Green Lantern Corps #33

Somebody at DC misspelled "death"!

The way the last "In the post-penultimate issue of Uprising, tragedy is a word that isn't harsh enough for what happens!" teaser box implied sadness and disaster, I suspected that Fatality would die so that a spot could open up in the Star Sapphire Bowling Team. And guess who's good at bowling?! PB Anj with the crusts cut off! But when I give it any thought, I have to believe that I would have heard about Fatality's death long before now. She's a woman of color, so Tumblr should have been lit up like my uncle on Christmas Eve. Unless only "lit" means drunk like a motherpooper and "lit up" is just nonsense when applied to my overly touchy, drunk uncle. Druncle?

Besides, the real conversations about comic books take place three to four months before a comic book is ever released. Why are comic book readers so passionate about the solicits but then when the actual comic book which provoked such heated conversations finally hits the shelves, nobody ever talks about it? No wonder DC doesn't give a shit about what fans think. They obviously just read DC's solicits which are free and never actually buy any of the comic books! It's a whole lot of discussion over a ghost's fart.

You know, something might be wrong with my metaphor generator this morning. I don't think I've ever had any discussion ever about ghost's farts? Of course, I don't have any discussions about solicits either, so maybe I meant exactly what I said about ghosts and their disgusting farting. Why did the ghosts always seem to come on road trips with my family instead of remaining in the house they loved to haunt so much?

What was I talking about? Oh yeah! I know I don't seek out spoilers for future events in the DC Universe but I have to believe that the death of Fatality would have somehow reached me. Especially with that PB Anj obsessed mrwyx constantly asking me speculative questions on the daily habits of Prixiams and Star Sapphires.

Shouldn't somebody clean up those corpses? Can't Durlans shape-shift into corpses?! Or maybe they've husked and have shifted into Sand Fleas!

Too bad John didn't get the memo that this crossover was six issues long and the sixth issue was just now beginning! He probably would have finished burning the Durlan corpses instead of taking Fatality by the hand so he could fuck her on the beach as Mogo watched from orbit and little Zezzen children lapped at their feet in the energy tide.

Also, that creepy living planet won't stop staring.

I suppose Fatality isn't concerned with Mogo watching since she and John have already fucked on Mogo's face multiple times. It's been so often, I have to think that John, Yrra, and Mogo are in a polywoggly relationship.

One of the Zezzite children washes up on shore to learn how the humans procreate. Does the friction of the male genitalia rubbing frantically against the inner walls of the female genitalia create a spark which becomes a new being? Sorry for my younger readers for getting so graphic about human sexuality! Not because I don't think knowledge about procreation is inappropriate for human beings of any age! I just don't want them to know anything that they're not really ready to know. The problem with understanding how nice it is to not know something is that you don't know how nice it was until you know the thing that was making you happy and innocent by not knowing it.

Sometimes I think my sentences come out of me like an Escher print.

Anyway, about that Zezzite kid that was curious about human lovemaking?

Take that, you curious little bitch!

Once Fatality eats a child, John Stewart begins to think something might be wrong. Turns out, he's right! Fatality has been a Durlan all along! Or at least since she was captured by Durlans and John had to save her. So I take back the thing about John and Yrra and Mogo being in a relationship since it was actually John and Mogo and Verrat Din the Durlan.

Verrat Din is no longer a Durlan! Verrat Din has consumed the energy flesh of a child and has now become Verrat Din the Daxamite! Not long now before the entire universe learns about the Daxamite allergy to lead!

The Love Ring (I'm not talking about anybody's anal sphincter) realizes it's made a mistake and leaves Verrat Din to try to find Yrra. It only gets about an inch away before Verrat Din crushes it with her Daxamite strength. John's main concern (before the ring says something about Yrra and John realizes she's still alive) is that he slept with a Durlan.

So, does John add her to his list of people he's slept with? It's not like fucking a Durlan that replicated Yrra exactly was any different than fucking Yrra. Even the ring was fooled and the ring is a way better judge of character than John Stewart. I suppose it depends what kind of a list John keeps. Does he keep a list to remember all of the beautiful, intimate moments he's shared with others across his life? Or does he have a list simply to brag about the variety of experiences he's had with different partners? Hmm, I think Verrat Din would still have to make both of those lists.

I also suppose this was technically rape although John probably won't give it a second thought. Although Yrra might! "You couldn't tell that wasn't me?! Right. You pig!" And then John will have to pretend that it was traumatizing when he found out. "I was disgusted with myself! How could I have been with that monster?! She took advantage of me!" Then he'll cry green construct tears and Yrra will forgive him and they'll live happily ever after. But not on Mogo because Mogo loved Verrat Din and not Yrra. Mogo probably knew it wasn't Yrra all along but nobody asked. Mogo just thought it was a roleplaying sex game.

As seen at the end of Green Lantern #33, John gets a message out to Hal that the battle isn't over. Luckily Hal is currently on Mogo and Mogo is currently in orbit around Zezzen. So he and the rest of the gang should be down in a few moments.

Hopefully John can survive those few moments.

Verrat Din lets John live because that's what Evil Mr. Smartypantses do. They say stupid crap like, "I'm going to let you live so you can feel bad about something else I do for the short amount of time you have left to live." Usually none of that stuff happens though. Letting a hero live to see you do something vile simply means you're going to fail at the vile thing and the hero will continue to live. Why do all the Evil Mr. Smartypantses have such a blind spot when it comes to killing the hero?

Anyway, Verrat Din lands on Stel before the Green Lanterns can land on Zezzen. Stel is a Green Lantern on Mogo, so it's kind of bad news for Stel. Luckily Stel is some kind of robot-alien so he might be repairable.

Thank you, Van Jensen! Finally somebody writing a character's binary language writes something coherent! In this case, Stel says, "Ow."

