New Guardians #18

Carol Ferris, this is your lucky day! A life without Hal Jordan!

Go ahead, Volthoom! Remove Hal Jordan from Carol Ferris's life! You'll be doing her a favor! He's never given her anything but a broken heart and a bladder infection! You were a strong, independent woman running your own company and then he came along to fill you with false hopes of romantic nights and a happy family. And he got you tangled up in all of this cosmic bullshit. Good riddance!

Although the fact that you're about to get raped by Volthoom probably makes a life with pathetic Hal Jordan seem palatable. Sorry.

In Volthoom's version of reality, Carol Ferris's father has killed himself and his company has been taken over by Leviathan Defense Systems. On the plus side, she's a pilot and she gets to yell at and criticize Hal Jordan all day!

Hey DC! Give this artist, Hendry Prasetyo, more work on New 52 titles!

Volthoom believes that if Carol was aware of her "real" life, she'd choose this one instead. But isn't that just like a control freak to think they know better than you? I mean, I did it in a previous paragraph! But even if Volthoom or I can point out dozens of reasons why her life would be better without Hal Jordan, she'd never choose to live differently. Heroes never regret anything because their egos won't allow them to believe they've ever made a mistake. Look at John Stewart over in Green Lantern Corps rationalizing all of the murders he's committed! And Superman not wanting Ms. Nyxly to use her wish to alter his life to the way it originally was before Vyndktvx screwed it up. Which is a really interesting thought because Superman knows his life was supposed to be another way and yet he chooses to keep the fucked up version of his life. Now I know Superman made that sacrifice to help save other lives, so that's what makes him a hero. But even if he didn't have a promise to keep to save Noah and his family, I have a feeling he couldn't choose to change things back if he wanted to. There's a certain amount of self-preservation in the choice. Changing things means killing the person that chooses to have things changed. That person ceases to exist. In essence, once you choose to have a moment in the past changed, you are killing yourself to let some other person (even if it is another version of you) live. I think I'm saying Superman's choice is less noble and more cowardly than it would appear.

After feeding on Carol's emotions and letting her go back to her normal life since Volthoom is still powerless to change everything completely, Volthoom heads off to mess with Larfleeze. Volthoom gives Larfleeze his greatest wish and places him back with his family. The first thing Larfleeze does is steal his son's birthday present. I have a feeling a few billion years of being a greedy son of a bitch is hard to filter out of a person's essence.

Hey! I used "palatable" earlier! We're word twinsies, Volthoom!

Volthoom also torments Saint Walker. Then he torments Carol some more. Then he changes some other things in Larfleeze's life around the time of Green Lantern: Agent Orange. Woah woah woah. Wait a second. This Volthoom IS all-powerful!

He just changed reality in such a way that editorial was allowed to reference a Preboot Trade Paperback!

Well now. This is an interesting turn of events. While DC has allowed many, many story elements to remain from Preboot History to New 52 History, I believe this is the first time that editorial has been allowed to reference a Preboot Comic Book. Is this a mistake on editor Wil Moss's part? Or is this a step to try to sell Preboot books to new fans that jumped on board with The New 52? Is DC going to start labeling Preboot Trade Paperbacks as "New 52 Continuity Friendly"?

Although forgetting about the weird mention of a Preboot Trade, let me take a moment to reread that final Narration Box a dozen more times. "...allowing him the focus to slay the hated Guardians." So good! Can this reality be permanently instituted? I'm pretty sure with the Guardians killed, 75% of DC Comic Books are never written. Or they just have heroes sitting around playing board games because the universe is a much safer place.

Volthoom finally gives up trying to make Larfleeze feel more than avarice because Larfleeze is too fucking awesome. That seemed like a perfectly reasonable reason when it was still inside my head.

Meanwhile Carol Ferris sees through Volthoom's ruse because she's too fucking awesome. I never really thought she was but since I used the same reasoning for Larfleeze, I figured I should use the same reasoning for Carol. But then I've never read any stories with her as a Star Sapphire. Maybe I owe Carol Ferris another look.

Obviously Larfleeze is still much cooler.

In this fake reality, Carol flies off to find Kyle Rayner. I'm not sure how that works since Volthoom is only fucking with her mind. He lacks the power to make this a persistent world. Perhaps she simply flies off in the "real" world to find Rayner and compare notes. In the meantime, Volthoom needs to go suck out Atrocitus's rage (unless he goes after Rankorr or Bleez or someone).

New Guardians #18 Rating: No change. I think mentioning a Preboot Trade Paperback may have been a huge mistake on DC's part. The facade has cracked. They've now permanently linked not just shared history between the Preboot and the Reboot but the physical comics themselves. The boundary between the old universe and the new universe has just been blurred even more. Pretty soon it won't even matter and everything will become more confusing than being The Silver Scarab after Crisis on Infinite Earths.