have been worse. Is that how the Green Lanterns are going to defeat him? By rising up and saying, "But it wasn't that way! We persevered! Against all odds, we became heroes! And even if we occasionally fucked up and killed an innocent person, we pretended it never happened and we marched on! So stop making us feel bad, you stupid meany head!" Anyway, that's my prediction for the end of this Cosmic Event.

Speaking of Cosmic Events (actually, Cosmic Odysseys), Volthoom reminds John Stewart about that time he thought he could save a planet from being blown up but discovered the bomb was yellow. Volthoom doesn't change this event because Volthoom just wants to leave events that hurt John the way they were and change events to things that make John feel badly for not being able to change them himself. This might be why Volthoom is visiting Fatality as well since this screw up by Stewart affected her pretty significantly. You know, being that it was her homeworld and all.

Volthoom gives John a new reality where he shoots himself in the head and he gives Fatality a new reality where she kills John. Volthoom! If you want your realities to stick, you're going to have to stop creating paradoxes, you jerk.

I guess Volthoom is just vamping at this point because he finally decides on this being a more romantic end:

For a villain based on emotion, Volthoom hasn't convinced me to emotionally invest in this story.

Volthoom continues to show John Stewart that maybe his tough choices weren't always the choice that needed to be made. But he does it in a sloppy fashion that shouldn't convince anyone. When Stewart killed Mogo to save millions of lives, Volthoom shows him a future where Kyle stopped John and saved everybody without killing Mogo. Except he doesn't show John how Kyle did it. He just shows a happy ending. Oh look! Everyone is okay! No thanks to you! And then he reminds John about the time he killed Kirrt to keep the Keepers from gaining the Oan Power Battery. But Volthoom shows another possible reality where John gives in and Kirrt kills him. What the fuck is that supposed to prove?! That John made the right decision because Kirrt would have done the same thing in that situation?

The most succinct thing he says is that John would have been better off killing himself after he failed to save Xanshi because death has always followed on Stewart's heels. Of course, the opposite could be true too when you're dealing with whatever possible reality you want to show somebody! Maybe John simply was the only person to make the tough choices and he was always the only person to be in the wrong place at the right time to make those decisions. If John had killed himself, maybe even more people would have died, right? I think when Ostrander long ago put the words "John Stewart's mill" on paper, John's path was set in motion. He would always be the one to take actions that would do the most good for the most people, no matter how horrible those actions were.

After Volthoom is done with the false history lesson, he fucks the shit out of both of them.

That's a lot of rainbow jizz.

Green Lantern Corps #18 Rating: No change. I hadn't really thought much about how my Green Lantern Masturbation Theory has been mostly useless during this new catastrophe. Until this final scene in this issue. Volthoom does indeed represent rape. Here it seems a little bit too explicit but what he's doing is raping the psyches and histories of all of these unwilling Green Lanterns. He is forcing his way into their minds and trying to change their core being. And just like rape, this is all about gaining power. Volthoom is literally (I think this is one of the few actual times this word needs to be used!) powering up by the emotional terror he's causing his victims. While I haven't been too interested in this story, I think it just became supremely creepy in this context and my interest is piqued. This might be a truly grotesque horror story. I think I have to reread these issues now!