OT: Rewinding the Rebirth
I'd promised myself I would refrain from commenting on Green Lantern: Rebirth until the series was complete. For the most part, I have stuck to that. Despite my distaste for the series' premise (returning Hal Jordan to life and to the role of GL), wise heads (la_nightwing_72, take a bow) convinced me to hold my tongue until judgment can be passed on a full and whole entity. With the sixth and final issue seeing release on Wednesday just gone, now comes the time for me to weigh in on this, the most pivotal Green Lantern story in the last two years.
For the record: I desperately wanted to adore this series. I was hoping my lifelong apathy toward Hal Jordan would be turned on its head, leaving me foaming at the mouth for his adventures. I wanted ten years of pointless bickering, the Halistinian/Kyleranie wars, to end on a positive and beautiful note.
Sadly, Green Lantern: Rebirth reads less like a comic book and more like a piece of fan fiction - it has its high points and its low points but, on the whole, it's essentially hollow. Development, character insight and forward motion in the series were sacrificed, by and large, for "cool ring tricks", melodramatic dialogue and a very PC-like thread emphasising how each GL is different, special and therefore "worthy".
What could have been a powerful story - the redemption of comics' biggest fallen hero - is weighed down by its own surrounds. It had to please Hal fans seeking total absolution for their idol, it had to satisfy Kyle fans not wanting their beloved marginalised. It had to address plot points from a hundred different stories and re-establish playing pieces swept from the board a decade before. It had to be plausible (at least in the realms of comic book logic) and, most importantly of all, had to please as many fans as possible so DC's dreams of a franchise weren't dashed from the opening bell.
Geoff Johns accomplished all of these goals marvelously. The series shows a true fan's insight, gives each and every ringbearer a moment to shine, addresses the concerns of the two most vocal fan groups and is, at the very least, entertaining. He even side-stepped the pitfall of temptation - having Hal win the day on his own - and wisely opted for a "team supreme" finish. Ethan Van Sciver's artwork was a revelation, giving a very modern and visual approach to the power ring concept. He breathed new life into an already fascinating super hero power, and made full use of "holograms" and "solid light" to give each protagonist a one-of-a-kind look. We can only hope those who follow continue his style, for it further shows how special and wonderful this concept truly is.
However, by trying to please everyone, Rebirth morphed from a piece of storytelling to an exercise in propaganda. Johns successfully wrote a heroic and, eventually, fearless Kyle Rayner, giving "the rookie" his due for "keeping the light alive when no one else could". He made sure he not only redeemed Hal Jordan, but returned him to his iconic best and, in the process, gave fans a deus ex machina to explain away every story they felt was out of character ("the sentient yellow fear monster from the beginning of time made him do it!"). He let Kyle narrate the first half of the series so his fans would empathise and his detractors would begin to understand, and handed the microphone to Hal for the second half to complete the lesson in sharing.
Johns spent so much time on all these little "moments" that the villains of the piece - Parallax and Sinestro - come off as rather boorish and lacking in imagination. Because the villains drive the plot, the structure of the story suffers with them.
Sinestro has a blood-hatred for Hal Jordan in what is, essentially, a cosmic case of defamation. He takes vengeance on his foe by turning him into fodder for a fear monster, besmirching his name and driving him to commit several murders. Sinestro even fakes his own death in the process. Why, then, does he spend years in hiding rather than enforcing his will on the universe? As for Parallax... Hal's fear is, we have to assume, so tasty the entity chooses to live off it, rather than conquer reality, for years. Why its sudden change in heart? What drives Parallax to decide to ditch Hal and rule over all?
I'm sure there are explanations, but we are given none. Motivations are exchanged for scenes of Hal and Kyle shaking hands "like men", of Hal grinning as he wipes blood from his mouth, of heroes intoning "let the Corps handle this one".
Like fan fiction, Rebirth is full of these "holy shit!" moments. Kyle playing Robin Hood with Sinestro's back. Green Arrow using a power ring. Guy Gardner losing his Vuldarian powers. All of Earth's heroes attacking Parallax (who, it should be noted, had done nothing to attract their attention at the time). Hal and Kyle teaming up to defeat Sinestro (which brought a smile to my face, have no doubt). And, in the final issue, the ultimate fanboy wet dream - Hal Jordan leveling the Batman with a single punch.
