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Nice questions. Too bad he doesn't know too much about the Red Lanterns.
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Andrew - please ask him this as I am dying to know - when the teaser image was released for the ION maxi with the star field face Ron told CSN that it was not a mask but had to do with his powers - please ask what those powers where going to be as it was obviously axed in favor of the Space whaleComment
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More on Ganthet jumping inside Hal after Ron re-reviewed the pages from "Parallax View":
As I recall, and my memory could be faulty here, Ganthet "jumping" into Hal's body was meant to temper or control Hal. In a broader sense, it was both of them riding off into the sunset together. Or, if you like, Holmes and Moriarty going over the Reichenbach Falls together. Editorial wanted Hal and Ganthet off the table for a while, and this was a way to kill two birds with one stone.Comment
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(continuing the bit way above on this page about Hal creating a Silver Age world of his own design to recluse in following Parallax View):
Very interesting. Did you have any inclination toward using this angle for the Parallax ongoing you were envisioning?
The plan was for the present DCU to clash with Hal's created world, making for a chance to contrast the present with the past.
A question from GLJIMT: "When the teaser image was released for the ION maxi with the starfield face Ron told CSN that it was not a mask but had to do with his powers - please ask what those powers were going to be as it was obviously axed in favor of the space whale."
The starfield "mask" was an indication that it was Nero we were dealing with, or at least a moment when Nero was leaching Kyle's powers. Nothing to do with the "space whale" one way or the other.Comment
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Awesome!
I've been wondering about this forever, thanks, Ron!
Oh, and join the board, man.Comment
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Great. I always wondered about the mask too.
I agree with you Jim..
Ron, join us!!
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Yeah that would be wicked if Ron joined the board. He's the guy who got me into GL with my very first GL comic GL#51 when Mongul fought Kyle!Comment
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Here's a question for you. For the moment completely setting aside "Rebirth" and everything new that has been introduced/retconned/what-have-you since in the time since then...
It's 1995 (or so). Following Emerald Twilight, would you as a writer literally classify Hal as "insane"? If not, how would you sum up Hal Jordan and his inner workings/motivations at that point in time?
Not insane, but "broken." In my mind, post-ET Hal was much less a villain than he was the product of a enormous tragedy. Shattered by events he couldn't stop, doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Moot now, of course, but that was my take.Comment
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My answer: (Not knowing what we know now) would be that he was fucking certifiably bananas. Bad shit happens, you adapt and overcome, not try to remake the universe.Originally posted by Andrew NDB View PostComment
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If I may, I want to pick your brain a little more regarding "When/how did Kyle first get the Ion symbiote"...
Excerpt from this week's Secret Files:
Once thought to be merely an honorary title in the Green Lantern Corps, Ion is in fact the symbiotic willpower entity birthed from the Green of the emotional sepctrum. Its existence was kept a secret from the Green Lantern Corps since their inception, and it resided in the Central Power Battery to keep Parallax in check. Only after the destruction of the Central Power Battery were both Ion and Parallax set free. Ion wandered the cosmos for a time, and eventually was reined in by what was then the only surviving Green Lantern ring, that of Kyle Rayner. Kyle Rayner served as its host briefly, and noted that his powerbase was so greatly expanded, he didn't need a power battery or power ring to manifest the emerald energy. Following its extraction from his body by Sinestro, the Daxamite Sodam Yat was chosen as the new bearer.
Excerpt from your Ion Special:
"What about Jade? What was all that about, telling me her death helped make me Ion?" "Her death was unfortunate, and unplanned. The energies she returned to you enabled you to serve as a temporary host for Ion."
What I get out of this:
The bit from the Secret Files about Kyle "reining in" Ion after it wandered through the cosmos is obviously intended to mean the first time Kyle was Ion, since the same blurb from the Secret Files mentions that, at the time, he had the "only surviving Green Lantern ring" -- hence, this can't be talking about the second time (which was during the Ran-Than War, when the Corps was already back). So he received the symbiote in Vol. 3 #145, it seems like. Now we come to the blurb from the Ion special... putting this all together, this seems to directly imply that the time between when he expended his energies resurrecting the Guardians and reigniting the Central Power Battery and when Jade died, his body wasn't able to serve even as a temporary host so the Ion symbiote either lay dormant inside him for all of this time or somehow remained close to him, waiting for such a time as when it could reinhabit him.
I know the symbiote isn't your gig, but does this sound about right to you, based on what we now know?
Anything I told you would be merely a guess, Andrew. You're right, the symbiote isn't my thing, and I didn't write either of the stories in question (#145, or the Rann-Than War), so your supposition makes as much sense to me as any other explantion. Some stuff you just have to go with.
Happy New Year!Comment
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thats the best explenation for Ion i've seen...
you note about his powerbase was so greatly expanded, this makes more sense thinking back to the leadup to the original Ion arc where he was creating constructs so vibrantly that they even had their own color instead of just being green...
M
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Point blank: Were you pro- or anti- Kyle becoming Ion this latest time? Did/do you see it as a natural or healthy evolution of the character or perhaps a misstep?
Also, what did you think of Kyle's original run as Ion in the Winick arc?
The decision to recast Kyle as Ion had already been made by DC editorial, so I didn't spend a lot of time. At the time it seemed like an interesting evolution for the character, which is why I agreed to take on the assignment. But obviously somewhere along the way that decision was reconsidered. Not that unusual in comics. Decisions are made and recanted pretty often.
I thought the original Ion arc was an interesting story, but not one that could be sustained for any length of time. Omnipotent characters are pretty boring to write, and pretty boring to read.Comment
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These Q & As are really cool, Andrew, keep them coming!!
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A frequest question/concern that's always coming up about Ion: To the best of your understanding, how would you describe Kyle's power level as Ion during the second stint/your run on Ion? How much more "powerful" is Ion than a regular GL, and what added powers does this entail?
More powerful than a regular GL, less powerful than his previous stint as Ion. Of course, it's a somewhat thorny thing to quantify. If a GL's ring is limited only by imagination and willpower, then how do your portray the same essential power ... but more? I tended to go for magnitude, as well as a limitless supply of power (as well as the lack of the ring).
I know fans sometimes went to quantify everything: how much stronger is the Hulk than the Thing, what exactly can Doc Strange's spells do, how fast can the Flash run. But setting specific numbers on everything can drain the drama from the stories.Comment
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