Now that Verrat Din is on Mogo, can't Mogo just move into an area of space with no yellow sun? Do it while Verrat Din is distracted fighting other Green Lanterns! How long does the strength of a Daxamite last once they've left an area lit by a yellow sun? I don't know the answers to any questions about Daxamites unless it's about exposure to lead. And then it has to be a really simple one like "Will being around lead eventually kill a Daxamite?" as opposed to "How much lead is needed to kill a Daxamite in under five minutes while traveling to Chicago on a train loaded with dynamite?"

While Hal Jordan and the other Green Lanterns are busy with Verrat Din, Mogo and Daggle execute the rest of the Durlan prisoners. Hal might be a little bit pissy about that later since it goes against Earth's Geneva Convention, but what is he going to do about it? Fire Green Lantern Headquarters?!

Oliversity is the first Green Lantern to fall during the fight but that's okay because Oliversity has a stupid name.

Okay, so technically, Mogo didn't kill the Durlans. Mogo just turned the Durlans into Forever Goo (TM). "It slides down stairs, gets stuck in hair! It makes a squishedy sound! Everyone loves Forever Goo(TM)!"

Once John returns to get all of his ribs broken, Verrat Din realizes Mogo is moving away from the sun. And since she has only been a Daxamite for a short period of time, she won't have much sun energy to last her for long. Maybe she'll die in space trying to get to another sun!

Verrat Din never even makes it off planet. She's subdued and powerless. John Stewart is left feeling sorry for himself once again. But he doesn't have time to really contemplate his mistake of consorting with the enemy that he didn't know was an enemy. He has to go find Yrra! Does that mean the next huge Green Lantern Crossover will be called "The Search for Love!"?

As a final epilogue, the reader learns that "Uprising" was just a mini-crossover prologue to another huge cosmic crossover headed the Green Lantern's way as they battle the Shadow Empire, whoever they are.

Green Lantern Corps #33 Rating: No change. I only have one last thing to wonder about this story arc. Once Van Daggle gave the Green Lantern Databanks the information it needed for the rings to detect Durlans, why didn't it realize Fatality was one? I understand that story wise, that would have ruined the big twist surprise ending. I guess it's one of those comic book things where I, as a reader, have to fill in the gaps and believe that the Star Sapphire ring was able to conceal Verrat Din's real identity. Or maybe, as Verrat Din explains earlier in the comic, she was just that good at impersonating Fatality. Or maybe, just maybe, Verrat Din really did love John Stewart!

Remember how I mentioned the comic book discussions usually take place three to four months ahead of their publication date and don't really revolve much around the comic books that are actually sitting on the shelves? I bet this issue of Green Lantern Corps would have sparked some serious outrage if DC had put in the solicits, "John Stewart gets tranny tricked." Hell, just typing that phrase could spark outrage but I don't know how else to point out that this issue can easily be read as a story about transphobia! Just look at how John Stewart is so angry that he almost kills Verrat Din at the end of the issue. It's actually quite disturbing, especially since John has been the most adamant against killing Corps enemies (although he'll kill friends in a heartbeat, no problem!).

John is right to be angry at Verrat Din for a lot of reasons but this scene really seems to make it apparent he's mostly concerned with one reason alone. And it doesn't have anything to do with Yrra currently in some serious fucking trouble.

Pardon my ignorance but reading the story within this context, I have to ask: Do trans people actually eat small children? I bet that's just a metaphor for something else, right? Something about the suppression of one's true being during childhood due to the pressures and biases of society? Or something?

Green Lantern Corps #31

This looks like the cover of a book I would have read in second grade. With really large font. And possibly multiple endings. Or at least a very valuable moral lesson at the end. You know, after the big laser battle.

Last issue, John told Fatality not to kill the Durlans because that would prove that they weren't any better than the Durlans or something. I've always hated that reason for not killing. That's the "Don't Stoop to Their Level" rule and it's lazy ethics. You're finding a way to make your decision to let somebody live be all about you and how much better you are than the person you're not killing. I think you should not kill for the reason Jesus said that thing where he said that thing about rocks and sins. By killing a person, you're taking away their ability to change or repent or bite the ring off Frodo's finger and fall into Mount Doom with it. I also think Batman's real reason for not killing is a good reason not to kill! What is that, I hear you asking shyly? Batman doesn't kill because he's afraid he'll get a taste for it and he won't be able to stop! Don't buy into Batman following the "Don't Stoop to Their Level" bullshit! He knows if he kills, he'll like it! And it's so easy that he just won't be able to stop. He'd be a pretty efficient monster, that guy.

I think I had a reason for starting that last paragraph which I should probably get back to! Okay, so John Stewart refused to kill the Durlans. But in Green Lantern #31, Hal Jordan and the rest of the Green Lanterns fucking massacre the Durlans! I think John needs to reread his Green Lantern Corps Rulebook. And once the Durlans were dead, the rings they were wearing began traveling to Corona Seven to find their original owners. So killing was a good thing! I think. I'm confused.

I've never killed another human being but I don't think I'm ethically against it. Like when you're walking down the sidewalk and people are standing in front of a bar smoking and taking up the whole sidewalk? I think killing at least one of those people would be okay. It would be wrong to kill them all. But I can see the death of one being a reasonable alternative to just walking around them.

This month's starting line-up for your Green Lanterns Corps!

So before the Green Lantern Rings even make it to the prison planet where the Green Lanterns are being held, Xylpth and Ghr'll break out! They kill a few Khunds because they think John Stewart suffers from low testosterone. Perhaps John has just had enough killing since he always has to kill friends and innocent people. That can take a toll on somebody!

It isn't long before the rings arrive though because no reader wants to read an entire comic of Green Lanterns using conventional weapons. Nobody cares about the personalities behind the rings! We just want to see what stupid constructs they make! Also, I think Bloobert Cob died. Also, poor blah blah blah whatever. Nobody cares!