Right. A jet jockey who has just returned from the dead can not only land a punch on the jaw of the world's greatest detective and martial artist (something many villains have failed to do in the past), but can drive him to the ground with the blow? Hey, internal consistency be damned - this is a book about GL, so he has to be the absolute best irrespective of years of stories and characterisation. If this is the way Johns intends to write the modern Batman, then perhaps Infinite Crisis is not such a bad thing after all. I'd rather see the character returned to the Silver Age if the latest crop of writers is unable to portray him as anything other than a paranoid, abusive twit.
But I digress.
These moments take further shine off the series. So, too, do scenes like Parallax's final defeat. Hal's monologue tells us about each GL and why they are unique, as they go into action. We then see Kyle... hovering thoughtfully as giant hands sketch his ring creations? Huh? I understand we're seeing a new dynamic here, a different approach to the way power rings are shown to be used, but this was a little too rich for my liking. One would think a hero who can hold back a supernova and who has faced down countless dangers would not be so frivolous as to "sketch" and "constantly refine" his weaponry in the middle of a battle to save the universe. The same goes for Guy Gardner, whose ring is apparently "like a leaky water faucet". Are we to assume, then, he has concentration problems? In trying to make each GL stand out, Johns accidentally denigrates the duo central to the Green Lantern Corps: Recharge series and, therefore, DC's franchise dreams.
(That it is my only qualm with the portrayal of Kyle, though, speaks volumes for Johns' handling of my favourite character.)
Green Lantern: Rebirth is not a bad series. It's fun, well-written, beautifully drawn and action-packed. This is what we want and expect from comics, after all, and on those levels it delivers in spades. No, what saddens me are the missed opportunities, the chances to craft something truly special and memorable that were either strangled or thrown away. As noted over at Buzzscope.com, the series doesn't go far enough in exploring why the people of the DCU should begin to trust a man who has, irrespective of the reasons, killed several heroes, tried to re-make the universe to his own specifications and brutalised many of his friends - be it physically or emotionally - for more than a decade of publishing time. Hal's fall from grace was a complex story with many layers, meaning his deus ex machina return is, comparatively, shallow and unsatisfying.
If the series was a success in many ways, then it was a failure in its primary task - it gave me no reason to like Hal Jordan, and no motivation to buy his new series. For the first time since 1994, Green Lantern does not appear on my pull list at the comic shop. That is a shame.
Greet the Fire as Your Friend,
SF
(cross-posted at wednesdaycomics)
For the record: I desperately wanted to adore this series. I was hoping my lifelong apathy toward Hal Jordan would be turned on its head, leaving me foaming at the mouth for his adventures. I wanted ten years of pointless bickering, the Halistinian/Kyleranie wars, to end on a positive and beautiful note.
Sadly, Green Lantern: Rebirth reads less like a comic book and more like a piece of fan fiction - it has its high points and its low points but, on the whole, it's essentially hollow. Development, character insight and forward motion in the series were sacrificed, by and large, for "cool ring tricks", melodramatic dialogue and a very PC-like thread emphasising how each GL is different, special and therefore "worthy".
What could have been a powerful story - the redemption of comics' biggest fallen hero - is weighed down by its own surrounds. It had to please Hal fans seeking total absolution for their idol, it had to satisfy Kyle fans not wanting their beloved marginalised. It had to address plot points from a hundred different stories and re-establish playing pieces swept from the board a decade before. It had to be plausible (at least in the realms of comic book logic) and, most importantly of all, had to please as many fans as possible so DC's dreams of a franchise weren't dashed from the opening bell.
Geoff Johns accomplished all of these goals marvelously. The series shows a true fan's insight, gives each and every ringbearer a moment to shine, addresses the concerns of the two most vocal fan groups and is, at the very least, entertaining. He even side-stepped the pitfall of temptation - having Hal win the day on his own - and wisely opted for a "team supreme" finish. Ethan Van Sciver's artwork was a revelation, giving a very modern and visual approach to the power ring concept. He breathed new life into an already fascinating super hero power, and made full use of "holograms" and "solid light" to give each protagonist a one-of-a-kind look. We can only hope those who follow continue his style, for it further shows how special and wonderful this concept truly is.
