Everything Johns did in GL should be dumped

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

I've been saying that for a long time, and it looks like Grant Morrison will go quite far in that direction. But I don't think he's prepared to go all the way with it, by dumping Baz, Cruz and the emotional spectrum such that they can't be brought back.

That step might have to wait for the writer who succeeds Morrison.

[Michael Heide Heide Finition Find all posts View Profile Close Michael Heide]

Not gonna happen. DC can sell more action figures if they still have Atrocitus, Saint Waker and Larfleeze.

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

Not gonna happen. DC can sell more action figures if they still have Atrocitus, Saint Waker and Larfleeze.

If you think you can sell action figures of those characters, then I urge you to contact DC and negotiate a licensing fee to do that.

Anyway, we're not stuck with Geoff's characters in Green Lantern. Geoff can use them somewhere else, if they're really any good.

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

If you think you can sell action figures of those characters, then I urge you to contact DC and negotiate a licensing fee to do that.
.

Do you not keep up with collectibles? Atrocitus, Larfleeze, and Saint Walker have figures in four different lines, and this isn't counting statues and busts. I also expect new Atrocitus figures to be released at some point since he's in Justice League Action and Injustice 2.

Also, Jessica Cruz is being marketed heavily to the young crowd with DC Super Hero Girls. She's not going to be dumped. It wouldn't surprise me if she makes her way into the Green Lantern Corps movie, if and when it actually materializes.

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

Do you not keep up with collectibles? Atrocitus, Larfleeze, and Saint Walker have figures in four different lines, and this isn't counting statues and busts. I also expect new Atrocitus figures to be released at some point since he's in Justice League Action and Injustice 2.

Also, Jessica Cruz is being marketed heavily to the young crowd with DC Super Hero Girls. She's not going to be dumped. It wouldn't surprise me if she makes her way into the Green Lantern Corps movie, if and when it actually materializes.

Yeah, they ain't gonna stop pushing Cruz. And more's the pity.

Green Lantern is a distressed property, and there's just no consciousness at DC that you don't fix that problem by adding more and more versions of the protagonist that you have no idea what to do with. When you do that, you just make the problem worse.

As for those other characters, they might sell a few hundred action figures, but they'll never sell a comic.

Maybe Johns could write a title called The Johns Corps and put his Lantern characters in it. Or move them outside Green Lantern and call it The Johns League. Either approach would be fine. Who knows, maybe Doomsday Clock is building up to that, when it concludes in 2028.

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

Yeah, they ain't gonna stop pushing Cruz. And more's the pity.

Green Lantern is a distressed property, and there's just no consciousness at DC that you don't fix that problem by adding more and more versions of the protagonist that you have no idea what to do with. When you do that, you just make the problem worse.

As for those other characters, they might sell a few hundred action figures, but they'll never sell a comic.

The Sinestro Corps, the Red Lanterns, and Larfleeze each had brief runs of their own. That's all that can be reasonably expected out of characters who were originally designed to play off the heroes. They might not have been the breakout characters like Deadpool or Venom are, but they were successful in that regard.

Right now, I wish that DC would bring back the Blue Lantern Corps and put Kyle in it. Saint Walker is a character with plenty of untapped potential, and I'm not overly fond of Kyle being demoted to the Titans.

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

The Sinestro Corps, the Red Lanterns, and Larfleeze each had brief runs of their own. That's all that can be reasonably expected out of characters who were originally designed to play off the heroes. They might not have been the breakout characters like Deadpool or Venom are, but they were successful in that regard.

Right now, I wish that DC would bring back the Blue Lantern Corps and put Kyle in it. Saint Walker is a character with plenty of untapped potential, and I'm not overly fond of Kyle being demoted to the Titans.

If you put Kyle in a Blue Lanterns comic it'll get canceled in three years or so, and then he'll just be floundering around once again.

Kyle's going to Titans was not a demotion. It was an excellent thing to do with him. Titans sells well, and it's a much better role than serving as the fourth banana in a comic with Hal's name on the cover.

I've wanted John in Justice League and Kyle in Titans for a long time. I think it's the first good move DC has made in Green Lantern in many years.

Now they just need to get Hal back on Earth and Guy in a space comic, and to flush all the other human Lanterns.

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

It would have been much better though if Morrison had actually rebooted it, so that "everything didn't happen," and to establish the four Lanterns as equals by giving them their rings at the same time.

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

I dunno. While it is somewhat silly that there just keeps being one special circumstance after another that results in yet ANOTHER GL being chosen from Earth, at least they all kind of make sense when taken individually. Unless you restructure the way the GLC works, it seems like it would be even sillier that four Earth GLs would be chosen all at once.

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

I dunno. While it is somewhat silly that there just keeps being one special circumstance after another that results in yet ANOTHER GL being chosen from Earth, at least they all kind of make sense when taken individually. Unless you restructure the way the GLC works, it seems like it would be even sillier that four Earth GLs would be chosen all at once.