Well, these Lanterns care, I guess. Although these Lanterns really are nobodies!

And I don't want to hear about how these Green Lanterns were stars or something in the Spectrum Wars or whatever! If they're not featured prominently in the 1985 Who's Who Directory, they're no Lantern I give a shit about!

Hell, even some of those Lanterns I don't give a shit about.

Okay fine! The only Green Lanterns I care about are G'nort and Kilowog and John Stewart and Guy Gardner, okay?!

Even though the escaped prisoners are doing just fine (with the exception of Bloobert Cob), John Stewart, Fatality, and their small team of Lanterns arrive to save the day. Or help save the day. Or at least be there to escort everybody home. But first they have to rescue one more captive held at the bottom of the prison! This prisoner must be really important!

Who the fuck?

Sodam Yat is apparently a Daxamite. So he's Superman with the pesky allergy to lead. Great! A Superman that can be killed with a musket! Well, at least he'll be useful until somebody hits him with a pipe.

With the information they get from Sodam, John Stewart learns of the Durlans real plans.

Whatever. Just cover yourselves in lead paint and hug the fuckers. War over.

Green Lantern Corps #31 Rating: No change. I predict the Green Lantern Corps is going to stop off at Earth, visit a fishing supply store, and buy up all the lead weights for the battle ahead.

Green Lantern Corps #30

The Green Lanterns have a problem with Durlans in the same way that Earthlings have a problem with the Lizard People.

As you know, everybody is writing a novel. Most of us will never finish our novel at all. In fact, most of us will write novels that use the phrase "in fact" way too often, punctuating paragraphs with phrases like "very unique" and "literally walking on clouds." In fact, that last fact was completely incorrect because I said "most of us will write" when I actually meant "almost none of us will write." Most of us will write scenes inside of our head but never attempt to put them down in a book in a fairly linear manner. Unless we're avant-garde writers and then we'll make sure that our narrative has been exploded all over the place like a World War II Bomber falling out of the sky or like guts falling out of a man named Snowden who is very cold or like a frightened populace that suddenly doesn't know what the fuck is going on because somebody dropped a big bomb on somebody else and suddenly everything was different for some reason. I thought that since I am one of those people that will probably wind up having my novel published posthumously when some editors decide all of the notes all over my house can be put together into a coherent story even though I never did it because I'm lazy and unambitious, I would give everybody a very small sample of this literally very unique work!

This is an excerpt from my novel, This Story Will Make Me Famous (subtitled, And My Mother Proud), which is about a guy that's a metaphor for some other guy living in a world that's a vague metaphor that can easily be recognized by anybody reading the book as their own world.

“Keep the change, Samantha,” said the mysterious man. He wished this was another day and age. Not like last Wednesday but like King Arthur’s day and age so that he could take up her hand and kiss it and she would swoon all about the room and have babies with him. But it wasn’t a good old time like that at all. It was the modern times. And modern times insisted that you keep up a wall around you at all times and not get too close to every single person you interact with during the day. Probably because of lawsuits and germs, so it was a pretty good idea to not touch his mouth to her hand which was probably crawling with diseases from the last fifteen guys who bought coffee from her and fantasized about her doing chores in her underwear also.

“Thanks,” said Berkshire in that way that is almost sarcastic because it was only fifty cents he was tipping her but not quite sarcastic in case he decides to give her less next time and, really, she was glad to have the extra change since most people just used their debit cards and didn’t even consider tipping because who carries change anymore?! Berkshire handed him his coffee and turned to the next customer in line who could have been anybody because they’re not important to the rest of the story.

"Holy heck!" you're probably thinking! As well as, "What does that have to do with the Green Lantern Corps?!" Sure, I see your point. I also see that those future editors might mistakenly label my novel as a work of modernist humour when it is so obviously a horror romance. I should leave a note for future editors so they put the novel in the right section of the online bookstore.

Here are your precious Green Lanterns! I apologize if Van Jensen can't make them as entertaining as my novel.

Von Daggle is currently giving the Green Lantern Corps a refresher course on Durlans. Let's see. He tells them they can take the shape of anything. Arisia scrunches up her nose and tilts her head and says, "Anything? Like...even a bird?" Von Daggle snaps his fingers and says, "Yes! Yes! You have it! Even a bird! Even...even...A BUG!" Gasps gasped out of the assembled Green Lanterns. "Shirley, you are joking." None of the Green Lanterns were named Shirley and none of them had ever seen Airplane, so John Stewart pretended he wasn't the one who said that last line. And then, just as the Green Lanterns were coming to terms with the Durlans abilities and they thought they truly understood the threat they were facing, Von Daggle stopped them all from leaving by saying, "Stop! Don't leave!" For you see, the Green Lanterns needed to know the true danger they were in! They had to know one last thing that the Durlans might possibly become. Von Daggle waited until just the right amount of time had passed so that everybody was tense but not too much time had passed so that the tension began to wear off before he said: "They can even turn into...PLANTS!" He said that last word in an italicized way for emphasis and not because it was the name of a movie or book. All of the Green Lanterns were suitably terrified. Some of them even began stepping on all the blades of grass they could find. Just in case! But all that did was give Mogo a bruise and an orgasm.

John and Yrra were in the back of the class not paying attention. I bet they get killed by a plant now!

To find the Durlans, Mogo sets herself on fire. It's nothing any of the other Lanterns wouldn't do if asked. I'm fairly certain the Guardians used to frequently ask Green Lanterns to self-immolate all the time. And if the Lanterns didn't honor the request, the Guardians created Manhunters or Third Armies or Autoerotic Asphyxiation Space Monsters. You probably never heard of those last ones since most of them were wiped out by the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Some long time DC fans suspect it was because of those Space Monsters that Crisis on Infinite Earths wiped out everything.

