Green Lanterns about to break the universe.
If I were writing Entropy as the monthly villain, I don't think I'd have him attacking Oa. I'd have him sitting on a huge recliner made out of dead stars while sipping thermal energy from a straw shoved into a black hole. Dead planets would litter his orbit. He'd realize the Guardians were trying to tidy things up and just shrug before falling asleep and spilling his thermal energy all over his festive Christmas jumper.
I think I just realized why I don't write comic books.
I like the tagline on this comic book: "Entropy is unstoppable!" Yeah! But he's unstoppable even when he's not actively trying to murder the Guardians. Why's he suddenly so riled up now? What the fuck's the hurry?! And why does he wear a cape? Does a cape symbolize the piece of clothing that wastes the most time and energy in relation to how useful it is as a garment?
Last issue, Hal learned that anybody who battles Entropy loses years of their life. Is that a metaphor for how it's a waste of time and energy to battle entropy since entropy is literally time and energy wasted in the functioning of a system? I guess it's simply that Entropy steals energy and life is energy and [insert joke about sucking dick here after you get done masturbating thinking about Entropy sucking huge dongs].
I think I just realized why I don't write comic books.
I like the tagline on this comic book: "Entropy is unstoppable!" Yeah! But he's unstoppable even when he's not actively trying to murder the Guardians. Why's he suddenly so riled up now? What the fuck's the hurry?! And why does he wear a cape? Does a cape symbolize the piece of clothing that wastes the most time and energy in relation to how useful it is as a garment?
Last issue, Hal learned that anybody who battles Entropy loses years of their life. Is that a metaphor for how it's a waste of time and energy to battle entropy since entropy is literally time and energy wasted in the functioning of a system? I guess it's simply that Entropy steals energy and life is energy and [insert joke about sucking dick here after you get done masturbating thinking about Entropy sucking huge dongs].
Hal sounds like an incel doing a Ted Talk on abstinence.
Kilowog tries to convince the Green Lanterns to battle Entropy because Kilowog fights. Hal Jordan wants them to stop because while Hal Jordan usually loves throwing punches first and worrying about how much life it cost him later, currently his other major personality trait has taken the wheel: rebelling against authority. Hal in no way wants to do anything that might help the Guardians even if that thing will save the universe. The rest of the Green Lanterns are caught in the middle (except Boodika. She's gonna fight Entropy no matter what).
The Guardians believe the Green Lanterns can defeat Entropy if they weren't divided by Entropy's philosophical quandaries. So Gerard Jones does the easy thing that writers always go to when they want characters to quickly distrust each other: they realize other people have been keeping secrets from them!
The Guardians believe the Green Lanterns can defeat Entropy if they weren't divided by Entropy's philosophical quandaries. So Gerard Jones does the easy thing that writers always go to when they want characters to quickly distrust each other: they realize other people have been keeping secrets from them!
Why does this suddenly feel like every other episode of The WB's Arrow?
Hal's main problem with the Guardians is that they never tell the Green Lantern Corps members the whole truth about why they need them to keep order in some respects and ignore order in others. But is Hal now realizing that if he's keeping secrets for the safety of others, maybe he shouldn't question the Guardians for keeping secrets?! Man, I hope not! Is that the argument being made here?! Because there is a difference between the people keeping secrets. I would trust that Hal is doing something for the right reason even if he couldn't tell me. Same with John Stewart. But those fucking Guardians?! For all we know, their elaborate plan for the entirety of time and space is so that they can get laid a second time right before it all ends. Who knows with those creeps?! I bet the Zamarons are super horny for Entropy so the Guardians want him dead! People with that much power manipulating others for unknown reasons is never a good thing.
Only one Guardian seems to think they need to earn their soldiers' trust: Ganthet. He explains what their purpose is and, well, fuck. It's a pretty good explanation. The only problem with the explanation is that it's not crazy enough to have needed to be kept secret. They could have written it on a plaque over the power battery and every Green Lantern would have read it and been all, "Wow. That's a good reason to keep fighting. Let's go!"
Ganthet explains how the universe isn't infinite but the iteration of universes is. Each universe begins as a Big Bang and ends in a Big Crunch. He goes on to explain what happens to the new singularity after a Big Crunch.
Only one Guardian seems to think they need to earn their soldiers' trust: Ganthet. He explains what their purpose is and, well, fuck. It's a pretty good explanation. The only problem with the explanation is that it's not crazy enough to have needed to be kept secret. They could have written it on a plaque over the power battery and every Green Lantern would have read it and been all, "Wow. That's a good reason to keep fighting. Let's go!"
