Green Lantern #17 (October 1991)

"No! Wait! You can't quit! We're not done fucking with you yet!"

I instantly had a few thoughts when looking at this cover and the most immediate and disturbing was, "I wonder what the Guardians' balls smell like?" I didn't plan on thinking that. I didn't want to think that. But the Guardians look sweaty and they're probably just free-ballin' and they're blue which probably adds a dimension to the smell, right? Do colors smell? I grew up in the '70s where everything was Scratch 'n' Sniff scented so I'm wired to think that yellow smells like bananas and red smells like cherries and purple smells like grapes and brown smells like chocolate and black smells like licorice and orange smells like oranges and blue smells like snozzberries and green smells like apples and/or watermelons. I don't know if the idea that all colors had specific scents cascaded down into newer generations but as a Gen Xer, colors definitely smell. So sweaty blue Guardians balls smell like a cowboy's saddle after a long cattle drive if you sniffed it while chewing blueberry gum that was almost out of flavor.

At the end of the last issue, John Stewart went mad. He went mad a little bit from the guilt of killing everybody on some planet I've forgotten about, a little bit by reading too many philosophical texts, a little bit by analyzing too many pop songs, a little bit by being forced to babysit a bunch of aliens thrown into a cosmic melting pot, a little bit by growing up in a racist America, a little bit by having Hal Jordan as a mentor, and a lot a bit by being possessed by an insane Guardian of the Universe. What he's done to himself over time, building a wall around his heart and his past so he doesn't have to care about all the pain he's endured (like the planet killing, racism, and pop songs), he's now done to Oa. He put up walls to avoid confrontation. John begins this issue realizing that he's got some shit to deal with and maybe by not dealing with it, he's used it to sculpt a prison planet full of metaphors and analogies which he can't run from. Although judging by the cover, he's going to fucking try.

An awful lot of comics were basing their themes on Pink Floyd songs in the early '90s (see Cerebus and, well, two. Two comics were doing that).

John determines that the Mad Guardian's voice in his head is just his own brain giving a voice to the Mad Guardian's memories that wound up locked in his head when the Mad Guardian died while mind-linked to him. So John yells at the voice to shut up meaning he's yelling at himself meaning he doesn't shut up at all, shoves the voice back into his subconscious, and continues to live deeply in denial just like everybody else with perfect mental health.

The red alien (who is part of a race now being referred to as "The Horde") comes out of his coma long enough to mutter "See Rose" to John. John doesn't yell at it to shut up even though this is obviously another hallucination from his crazed mind. Instead, John thinks, "Wow! How did Rose get this alien to send me a message to see her? I should maybe go see her!" It turns out that's exactly what happened which means John and Rose are either greater geniuses than I am or just more earnest. Because I definitely wouldn't have listened to the Horde fellow. I mean I wouldn't have comprehended what he was trying to say. I would have responded, "Sea rose? Which sea rose? What are you talking about? There's a sea on Oa?! How did you wake up? I had you on enough Ketamine to fuel a Lords of Acid afterparty!"

If you grew up in the '70s, you'd realize this is the perfect beat in the dialogue for Lenny and Squiggy to barge in the door yelling, "Hello!"

Hal Jordan also does not barge through the front door. Nor does the Kool Aid Man bust through the wall because he can't reach a doorknob due to his thick midsection and small arms. Nobody comes to save them even though John looked directly at the camera and pleaded, "How?!" How will they stop this travesty? How will they save the world? How can they turn the tide of hatred and violence that threatens to destroy everything?

Dammit. Now that I referenced an old television show like Laverne and Shirley, my mind has begun picturing John Stewart, architect, as Mike Brady. This is just like an episode of The Brady Bunch! The battling aliens forced to live with each other are just like the children from separate marriages being forced to get along in such a small space. John Stewart, the architect, must maintain peace and find a way for everybody to live together. Rose takes the place of Carol Brady, his platonic wife, helping John to see things more clearly. And the Guardians are Alice. They're just watching and making snarky comments while occasionally leaving the house (Oa) to go fuck Sam the Zamaron.

Rose suggests John turn every race's most shallow and stereotypical attribute into a positive by giving them purposes based on their differences. John points out that's fucking racist and Rose gets a little bit too mad at him for shutting her down.

Sure, John. She was going to say "now."

Like I pointed out, John's an earnest motherfucker. But if thinking Rose was going to say "now" helps John to get off his ass and start fixing this shit, I don't see any need to suggest otherwise. Obviously Rose was going to say now! Um, obviously!

John's walls collapse under the pressure of every alien on the planet trying to knock them down. A tremendous massacre ensues as every alien race attacks every other alien race. Luckily Hal followed Chaselon back to Oa and he and his recruits arrive in time to save at least a few lives. John sees Hal arrive and it sends him spiraling once more. All of his childhood insecurities return to the surface. Plus that one insecurity where his wife, Katma Tui, was murdered by Jordan's ex, Carol Ferris (as Star Sapphire). So the guy whose ex murdered his wife who John resents because he's also the great white hero who always swoops in to save this poor little Black boy once again wags John's failures right in his face. Unbeknownst to Hal, of course, who just does his cop job the way any cop does: without thinking. John, who thinks way too much, finally decides maybe he should act. He couldn't act to stop race riots when he was a boy. He couldn't act to save his wife from Hal's ex. He couldn't act to save an entire planet because the bomb was yellow (but that was a case where he didn't think enough! That was one where he acted too much without thinking so I don't think it should be part of the list. But it is. Because, you know, an entire planet died). And now John can't act to save the aliens on Oa because he's more concerned with how the entire situation is a metaphor for his mental health rather than something that's happening right at the moment and it's causing people to die.

Don't threaten Hal with a good time brawl that could end with him 86'd from an entire planet.

Hal allows John to lead the team while also allowing John to think that Hal isn't allowing John to lead the team. That's why he's a hero! Having thought too much about how to protect the aliens of the planet from each other using the wisdom of philosophers and poets, John decides now to use the wisdom of Mike Tyson and Hal Jordan. Instead of walls and non-violence, John turns to beating the shit out of people and locking them in cages.

I guess this works better than the walls because Rockwell has no sycophants lending him their ears.

Those most scared of violence being committed against them are always the ones most willing to commit violence against others. Some people have guns even though they know what guns have done to our communities because they don't give a shit what happens to anybody but themselves. And the gun, while not actually making them safe, gives them a sense of safety. But here's the secret, assholes: you can feel safe without a gun. All you have to do is stop pooping your pants every day worrying about how you can't control every other individual on the planet! Calm down, fuckers. Take a breath. Maybe meditate a little bit.

Here's my secret to feeling safe without resorting to being part of the mass killing community (if you own a gun, face it, you're part of the community. You allow mass killings just to feel safer): if I'm killed because I don't have a gun, I don't give a shit. I'd rather die than be party to our gun epidemic. I doubt there's a gun owner in America who sleeps better than I do.

After the Green Lanterns stop the fighting by imprisoning all the leaders and making a grand show of their power, John heads over to Rose's house to ask for her help. Hal is all, "Wait. This is my lady's house!" And John is all, "Yeah, I need her help!" And Hal is all, "*GLARE GLARE JEALOUSY GLARE*"

John confronts the Guardians and learns they're not sending anybody home. They've become attached to their caged vermin. Or something. They claim observing different aliens and how they get along is for the greater good of the universe. And they tell John he's welcome to leave and abandon his duty and his new friends and the one thing he does better than Hal Jordan. So John doesn't quit. The cover was a big lie! Ha ha! I bet you were fooled, weren't you?! Stupid comic book reader!

John gathers all the peaceful aliens together to start a local governing council that will plan the new community. He's going to do the thing Rose suggested earlier that he called racist. Mostly because it's the easiest way to present a new comic book title, Green Lantern: Mosaic. It'll contain so many allegories and morality tales and fables and lessons to learn! I can't wait to read it (again!).

Green Lantern #17 Rating: B+. I was hoping for a more intricate solution to the problems of the Mosaic world than "putting the rabble rousers in prison." It's just such an American answer and not any more thoughtful than just building a wall. But at least John sees this as a temporary solution to keep the peace. He also makes sure Rockwell knows that he has no problem going even further if it's warranted. John will bring death and destruction any time it is needed to save his new world. But he doesn't want that. He's going to work with all of the earnest aliens he's met so far who believe they can all coexist. And they're going to hammer out some really smart solutions. And John will probably hammer out Rose's butthole, if you get my meaning. My meaning is what I literally wrote, by the way. Hal's going to have to start dating Brik (which would make Brik gravel her underwear. She's so into Jordan).