However, by trying to please everyone, Rebirth morphed from a piece of storytelling to an exercise in propaganda. Johns successfully wrote a heroic and, eventually, fearless Kyle Rayner, giving "the rookie" his due for "keeping the light alive when no one else could". He made sure he not only redeemed Hal Jordan, but returned him to his iconic best and, in the process, gave fans a deus ex machina to explain away every story they felt was out of character ("the sentient yellow fear monster from the beginning of time made him do it!"). He let Kyle narrate the first half of the series so his fans would empathise and his detractors would begin to understand, and handed the microphone to Hal for the second half to complete the lesson in sharing.
Johns spent so much time on all these little "moments" that the villains of the piece - Parallax and Sinestro - come off as rather boorish and lacking in imagination. Because the villains drive the plot, the structure of the story suffers with them.
Sinestro has a blood-hatred for Hal Jordan in what is, essentially, a cosmic case of defamation. He takes vengeance on his foe by turning him into fodder for a fear monster, besmirching his name and driving him to commit several murders. Sinestro even fakes his own death in the process. Why, then, does he spend years in hiding rather than enforcing his will on the universe? As for Parallax... Hal's fear is, we have to assume, so tasty the entity chooses to live off it, rather than conquer reality, for years. Why its sudden change in heart? What drives Parallax to decide to ditch Hal and rule over all?
I'm sure there are explanations, but we are given none. Motivations are exchanged for scenes of Hal and Kyle shaking hands "like men", of Hal grinning as he wipes blood from his mouth, of heroes intoning "let the Corps handle this one".
Like fan fiction, Rebirth is full of these "holy shit!" moments. Kyle playing Robin Hood with Sinestro's back. Green Arrow using a power ring. Guy Gardner losing his Vuldarian powers. All of Earth's heroes attacking Parallax (who, it should be noted, had done nothing to attract their attention at the time). Hal and Kyle teaming up to defeat Sinestro (which brought a smile to my face, have no doubt). And, in the final issue, the ultimate fanboy wet dream - Hal Jordan leveling the Batman with a single punch.
Right. A jet jockey who has just returned from the dead can not only land a punch on the jaw of the world's greatest detective and martial artist (something many villains have failed to do in the past), but can drive him to the ground with the blow? Hey, internal consistency be damned - this is a book about GL, so he has to be the absolute best irrespective of years of stories and characterisation. If this is the way Johns intends to write the modern Batman, then perhaps Infinite Crisis is not such a bad thing after all. I'd rather see the character returned to the Silver Age if the latest crop of writers is unable to portray him as anything other than a paranoid, abusive twit.
But I digress.
These moments take further shine off the series. So, too, do scenes like Parallax's final defeat. Hal's monologue tells us about each GL and why they are unique, as they go into action. We then see Kyle... hovering thoughtfully as giant hands sketch his ring creations? Huh? I understand we're seeing a new dynamic here, a different approach to the way power rings are shown to be used, but this was a little too rich for my liking. One would think a hero who can hold back a supernova and who has faced down countless dangers would not be so frivolous as to "sketch" and "constantly refine" his weaponry in the middle of a battle to save the universe. The same goes for Guy Gardner, whose ring is apparently "like a leaky water faucet". Are we to assume, then, he has concentration problems? In trying to make each GL stand out, Johns accidentally denigrates the duo central to the Green Lantern Corps: Recharge series and, therefore, DC's franchise dreams.
(That it is my only qualm with the portrayal of Kyle, though, speaks volumes for Johns' handling of my favourite character.)
Green Lantern: Rebirth is not a bad series. It's fun, well-written, beautifully drawn and action-packed. This is what we want and expect from comics, after all, and on those levels it delivers in spades. No, what saddens me are the missed opportunities, the chances to craft something truly special and memorable that were either strangled or thrown away. As noted over at Buzzscope.com, the series doesn't go far enough in exploring why the people of the DCU should begin to trust a man who has, irrespective of the reasons, killed several heroes, tried to re-make the universe to his own specifications and brutalised many of his friends - be it physically or emotionally - for more than a decade of publishing time. Hal's fall from grace was a complex story with many layers, meaning his deus ex machina return is, comparatively, shallow and unsatisfying.
If the series was a success in many ways, then it was a failure in its primary task - it gave me no reason to like Hal Jordan, and no motivation to buy his new series. For the first time since 1994, Green Lantern does not appear on my pull list at the comic shop. That is a shame.
Greet the Fire as Your Friend,
SF
(cross-posted at wednesdaycomics)