Red Lanterns #40

Stop being so dramatic, Guy, and just change your stinky baby.

Last issue, Guy Gardner defeated a baby. He then decided to make the baby his sidekick. Now he and the angriest baby in the world are hitchhiking across America in a piss poor mood.

Oh! One of my relatives posted a picture of my father's parents and two of my cousins from an Easter in the mid-70s! I thought I'd post it here without permission because obviously one of my grandparents had dangerous sex and now It is Following them! It must have been my grandfather because he probably died about six or seven years after this photo was taken. My grandmother lived until a few years ago! I think she only had sex five times in her life.

The It in the white hat kind of looks like she's making a Throw Momma From the Train face. You know. Anne Ramsey, I think her name was? I could look it up but I'm busy laughing at her scowl! "Fucking loving families! How dare they flaunt their joy! I hate Easter!"

My father's parents' names were Doil and Eupha. Seriously.

This issue begins with Guy Gardner and his sidekick, Baby Rabies, searching a dark warehouse and being ambushed by slavering angry dudes. It took a Green Lantern amount of will to not follow "slavering" with "Grues."

Bullshit! You can introduce new aspects to characters but suddenly making Guy Gardner color blind is 99.9% unbelievable.

I don't know a lot about being colorblind but I do know there are different kinds. But aren't they all usually some type of "can't tell the difference between two colors" kind of colorblind? Is there a kind of colorblindness where the colors are all nearly the same but different enough that a person can "barely tell them apart"?

Hey, have you seen that thing that everybody is constantly reblogging about those glasses that let colorblind people see colors they've never seen before? I want a pair of glasses that make me colorblind so I can know what it's like to be colorblind! Is being colorblind like seeing the world as if you were viewing everything on an old Apple IIe color monitor? Where everything is just blue, green, purple, or orange?

Guy Gardner has decided it's time to get all philosophical because Landry Q. Walker doesn't want to be known as one of them stupid comic book writers what gots no education or nothin'! Guy is gonna ponder all the shit that changes in a person when they put on a ring! You may think you're angry without a ring and then you're the same angry person with a red ring but Guy is here to say that's wrong! The ring changes you! I mean, sure, it gives you hot lava breath and makes you an incoherent asshole! But it changes you in other ways that people don't often acknowledge. I don't know what those ways are yet because Guy Gardner doesn't elaborate.

Well he stole a baby! Did he tell you about the baby he stole? You're holding it right now!

What Guy has been up to is killing all of the people that Atrocitus filled with rage. Although he probably tries to think of it less as killing them and more as freeing them. Although he's not buying that for a second which is why Guy is so exhausted. He might also have accidentally killed a few people who weren't possessed by Atrocitus's red rage but were just pissed off over being cut off in traffic or because somebody was talking on their cell phone in a movie theater.

Guy also might just be absorbing the rage from the people that are killing other people and none of the deaths have actually been Guy's fault. I mean, he didn't kill the baby, right? And if he had to kill just one human, I think he'd take his own life at this point. He's just trying to clean up what he sees as his mess, and I'm certain he doesn't want to permanently harm anybody.

If she thinks Guy is being pretentious, I hope she never runs into Oliver Queen. He's saving his city, you know! Because everybody in his city? They're too stupid to save themselves. Bunch of idiots up there in Seattle. I should know! Some of them are my friends.

Guy sends his sister (and his sidekick) to an emergency life pod orbiting the Earth where she'll be safe while he battles all of humanity's rage. I guess things are going to get a little messy down on Earth while this happens? Although it can't get too messy. This series only has seven pages left!

Guy's sister manages to figure out the intercom and tells Guy that he's a hero and that he always sees the best in everybody and that he's colorblind but she loves him anyway. Then Guy is all, "You know, Simon tried to tell me that shit too but I didn't buy it. But now I buy it because you're my sister and I love you and junk! I am a hero!" Then he saves the world by turning anger into hope! Just like Gandhi!

Jesus! Have some sensitivity! Guy has no idea those lights were all different colors!