Green Lantern #16 (September 1991)

I bet by this point in the conflict on Mosaic, John's wishing he'd joined the Marines early in his life.

The day I matured was the day I realized "Cat's Cradle" was sung by an unreliable narrator who was trying to gaslight the audience against the son he ignored his whole life just because the son decided, by college, he wasn't going to waste one more second on his piece of shit dad. How I never understood the son's repetition of his father's lies when he borrows the car and informs his dad that they'll have a good time whenever he gets back later that night speaks to either my "child waiting for his father to come home like the narrator in Faster Pussycat's 'House of Pain'" naivete or our cultures ability to push narratives accepted by the ignorant masses over actual truth. So many people think the song is tragic when it's really a bad-ass anthem of rebellion and letting go of toxic family. I'm sure there were loads of dads whose sons never got to know them and later in life didn't want to get to know them who believed their sons were ungrateful jerks who couldn't understand what they gave up to provide for them. But, you know, they understood. We choose what is most important to us and other people observe those choices. Especially children.

Hopefully that winds up having something to do with this story so that I can pretend it wasn't simply a short look into my head after waking up from a dream where my dad was trying to get me back into his life.

America. Where every out of work miner in small towns like Hope Springs owns an Uzi.

America. Where the white guy in the background is more horrified that a cop is trying to stop some other white men from killing some non-white people than how every man in town tried to shoot their way through a white woman for a chance to shoot the non-white guys.

America. Where Christians are taught that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorah because of the gays rather than trying to explain why Lot gets drunk and fucks his daughters in a cave a week later.

You might be wondering why I brought up that last one. It sort of surprised me too because I was planning on listing a lot more shit that was wrong with America's policing and their treatment of our fellow Black citizens. But this issue is called "Scriptures" which made me think of The New Testament which made me think of the Old Testament which made me think of the way the story of Lot's daughters getting him drunk and fucking him is told in a way that makes you think, "Man, incest is hot." I see some you giving me some suspicious side-eye! I'm not the one who thinks incest is hot! Readers of The Bible probably are those perverts! You might be the kind of people who have only experienced The Bible second-hand and think the stories told in it communicate precisely what you've been told they communicate. Now, I don't know "precisely" what the religious dogma is surrounding Lot's daughters seducing their father because the elder daughter gaslights the younger one into thinking that the end of the world has come and no more men exist even though they just, on the way to this cave, passed through the town of Zoar with all those non-father men living there. Some people might think, "That's hot." But those people are disgusting and/or Paris Hilton! What you should be thinking when you read that is, "How drunk would I actually have to get to not realize that I had sex with my daughter the night before and would it be a believable amount so that I can pretend I'm drunk later tonight so I can have sex with my other daughter?"

I've just convinced myself that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was absolutely the fault of Lot's super horny daughters. Sodom was destroyed because a bunch of men were all, "Hey! We want to fuck those hot, genderless winged creatures who are currently staying in your house, Lot!" And Lot was all, "No way! Gross! Get out of here!" But then Lot's daughters were all, "Let us fuck them, Dad! Let us fuck them! Please! Speaking of pathetic, powerless, genderless pricks, our husbands aren't satisfying us! Please let us fuck everybody!" And Lot was all, "Um, okay, uh, hey, do you guys want to fuck my horny daughters?" And the Sodomites were all, "Did we say we wanted to fuck non-genderless, non-winged, non-unmarried women? Get out of here with that shit!" And so Lot was all, "Um, okay, you know what? Maybe we should get out of this town." And God was probably only half paying attention due to all the fucking negotiating about how many righteous people lived in Sodom with Abram that he didn't realize the real target of his wrath, Lot's horny daughters, had left town when he destroys it.

Yeah, you know what? That all makes sense. Don't question any of it. Bible explication time is over now!

John calls his "dream" a "vision" to obfuscate the fact that this massacre happened because he took a nice little nappy time.

America. Where old white guys who think cops serve them exclusively try to convince the younger kids in MAGA hats to shoot the cop who's obviously not about to take their side.

America. Where a person misinterprets a situation and then doubles down on their incorrect take even when it's proven wrong. I only bring that up because I'm way better than "America" and I can admit when I interpreted a panel incorrectly. That old guy isn't shoving a gun into the young guy's hand and convincing him to shoot John. He's wrestling the gun away from the cowardly young kid who won't resort to the terrible things that need to be done to protect the white race from all of these aliens and Black cops so that he can smash John Stewart in the head with the butt of the rifle (which must be a type of "brown-yellow" that I don't recognize because it knocks John Stewart fucking silly).

Has Rockwell ever fired one of these things before? I'm pretty sure he's holding it upside-down.

Maybe Rockwell learned to shoot from Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd cartoons and he believes you're supposed to blow your own fucking head off every time you pull the trigger.

Rose tries to explain to the crowd that she knows John Stewart is trying to help because she "spent last night with him." Having grown up in a rural white mining town, she immediately understands how that will be interpreted, especially when she sees every white guy pull a rope out of nowhere and begin forming a noose. I wouldn't know how to tie a noose but then I went to high school in the San Francisco Bay Area where we never had "noose tying" as a choice in our Physical Education classes. Somehow we still had Square Dancing though.

America. Where a white woman implying she had sexual congress with a Black man has resulted in an amount of deaths roughly equal to ten percent of the number of American soldiers killed in Vietnam. Maybe slightly less than that because I'm sure not all lynching deaths were because a bunch of fucked up white men thought a Black man had sex with a white woman. I'm sure some of the lynchings were due to some white man not feeling like a Black man was respectful enough, or grateful enough, or, you know, any fucking reason they could come up with that every other white person in town would have felt justified the killing.

The editors were probably all, "We're so sick of letters from offended white dudes. Make sure the person who first accuses Rose of an interracial sexual liaison is a POC woman."

If you think white dudes haven't been offended by any suggestion of liberal minded social justice in non-modern comic books, all you're revealing to me is that you've never really read the letters pages in older comic books. There's a reason white dudes came up with the term "snowflake"; they've been flaking their snow all over everybody else for generations. They've got to be the most offended demographic in the history of taking offense (which began, I believe, when God was all, "Hey, Cain. Where the fuck did Abel go?" And, yes, *I* know Cain and Abel weren't white. But just ask any white person to describe them and guess what? White as snow, motherfuckers!).

Some guy named Ibrahim manages to calm Rose down before she's murdered for crimes against white humanity.

America. Where some white guy uses a Muslim guy's last name and I automatically think it's a slur I've never heard before.

You might be surprised, based on my tumblr reputation as an "edgelord," how many slurs I never knew growing up. I probably learned the majority of them via comic books! Like Green Lantern's pal Pieface! I didn't even realize that one was a slur until this century! Learning that one, I felt like Randal in Clerks II being educated on the etymology of porch monkey. Not that I ever called anybody by Green Lantern's pal's nickname. Christ, imagine if I loved the nickname so much I just started using it as a chummy name for decades while everybody around me was thinking, "What the fuck is wrong with this way-too-jolly racist piece of shit?"

Looking up "Pieface" just to make sure that was Hal's pal Tom's "nickname," I wound up on "The Racial Slur Database" and, holy shit, I really, really don't know many slurs. They've got to be mostly made up by Internet trolls, right? I mean, this can't actually be one because nobody is native to Antarctica: "Ant. Antarcticans. Self-explanatory." No, no. It is not self-explanatory. Are we saying people use this slur against penguins?! What the fuck is happening?!

Now that the humans have attacked a peaceful delegation of Xudarians, the Xudarians have decided to join in on the violent fun. They now roam the skies of Hope Springs with Xudarian rocket launchers. But being a calmer species, they don't go blasting away yet. But the fuse has been placed in the powder keg and a match can be struck at any moment!

Which means it's time for an advertisement to break the tension! Ball Park franks. Eat them! They're "hot dogs"!

Current generations probably look at this and think, "He's dressed so wacky because he's a cartoon!" as opposed to "He's dressed so wacky because he's from the '80s!"

Notice the ad copy uses the term "skate away" and then has the stupid dog on roller blades. Yes, yes. Technically, he's "skating." But I'm from California, dude. Skate means skateboard or get the fuck out.

I was just watching an old episode of Project Runway and one of the contestants had decided that their "girl" they were designing for was a skater. And then she proceeded to dress this "skater girl" in a quilted outfit. A skater wearing a fucking quilted outfit. Michael Kors should have did a kick flip into a grind to slide across the runway slapping the fuck out of her as he passed (and all the other contestants too, just so they would learn not to be dumb idiots on the next runway).

