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.