Changes to the original concept

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

This reminds me of a Superman comic where a writer wrote in a caption that "There's only one Lois!"

Do you think anybody bought into that? Of course not. It ain't that easy. You've got to show me that there's just one Lois.

If you tell me that one Lantern is "greater" than another because he has "more willpower" or he "overcame more fear," I won't buy into that. Really, who would?
That's just some arbitrary bullshit that you, the writer, made up, so you could establish a hierarchy.

Don't tell me that your characters are this or that. Just show me what they do.

That's your job.

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

Ollie had already been blown up and beat the hell out of in that story. Makes since if he didn't have much fight in him that the ring took the rest out of him.

~//V\\~

Maybe. I guess I didn't get the impression from what I read there (and elsewhere in Geoff Johns' run) that his exhaustion or injuries were what made it hard for him. It seemed like it was part of an attempt to establish that using the ring at all is horribly difficult.

And it bothered me all the more because, like Trey objects to in other instances, that was something that, for the most part, the writer was just TELLING me, not showing me. After he spent a bit of panel space in a couple books letting us all know that using the ring was that hard, none of the GLs actually bore that "fact" out when we watched them use the ring after that.

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

Some people are just naturals.

~//V\\~

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

Ollie had already been blown up and beat the hell out of in that story. Makes since if he didn't have much fight in him that the ring took the rest out of him.

~//V\\~

No, in Rebirth Ollie specifically asks if it's always like that and Kyle says "yes, always." That plus Geoff and DiDio's comments on that moment made it clear that they specifically retconned that it always takes a monumental, painful effort to use the ring even a small amount.

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

No, in Rebirth Ollie specifically asks if it's always like that and Kyle says "yes, always." That plus Geoff and DiDio's comments on that moment made it clear that they specifically retconned that it always takes a monumental, painful effort to use the ring even a small amount.

And that's the part I hated. Flew in the face of too much GL history AND wasn't even borne out by what we saw going forward aside from a few little moments (like with Batman trying the ring) designed to reinforce that notion.

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

And that's the part I hated. Flew in the face of too much GL history AND wasn't even borne out by what we saw going forward aside from a few little moments (like with Batman trying the ring) designed to reinforce that notion.

It's definitely one of the worst retcons to me. If it were intrinsic to the character that he had to be constantly miserable, then that's one thing, but that obviously was not the case for decades before (and soon after even in Geoff's run he showed Hal making meaningless, fun constructs).

It's part of the appeal of superhero comics to me to think that it's actually fun to have super powers. Superman's flying wouldn't be as cool if it came at the expense of splitting migraines every time he hovered an inch off the ground. Green Lanterns make enough sacrifices in their lives without actually having to strain just doing their job.

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

Carol Ferris doesn't need to own the company, any more than Hal or John need to run the GLC. Why does she? She can be the operations manager. Get back to the concept of Carl Ferris owning it. Their original relationship had more potential to generate story material in an Earth-based comic. Every character in a comic book doesn't need to be the boss. You don't see that in television or movies, do you? You don't make a character more interesting by putting him or her in charge of everything, let alone do you get better stories that way.

The last time I checked, Lois Lane was some kind of communications executive and Jimmy Olsen was a billionaire. How did that improve anything? The sales of Superman suck, so the readers obviously aren't getting caught up in it.

Giving your characters job promotions is the wrong way to get better stories out of them. You'll screw them up that way.

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

Once I was on the phone with an IT guy because I needed some information. He said that it needed to come from a particular company, so he looked through a list of phone numbers there. He mentioned one person but then said, "Nah, he's the boss. He ain't gonna know shit."

I laughed because that was so true. The boss ain't gonna know shit. That's why nobody is interested in stories about him.

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

Comics writers often do the same thing with their protagonists' powers. They tend to think they can improve a character by making him more powerful. Fanboys on message boards get excited about this too, arguing about which characters have the greatest power levels and who can beat up whom.

But I can't think of one instance where power inflation hasn't made a character suck more than he did before. For one thing, the writers have to amp up the powers of the villains too, so they can continue to threaten the amped-up heroes. So it becomes an arms race, and the stories become increasingly abstract and move farther and farther away from anything that really interests or concerns people.

The power rings have seen some wild fluctuations in their capabilities over the years, but at this point, the GLC is a military organization that can be threatened only by other Corps or by groups with similar capabilities.

That concept got readers excited for a while, but there's nowhere to go with it except down, because all you can do is to keep fighting the same battles. And down is where the franchise is headed, as the sales attest.