And now back to our regularly scheduled twenty-two pages of tension!

This page reads so differently to modern readers who only think of Narration Boxes as a character's internal monologue.

On first reading this page, even I was taken unawares by the omniscient narrator's voice. I simply assumed it was John Stewart's view of the surrounding conflict and his musings on what fear drives people to do. But then I got to the narration boxes that sounds so fucking arrogant and narcissistic: "Only one being has power on this mad planet. One being has the power of sanity. The power of indifference. The power of estrangement." Okay, maybe the last two powers aren't that arrogant. They're a bit confounding when you think John is thinking it. "Why would he think of indifference and estrangement not just as powers but as attributes he perceives in himself?" I suppose I've often looked over a crowd of people and thought, "Only one person here is sane." But of course I've thought that, being the only sane person in existence.

John uses the ring to blast the shit out of every weapon being used against another being and then throws up walls between every single civilization. He also says, in a Narration Box, "Comfort yourselves with your scripture, little lunatics. I will keep you safe and secure." So, um, you know what? Pretty sure all of these Narration Boxes are John's inner monologue. The comic was written in 1991 and while you could still find omniscient narrators often enough, the Narration Boxes were definitely changing into inner dialogue and the "thought bubble" was on the way out. You still see thought bubbles from time to time but it's pretty rare already by 1991.

Anyway, I guess John isn't as sane as he thinks he is if these are the types of thoughts he's thinking.

By containing and separating every alien species on the planets, John disappoints the Guardians. The old farts look on his work and despair for it is the same work that they did before they all loosened up by getting laid. They should look down on the planet and think, "Of course this was John's solution. This is a stupid experiment. You don't take a bunch of different species and throw them in the same box and see how they get along. You do that to see them fight and determine the most vicious and powerful. Maybe we should fuck off and go get laid again?" Instead, they decide to continue to observe and hope things go differently than the way things went when they were trying to force order on the universe. Obviously things are going to go differently! All of these creatures have the ability to fuck with each other without worrying about space travel. John's solution is less of "doing the same thing they did by partitioning off species from each other" and more "using walls in place of the vast distances of space." All John's really done is move the parameters of the experiment closer to how things would naturally be across the universe. If you accept my metaphor of walls as space! And you should because you're mad and I'm sane.

Robert Frost's line shouldn't have been "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." It should have been, "Everybody can come together with their hatred of walls."

Through the use of a spy, Rockwell and his militants learn that many of the aliens feel the same way that they do. They want the walls to come down and Green Lantern's head. I'm not sure why they care about the walls being that there are "natural" walls between most of the civilizations anyway due to different gravities and atmospheres. I suppose the illusion of freedom is something they find worth dying for.

Meanwhile, the Guardians have been observing everybody's violent reaction. They're confused as to why mortal beings react out of fear and anger instead of trying to work together with beings that might stab them in the back and shoot them in the face at any moment, thus ending their, you know, mortality. Funny how these high and mighty immortal beings can't seem to ever understand how potent a fuel the fear of death can be. Plus they have no intention of sending any of these aliens back to their home planets because watching bugs in a jar fight each other to the death is so fucking thrilling. Better than sex, apparently, since they've given up sex to watch aliens kill each other.

The crystal aliens jerk each other off to create a harmonic disturbance that brings Chaselon the Crystal Green Lantern headed back to Oa. Hal realizes this probably means John's fucked up yet again, so he heads back too.

John has discovered that maybe he's more insane than everybody else on Oa when he tries to maintain the walls and his psyche is overtaken by the Mad Guardian's thoughts. Remember how the Guardians "cleaned" the Great Power Battery on Oa by shoving all the bad shit into John? Particularly that red electric creature thing? Pretty sure that's coming back to fuck everything up. You'd think that after John's mind is cleared of this being, somebody would have gone over the central battery with a fine toothed parasite comb and rid it of the other flaw that's soon to haunt Hal Jordan.

Green Lantern #16 Rating: A. The obvious solution to this entire problem has been a wall. But that's just the point, isn't it? Gerard Jones has written a story about an architect who must find a way for disparate races to get along which makes you think, "Well, build something. A wall!" And a lot of modern conservatives were probably putting pillows over their hard-ons as they read that. But just as I noted previously because of all the shit Robert Frost taught me (because I read "Mending Wall" correctly), I knew the wall would fail. So here in the penultimate issue, we see John resort to the wall to keep the peace. And we see how the wall fails miserably. Everybody hates the wall and it's just increased their passion for violence, especially violence against the Green Lantern. So how will John figure it out? Will John even figure it out? My guess is that Rose will figure it out by reaching out to the most violent aliens that started this whole mess. They'll find some common ground, hug, and peace will last for ten thousand years. Or Hal Jordan will arrive and start a massive brawl which well end with everybody laughing uproariously about how silly they were all acting and putting alien steaks on their blackening eyes.

Green Lantern #15 (August 1991)

This was such an exciting moment from page 8 of Issue #14 that it made the cover of Issue #15.

Sure, it's also possible that this happens to John Stewart again in this issue. But I'd rather believe in some sort of editorial cock-up than believe that John Stewart turned his back on these aliens even after they proved that they would shoot him directly in the back. And for those of you arguing this might be some sort of ambush, it's not. That wall the alien is shooting from behind is the wall of their city which was built in concentric circles. So John Stewart would have to knowingly turn his back to the one place he knows the aliens are hunkered down. He didn't go on and on about structure last issue for me to suddenly buy into his inability to understand structures! This is either a mistake in scheduling covers versus where the story was going to be this month or it's the stupidest mistake John Stewart ever made. I'll buy into editors making dumb mistakes before I buy into fictional space heroes who have proven their smarts making one.

Also why is John being stunned by an orange blast? Was his ring all, "Oh, there's some yellow in this flaming explosion but not enough to kill John so I won't kick in the auto-protections." Also if Green Lanterns are affected by orange somewhat because there's some yellow in there, shouldn't they also be unable (or less able) to defend against other green lantern rings? Or am I basing this theory too much on pigment theory and not enough on light theory? Have I mentioned how not smart I am?

I don't mean to suggest that I'm smart by pointing out how stupid I am like those wise men who are all, "I know nothing therefore *wink* I know everything." I just mean I'm not an expert on anything and barely an amateur on the rest of the things. No expertise at all. I'd be dead weight in a real emergency or survival situation. The only thing I'm smart at is reading, comprehending, and deconstructing texts. And I don't mean deconstructing texts in the Internet way of deconstructing texts where somebody proclaims that some text says something it doesn't actually say because they've misunderstood (or, more often online, purposefully misunderstood) something somebody said so that they can bully them and feel powerful. I mean actually reading what a text says and understanding what the text is saying in what it's not saying. Take as an easy, non-literary example of this, dog whistles. They're called this because somebody is saying something that can't be physically heard. But it's said with a big enough wink to the right people that they know exactly what's being said in what isn't being said. Plus, they leave themselves plenty of room to deny the unsaid thing.

For an example of comic book deconstructing, remember when Cullen Bunn was doing Aquaman? But you (or I!) could tell he just dusted off an old John Carter of Mars pulp script? I mean, I'm fairly certain it was and you know how when a human being thinks a thing they can never be disproven of that thought because they think they're the smartest person on Earth? That human being was me! It was me all along!

Sometimes I might seem like I'm not good at deconstructing texts also because I love to pretend the text means something tasteless or vulgar when it obviously doesn't. But that's not because I'm trying to convince anybody of my argument. It's because I find it funny!

This issue begins with the battle that began last issue when the humans banded together to raid the alien's demesne. It didn't go so well for the humans so John Stewart tries to help out. But he's terrible at helping out because the red aliens use yellow in all of their offensive weaponry. That leaves John to have to destroy all of the human resources to stop the aliens. He takes their water to put out fires. He crushes their homes to set up fire breaks and walls. He picks up the humans to get them away from danger which makes it seem like he's giving the human's city to the aliens. It's a public relations nightmare all because John Stewart can't say out loud, "I have no power over yellow!"

During the battle, one of the aliens catches fire and goes running through a panel screaming. It's probably not supposed to be funny.

But this is funny, right?

Rose decides to help this burning alien. Maybe it's because the argument about protecting their kids that was used to spur everybody into action out of fear has worn off and she's realized these red aliens who have done nothing but try to kill them also need help sometimes. Maybe she saved this guy because she thought his bit where he ran around on fire going, "HLULULULULULULU!", was funny. Or maybe her empathy drive is stronger than her survival drive. Oh, I guess it's possible she's just a good person?