The history of the Durlans is being told sporadically throughout this story by somebody to somebody else. I suppose it's by Van Jensen to me but I think that answer is breaking the illusion of storytelling somehow. Basically, the history of the Durlans can be summed up in three words: they were dicks. Four words if you think "total" should be thrown in there too. I wouldn't argue against it.

Mogo's burning pubes force the Durlans out into the open where the rest of the John Stewart Corps are waiting for them.

Come on, John! How do you keep a Durlan caged?

Apparently the way to keep a Durlan from changing into a creature that can slip through the bars of John's old timey cell construct is to make them burn through their current dose of radiation. Once they run out of radiation, they turn into a pile of intestines with eyeballs. That makes them easy to round up and also easy to call disgusting freaks. Although calling a creature a disgusting freak in front of an army composed of creatures that look like any two things you could find lying around and stick together (like intestines and eyeballs! Or soap and pubic hair!) is a good way to get gossiped about by team members back at the bar at the end of the day. "Arisia thinks she's so hot! Calling Durlans gross! She's gross!" is probably what Fatality would say because she saw the way John was trying to look up Arisia's mini-skirt during the fight.

Finally, Von Daggle ends his Ted Talk on Durlan History. It turns out that the original Durlans were all destroyed in a world shattering war after the Guardians of the Universe banished the entire race to Durla. Only a handful survived but they were in a constant state of flux and looked even more gross than the one Arisia had to look at. They simply became a big pool of shifting mouths and penises and fingers and feet and sphincters. They were totally useless and completely disgusting. So they decided to use their DNA to create clones! A new race of Durlans but ones that had to use radiation to shapeshift and held a huge grudge against the Green Lantern Corps.

One Durlan remains free on Mogo. I don't know how John knows that but it's Muk Muk the Fish Faced Lantern. Unless his name was something else. Grunion Guy, maybe? But what do they do with the other Durlans that are sure to escape? They may have already escaped! Can one Durlan look like multiple Durlans?! Maybe one took a hit for the team while the others turned into Sand Fleas and hopped away?

John has a thing about killing enemies! He gladly kills friends all the time!

Fatality decides this is no time to hunt Durlans or worry about the prisoners. Now is the time for the fucking!

I bet Mogo placed John and Yrra's bed right over one of his erogenous zones.

Meanwhile on Durla, The Ancients don their shape-holding Battle Armor so that they look less gross and head off to destroy the Green Lantern Corps!

Green Lantern Corps #30 Rating: No change. John Stewart has been acting fairly competently lately. What's going on? Why hasn't Hal Jordan sent him on a mission where John can't win? A mission where John winds up having to choose between his partner's death or the death of an entire civilization?! Stewart is being wasted in this comic book. Any competent Green Lantern could run this mission! Give Stewart a mission that will fundamentally change the way he sees himself and what he's capable of!

Green Lantern Corps #28

No sign of 2-6-8-1-7-9-5. Lame.

Once again the Green Lantern Corps have found themselves enmeshed in an intergalactic crisis! And once again, it's their own damn fault. The Durlans want them destroyed which means if the Green Lantern Corps didn't exist, the Durlans would be putting their time to better use. But the Green Lanterns can't just sit by and wait until they're destroyed simply because the crisis is their fault. So now they're off to find a rogue Durlan Green Lantern named Von Daggle. They need his help to identify shapeshifted Durlans that might want to assassinate Green Lanterns.

Oh yeah. A bunch of out of work Green Lantern villains decided to help fight in the war because the Durlans were dicks to them. So Bolphunga, Hunger Dog, John Stewart, and Fatality have tracked down Von Daggle in Sector 3502.

For a shapeshifter with an entire universe to hide in, he doesn't do a very good job of evasion. It might be because he's got an itch that needs scratching, if you know what I mean. And I mean drugs so if you thought I meant sex with children, go get help.

While Hunger Dog makes hunting Durlans easy so that John can take all the credit for finding Von Daggle, a Green Lantern I know nothing about named Soranik is kidnapped by some mysterious figures. The silhouette of the main one looks like a Blue Beetle with hairy arms so maybe she's a Black Widow? She has help from a big muscular guy because that kind of guy is always needed on a super villain team and another guy with severely bowed legs that is never needed for a super villain team. He might be some kind of insect alien. I have no idea who they are but then I don't even know who the Green Lantern is that they've stolen! Although she's from Korugar so I bet a lot of people mistrust her!

Back on the planet Muz, Von Daggle puts up a fight because the Guardians fucked him over for years. Why would anybody want to go back to that job? I mean besides Hal Jordan. It just seems like a gigantic pain in the ass where you're manipulated and lied to by your bosses day in and day out. Everybody in the universe wants to kill you and nobody ever thanks you for saving their planets. I've left much better jobs than that when my manager just looked at me funny! Or cried in my yearly review and refused to give me the raise I deserved because I didn't become her friend. And I couldn't go to human resources because my manager's sister was the head of the department! Fuck you, Barb Zilk! I'm glad that employee that was there for one day stole your credit card during a company meeting and ran out to the mall to blow your wad on Honeybaked Hams!

There's my girl, 2-6-8-1-7-9-5!

Salaak crashes into the table and almost harms my princess! He should be more careful where he lands when he's tossed unconscious into Mogo's gravity well from outer orbit. He informs Kilowog that the Green Lanterns have yet another crisis on their hands. Kilowog allows Iolande and Hwaal to try to save Soranik. Iolande is royalty and Hwaal is a meek little skinny guy that Iolande doesn't seem to have much confidence in. I don't know if it's because she knows he's a horrible Green Lantern or if it's because she's a stuck up twat. It's hard to say because I don't know any of these Green Lanterns! We're twenty-eight issues in and only just now getting to know the Corps! It's about fucking time! Thank you, Van Jensen, for remembering that this comic book isn't simply titled "John Stewart, Green Lantern. You Know. The Architect. He Was a Marine. You Know the One. The Black One. Yeah. Him." Kilowog also allows them to take a couple of villains along with them (Loragg and Zuree) because there's no possibility that they're going to try to escape. I imagine not all of the super villains give a shit whether the Durlans destroy the Green Lanterns or not.