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

Once I was on the phone with an IT guy because I needed some information. He said that it needed to come from a particular company, so he looked through a list of phone numbers there. He mentioned one person but then said, "Nah, he's the boss. He ain't gonna know shit."

I laughed because that was so true. The boss ain't gonna know shit. That's why nobody is interested in stories about him.

I think that's a big blanket statement and a weird absolute. It depends on what the story is about and how it is written. Eddard Stark is the boss, and his story is extremely popular. If the story is about the boss being the boss, and the story is written well, then it's okay.

That said, I wouldn't mind Carl Ferris returning. If Carol is going to be Star Sapphire and go on extended leaves of absence, it actually works better to have the Carl Ferris character around so readers aren't wondering who is running Ferris Aircraft while Carol is doing whatever.

In the specific case of John Stewart, his being the boss hasn't done much, if anything, for him, because no writer has effectively explored that idea yet. Perhaps Cullen Bunn was trying to do that with Lost Army, but he got the rug pulled out from under him. The idea of Eddard Stark being the boss (and many other characters in his series) was effectively explored.

I also agree with all the people who think that power ring users shouldn't all somehow be equal. Nothing else in the world works like that. Well, maybe if the Green Lanterns were all the same model of Battledroid that would make some sense, but they're not. Not all swordsmen are sword masters, and so on.

And besides, that would make things A LOT less interesting.

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

What I meant by that was, it's the people who are out where the rubber meets the road who know what's happening. That's where the action is. If the CEO doesn't show up for work, almost nobody notices. If the receptionist doesn't, then the office has a problem. Do you think the CEO would know what to do if he had to fill in for the receptionist for one day? He wouldn't have a clue.

Jimmy Olsen as a billionaire and Lois Lane as an executive isn't working. The writers didn't like Clark Kent having to take orders either, so they made him a blogger, but they had to back down from that. Geoff Johns flushed the Guardians and put Hal in charge, but then said, no, wait, John should be in charge. Neither idea went over.

Do you see a pattern there? Starting a character like Tony Stark off as the boss and getting him over that way is fine. But getting a character over when he already has a boss, and later promoting him to be the boss because you want to improve him, is reinventing the wheel.

It's hard to get a major character over today. It almost never happens any more. And redoing the deal you made with the readers about it long ago, because you're bored with what you're writing and you feel like getting creative, is a formula for failure.

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

...
Jimmy Olsen as a billionaire and Lois Lane as an executive isn't working. The writers didn't like Clark Kent having to take orders either, so they made him a blogger, but they had to back down from that. . .

None of those are still true. They're all back at the Planet now.

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

You can only change the core concept so much before it gets away from the magic that made it click with fans in the first place. Hence why you see Marvel and DC go off the reservation with their franchises trying to generate interest, then reign themselves back in to the core concept. Every few years, rinse and repeat.

Right now with the Corps depleted to nothing, no Guardians or Oa and all these faggy color brigades about, is pretty much the equivilant to me of Superman Red/Blue, Spidey Clone, teenage Tony Stark, Thor Chick, or Azrael Batman. Wake me up when DC fixes it. It's not interesting to me what they are doing with the GLC. And none of Spy's ideas to tweak the concept work for me either. They all sound like bad fanfic. The series needs a Mark Waid type of writer on the book; one who has a built in following, is a good writer, and who is enough of a fan of the concept that they won't try to break it into a million pieces thinking they are the next Alan Moore deconstructing the thing.

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

None of those are still true. They're all back at the Planet now.

As I said, that's how it was the last time I checked. I'm glad they've backed down from that as well as from Clark's blogging, but it shows the tendencies of writers.

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

You can only change the core concept so much before it gets away from the magic that made it click with fans in the first place. Hence why you see Marvel and DC go off the reservation with their franchises trying to generate interest, then reign themselves back in to the core concept. Every few years, rinse and repeat.

Right now with the Corps depleted to nothing, no Guardians or Oa and all these faggy color brigades about, is pretty much the equivilant to me of Superman Red/Blue, Spidey Clone, teenage Tony Stark, Thor Chick, or Azrael Batman. Wake me up when DC fixes it. It's not interesting to me what they are doing with the GLC. And none of Spy's ideas to tweak the concept work for me either. They all sound like bad fanfic. The series needs a Mark Waid type of writer on the book; one who has a built in following, is a good writer, and who is enough of a fan of the concept that they won't try to break it into a million pieces thinking they are the next Alan Moore deconstructing the thing.

No, it doesn't need Mark Waid, and no, my ideas of flushing WILLPOWA and giant green egg beaters are not "bad fanfic." You haven't even read any fanfic. But you're welcome to think so.