"I want to kill an alien so badly that I will shoot through you too, lady! And I'll super secretly like that too!"

Gun owners want to kill other human beings so badly. I bet they fantasize about finding themselves in a situation where they get to kill somebody and then also be a hero afterward. It's why they love that Rittenhauper kid so badly. "Lucky!" they mutter to themselves whenever they think about him which is at least three times per minute. It's also why conservatives drive the narrative about liberals being demonic semen suckers who pervert children. They know that their base wants to kill so badly that even idiotic reasons that make little sense are all that is needed to justify their turning a weapon on a fellow American. That's why you get a non-zero amount of conservative pedophiles who make a big show about being angry at supposed liberal pedophiles. Not because they care about children but because they want an excuse to murder a liberal. I say "non-zero" because I don't know how many have been caught in their self-catching pedophile traps but I do know at least one: that Patriot Front guy with the U-haul and child sexual abuse images on his phone.

Speaking of images of child sexual abuse, Gerard Jones wrote this issue.

The gunfire in that panel isn't Rose being shot in the face and the red alien murdered. It's Rose having pulled a shotgun out of her assholester to scare away the murderous humans. John arrives and becomes confused that Rose was protecting one of the red aliens, being that she's a human being with a gun and the red alien is, you know, different. The other guys with guns still try to kill the red alien but since human bullets aren't painted yellow for some reason, Green Lantern is able to create a force field to protect it. John realizes he has a huge problem.

You can tell because John's face is so big and contemplative that it can't be contained by the panel.

I mean, yeah, sure, it's contained by the panel. I should have written that it's far bigger than the panel can show. But I wanted to say the thing the way I said it. I didn't expect I was going to have to defend myself against my own inner demons masquerading as commenters on the Internet, did I?

John's big solution is to build a wall. Dammit! I thought you'd be way more imaginative, John! I should have known this would be the ultimate solution of an architect. Although my guess is that the next two issues of this series will point out how walls don't actually protect people from red Mexican aliens nor do they make good neighbors. Remember, this is just 9 pages into the second issue of a four issue arc! That wall's not going to solve anything, buddy!

Rose explains to John why she saved the alien: she doesn't think about things; she just does them. So like Hal Jordan! No wonder they keep fucking each other!

John is just like me! Only smart about a small variety of things! He's into coffee and I'm into pointing out how shit Ayn Rand is using her own texts and words!

Rose looks through John's record collection and discovers that he's into Streisand. He nearly kills her when she acts shocked that he loves Babs. I have no idea what nerve she struck. John explains that he's just constantly ready to explode due to the mission to keep everybody on Mosaic safe. But I think maybe there's some childhood trauma there. Maybe a feeling that Rose was attacking his masculinity due to his musical tastes? Like maybe the local teenagers in John's high school did to him? That's just a guess! I have no idea why anybody would get mad at somebody for wondering why they like Streisand. I'd simply assume they weren't familiar with her emotionally reductive songs that pull at the heartstrings in an obviously manipulative way but are still so able to evoke emotion that you just don't care.

Rose isn't a Babs fan but she does seem to be familiar with Pink Floyd because she points out how John's will isn't just being sapped by the wall he constructed between cities but by the wall he's built around himself! Her family used to be miners which explains why she's so good at pulling psychiatric nuggets like this out of her ass (where she stores them right next to her shotgun).

Speaking of things that go in asses, do you think Amazon sells buttplugs? Asking for a friend's butt and totally not my butt. And even if I were asking for my butt, what business is it of yours?!

John and Rose have a brief discussion about which one had it worse, the poor white girl or the middle class black kid. I think they decide it's a tie. I just think they both have childhood issues that they haven't adequately dealt with and don't quite understand that everybody gets to have those, no matter what class or race they are. Even rich white boys have issues! It's just that they also have money and a collective understanding that they are always to be considered individuals and their actions will never be automatically representative of other white men. I mean, really, that's the main privilege. Being considered an individual before a member of a group. And yet a whole bunch of sad white men keep wanting to lose that privilege by joining white-race-based movements! Fucking idiots. You're ruining it for everybody! Even I don't feel like an individual anymore when I'm out in public because you fucking morons have made the white over-50 male demographic the worst fucking demographic in the country. I'm being judged everywhere I go and I'm probably more progressive than a teenaged girl with pink hair and six tumblr accounts!

I guess dumb jerks will always give up their individuality if it allows them to feel superior in some way. That must be why they read any minority organization as a group trying to gain power instead of just working for justice and equality.

Anyway, the humans decide to take Rose's translator she got from Tomar-Tu so they can threaten the aliens and be completely understood when they say, "Our guns are going to be stuck straight up your excretory orifices and we are going to ignite the propellant, driving a small slug of lead right into your poop chute." At the same time, the Xudarians decide to visit Rose and help her out. They're greeted with guns and bullets and an angry father who wants vengeance against all aliens because his son was the human killed at the beginning of the story. Oh no! He isn't just a racist monster! He's also a sad dad! This violence erupts while John is once again taking a nap. Every time this jerk goes to sleep, residents of Mosaic begin killing each other. John's going to have to give up sleeping for a few more issues.

Green Lantern #15 Rating: C. For some reason, I own two copies of this issue. I don't think it was because it was so awesome that I thought it would be worth something someday. It's more likely that I'm a stupid idiot who can't remember anything and so I purchased two stupid copies of this comic book. Probably because my even stupider local comic book shop kept this issue in the New Comics section for two weeks in a row, fooling my sub-par brain into thinking I hadn't purchased it yet. None of that has anything to do with this issue but I hate coming up with shit to say in this section because the grade I choose actually doesn't mean anything.

Green Lantern #14 (July 1991)

Lego might have a problem with DC putting a trademark symbol on a word obviously made out of Lego.

John Stewart has been tasked with keeping the peace on the newly Mosaicked planet Oa. In this iteration of John, wasn't he an architect? In The New 52, they really played up his time as a marine in a way that was supposed to make the reader think, "Wow! He's a better man for having had no direction in his early life leading to feeling lost and unsatisfied and thinking the only choice he had was to join the military to violently do the bidding of the people running America's war economy and weapons grift." Maybe there was a more noble reason than that but it's hard to think in altruistic terms when America's military is often used to destabilize other countries rather than protect its own. Why yes, I am a cynical piece of shit who boils down the lives of multitudes into a carbon copy of my one friend who felt the way I described, wound up in Iraq a scared teenager, survived, returned to civilian life, was still lost and directionless but this time angry and upset because all the opportunities for veterans that everybody constantly said were there were not, and so eagerly joined up again after 9/11 believing he was doing something altruistic only to get blown to shit in Iraq this time. Oh, he survived. But now he's an ultra-right wing Christian because his survivor's guilt makes him think that if he doesn't fully support the military, the other soldiers who died in the explosion's life won't mean anything. I've pleaded with him to consider another view: maybe their lives meant nothing if you continue to support our imperialist military that uses up young men the way a casual gun lover fires an entire magazine into a tree stump; maybe their lives would mean something if you came out against the shit you had to go through. But he just responds with things like "You're fired!" and "Guns guns guns!" and gets annoyed whenever I make him laugh, as if we were rivals and not friends who are supposed to enjoy each other's company.

What I'm trying to say is I liked when John's motivations were based on his past as an architect rather than a United States of American Marine, that's all.

This issue begins with a curious couple wandering out to meet some of their alien neighbors.

Um. Uh oh. I hope something in, um, John's past helps him to, um, deal with this situation.

This is why focusing on John's past in the military is boring! Because we know he'd think like a soldier and fight back against these violently aggressive aliens. But what will he do when he thinks like an architect?! Like an artist? Like a guy who actually wants to solve problems rather than think he can redeem the world through violence and vengeance?

While these violent aliens begin their concentric ring conquest of the Mosaic, John Stewart sits around playing the piano and philosophizing about the structure of reality.

This is the John I missed while reading The New 52: the philosopher architect!

You need the philosopher part of the architect or else you just have dumb chumps thinking, "Architect? Build a wall! That solves all problems. Remember how Frost said, 'Fences make good neighbors!'" Of course all the people in the room who were told their art degrees would never amount to much know that Frost didn't say that; the dumb antagonist neighbor did! The narrator of the poem said, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall," and then goes on to describe how walls gradually fall apart and how they're not needed for most situations but loads of fearful jerks think they're just as magical as a gun in keeping one safe. Okay, maybe he doesn't say that exactly. But he does say something about vandal fairies. As a philosopher architect, John isn't just going to think, "A wall will solve the problem." He's thinking about the structures of civilization and socialization and the things, like vandal fairies, that cause friction and destruction. He's going to fix this shit the proper way! With thoughts, ideas, and maybe bribing the aliens with Pop Tarts.