Back on Muz, Von Daggle has finally run out of shapeshifting juice and allows himself to be captured because his transformations are now out of control. I didn't know Durlans needed to ingest radioactivity to transform! You learn something new (and entirely fictional so it won't help me in any life situation ever except maybe a very nerdy pub quiz) every day! But before Stewart and the others can take Von Daggle into custody, they're approached by a small army of Durlans. They want Von Daggle on their side as well. Mostly so that the Green Lanterns can't have him. I mean, really, they already have plenty of their own selves.

Finally, Lantern Soranik awakens to find she's been kidnapped by Arkillo. I'm actually surprised I remembered his name! He hasn't been around in a while. I guess no Yellow Lantern has! Did Sinestro send them out to find him a mate so he can restart the Korugan race?

Green Lantern Corps #28 Rating: +2 Ranking. A greater variety of Green Lanterns were mentioned in this issue than across all the issues of Green Lantern Corps and Green Lantern so far! I think. I didn't count or anything but it seemed like a lot of members of the Corps were getting some on-panel time. I like that! Remember Green Lantern Corps Quarterly?! This comic should be more like that one! Less Earthlings and more aliens please!

Green Lantern Corps #23

In other words, just another day in the life of Green Lantern John Stewart!

I imagine when Green Lantern first appeared on the scene, everybody was confused as to why he called himself Green Lantern. Why not Green Ring? Or Emerald Light Man? Or Imagination Johnny? I'm sure there were heated arguments in bars all across Coast City as to why he took the name. Sure he produces green light, but why the fuck would he name himself after a lantern? Why not Green Flashlight? Or Green Lighthouse? Or Green Spotlight? And then the arguments probably just sort of dissipated as Green Lantern never took the time to explain it. Unless he did. Maybe he held a press conference to introduce everyone to his Power Battery. Which probably just started a new round of questions. "So is it a Battery or a Lantern? And why did a Cosmic Police Force choose a nineteenth century Earth railroad lantern as the symbol for its Corps?" When Volthoom became the First Lantern, did he think of himself as a Lantern back then? Because that would really be fucking ridiculous. Oh! Perhaps Volthoom was from 19th Century Earth and was one of those guys that walked the rail-yard hitting hobos with sticks to get them off the tracks! And one night, he fell into a wormhole and became a time traveling asshat!

Look at me! Discussing other Green Lanterns while John Stewart continues to wait patiently for his chance to shine. I just reread John Stewart's entry in the 1985 Who's Who and was reminded of this fact: the two principle requirements for becoming a Green Lantern were being totally honest and being born without fear. I didn't realize that they needed to be totally honest but that makes sense. If the Guardians need people to manipulate, the most gullible and naive are those that believe in complete honesty, no matter how much of a dick it makes them in social situations. Although being born without fear seems like a birth defect. I would think 95% of a baby's first few minutes are spent in complete terror! But a Green Lantern has to ride down the gore and slime of the birth sluice as if it were just another common occurrence in their up until this moment very stable life. "Well, what's this? Who pulled the plug? Enh, what else can I do but just go with the flow?"

Currently on Nellewel 3, John Stewart's mind once more focuses on triage.

Perhaps it's not that more people die when John Stewart is on the scene than when other heroes are on the scene; perhaps it's just that he cares more about saving everybody. Batman comes upon a reservoir filled with floating corpses and shrugs and goes, "Oh Joker! I'll Batarrest you before you can kill more than a dozen more citizens!"

Batman and Superman learned early lessons that they can't save everybody simply by having their parents torn from them in horrible tragedies. But John Stewart's greatest tragedy before becoming a Green Lantern was not having a building pass an inspection. Of course he's been at the forefront of plenty of tragedies since then! But he still believes in the ultimate power of the Green Lantern Ring and can't help but feel that, at the very least, he should be able to save anybody within his hearing.

The rings are currently malfunctioning and have been pulled from the fingers of the Green Lanterns. But, and I might be wrong about this, once they regain power, won't they fly back onto the Lanterns' fingers?

Except, I suppose, if they're, obviously, in a Shatter Proof Khundian Anularium.

Learning that "anul" is Latin for ring just makes the whole wedding ceremony even more disgusting than I already thought it was in the first place. As you might suspect, I don't give a lot of thought to other languages until I'm curious. Then I sate my curiosity and go, "Oh yeah. That was blindingly obvious, wasn't it?" I've said this before as well: I would probably be pretty decent at Latin if my fucking college had offered at least one course that started after six in the morning. Who the fuck takes a six in the morning class?! Unless it's Painting Sunrises 101.

By the way, I should probably mention Feska's peculiar ability to go Full Rotling without having to succumb to an ear full of Rot Flies. So John Stewart has found himself with a mute, an axe wielding maniac, a super contortionist, and a frail old lizard man while Hal Jordan has been joined by a fuzzy little furball, a math nerd, a grey alien, and a kid that loves to punch people in the back of the head. I love this next generation of Green Lanterns!

The rings are back online which means Fatality's ring has come back around as well. Which is good since she was about to be vivisected by a bunch of mangy Durlans. This whole plot with the rings losing power occasionally is making it far easier for the writers to build tension than when the rings couldn't affect anything colored yellow. Poor Green Lanterns. They have the most powerful weapon in the universe. Every other creature should be a complete pushover. But the fucking rings always have something wrong with them. Somebody has annulled the anuls!

