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.)