John strikes at the fatal flaw of all Libertarians here. They ignore all that which community has built for them to stand at the top of the mountain that they believe they climbed alone.

This reminds me of Ayn Rand's Anthem, one of the most childish, immature books I've ever read. By the end of the book, the protagonist believes they've made something of themselves by escaping a communal environment to make it on their own. But they do this by finding a pre-built house full of books and ancient knowledge that teach them things like the pronoun "I". It's so badly thought out that it feels like satire, like the person reading Anthem is supposed to notice how this person, believing they've done everything themselves and succeeded as an individual, has only done so through the work and knowledge of a past community. And what's worse, this guy escapes with a woman and proclaims individuality so freeing that he gets to name himself and then he also gets to name the woman because who the fuck cares about her individuality, you know? People who proclaim Ayn Rand is a genius don't realize that statement is a dramatic monologue secretly expressing how dull and dimwitted they are.

John Stewart leaves his piano and his theoretical thoughts about structure to see what's happening in the real world. He finds the humans and the red aliens currently at war with each other. Uh oh! Let's see his high-falutin' ideas stop bullets! I'm told only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun. Although this is a comic book so it won't prove anything. But you know what also doesn't prove a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun? The good guys with guns always shooting innocent people with their guns thinking they're the good guys and the heroes.

Let me guess. John's now going to be called an alien lover and a self-hating human.

The humans try to explain to John that the aliens killed two humans first. John's reaction is, "What did the human kids do to provoke them?" Ha ha! Good one, John. Way to approach the situation with a clear diplomatic view, free from preconceived notions of hateful teenaged humans who obviously must have thrown shit at the aliens or called them terrible slurs. I totally get it! Humans suck! Why wouldn't John immediately think some white human kids were the cause of the trouble?

John learns pretty quickly that these aliens are violent assholes when they try to shoot the shit out of him too. He stops the violence, refusing to become part of more deaths, being that John caused pretty much a whole planet of deaths on Xanshi. John explains in a thoughtful reminiscence what happened when he left Martian Manhunter to stop the world bomb himself and failed. He was "overcome with some insanity." What John means is "I was suddenly written poorly." The humans want John to kill the aliens once he subdues them. But John probes their minds and finds no malice or evil intent. But that's because their "malice" and "evil intent" is simply the instinctual need to expand outward in concentric circles. It's just some manifest destiny shit built into their alien DNA.

John also learns that they can manifest a yellow glow and that they want to eat him.

John destroys the outer wall of the alien's city and drops a small forest between them and the humans. So I guess his big solution is to build a wall! Although John admits this is just a temporary solution to keep everybody safe and out of conflict for the moment. What's really needed is some diplomacy and some advice from the Guardians. Please. Their advice will be to send everybody to another dimension to get laid.

The human settlements, awash in fear for their children, arm up to take out the red aliens. Even Rose gets involved because she has a son named Toby who's kind of an imbecile. They're doing the murder for the children so how can the murder be wrong? How else can you keep yourself safe if not by firing a bullet into the face of whomever you deem a threat? It's the only way!

John heads to his piano to read some books hoping to find some help for an intellectual solution. But while he wastes time trying to learn, the humans and the red aliens begin an all-out war.

Noting that humans find violence basically sexual? These aliens are pretty perceptive!

Green Lantern #14 Rating: A. Just one issue into the whole Mosaic story arc (which becomes its own series because the Guardians have no intention of sending these cities home when they can observe them like single cell organisms in a petri dish) and I'm already remembering how much I loved it. Gerard Jones writes a well-educated character as if they're really a well-educated character. That isn't easy because it means Gerard Jones has to be somewhat well-educated himself! And he's not putting John in an easy situation with cut and dry answers. The easy solution is to imprison or banish the aliens that began the violence. But knowing what they're doing is simply inherent in their nature (and being full of guilt for already causing so many deaths), John refuses to take part in killing or harming them. They can't help that being an expansionist dickhead is hard-coded in their DNA just like the humans can't help that getting a raging hard-on from shooting some weird alien is hard-coded into theirs! And using John's architectural background as a lens from which to view this entire project doesn't make things easy on Gerard Jones. When you've got a stubborn fighter pilot who can face fear head on (mostly because he doesn't think about anything for more than a picosecond and so fear can't enter the equation), solving problems like this comes much easier, plotwise. But you've got a guy who has to think about the underlying structure of community and ways to build around problems built into the space these populations have been thrust into together. Gerard Jones isn't writing an easy monthly action packed funny book here. He's getting out his philosophical big boy pants and he's ready to do some impressive work. At least that's how it looks and how I remember it. It's also possible I just thought I was a big intelligent smarty boy when I was 19 and touted the Mosaic series as something special because it made me feel like that big intelligent smarty boy mother told me I was. But I also loved Suicide Squad and that was just loads of people getting shot in the face! (Actually it wasn't. It was also smartly written and proved that I was a big intelligent smarty mama's boy.)

Green Lantern #13 (June 1991)

The three main poses of all rubberized superhero figures from the '70s.

Conservatives are generally the type of people who need a world in which objective Truth exists. But they also tend to be the ones to move away from scientific fact because the Truth of the universe rarely agrees with the Truth they want to believe in. What they mean by "Objective Truth" is a reality in which the things they want to believe is the reality forced on everybody who doesn't believe in that reality at all. This whole Objective Truth thing causes liberals to stumble in much the same way. They look around at the current manmade Status Quo and think, "This is the Objective Truth. Anybody who wants a reality better than this is a naïve jerk who needs to grow up and fight for the bare minimum of progress." But then this is our problem as mortal aspects of the universe allowed the most miniscule of moments to observe itself while being given a compulsive need for understanding. I get why conservatives fear God and Hell and would want to believe in a Truth that transcends the unending problems of our species. I get why liberals fight to maintain the small amount of social justice they've been able to claw from those entrenched in the ideas and ways of previous generations, fearful that any step too large might cause them to stumble backwards into darker times. I understand their fears and what drive them. I just don't think fear should ever be the motivating factor of any action we take.

Maybe I realized early in life that I deserve death and so death, and the fear that comes with it, have no power over me. I once killed a large wolf spider that I'd captured on the wall of my room. I had it in a jar and I could have set it free. But the idea of it coming back paralyzed me with fear and I took a bunch of poison and filled the jar and when that didn't work I smashed the spider with a stick. But it didn't make me feel safer. It made me feel sick and disgusted with myself. I had allowed my ignorance and my fear to take away the existence of this innocent creature. I destroyed the universe when I destroyed that spider. Both from its perspective as I crushed sense and experience from it, and from my perspective as I realized how shallow, pathetic, and sad living could be made to be for any one of us by any other one of us. I was not even twenty yet and I hated what we could become and what we often allowed ourselves to be and I simply wanted to be better, somehow, in some way. I didn't know how to do it. All I knew is I didn't want to be driven by ignorance and fear. I know I've failed that spider over and over again, being a self-obsessed narcissistic human being with petty wants and drives. But I never forget that spider and I always try to be more, when I can, when I'm able.

What I'm trying to say is why don't I have a Green Lantern ring? What the fuck, Guardians? I'm not fucking good enough for this cosmic gig?! I've basically overcome fear! Isn't that the only prerequisite for the job?! Also, my imagination, while possibly on the vulgar side, would lick ass! I mean kick ass! Obviously, I meant kick ass. Please disregard the Freudian typo the way Freud would not have. And also disregard how, in the future, I defeat all of the bad guys with a gigantic green tongue stuck down the backside of their spandex tights.

Does "communion" mean "fucking, sucking, and pegging" in the original Maltusian?

My guess is that by using of the word "communion" here, the narrator means "community union" or, in other words, a years long swinger party. The way the Guardians are obsessing over and flying around the central battery in this panel after being away from their lovers for such a short period of time makes me realize the Power Battery on Oa was shaped like a Zamaron's butthole.

The narrator goes on to say, "They have returned to use new depths of wisdom in recreating the Green Lantern Corps," which is basically an admission that the Guardians of the Universe have been handled terribly for years and nobody really liked their use of power and authority but, you know what, everybody sort of missed the little blue creeps while they were gone. So here they are again! Back to do everything better which probably means the same but minus the baggage which we're being told doesn't matter anymore, in a roundabout kind of way.