Although Fatality's stupid Love Ring doesn't seem to be able to defend itself against a bug.

I don't know. Call me cynical but it's hard to believe that these rings protect the wearer from the deadly vacuum of space but can't defend against a tiny wasp. I'd rather believe that Star Sapphire Rings are ineffective against insects.

Back on Oa, the Green Lanterns are discussing their fucked up rings when I learn that Isamot is from Thanagar. How many sentient races does that planet have? I know I was thoroughly confused by the various species back when Hawkman was being written by Rob Liefeld but I didn't believe anything he wrote since he was still talking about the Czarnians as if they were still alive. Even though he was writing about the Last Czarnian over in Deathstroke! What an idiot! Unless I'm the idiot and there's actually a crazy, rational comic book explanation which would prove that I'm completely wrong and a total douche for calling Rob an idiot when he was, in fact, not an idiot and completely right.

I don't know many of the current Green Lantern Corps but I do know that this female must be the genius of the bunch.

Kilowog and Salaak determine that the problem with the rings might reside within the Central Power Battery. I bet it has to do with all of the Lantern Corps Mascots escaping! I still don't know what any of that shit is about! But I'm going to find out, I suppose! If the Love Lamp had a Mascot named Predator in it, then I suppose the Willpower Lamp will have a creature named Overbearing Visitor That Won't Fucking Get the Hint so You Can Go To Fucking Bed Already. And the Fear Battery will have a creature called Flip the Fuck Out. The Compassion Battery will have a creature called Lenny. The Wrath Battery will have a creature called Anger Management. The Greed Battery will have a creature called Philanthropy. And the Hope Battery will have a creature called Faith! I bet I'm about 85% correct on my guesses!

Back on Nellewel 3, The Green Lanterns have retrieved their rings and they're fighting back. Although in the first two pages of fighting, Feska is nowhere to be seen. I hope she isn't dead! I can't imagine she'd be killed when the readers know her son back home will probably die without her! That would be a pretty fucked up thing to do. Another fucked up thing to do: own a Green Lantern Ring and use it to create rebar to fight with! Come on, John! You weren't in construction! You were an architect! You should at least be fighting with a blueprint tube or a straight edge!

And then a jackhammer? Although seeing that Maro uses "voice" to defeat the Khunds, perhaps Green Lanterns generally like to use things they wish they had access to. So John actually became an architect to be around construction because he felt, for some reason, obligated to get a degree that would lead to a career where he could wear a suit and a hardhat instead of just going into the career he wanted to. Maybe he didn't realize his love for the props of construction until he was around it all the time as his first building was being erected.

It turns out that Feska is okay, of course! I would have had to turn a pouty face in Van Jensen's direction if he'd killed her. I think the only one of these new recruits he can kill, story-wise, is all of them. But I suspect that the one that he can kill if he needs to is the old lizard man. I sincerely hope that he doesn't, of course! I love them all!

More Khunds arrive and Stewart decides it's time to leave. At this point in the comic book, he is able to save them all. But the cover shows him with Fatality and Kilowog, so the cover might be a little bit ahead of the story since I can't see that this comic book has enough pages left to get to whatever's going on on the cover.

Speaking of Fatality, a naked Fatality awakens naked in the surgery room, strapped down and naked while naked. I think she could use A PEP TALK IN EVERY DROP, so here's some advice, Fatality: "Push on." "Power through." "Be unstoppable." "Inspire envy."

Wait. What? "Inspire envy" is Pep Talk? These cough drops are encouraging me to live my life in a way that I think others will be jealous of? Fuck you, cough drop! What a piece of shit piece of advice. "Make people feel inferior!" "Show people how much more successful you are!" "Rub it in their faces!" "Spit on the peons!" "Shit on everybody!" Hmm, I think I should sell some of my advice to Halls Cough Drops for their next round of wrappers.

Fatality gets away because she's tethered to John by their love and her Love Ring and sexual compatibility. But first she has the ring put on some clothes. I don't know, that would probably have been my second thought after fleeing for my life. But then I don't live in a Teen Rated Universe.

HOLY FUCKING MOLEY! WHEW! Drinking Iced Green Tea after sucking on a cough drop will really clean out your everything. I think I may have discovered a new sense of taste.

Fatality's Love Spear works and she's transported to John Stewart as everybody arrives back on Oa. I wonder if she's also tethered to Mogo since she fucked on Mogo's face with John?

I just scanned this because it's another reason I like Old Lizard Dude. I often sit like this in my office chair while reading comic books. While in China, I passed through a rural village where four men were sitting on top of a pool table like this playing cards. I bet that Billiards Table Salesman won some kind of a bet on that sale.

Kilowog, Salaak, and John investigate the Central Power Battery. They find it dim but still functioning efficiently. Until a Great White Shark comes flopping out of it speaking English. It's name is Ion and didn't Kyle run around as Ion for awhile? But he wasn't a shark! I guess he got the name from the Green Lantern Power Battery Mascot. I can see a Great White Shark being the living embodiment of Stubborness!

Some of the other Mascots arrive and declare it's time to make the trip to the Mascot Graveyard because their time is over. I hope this means the Lanterns won't need to recharge anymore! Larfleeze was just the first of them to become a self-sustained living battery. Of course, I seem to hope that every single Green Lantern story ends with them not needing to recharge the stupid rings anymore!

Green Lantern Corps #23 Rating: +4 Ranking! I'm really enjoying all of the Green Lantern titles right now! And Bernard Chang just makes this comic book a treat to look at.

Green Lantern Corps #22

Last issue, I was hoping John Stewart's days of tragedy were behind him. I guess he's still not allowed to be happy.