Red Lanterns #40 Rating: -2 Ranking. I just didn't like the whole color blind revelation. I guess some color blind readers out there are coming in their pants about finally having some representation but it made no Goddamned sense. Unless he's always been colorblind! How should I know? I was away from comics for years! And I barely remember the comics I read before that. But the way Guy reveals it, it sounds like something Walker just made up for this story. Anyway, it was so stupid that now I hate Guy Gardner. Thanks a lot, Landry Q. Walker! Jerko!

Red Lanterns #38

Goodbye Charles Soule! We loved you! And by "we" I mean "me" but I'm blushing and embarrassed and covering my face and kicking my foot awkwardly and trying not to stare too hard as you zoom around the roller rink.

Landry Q. Walker is the new writer. He's twenty-five days older than I am which is good because I hate to see people younger than me being all successful and shit. He's also from my neck of the woods having, apparently, gone to De Anza High School which I didn't go to but, like I said, it's in my hometown neck of the woods. And by "woods" I guess I just mean a fairly large chunk of area around the Bay Area. He's from the north bay further on in to central California toward Sacramento while I grew up down in the south bay just outside San Jose. Neither of the places we actually grew up would normally be referred to as being anywhere near a bay but fuck you. Here's another boring sentence full of shit you don't care about just in case you're into that kind of stuff. Here's one more (but shorter!).

This issue begins with Guy Gardner back on Earth to take care of some of the devastation caused by Atrocitus when he gathered up an army of angry Earthlings to battle the Red Lanterns. Apparently all the naive, happy-go-lucky bullshit spouted by Simon Baz on New Genesis was just baby's tears off a Gardner's back. It's hard to tell a guy wearing a ring that amplifies your anger that he's a hero. I mean, it's easy to tell him! It's hard to make him believe you. Maybe Guy was believing it a little bit there for a second. Maybe his heart was beginning to grow three sizes that day. But then Charles Soule gave up on him and went to write stupid dumb Marvel characters that are probably super stupid and dumb because if I didn't convince myself of that, I'd wind up spending $3.99 or more for their comic books. Who wants to do that? Why are comic books so expensive?! I'm already buying Moon Knight and Inhumans and Ms. Marvel! What more does Marvel want from me? I have boxes and boxes of their comics from around the year 2000! Do I have to keep proving to them that I don't hate them? Why does Marvel have such low self-esteem?! Okay, fine! I'm sorry I called your characters stupid and dumb! They're good characters if you're into that sort of thing. And by "that sort of thing," I mean paying $3.99 or more per comic book.

Guy has been using his ring to read the minds of raging citizens of Calvin City. They're all sharing the same angry thoughts and Guy is looking for the source of the rage which spreads easily from one citizen to another. Oh! I bet it's some form of social media!

The anger might be coming from the FEMA Deathcamps! So, yeah, the rage started on Facebook from your old high school friends that believe in Project Cloverleaf, Obamacare Death Panels, and everything David Icke has ever written about.

The dead people are still angry and they're infecting other people that aren't dead or something. It's very American Scream-like from the early days of Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man. In those early issues, the American Scream would infect one person and amplify their insanity, thus changing the reality around them. In some cases, it was localized to a building or small area. And in one case, it was as extreme as what Guy seems to be dealing with here. In that case, San Francisco had to be wiped off the map by the military.

People begin attacking Guy and he thinks about killing them because he thinks they're already dead but then he also thinks that killing them won't solve the problem. Because they're already dead? Anyway, Guy sure is doing a lot of thinking! Who does he think he is? The World's Greatest Detective? Pshaw! Hardly!

Guy comes to the conclusion that he's the problem and the solution! I hope Supergirl saves him!

The people beating up Guy Gardner burn up from their anger leaving Guy alone to feel angrier and saddier and self-pitier than ever before! Now I'm angry!

Red Lanterns #38 Rating: No change. I want to give this a minus one ranking because I don't want Guy to be this sad and angry but how can I? The story is doing what I'm constantly asking comic book stories to do: acknowledging the consequences of the way the heroes go about their business. Guy may not have been the direct cause of these people's death and suffering but he knows that this never would have happened if he hadn't gone to Ysmault in the first place and humiliated Atrocitus. And as a hero, he can't help but feel that this is all on him. And it is, I guess. These people are the casualties in his war to make the universe a better place. At least Guy is fucking acknowledging the collateral damage caused by his attempt to do good. That's more than a lot of other heroes ever do (*cough* Batman *cough*).