This is the way horror stories begin! "Sometimes, dead is better."

Look, Master of the History of Horror Novels, I know Pet Sematary didn't begin with that line! I'm Gen X, dude. I know every Stephen King novel by heart, backwards and forwards. At least up until around Desperation which was kind of a big gathering up of ideas from all his books to that point and leaving them as little Easter eggs throughout the novel to kind of cement them all in one universe. After that, I sort of just picked up the Dark Tower books until that ended.

Fun fact: Stephen King's first four novels all culminate in massive fires and/or nuclear explosions instead of proper endings. Pretty fucking nihilistic, sir. And King knew he was fucking cheating! He makes an obvious reference to his fiery closures by having the main character in 'salem's Lot, who happens to be a writer, toss his novel into a bin and set fire to it. I don't remember how Dead Zone ended unless it was an assassination attempt and a baby used as a shield for bullets but King's sense of humor shows when his sixth book comes out: Firestarter. "Oh, critics have lamented how all of my books end in fire and flames? What if I start one with fire and flames?! Take that, you true monsters!"

The first story, "The Chore," stars Guy Gardner and a bunch of characters who sound exactly like me in my last few blog posts.

I get the feeling DC received some angry fan letters about recent events and Gerard Jones has chosen to acknowledge them here.

Can this panel be read as Jones acknowledging that he fucked up by having Guy do those things because now people fear what he's going to do instead of seeing him as a hero? Maybe. I can't read Jones' mind and, judging by his criminal convictions, I'm glad I fucking can't. But judging by the way Guy nonchalantly drops an anvil on a mugger's head, probably killing him, as he flies about lamenting how he doesn't find the job exciting anymore, I'm guessing Jones has decided he likes Guy better as a supervillain. Some might say "anti-hero" but I ain't some. You kill a guy by dropping an anvil on his head because he's holding a knife and wrestling with another guy in an alley, I'm not going to give you any label with the word "hero" on it. Does Guy know what that was about? Was the guy with the knife defending himself from the pervert in the trench coat? Those are unanswerable questions because Guy just murdered one-half of the people involved.

Guy's flying around feeling bored and without purpose (even though he's got a shining green purpose right on his finger) which makes me suspect he's suffering from low testosterone. But if Guy is suffering from low testosterone, I'd hate to see him packed full to the brim with it. He'd be dropping anvils on everybody from jaywalkers to shoplifters.

To get his groove back, Guy Gardner decides to do that thing he loves to do with Kilowog. No, the thing you're picturing is what I would do to Kilowog. Guy just likes to assault him. Pretty sure Kilowog enjoys it too though.

Guy's got anvils on the brain. Oh, so does Kilowog! And that mugger!

Kilowog and Guy Gardner destroy several walls and floors of Justice League Headquarters while Blue Beetle stands around enjoying the destruction. Blue Beetle understands his limitations and getting in the middle of a fight between two Green Lanterns is so far past Blue Beetle's limitations you'd think he'd quit on the spot. But then he wouldn't be able to look up Fire's towel from the hole in the floor after she gets out of the shower.

This is probably why Blue Beetle doesn't quit.

Kilowog ends the fight early because Guy doesn't seem to be having fun. Instead, Kilowog starts in on the therapy. That's an important part of his job as the trainer of the Corps, right? To make sure they stay psychologically fit as well as physically fit. He learns that Guy's problem stems from being unable to throw G'nort under the bus in front of the Guardians. He's supposed to report how G'nort was a fraud but Guy just can't bring himself to do it. Was dropping an anvil on a mugger's head and killing him just Guy trying to ignore the feelings of his heart? Guy loves G'nort!

Because he's a big floofy good boy!

Guy's erectile dysfunction stems from his desire to do the right thing. He's like one of those people who only get sexually aroused from car crashes or human sacrifices. You know, the mainstream. Guy's junk only works when he's crashing planes, destroying mansions, or setting fire to small Communist countries. That's not great but you know what is great? Not getting aroused by being nice to a dog, I guess.

Guy decides to tell the Guardians that G'nort's a piece of shit and, just like that, his boner is back! He pops Kilowog in the face and Kilowog is all, "That's my Guy!" And then they proceed to destroy the interior of the Justice League Headquarters. This time with Ice watching and probably thinking, "Guy never gets that hard for me."

Kilowog isn't a great therapist because his advice to Guy was to sell G'nort out because if Guy went to bat for G'nort, Guy would be the laughingstock of the Green Lantern Corps and probably kicked out by the Guardians. Maybe the Corps drill sergeant isn't the most compassionate person to seek advice from. But also, it's good, plotwise, for the reader to understand that even Kilowog, who seems like a level-headed poozer, wouldn't risk his reputation for G'nort. G'nort's an albatross. Symbolically! You'll have to figure out what the symbolism is though because I only know it from an Iron Maiden song: "The mariner kills the bird of good omen. His shipmates cry against what he's done. But when the fog clears they justify him. Making themselves a part of the crime!"

Guy picks up G'nort to take him in front of the Guardians and explain how the dog is a total fraud and not fit to patrol any part of space, even Sector 68. But G'nort immediately fucks up Guy's plan by being the loyal and unselfish doggy he is.

This is a better symbol than that albatross! Guy gets his boner back by choosing to fuck over G'nort but then loses his boner when G'nort gives Guy his bone!

Guy rushes off to see a man about his bone. That man is Hal Jordan who is currently starring in the second story of this book, "The Core." It rhymes with "The Chore"! What will John's story be? "The Bore"?

You thought I was going to say "The Whore," didn't you? Well, I don't use that word except when I'm feeling particularly scared during an intense sexual experience and need it to stop.

Hal Jordan is currently teaching his new recruits the safe way to gently asphyxiate oneself.

Hal Jordan has three new recruits he's training: Larvox the larva, Chaselon the crystal, and Brik the brick. Only Brik is actually a new recruit; the other two are re-enlisting. But Larvox, as Kilowog prophesied earlier (less because he's a prognosticator and more because he's the drill sergeant of the Corps and he understands the minds of all the recruits he's trained), causes trouble with his insect way of thinking. Larvox decides to crush all of their Qwardian prisoners to keep the Corps safe. Larvox doesn't see the death of an individual as murder since, as an insect, he regards the whole as the true organism. Murder only happens when the whole is threatened. In other words, genocide is murder to Larvox while murder is just wiping the counter clean.

Hal has a problem with Larvox because he's human and selfish and thinks wrongly of murder the way an individual would think wrongly of being murdered. Brik has a problem with Larvox because Larvox isn't following the orders of the Guardians. Hmm. That way of thinking is more problematic to me than Larvox's nonchalant view of killing! Larvox just thinks the way most humans think: killing individual members of insect colonies is hardly murder because so many more are still being complete pains in the ass. I get that! But Brik is thinking like a fucking Nazi (and by "Nazi" I mean "anybody in the military or a Republican who values loyalty or a Christian who values faith. Of course! Who doesn't?!).

Hal pretends to be killed by the Qwardians who escape their bonds (probably by Hal's design, of course! His training is constant) to teach his recruits the lesson of working together and to come to the realization that killing is wrong on their own terms and, I don't know, to not trust Hal Jordan, maybe? I mean, you pretend to die in my presence one time and I'm not going to come to your aid when you're possibly pretending to die in the future.

Larvox has lovely locks.

Instead of basing each Green Lantern on how wacky they look as an alien, Gerard Jones tries to build their personalities up from their culture and variances of specie. Larvox thinks like a communal member of a hive organism. Brik, coming from an inorganic, mountainous race, views the world through long stretches of eternal timelessness. Now freed from that life, she still views the universe through that lens while experiencing time much the way most other organisms do. And Chaselon, being a crystal, is a fucking nerd.

After Hal's lessons, they head back to Oa. On the way, they run into Guy and G'nort. But the advice Guy is looking for will have to wait until John Stewart can get his tale out of the way and probably join them in the chat. John's story is called, of course, "The Corps." I knew that's what it was going to be! I was just joking previously when I said "The Bore"! No, really, I was! Stop taking what I say at face value! I mean less than 10% of what I actually write!

No, but seriously. It should have been "The Bore." Even the aliens who have to listen to John speak find it interminably boring.

"Ugh! Will he never shut up?!" "How long must we listen to him?!" "I'd rather be shot in the face by the ejaculating penis-headed creature!"