After about 8000 scans and 1 Gigabyte of information across the last year and a half, my scanner has finally decided to call it quits. It's not totally dead but I have to learn some new sailing knots to tie into the cord to keep it working. And then I can't move a muscle as it scans. And I have to hope fucking Alex next door doesn't start hopping around on his pogo stick. I have ordered a new cord via Amazon, so all should be well and good in a few days.

And let me just say this about the newest travesty America decided to think up this week: fuck Florida and fuck George Zimmerman and fuck his attorneys and fuck the jurors and fuck everybody who says, "We don't know what really happened." A grown ass man decided to follow and confront a teenager because that grown ass man felt brave with his gun as back-up and when Trayvon Martin "Stood His Fucking Ground" which, according to fucking Florida, was his Goddamn fucking right, this coward shot him dead. Reasonable doubt gets this prick off when he showed no reasonable doubt that Trayvon was up to no good which should have led to him leaving him the fuck alone? Fuck him and everybody involved. I will no longer acknowledge Florida or any business headquartered there. If I owned an American Flag, I'd get out my blue sharpie and start filling in one of the stars. Everything about Florida sucks!

Except for you, Florida readers. Y'all are okay.

Whew! That was a close one! But what are the odds that people from Florida can read anyway? My dad lived in Florida until he was two years old and didn't learn to read until the family moved to Georgia. Experiential proof of illiteracy!

Oh! The manatees are pretty cool too! And Cape Canaveral is kind of neat. I suppose the people who work there probably know how to read. I wonder if manatees watch shuttle launches and dream of exploring space one day themselves?

Forgetting Earth problems and turning toward Deep Space, the Zimmermans Zamarons are having trouble with their main power battery. What is going on with all the batteries and rings and shit?! Is this a byproduct of the Guardians being killed? The head Zamaron seems to think that some creature named Predator that used to live in the Main Power Battery has been gone from it too long, causing the light in the battery to dim.

Umm. Hmm. That's a weird thing to have living in the Love Battery! A registered sex offender? I guess it might be a prison which feeds off of the prisoner. Sort of how the Guardians fed off of Volthoom and how Parallax lived inside the Green Power Battery. Unless I have that wrong. Which I probably don't! And if somebody corrects me, I'll just edit their commentary so it says, "You're an absolute genius, Eee!" Only my best readers call me Eee!

You'd think my scanner was still broken with this serious lack of pictures!

Maru can speak with his ring! Now he can fly back to Rhoon and tell the other Rhoonians to suck it forever!

All of the new recruits get a nice little cameo as John chews them out. At least he didn't call them a bunch of Poozers. Because that's fucking racist. I think.

John gets the lowdown on Hal's promotion and the wonky batteries and Guy's defection and Kilowog's new job before he's ready to leave. But before he can skedaddle, Kilowog recruits him for a job repairing a dam on some dam world. And he has to take the new recruits along for a little training session.

Meanwhile on a moon of Cheorg, this doesn't really happen:

This Durlan pretending to be John called Fatality "babe". Which nobody does!

I'm not even sure Fatality knew this wasn't John. She just knew nobody was calling her babe and getting away with it. But I do know I'm never going to believe another DC comic book cover again because they're full of lies and shape-shifters! I also love Yrra's face as she sticks this pig.

Meanwhile, the still alive John Stewart has left Oa bringing along the four recruits introduced last issue. I guess the other four recruits are bound to hang around Hal Jordan's heels. John begins fixing the dam keeping the Sea of Boiling Seas from cascading down on top of the Nellewellians.

It doesn't go so well.

Now John is going to have to use his brains and his real life architectural skills to rebuild the dam as boiling water flows over it! Or he can be responsible for the death of another planet! Enh, why not? It's kind of his thing now.

Instead of John showing off his mad architect skills, The Khund appear and fix the dam. They declare that they are the new protectors of Nellewel! Which is a bit odd because aren't the Khund from Sector 422? That's a bit of a ways away! Although I suppose the way the sectors stack, it makes sense. I imagine sector 422 is just under sector 782. So Sector 731, where Nellewel 3 is located, isn't too far away.

Back on one of Cheorg's moons, the Durlan are acting ominous and jerky.

I don't know if the Durlans are responsible for the ring failures or if they're simply going to try to take advantage of it. They already mentioned Oa is weak with the Guardians gone. Maybe they know something about the way the batteries are connected to the Guardians.

Back on Nellewel 3, the Lanterns put up a pretty good fight against the Khund before being captured. Well, Jruk puts up a good fight. And John. The others are still finding their way! But they'd better adjust quickly because dropping to the ground every time the shit hits the fan and saying, "Go on without me!" isn't going to cut it, Old Lizard Man!

Amid some serious pornographic writing on the final page, the reader is introduced to Predator and Entity, two creatures from inside the Star Sapphire's power battery. Unless the Entity is from the Green Power Battery? They're dying and they need to find the others who, I presume, are the other entities from within the other power batteries. I guess these are the creatures that keep the Batteries going although I thought the Green Power Battery got its juice from tapping into the Big Bang or something equally and absolutely exactingly scientific!

Green Lantern Corps #22 Rating: +1 Ranking. I enjoyed my time with Jurk Jruk this issue. I thought he was going to be the least interesting of the GLC recruits. But I was wrong because he has an axe! Although if Old Lizard Man continues to just drop into a ball and cry, he might become my favorite fucking Green Lantern of all time!

Green Lantern Corps #21

Is it finally time to let John Stewart shine? Or is tragedy going to immediately befall him yet again?