Ganthet explains how the universe isn't infinite but the iteration of universes is. Each universe begins as a Big Bang and ends in a Big Crunch. He goes on to explain what happens to the new singularity after a Big Crunch.
And this is why the Guardians can't fight Entropy directly: they'll lose too much energy from the universe due to their near immortality. If Hal loses fifteen years fighting Entropy, no big deal on the cosmic scale!
Comic books can come up with ridiculous reasons just to explain away ridiculous things. But this explanation by Ganthet is only slightly ridiculous and yet entirely explains the whole conceit of the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps! They're fighting for infinity! Although Ganthet still never explained how the very first singularity came into being. I bet it was due to Krona's experiment where he thought he was looking at a great hand jerking off a cosmic knob to create all matter in the universe but what he was really viewing was his own hand jerking off his own knob as he thought he was watching some God jerk itself off. Then Krona's jizz became all matter in the universe as he shot his load into the time viewer he'd opened up. But that loss of Krona's jizz caused this universe, which started the whole chain of infinite universe's, to lose just enough matter and energy to not restart once it dies! And that's why the Guardians do what they must do. They must make the universe so ordered that it balances out 10cc of Krona's lost energy!
Entropy begins smashing the central Power Battery causing the Lanterns to begin losing power. Sure, that doesn't really make sense since their rings hold charges separate from the battery which is why they must charge them. But, you know, who cares? Gerard Jones adequately explained the Guardians!
Entropy begins smashing the central Power Battery causing the Lanterns to begin losing power. Sure, that doesn't really make sense since their rings hold charges separate from the battery which is why they must charge them. But, you know, who cares? Gerard Jones adequately explained the Guardians!
These two are so binary! Fighting time/not fighting time. Right now, it's fighting time!
Hal still wants proof from either party. Is this a singular universe destined to die at its appointed time through no fault of Krona's self-pleasure? Or is this just one universe in an infinite series of universes, the ending of which will destroy the potential of an infinite amount of future individuals. If I were one of the future individuals, my vote would be to let Entropy win.
Ganthet let's Hal know that Entropy has selfish reasons for wanting the universe to end: he is Krona!
Ganthet let's Hal know that Entropy has selfish reasons for wanting the universe to end: he is Krona!
Imagine the guilt from one guy jerking off ends everything.
Could this story be an analogy for Gerard Jones's love of sexually explicit photos of minors? Krona looked at something and became super guilty about looking at that thing and now wants to destroy everything so that nobody will ever find out that he looked at that thing. It would work even better if I thought Gerard Jones knew about my theory that everything in the Green Lantern canon revolves around masturbation. That's why the Corps needs warriors with great willpower. So they resist pleasuring themselves which is an act of wasted energy. And too much wasted energy will bring the infinite universe cycle to an end!
Hal continues to waffle which makes me realize I can't wait to finish this post and go have some coffee and waffles. He turns once more to Ganthet who explains that the New Guardians and the Chosen were only meant to be useful if the Guardians never returned from their Zamaronian love shack. And after they came back, they got so busy with tidying the universe that they forgot to tell Plan B that they weren't needed anymore and could go back to their normal lives. Ganthet then explains why the Guardians had to leave and come back but, I mean, that's obvious bullshit meant to convince Hal to destroy Entropy. We all know they left to get laid.
Eventually, Hal spends a page convincing himself to participate in a brawl so you know he eventually chooses to fight Entropy. Throw punches first and figure out if the Guardians are huge fucking liars second. Like always.
Hal continues to waffle which makes me realize I can't wait to finish this post and go have some coffee and waffles. He turns once more to Ganthet who explains that the New Guardians and the Chosen were only meant to be useful if the Guardians never returned from their Zamaronian love shack. And after they came back, they got so busy with tidying the universe that they forgot to tell Plan B that they weren't needed anymore and could go back to their normal lives. Ganthet then explains why the Guardians had to leave and come back but, I mean, that's obvious bullshit meant to convince Hal to destroy Entropy. We all know they left to get laid.
Eventually, Hal spends a page convincing himself to participate in a brawl so you know he eventually chooses to fight Entropy. Throw punches first and figure out if the Guardians are huge fucking liars second. Like always.