John's solo bit of the story has him doing a task for the Guardians. That task is to stick his ring in the Central Battery and clear it of all crimson electricity beasts. The creature enters John's ring and the Guardians are satisfied that their battery is functional once again. They don't give a shit if John has become possessed. That's probably a story for another time. For now, Hal and Guy arrive on Oa with the new recruits and G'nort. It's time for Guy to give his report to the Guardians, describing how G'nort got his ring and how, maybe, G'nort has earned a real ring for his heroism.

Oh great. They don't even let him join out of pity. It's just a huge joke to them! Poor fucking G'nort. Good thing he's too stupid to understand.

Look at that! All it took for The Guardians to relax a little bit and to get a sense of humor was to get laid. This is why we need non-judgmental sex work in this country! Non-judgmental on both ends: we shouldn't judge the sex workers and we shouldn't judge those who visit sex workers. And we shouldn't act like anybody who can get laid without paying for it is somehow better than somebody paying for it. Just let people get laid however they can! Anyway, that's the only moral I've learned from this issue. The Guardians were sour authoritarian assholes until the Zamaron's let them put their peepees in their sheeshees.

Green Lantern #13 Rating: A. Oh, the conclusion is that G'nort gets to be Guy's reserve and assistant in Sector 2814. Pretty sure he's mostly his reserve because I don't remember G'nort appearing with Guy as often as G'nort would really want to appear with him. Maybe Guy keeps him in a little doggy house out back of Justice League Headquarters. Aside from that, what more do I need to say? I already stated the moral of the story! And I already shit on everybody's political beliefs! And I've already pointed out how this country could use a lot more Wicker Men. Didn't I? Well, I should have said that. I should always be saying that! Maybe I should get the trend started by building one in my backyard. Then I'll call the police on some pretext or another to come out to my place and casually be all, "Oh, I see you admiring my Wicker Man. Would you like to step inside?"

Green Lantern #12 (May 1991)

This is the only time I'll approve the cliché "so-and-so unleashed" cover blurb.

For the few of you dumber than I am, G'nort is a dog and heroes being unleashed is an overused comic cover statement. Dogs are usually leashed. So this is funny! I didn't laugh at out loud or blow triple sugar caramel cotton candy frapperino out of my nose. But I did think, "This humor is satisfactory. I'll allow it."

I bet you're all just foaming at the private parts imagining being my partner after that description of my reaction to this cover. I know I'd do me. And I often do so that's one of the few true statements ever made on this blog.

This issue begins like every Scooby Doo cartoon ends.

I wish more people had listened to the wisdom of the Scooby Gang: all old white business men are criminal dickfarts.

I was going to complain about how realistic these rubber Sinestro masks were but then I remembered the guys wearing them are Weaponers of Qward. They can accomplish almost anything. Also I remembered this is a comic book. It's also possible this kind of technology actually exists and I pass by people in masks on a daily basis without realizing they're wearing masks. And when I say "people," I mean lizards from an alternate dimension.

The gigantic Sinestro turns out to be an Oz-style animatronic that breathes fire. Right now, it's threatening to breathe fire all over Guy Gardner if he doesn't sell out Hal Jordan to the Qwardians. For some reason, Guy Gardner is reluctant to help these guys kill Hal Jordan. Is Guy a better person than we thought? Or did editorial call Gerard Jones up to their offices to scream at him for making Guy a super villain when Guy is really just an arrogant prick.

Some guy in a tall hat (which means he's really important) comes in and stops the fake Sinestros from killing Hal. He says he's got a better plan and then brings in G'nort's uncle G'newmann to explain everything in four panels.

Uncle G'newmann really does smell terrible!

So that's the whole idea behind G'nort. He was a plan by Sinestro and his henchmen to discredit the Green Lantern Corps by showcasing an idiot as one of their members. In 1991, I might have thought, "That's a pretty good plan! Nobody will respect the Green Lantern Corps with these kinds of idiots representing them!" But in 2024, I've learned just how willing people are to ignore the idiocy of a person in the public arena. One thing I've always said about people who defend Trump: I know you're not a serious or smart person if you think Trump himself is smart. Just the observable speech and actions of this idiotic, needy, selfish despot reveal him to be an absolute ignorant imbecile of the highest order. There's no dumber thing you can proclaim than Trump is smart. And yet thousands of people do it every day! What is wrong with them? If a progressive leader came forward with a plan for a just and beautiful and healthy America but they were dumb as shit, I'd wouldn't be, "This guy is a fucking genius!" I'd be, "This guy is dumb as fucking rocks but if he can do what he says, let's go for it!" And maybe that reveals a bit too much of the actual thoughts behind the people who proclaim Trump a genius. They don't think he's a genius but they love his cruelty. But they also realize that saying they support Trump for all the terrible reasons is something they're not willing to admit (at least for some of them, it's still verboten. But they're learning every day how much more open cruelty they can get away with, especially since courts, cops, and politicians keep giving them the go ahead).

The Qwardians threaten G'newmann's life if G'nort doesn't tell them where to find Hal Jordan. So he rats. The Qwardians all rush off to find Hal who is fifty light years away. I don't know how anybody traverses these kinds of distances in deep . . . oh yeah. Comic books. I used to argue that comic books need to make a little bit of sense for me to suspend by disbelief but then this one time, Dick Grayson drove a motorcycle up the side of a building and it broke my brain and now whenever something absolutely ridiculous happens in a comic book, I drool a little bit, clap my hands, and scream, "Comic books! Yay!"

The Qwardians leave Guy and G'nort shackled and alone so they can work through how to defeat the Qwardians and their "anti-Oan power." Guy accidentally figures it out by pretending to be the high and mighty Hal Jordan: the anti-matter Oan power can't stand up to actual Oan power which is why the Qwardians didn't attempt a full assault with their fake Green Lantern Corps. Guy uses his ring to short out the anti-Oan power, freeing G'nort and himself. Now they only need to get through the last of the Qwardian guards to escape the anti-matter dimension of Qward.

Also the magic ring! There's magic rings in the story too! Although I do prefer the dirty parts.

I've owned Richard Burton's translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night for close to thirty years and I've only ever made it to night #139. What I'm saying is that if I had been King Shahryar, Dunyazad would have been cradling her sister's bloody head on the 140th morning.

One of the dirty parts.

Burton's The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night was banned from publication because the English are full on prudes. But only in public! They just didn't want people to know that they enjoyed getting hard-ons and wide-ons. So instead of mainstream publication, Burton had to sell copies of his translation through a book club for horny perverts pretending to be academics and historians. He also sold a translation of The Kama Sutra through these private book club channels. What a dirty, dirty man! One of my heroes, actually.

Guy ditches G'nort because G'nort's ring was taken away plus he's useless and also an idiot. But you saw the cover too, right?! G'nort sniffs out his ring and returns to save Guy's life! G'nort also destroys the Sinestro animatronic which is the source of power for all of the fake Green Lantern rings. Meaning G'nort loses his chance at being the hero of the universe he wanted to be. What a heroic sacrifice and full of no fear and loads of willpower! I wonder if he'll get some sort of reward for showing those qualities when this is all through?

Hal defends himself with the help of the three new Green Lanterns he's recruited. Nobody was really worried about Jordan anyway.

Guy manages to escape with G'nort. Upon their return, Guy Gardner seems to have learned a lesson. Or maybe he smacked his brain-damaged head on something hard while in the other universe and his personality has changed again. I like to think that this is Guy's real personality. It just takes a couple of hard whacks to the noggin to calibrate it.

Everybody writing Guy Gardner should be forced to tack this page above their writing desk.

Green Lantern #12 Rating: A. These rankings don't mean anything because I don't spend a lot of time thinking about if the art was well done or if the characterizations were spot on or if the writing was particularly on point. My ratings are more a guy feeling, a vibe. And this one gets an "A" because it ends with Guy Gardner showing compassion, empathy, friendliness, and humanity. Why can't we have this Guy more often? I like that he's brash and arrogant and insults the other heroes due to some deep self-loathing and low self-esteem issues. But when you get right down to the right and wrong of things, Guy should always fall on the side of right. He is a hero and a Green Lantern, after all. Any time a writer makes him other than that (like earlier in this series when he fucked with the Tattooed Man's life, or when he crashed that plane, or when he set that town on fire), it's the writer who exposes their own faults and an inability to properly write a hero who also happens to be an arrogant jerk-off. I love that Guy is a jerk-off! But we also need to see him soft too! And not because he took a blow to the head! This is why Ice was a good foil for him but even Giffen and DeMatteis only seemed to use Ice as a foil correctly when Guy's personality was altered. Once he became a jerk again, he treated her like shit. And he shouldn't have done that. They shouldn't have chosen to do that to him. We should have seen all of his good qualities in how he treated Ice rather than seeing him basically treat her as a receptacle for his penis.

