Green Lantern Sales Numbers

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

The problem is DC often seems to learn the wrong lesson; they're just as likely to react by saying "oh, that didn't work, guess we need another new human GL and another kind of bad ring user.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

They need to go back to what has worked best -- what's called "best practices" in the business world.

That is, depicting Hal on Earth with his supporting cast, John and Guy the way they were in the early 90s, and Kyle the way he was at first. The Guardians need to come back too, with the GLC as an intergalactic law enforcement organization instead of existing to fight other Corps.

That stuff worked well and was popular, and what DC has discarded it in favor of hasn't worked and isn't popular. It's been proved beyond any reasonable doubt that they aren't going to get any better ideas than that, so they need to stop trying and to start selling GL comics again.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

It requires a certain amount of healthy humility to recognize that you aren't smart enough to reinvent the wheel, and that your contribution will be to think of new and hopefully more effective ways to use it.

That's what's needed here.

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

The Guardians AND Oa need to come back. The franchise isn't complete without them.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

The Guardians AND Oa need to come back. The franchise isn't complete without them.

Yes, certainly. Tom Kamalku, the works.

However, software will soon make test pilots obsolete, so they need to get in front of the curve there instead of playing catch-up later by giving Hal a new profession. My reboot would be to make him a race car driver and Ferris a racing team owned by Carl Ferris.

Make changes like that, for a changing world. But don't throw out the best practices, the things that experience has shown will sell the comics best over the long haul. Don't change things for the same reason that a dog methodically pisses on its surroundings -- to mark it as your territory.

Stay within the song. Just change aspects of the arrangement and the delivery that do or probably will keep buyers away.

If you want to change more than that, then go create your owned damned comic instead.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

But when you bring back the Guardians, keep them off-camera except for very special occasions. That will relieve the writers of the temptation to depict conflicts between them and the Lanterns, with the unfortunate results that we've already seen play out.

The Central Power Battery should give the Lanterns occasional assignments and choose the new Lanterns. Keep the Guardians away from that.

[Big Blue Lantern Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Big Blue Lantern]

But when you bring back the Guardians, keep them off-camera except for very special occasions. That will relieve the writers of the temptation to depict conflicts between them and the Lanterns, with the unfortunate results that we've already seen play out.
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I couldn't agree more with this sentiment. The GL mythos is indeed incomplete without the GotU component, but writers should take great care in how they use them. With the vast number of worlds to explore and the diverse personalities and abilities of the Lanterns, it is unnecessary to constantly toss in the GotU for narrative advancement.

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

I'd be fine with the Guardians being used sparingly, and given back the air of mystery they once had. Like it's a big deal to get an audience with them, and there are layers of GL beauracracy you have to deal with before you ever speak to them.

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

I'd be fine with them appearing about as much as they did right before the Crisis, where they're generally good, but out of touch and so far beyond most mortals that seat-of-your-pants guys like Hal and rule-breakers like Guy butt heads with them. You know, like how the rest of us relate to BDD.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

I'd be fine with them appearing about as much as they did right before the Crisis, where they're generally good, but out of touch and so far beyond most mortals that seat-of-your-pants guys like Hal and rule-breakers like Guy butt heads with them. You know, like how the rest of us relate to BDD.

That's the whole problem with the Guardians. The butting heads. It leads to nothing good. It's just low hanging fruit for a writer who's looking for a conflict to depict, and it gets more and more tiresome and intolerable. The Guardians should let the CPB handle everything.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Here's something else. Writers of funny books have a hard time letting any other beings be more competent or smarter than humans. Or even AS competent or smart as humans. Let alone as moral. Thus Hal "Dive First and Measure the Depth of the Water Later" Jordan gets to lead the GLC.

Come on now.

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

Yeah, not a fan of the Green Lanterns having conflict with the Guardians. For one, I just don't like the idea, and for two, it is so played out by now. For many years, Green Lanterns were either cleaning up the Guardians' messes, dealing with their corruption, or just outright fighting them.

I agree with the idea that you're shrinking your universe when you have the heroes deal with the same type of stuff over and again, when you have literally the entire universe to play with.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

The focus of Rebirth should have been an actual reboot of Green Lantern. Putting patches on it like making Kyle a Green Lantern again are good, but there are problems that can't be fixed without starting over.

And no, Geoff should not have a hand in it. He sold a lot of comics for a while. I recognize that. But the changes he made are a big part of the problem. If he wants to get involved, he can find something else for Baz and Cruz to do. They're his characters.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Most of what I advocate about the title are simply things that most people thought Geoff was going to do anyway when he brought back Hal and the Corps. He turned out to have some very different ideas though, and frankly quite radical ones, that have floundered in the long run.

Most of the rest of what I advocate is to eliminate aspects that tend to chase some readers away, some of them points of long standing.

These are marketing-based ideas that seek to attract a new, larger audience rather than to appease longtime fanboys who don't have the numbers to get what they want, and whose ideas aren't good anyway.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

The biggest losers

Sales declines since Rebirth was launched.

JLA -- 68%

HL&GLC -- 62%

GLs -- 54%

Superman -- 47%

There you have it in black and white, DC. People have tried what you did with the GL franchise, and they didn't like it.

It's time for you to tap out and reboot it.