Last week, Geoff Johns announced that issue 20 of Green Lantern will be his last. Johns has been writing Green Lantern since the Rebirth mini-series that restored Hal Jordan as the main Green Lantern. Over the course of a decade, Johns has expanded the Green Lantern mythology to enormous sizes. The reach of the Green Lantern Universe has been considerable, eventually coming to occupy four titles in The New 52 library. With Johns’ departure, Peter Tomasi (Green Lantern Corps), Tony Bedard (Green Lantern: New Guardians) and Peter Milligan (Red Lanterns) will also be stepping down. What’s next for the Green Lanterns? Welcome to the Chat Cave.
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Tag Archives: Tony Bedard
Blue Beetle 15-16
Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Blue Beetle 15 and 16, originally released December 19th, 2012 and January 23rd, 2013.
Patrick: There’s a point in issue 16 where Moonrunner refers to being stuck in The Hunted as “a fate worse than death.” It’s a hyperbolic cliche — one that gets trotted out whenever a writer wants to artificially heighten the stakes. The phrase caries an added significance here in the final pages of Blue Beetle. If the Jaime Reyes dies here, then his story ends, and the bittersweet message he recorded for his family serves as a poignant farewell to the emotional origins of this character. But if Jaime Reyes survives this series, he’ll be put into the reality / game show “The Hunted,” which means he will linger on lifelessly in the pages of the largely abysmal Threshold. For anyone attached to the Blue Beetle, seeing him languish in another series (just as this one was starting to feel real again) is a fate worse than the character’s death.
Green Lantern: New Guardians 16
Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing New Guardians 16, originally released January 23rd, 2013. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage.
Shelby: It’s finally time for Kyle Rainer to learn to master the power of love. He’s saved it for last because it is the most difficult, but why is that? Surely rage or greed or even fear would be much harder to command and control. While the more negative end of the emotional spectrum is difficult to control, it is easy to feel. I know I feel ready to puke red-hot plasma just about every morning on the commuter train to work. The difficulty of love lies in the challenge of letting yourself experience love. It’s an emotion that be very painful to the person feeling it; sometimes it’s just easier to block it out entirely. Kyle learns the hard way: you can’t master an emotion you are afraid to let yourself feel.
Green Lantern: New Guardians 15
Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing New Guardians 15, originally released December 19th, 2012. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage.
Patrick: Everyone experiences loss at one point or another. And your response to that loss is usually sadness. “Sadness” isn’t part of the Green Lantern emotional spectrum — not active enough to dramatize. We’ve seen this weird little problem before (take last week’s Green Lantern Corps for example), but it always ends up feeling like the character appeals back to whatever emotion suits them. John regrets blowing up a planet, he’s going to will the thing back together; Atrocitus misses his family, he’s going to rage all over the bad guys. But as the All Color Lantern, Kyle Rayner can show what the proper response to loss is: all those awful emotions at once. Too bad there’s so much loss to be had. [Especially if you’re a Green Lantern fan, you should know: there be SPOILERS after the jump.]
Sword of Sorcery 2
Today, Shelby and Taylor are discussing Sword of Sorcery 2, originally released November 21st, 2012.
Shelby: Who doesn’t love political intrigue? I’m not talking about the presidential campaign nonsense we recently had to put up with, I mean the old school machinations that only a royal family could conceive of. When power is passed through bloodlines (literal magical powers divied up among the relatives), manipulating those bloodlines and relations suddenly becomes crucial to keeping a position of authority. Things are about to get complicated, so I’m going to try to map this out as best I can.
Blue Beetle 14
Today, Drew and Shelby are discussing Blue Beetle 14, originally released November 21st, 2012.
Drew: Last month, Patrick accused Blue Beetle of pulling a Million Dollar Baby — that is, getting you emotionally invested in the narrative, only to dramatically switch the story it is telling in the final act. I can totally understand being frustrated with Million Dollar Baby for tricking us into watching a heavy-handed morality play, but I actually appreciate that it did something more interesting with its scrappy, up-and-coming boxer (win or lose, Rocky has already been there). It suddenly became much harder to summarize, wading into heady ideas in lieu of simple events, and found something besides simple pride to mine from the relationship formed between Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank’s characters. With that more specific definition — that Million Dollar Baby switches from a rote, event-driven story to a character-driven meditation on family — I would actually classify Blue Beetle‘s recent tonal change as a reverse-Million Dollar Baby. Continue reading
Green Lantern: New Guardians 14
Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing New Guardians 14, originally released November 21st, 2012. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage.
Shelby: Of all the emotions in the spectrum, fear is the one least like the rest. The members of all the other Corps earn their rings by feeling; Saint Walker’s unending well of hope earned him the blue ring, Carol Ferris’ persistent love of Hal earned her the violet ring, etc. Even the members of the Indigo tribe, though they originally had their rings forced upon them, have demonstrated that they are who they are because of the compassion they feel for others. The Yellow Corps, however, isn’t made up of extremely frightened people, it is made up of people who cause great fear. It’s a distinction I’ve never really pondered, because it makes sense; who would want to read a story about people who’s only power is being a scaredycat? Tony Bedard has apparently never really pondered it either; unlike every other yellow lantern I’ve ever known, the only way for Kyle to master the power of the Yellow is by being afraid.
Blue Beetle 13
Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Blue Beetle 13, originally released October 17th, 2012.
Patrick: Did you guys see Million Dollar Baby? I’m going to spoil it right here, so fair warning. The first two-thirds of the movie is a rousing sports movie: Hilary Swank plays a lady-boxer and Clint Eastwood plays her curmudgeonly coach/manager. During one of the big bouts, Hilary Swank falls and breaks her neck. She breaks her neck. The final 45 minutes of the movie become a morality play exploring Clint Eastwood’s decision to take his paralyzed pupil off life-support. The plot, the tone, the pacing — it all turns on a dime. Suddenly you’re watching a different movie with the same characters. I hated this shift, partially because I felt the message of the later third was heavy-handed, but mostly because I liked the boxing movie. Million Dollar Baby lured me into its world with something I found genuinely attractive and then took it away from me. Blue Beetle, why you gotta Million Dollar Baby me?
Green Lantern: New Guardians 13
Today, Patrick and Mikyzptlk are discussing the Green Lantern: New Guardians 13, originally released October 17th, 2012. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage. 
Patrick: You ever stop to think about how weird the emotional spectrum is? The green power of Will is easy enough to understand, and furthermore, easy enough to understand as a tool used by a superhero. The implication is that all a Green Lantern really needs to do is try hard enough and he’ll be successful. “Will” is abstract, emotionally. But the other pillars of the emotional spectrum are more literal – you’ve got to be scary to make Yellow work for you; you’ve got to genuinely believe that everything will get better to make Blue work for you; and you’ve got to be pissed off to harness the Red. The funny thing about emotions though: you don’t just turn them on and turn them off. Kyle Rayner may have the ability to tap into all the colors of the rainbow, but at what cost?
Sword of Sorcery 1
Today, Shelby and Taylor are discussing Sword of Sorcery 1, originally released October 17th, 2012.
Shelby: It seems a common element of fantasy is the quest for power. You’ve got multiple countries, or cities, or houses, or whatever, all scrambling for as much power as they can get. In Dune, the power comes from control of the geriatric spice melange. In Game of Thrones, the power is in owning land and controlling trade. Amethyst seems a little different: the power is in your blood, is literally passed from generation to generation. This isn’t a power that can be bartered for, or distributed through a treaty; there appears to be one way to obtain more power in Gemworld, and it is a bloody one.
Retcon Punch 