We'll talk about John Stewart in a second. First let's talk about the new writer Van Jensen. When one of my Most Loyal Readers (people that read Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea need a nickname!) mentioned that Van Jensen was going to be writing Green Lantern Corps, I asked Lord Google about him. While I was reading about his previous work, I saw that he had been working on a project with my Cousin-in-Common-Law. My Cousin-in-Common-Law sometimes goes by the name Jim Doom over at Doomkopf.com and Van Jensen used to write shit there under the name Jean Claude Van Doom. Fin Fang Doom currently has a post about it over there if you're curious to see some of the stuff Van Jensen was writing about comics way back when. What this means is I might unconsciously (or consciously and very pussily) go easy on the writing. Man, I hope I don't do that!

This is Facebook telling me I almost know him!

So enough about my brush with some guy I'll never meet anyway who did something that I'm now reading. That was fascinating!

While Carol and Hal are over in Green Lantern #21 redefining their relationship with a definition that doesn't include the word "together," John and Yrra are trying to figure out where they stand now that they've had sex with each other. And with Mogo.

Yeah, but you have to admit having sex on another Green Lantern's face is at, the very least, a little weird.

John Stewart is headed to the Planet Kush to stop a Ruthenium Reactor from blowing up the planet. Fatality is tagging along because John refuses to mark the box under "YES" or "NO" on the piece of paper she slipped him in the library at lunch. She's talking a lot trying to get a straight answer from him but she still doesn't talk as much as John's ring. I've never seen such a mouthy ring before! And it's not very smart! It doesn't know what kind of lifeforms are sabotaging the reactor. I think it spends too much time talking and not enough time listening.

Have any Green Lanterns ever nicknamed their ring? Has a Green Lantern ring ever developed a distinct personality? I really don't know these things because I've never read that many Green Lantern comic books. Also, I just can't remember the Green Lantern comics I did read.

That's just insulting! According to Huey Lewis, she's got some serious power. Stay behind you. Fucking man.

I realize I may have jumped to some man-hating conclusions in that previous caption. It's quite possible that John Stewart knows he's a lousy shot with his Ring, so he doesn't want to accidentally hit Fatality with a blast when he goes spazzing into battle. Which is what happens on the next page! Not the accidentally hitting Yrra part but the spazzing into battle! John's first weapon of choice is a girder. Yes, that's right. A girder. I guess it makes sense since he was an architect before he was a Green Lantern. Just using what he knows. Fatality, on the other hand, tries beating the aliens to death with giant flowers.

During the battle (which, just to be clear, John and Yrra are not winning), John and Yrra's rings begin to malfunction. It's at this point that the scene shifts back to Oa so the reader can see what's going on and go, "Ohhhh! That sucks!" instead of "What the fuck just happened to their fucking rings and shit!?"

Except the change in scene doesn't answer any questions! I was basing my speculation on Green Lantern #21 where everybody's rings and lanterns were also shorting out. But instead of the Bohemian Guardians giving me answers, they merely give Salaak's old job to Kilowog.

The scene also shifts to show some alien named Jruk slaughtering people in a game of Blood Bowl on the planet Oranx. I think they play Blood Bowl differently on Oranx than in the back room of gaming stores because Jruk just wanders around the pitch lopping off heads with his battle axe. Hmm, maybe it's not so different.

On Rojira, Lizard Monk Ergann is left behind by his fellows because he's old and tired and probably flatulent. I wonder if these are going to be new recruits for the rebuilt Green Lantern Corps? Although the first guy sort of looks like the tiny guy battling Green Lanterns on the double splash page in Green Lantern #21. Although that's probably Relic. Or Reliquary. Or whatever.

On Zarox, a Swoop-headed Zebralorian reads a story to her son. I hope the mother becomes the Green Lantern and is forced to leave her son and her son dies in the slums they live in and she resents the Corps forever! I mean, I hope she has a happy life!

On Rhoon, one lone Rhoonian is simply tired of the never ending counter-arguments of his philosophical brethren.

He's exhausted living in an internet forum.

Back on planet Kush, John and Yrra's rings flare back into life. Oh! I get it! Some mysterious force is screwing with the ring's power! Oh, you already figured that out? Forget I said anything. The unidentifiable aliens escape while John and Fatality contain the reactor and save the planet. Although there's still a big explosion! I guess they contained it enough so that the radiation doesn't spread. And then they go after the unidentifiable aliens who turn out to be shapeshifters.

Meanwhile on Oranx and Rojira and Zarox and Rhoon, some new Green Lanterns are recruited!

Ha ha ha! I mean, noooo...dooooon't she was so haaaappppy.

I think I might have a slight inter-species crush on Maro.

Back on Kush, the shapechangers escape in their ship while Green Lantern and Star Sapphire are under fire by the natives who are a little bit mistrustful of the Green Lantern Corps after all the shit the Guardians have pulled. Plus the shapechangers made it look like John and Yrra were trying to eat their babies. John gets the call to return to Oa to protect it from Larfleeze so Fatality chases after the aliens alone. But first she asks John to consider a life with her outside the Corps. So while Hal and Carol feel that remaining Corps members is the most important thing, Fatality and John may actually try to have a life outside their respective Corps. This seems like a much more reasonable reaction if two people really desire to have a life together as opposed to really desiring to keep a fucking Green Lantern Ring on their finger.

On the final page, the shapeshifting aliens turn out to be Durlans. You know, like Chameleon Girl and the other one. The boy or something. And they apparently have a beef with the Guardians. Who doesn't?! Get in line. The fucking line starts four light years past the second star on the right.

Green Lantern Corps #21 Rating: +1 Ranking. Congratulations Van Jensen on avoiding my unreasonable hatred! I really like that we're getting a lot of new Green Lantern characters to grow with and learn about. Four new ones in Green Lantern #21 (although one dies on the first page) and four new ones here. The ones in Green Lantern don't exactly have a lot of character yet but these ones have already been set up nicely with some easily understandable starting traits. I'm particularly interested in the mother and the philosopher. After that, I'm really interested in the Blood Bowler and the Elderly Lizard Monk!