What would be silly about it? And how is it sillier than there being SEVEN Earth Lanterns, which we've got now? There's nothing to restructure. What somebody said in 1959 about there being so many Lanterns per "space sector" went out the window long ago. You just show the four Lanterns getting their rings, then you show them in their comics. It's a reboot, remember.

There should be as many or as few Green Lanterns as the CPB chooses, but it's all about selling comics, and we've got at least four that are staying and need to be accommodated. The hierarchy among those four is dysfunctional in terms of selling comics, which is always the goal, so it needs to go away.

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

...There should be as many or as few Green Lanterns as the CPB chooses ...

That's a good point (though it could also argue against cutting back Earth lanterns since GL lore has often stated that 2814 is a busy sector and Earth is universally significant). If the sectors are just divided up evenly by space there's bound to be sectors that are the equivalent of the Australian Outback, Pacific Ocean, or the Russian Steppes where there's very little there and then there would be sectors that are the equivalent of having NYC and Beijing in them. Why should the former have the same number of space cops as the latter?

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

That's a good point (though it could also argue against cutting back Earth lanterns since GL lore has often stated that 2814 is a busy sector and Earth is universally significant). If the sectors are just divided up evenly by space there's bound to be sectors that are the equivalent of the Australian Outback, Pacific Ocean, or the Russian Steppes where there's very little there and then there would be sectors that are the equivalent of having NYC and Beijing in them. Why should the former have the same number of space cops as the latter?

Earth is a screwed up place. That's why more are needed here.

But not seven or even more, so that any writer who wants to create "his very own Green Lantern" gets to exercise his ego by doing so.

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

Johns sold one hell of a lot of Green Lantern comics. But what he did with the property wasn't about Green Lantern. It was about him. That's why it all collapsed after he moved on.

It's well known in television that no show can depend on a particular writer. That's because nobody can write every episode of a show, or even most of them. A concept has to be writable by any competent writer, or it's not viable. If you write a proposed television pilot, and it looks good, the main thing they'll evaluate then is whether someone besides you can write it. If the answer is no, then the pilot won't get made.

This is what DC needs to look at with its problematic properties like Green Lantern. They need to be set up so that any competent writer can write them.

I hate to hear people say things like, "Just put John Ostrander on The Spectre and it'll be fine." No! The Spectre needs to be set up so that it doesn't need Ostrander or any other writer!

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

Creating nonstop characters just to sell a few more action figures is going down a dark path. You usually wind up with silly and frivolous content that way, which is what happened to Green Lantern, in my opinion. It reminds me of toy lines from the 80s and 90s when the manufacturer would just keep spamming ridiculous versions of the characters at you in a desperate attempt to sell more figures, despite it overall watering down their brand. Here's an example, Steel Shock Spider-Man:



Or...



Some web splash Spider-Man. That stuff never happened in the cartoon (thankfully). Spider-Man never became "Steel Shock" anything. I remember when all those dumb Spider-Man figures were coming out, and while I'm sad to admit I owned some of the myriad of silly figures, even as a kid, I thought all the shameless ways they would try to sell new figures were ridiculous, and I always thought the regular version of Green Goblin was way better than Asteroid Crash Green Goblin, or whatever.

A lot of times, like with the figures based on the Real Ghostbusters cartoon, for example, you would see the same old figure repackaged with the Ghostbuster wearing a different color and maybe having some new, dumb accessory you never saw in the cartoon.

That type of thing doesn't do any long term good, and I feel Green Lantern may have succumbed to that sort of mindset. "More Corps, more rings, more Earth Lanterns, more entities, we can sell some of this stuff!" What they forgot to realize is that people won't buy it unless it's good and makes good sense within the franchise. Sure, some people may have bought some Red Lantern shirts here and there, but consider the long term ramifications all that spamming of Corps, Earth Lanterns, and whatnot has done to the Green Lantern franchise.

Long story short, if things are great people will want to spend money on them. That doesn't mean it is a good idea to milk the ideas at the expense of the franchise's integrity and quality, though.

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

If you put Kyle in a Blue Lanterns comic it'll get canceled in three years or so, and then he'll just be floundering around once again.

Kyle's going to Titans was not a demotion. It was an excellent thing to do with him. Titans sells well, and it's a much better role than serving as the fourth banana in a comic with Hal's name on the cover.

I've wanted John in Justice League and Kyle in Titans for a long time. I think it's the first good move DC has made in Green Lantern in many years.

Now they just need to get Hal back on Earth and Guy in a space comic, and to flush all the other human Lanterns.

After being the Torchbearer and the White Lantern, playing around with Beast Boy is certainly a considerable demotion. These things are bound to happen from time to time with veteran characters, but I'm hoping that it's like the Krona Gauntlet storyline with Hal in that it's just a blip on the narrative radar. If DC wants a GL in Titans long-term, that's logically where Jessica should be.