HJ & the GLC #43 (SPOILERS)

[Ωmega Man Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Ωmega Man]

Just gonna say... I love the Kirkham cover. Kyle in the Hal For A Day suit with the rest of the four Corpsmen just felt right.

On to the issue at hand.... DAMN. Love or hate them in the past, the new Darkstars are no joke and they already outnumber the Corps! GLC Recharged upped the Corps ranks in no time... its been 43 flipping issues now DC WTF?!?

I like Tomar Tu as their leader and the new twist with the Controllers. And how the Darkstars can teleport across space instant transmission style?!?

I read somewhere this series is ending with #50?

- Ω

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

So I went to the comic store the other day to pick up Doom Patrol #11. The cover to HJ&TGLC #43 caught my eye. Darkstars back? Tomar Tu getting some panel space? Oh to hell with it. I bought the issue (the first issue of an actual GL ongoing since November of 2016, so a year and a half). I Took it home and read it. It really wasn't all that bad. The art was solid. The story was decent. I liked all the parts with Tomar, and how the new Darkstars and the GLC are positioning themselves for this arc. I like that the Controllers are the pawns this tme and not the other way around.

It's a story I've read many times, the moral question of one group telling another group how far is too far. Who is right? Who decides who gets to be the moral authority? The story has been done over and over again with different window dressing but it usually works because the sentiment resonates with readers.

So yeah, it was a decent read that I didn't regret paying for.

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

I know they retconned Tomar Tu to be Tomar Re's son. It makes sense from a story telling level to make that connection. As time passes it just becomes part of the lore. But for me it still seems new and odd. I suppose when I get used to it I'll be happy they did it.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

I know they retconned Tomar Tu to be Tomar Re's son. It makes sense from a story telling level to make that connection. As time passes it just becomes part of the lore. But for me it still seems new and odd. I suppose when I get used to it I'll be happy they did it.

Me too. I had forgotten it and I thought for a moment "he's his son?"

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

I'm still used to thinking of Tu as a Gerard Jones character. But that's mostly because writers since have used him as window dressing for the most part. This was neat to see him get to do something meaningful. And show how different he is from Tomar Re.

[Mister Ed Horse of a Different Color Find all posts View Profile Close Mister Ed]

Me too. I had forgotten it and I thought for a moment "he's his son?"

I found that jarring when they first told us that, since when he was introduced Tomar Tu made a point of the fact that he was NOT in fact related to Tomar Re.

Plus in the story where they first established him as being Tomar Re's son, it seemed clear to me that the writer didn't make a conscious decision to change that, but simply made an assumption and wasn't aware that it was contradicted (since in that story his being Tomar Re's son had really no importance to the story at all). At least here it seems like his being Tomar Re's son is being used as an important contrast (or something), instead of just being a throwaway factoid that contradicted canon to no purpose.

[Kane2814 Weaponer of Qward Find all posts View Profile Close Kane2814]

The dynamics of this conflict are shaping up to be more interesting than simple fighting "an evil army" being lead by the Controllers. Between the moral question of the death penalty, the personal conflict with one of their own being the main Darkstar and the fact that the people seem to support them, Venditti has set up a challenge for himself in terms of being able to pay this off and honestly, given his track record I have my doubts. Guess we'll see if he can stick this landing.

Interesting that Tomar-Tu mentioned Goldface. Unless the specifics have changed, it just makes me think how much he might still hold a grudge against the man who lead those villains in that ill-fated mission to the anti-matter universe ...

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

Oh yeah! I kind of marked out when he memtioned that Goldface killed Tomar Re. Nice to see someone went back and read that and didn't retcon him dying in some generic battle.

[JohnMc Senior Corps Member Find all posts View Profile Close JohnMc]

It's a story I've read many times, the moral question of one group telling another group how far is too far. Who is right? Who decides who gets to be the moral authority? The story has been done over and over again with different window dressing but it usually works because the sentiment resonates with readers.

Gee. That almost sounds like a video game series that DC puts out.

[Star-Lantern Weaponer of Qward Find all posts View Profile Close Star-Lantern]

Another thing about this whole thing that makes me a bit "I dunno", which I've never seen ANYONE mention is that... like... the Darkstars aren't villains... or even anti-heroes. I actually read and own the whole The Darkstars comic run, and despite having a shifty leader named Jeddigar before John Stewart took over (and who the Controllers helped depose), they were always pretty clearly heroic, despite being portrayed as a bit tougher (in attitude) than The Green Lantern Corps (they were created in the early 90s, after all), and if I recall correctly, they were more ready to kill than Green Lanterns at the time. I mean, MANY Green Lanterns became Darkstars, like K'ryssma, Galius, Medyphyll and some others. After Emerald Twilight, one of the main functions of the Darkstars was to try and salvage the Green Lantern Corps as best as could be done under the editorial mandates of the time. Someone didn't like that idea, either Kevin Dooley or Ron Marz, so they more or less wiped them out when the Darkstars comic series got cancelled, along with removing John Stewart from a hero role.

I think it's pretty boring to portray them as villains and in direct mass armed conflict with the GLC. I think it would take more skilled writing, and in particular, world building, to display another legitimate police force that might have philosophical differences with the Green Lanterns, just as the Controllers do with the Guardians, but that isn't unsympathetically hardcore and who the Green Lanterns have to go into ANOTHER Corps war with.

This again kind of reinforces my attitude of "if the Darkstars are SO different from what they were, why bring them back?"

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

^I'm kind of sympathetic to them, but then I'm a Punisher and Death Wish fan.

[Star-Lantern Weaponer of Qward Find all posts View Profile Close Star-Lantern]

^I'm kind of sympathetic to them, but then I'm a Punisher and Death Wish fan.

Yeah. I think this could be written better. Maybe if the Darkstars didn't go around killing other peoples' prisoners willy nilly and threatening people that they're going to come do that, then they may not seem so much like we shouldn't be rooting for them. At least that's the way I see it. If I was writing it, I'd go for something more nuanced where one side (to me) didn't clearly look like the bad guy. So yeah, it's kinda' interesting what Venditti is playing with, but in typical Venditti fashion, I don't think he's going all the way with it, and the while the concept may sound like it has interesting nuance on paper, there really isn't a whole lot to me when you read the comics. At least not nearly as much as there should be.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

^Agreed. They're clearly supposed to be jerk villains. It's pretty much the contrary side of me that wants to like them anyway. It would make more sense if they were executing their own arrests or escaped convicts or something.