Hal could have come to this same conclusion by leaving the idea of "faith" out of it completely. That's how little faith actually means.
Faith is an excuse to do what you want to do without any real reasons behind doing that thing. Hal explicates all of the reasons why he chooses to fight on the side of the Guardians. He shits all over faith by providing example after example of why he's making the choice he's making. Fuck faith. Also fuck loyalty. They're the most useless attributes any person can ever be proud to possess. They're only useful to control other people; they have no inherent value for the individual.
Hal doesn't understand how to defeat Entropy but some people still exist who hold clues on how: the Chosen. They're inside Entropy along with the New Guardians. They've resolved to die and reform as something greater in an effort to help save the New Guardians who all still live. Hal leads the other Lanterns into combining their streams and blasting Entropy in the face. The Chosen, from the inside, use the Green Lanterns' power to dissipate Entropy, leaving the New Guardians to appear unharmed. The Chosen themselves are either dead or super-evolved. I'm sure Grant Morrison did something with them later.
The New Guardians wind up living on Oa while Aa quits the Corps because he needs to believe in provable truths and not probable truths and best guesses and hurried assumptions and snake oil. Unless the reason he leaves is because Ganthet's explanation that the Guardians need "humor" to make the Corps effective is itself the most humorously stupid thing said in this arc. Unless it's the part where John Stewart uses some dumb shit Kierkegaard said to defend Ganthet's idiocy. That's the problem with using philosophers to defend current arguments. They've all said so much stupid shit over the years that you can pick and choose any of that stupid shit to defend even more modern stupid shit.
Green Lantern #35 Rating: A-. The story was decent and it was sort of a meta-explanation for comic books and how readers need faith in the absurd to believe any of the boiling shit writers blast onto the pages from their cornholes. But I did like the explanation of the Guardians' mission! That was a turd I could get my teeth into.
Hal doesn't understand how to defeat Entropy but some people still exist who hold clues on how: the Chosen. They're inside Entropy along with the New Guardians. They've resolved to die and reform as something greater in an effort to help save the New Guardians who all still live. Hal leads the other Lanterns into combining their streams and blasting Entropy in the face. The Chosen, from the inside, use the Green Lanterns' power to dissipate Entropy, leaving the New Guardians to appear unharmed. The Chosen themselves are either dead or super-evolved. I'm sure Grant Morrison did something with them later.
The New Guardians wind up living on Oa while Aa quits the Corps because he needs to believe in provable truths and not probable truths and best guesses and hurried assumptions and snake oil. Unless the reason he leaves is because Ganthet's explanation that the Guardians need "humor" to make the Corps effective is itself the most humorously stupid thing said in this arc. Unless it's the part where John Stewart uses some dumb shit Kierkegaard said to defend Ganthet's idiocy. That's the problem with using philosophers to defend current arguments. They've all said so much stupid shit over the years that you can pick and choose any of that stupid shit to defend even more modern stupid shit.
Green Lantern #35 Rating: A-. The story was decent and it was sort of a meta-explanation for comic books and how readers need faith in the absurd to believe any of the boiling shit writers blast onto the pages from their cornholes. But I did like the explanation of the Guardians' mission! That was a turd I could get my teeth into.
Seriously, the Guardians make so much damn sense this way. Their jobs, in order of importance, are:
ReplyDelete1) protect the universe from threats that might prevent the next iteration
2) save lives
Since #2 frequently involves interacting with mortal beings, and the Guardians no longer have the perspective to do that well, they select mortals of good character to handle most of it. It's an imperfect system but it beats everything else they've tried. The only problem is when one of those mortals adds #3, #4, and #5 to the list (usually involving local politics (which can be hard to avoid when you're doing #2)).
Hal eventually kills off the Guardians, then Kyle brings them back as kids, at least 20 of them. When we next see the Guardians, they are all old, and there are like only a dozen of them. So something happened between those two appearances. Any writer who cared to, could retcon it that every set of Guardians that's gone tyrannical this century are impostors, and the "real" Guardians (Ganthet and the kids) are trapped in a pocket dimension.
With regard to Jones, something I realize he was terrible at was stakes. I didn't pick up on it in 1992, but if you're going to have a side project for Hal to work on in his personal life, it ought to be more compelling than trying to start a charter plane business. It's simply impossible to give a shit because there are no stakes. I give Jones credit for trying to work with the mess of a man that other writers established Hal to be, and gradually shape him into something better. But maybe make sure we give a damn too.