It's also possible the Guy Gardner I love I simply made up in my head.

Green Lantern #11 (April 1991)

This cover acts as if Guy Gardner against the Green Lantern Corps is a surprise.

I understand the interrobang used on the cover is meant to show surprise that another Green Lantern Corps exists and not that Guy Gardner has pissed them off. I'm pretty good at reading comprehension. I'm not bragging. I'm just stating a fact that the United States Educational System proved when I would take standardized tests to rate my reading comprehension and no matter what grade I was in, the test results would be all, "You are basically an 11.9th Grader. And also you are the sexiest third grader in America."

Here's an example of my reading comprehension from 6th Grade and not an example of my ruin everybody's funsion: one time, Stephen Chufaros was ecstatically going around showing everybody the dictionary definition of "fart." Everybody was laughing their butts off because the definition was "an explosion of gas from between the legs." I was all, "Can I see?" And then I read it and told everybody, "Oh, it says an 'expulsion of gas from between the legs which isn't as funny. You are all nitwits." After that, Stephen Chufaros was so unpopular that he never spoke to me again and only spoke to everybody else in class constantly and all the time. Ha ha! Jerk!

Maybe that was less a story about my reading comprehension and more a story about me just being able to fucking read a sentence correctly as opposed to Stephen Chufaros and all the other idiots in Mrs. Singer's class.

The Qwardian who supposedly died from purposeful spontaneous combustion didn't actually die. He just got some first degree burns on his face as punishment for being asked a question. I suppose your face erupting in flames is a surefire (ha ha!) way to stop you from helpfully answering questions unless the actual answer to the question is "Ah! Ah! Ow! My face is burning!" The Qwardians regroup to watch Guy Gardner and see what he does. They speak of their master as their "scarlet liege." That means it's equal chance of their master being either Sinestro or the Scarlet Skier.

That would be awesome if these clowns turned out to be the real Guardians.

Given an infinite amount of time and an infinite amount of space which, luckily, is exactly what are universe is (as far as the people who don't believe in God know, that is. As for the people who believe in God, they fucking believe in God. Why would you care what they know or don't know when their fundamental belief is just so fucking silly?), we have to expect every possible coincidence that could happen as having happened (or going to happen (or will have certainly have going to happen (you know what I mean))). If that theory holds true, aliens that look exactly like Earth clowns need no other explanation than a coincidence in an infinite time-space continuum. If you don't like that theory because I insulted your belief in an infinite magic being (which seems weird that people believe in an infinite magic being but can't believe in infinite space and time, right? One just seems like the status quo but forever; the other seems like something you'd read in your seventh grade boyfriend's Monster Manual), you could argue that the Poglachi's once visited Earth's past, planting the seed of the Clown Archetype into the mind's of men, which is how jesters and clowns and other irritating performers came to be. Or you could just shrug your shoulders and remember this is a fucking comic book written by a convicted sex pest.

A cosmic circus that looks more boring than an Earth circus? If their mission is fun, they're failing miserably.

If these Poglachi are the real Guardians of the Universe, does that mean that maybe Dick Grayson is a Green Lantern? I think that's how you know these guys are lying. If they were telling the truth, Dick would have a Green Lantern ring that he'd be using to make Green Light buttplugs for Babs.

Butt plugs are the most underrated of all sex toys. Go get one! Stick it up there and go about your day! Enjoy life!

The Poglachi declare that they give the rings to the most fun people in the universe so that they can go about teaching everybody else in the universe how to have fun. Which means they'd probably give one to me so I could introduce butt plugs to every cosmic civilization! I might cause a few wars sticking the butt plugs in the wrong holes on some aliens. But you'd have to imagine those would be pretty fucking weird aliens if I shoved a butt plug in their breathing hole. Gross!

Guy tries to force one of the Poglachi back to Oa so the Guardians can set him straight. When Guy gets violent, he's stopped by the Poglachi's Green Lantern Corps (like on the cover!).

Three, possibly four, of these Lanterns look fun. The Poglachi's lies are not holding together.

The Poglachi introduce each of their Green Lantern Corps in a way that somehow explains how they're making the universe a more fun place to live.

“In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might beware my power . . . Green Lantern's fleshlight!”

So giving the ring to a space incel so he can fuck green construct Real Dolls is fun? Sure, I see how it's fun for Hubba-7! But that didn't seem to be what the Poglachi were talking about when they expressed their mission. I suppose they're of the reality television ilk who believe that "inspiration" is some kind of actual purpose instead of just a vague piece of legerdemain to make yourself think you're actually improving the world. "If Hubba-7 got a ring and was able to fuck loads of fake woman then anybody could! It just proves that dreams come true if your dreams are sweaty little pornos that you'd never actually reveal to any other sentient being."

Patine uses the ring to constantly change her appearance. Fun! Thoom and Boom use the rings to beat the shit out of each other. Super fun! Skronk uses the ring to create back issues of rare comic books to add to his collection. Okay, that sounds like fun. Spudd uses the ring to watch old television sitcoms. Fun! For real this time and not sarcastic! These characters are really growing on me! Blorb uses the ring to create art. Unless it just creates flowers and sucks its fingers while looking at the flowers and also I suspect its fingers are actually its dicks.

Inspiring! We all would if we could! The most fun!

Merelda uses her ring to do some light cleaning all over the universe. How is that fun? That's way closer to actual Guardians of the Universe work! And the final member of the Poglachi Green Lantern Corps, the raccoon-looking motherfucker, flies around giving hotfoots to evil-doers. Just as I suspected when looking at him: a true hero of fun!

The Poglachi suggest that Guy would "fit right in with this group" which causes Guy to freak the fuck out because who would want to fit in with these wackos?! Sexless freaks who love comic books and television and trying to suck their own dicks? I mean...I mean...where the fuck is my ring?

Guy Gardner easily defeats all of the Poglachi Green Lanterns, leaving just Merelda. Just as he's about to defeat her, G'nort jumps in to help which allows Merelda to defeat Guy because, well, that's just how things go when you team-up with G'nort. Not that Guy wanted to team up with G'nort. That's just how things go when you don't want to team up with G'nort but he's, like, right there just dying to team up with you.

Guy and G'nort are captured, waking up bound in shackles in the anti-matter universe of Qward!

Good explanation. Terrible phrasing.

Guy and G'nort are taken to the Scarlet Liege to answer all the questions the Qwardians have about Hal Jordan and the new Green Lantern Corps being recruited and the Guardians coming back from their love shack. And the Scarlet Liege is none other than Sinestro! Of course! Why didn't I guess that?! I mean I did guess that. It was so obvious. But there's something weird about him so I don't think "the enemy is Sinestro" is as simple as that sounds.

He's massive now with loads of little Sinestro guys at his beck and call.

Green Lantern #11 Rating: B+. I enjoyed the "fun" Green Lantern Corps but they weren't utilized enough. A quick introduction, quicker defeat, and then it was off to Qward for some answers. No answers yet, of course! There's still one issue left to explain everything. The story began trying to find out how G'nort got his ring and ballooned up to finding out who made these fake rings and who appointed these fake Guardians and who would go through all this trouble making a ridiculous counterfeit Green Lantern Corps and what's their purpose? It seems to be Sinestro and he hates the Green Lanterns enough to try any stupid shit to get them off their game, I guess. But also, Sinestro is supposed to be dead and this Sinestro is weird with all the little flaking off Sinestros and Sinestro being twenty feet tall. This story is fucking weird which means I have no idea what the fuck will happen next issue. At least Guy Gardner was written well this issue. He seems to truly be interested in solving this mystery and stopping these cosmic fraud from continuing. Sure it's for selfish reasons. But the selfish reason is to prove he's the hero the Guardians believe he can be so is that really so selfish? Is it? I really don't know. I dropped out of philosophy because dopes loved answering absurd questions with even more absurd questions! It was like if my Calculus teacher was all, "What's the derivative of this equation?" and one of the students asked back, seriously, "What's the derivative of your mom?" And then another student would be all, "Do moms even exist or is the idea of 'motherhood' just a semantic development projected onto every generation of offspring in their need to survive?" And then another student was all, "Is the 'chalk' really 'writing' on the 'blackboard'?" And then I, trying to keep up, was all, "Why is the 'blackboard' actually 'green'?" And then everybody sneered and spit on my shoes.