The Weekly Comics Grind

**Shin Johnpv** · 29 May 2016, 02:26 PM

Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name

How very droll.

It's been a few years since I've read a comic. I was bored the other day and checked out Comics Should Be Good, a site I had visited every week religiously for years, but stopped that too. One of the newer features is The Guide to the Guide to Comics. Every week, dude looks at an issue of Wizard and discusses its contents. I was a faithful Wizard from the second or third issue to into the early "aughts," or whenever it started to focus less on comics and more on the culture around comics. I always prefered it's competitors (Overstreet Fan, Hero Illustrated) but they never touched Wizard's popularity.
ANYWAY, one of the things that keeps coming up is how much Wizard dug Ron Marz' run on Green Lantern. During this time frame, I was very much into Image, Vertigo, and several small press books. I never liked DC monthlies when I got into comics in the 80s. The art was just too bland compared to Marvel. Of course I read stuff like Watchmen and DKR. The "prestige" books were usually high quality.
But reading all this praise now got me interested in checking out the Kyle Raynor GL era. However, the same mental illness that has forced me to start listening to podcasts from their inception and not just the lastest release made me have to read the comics preceding Kyle's introduction. Not all the way back to the beginning (thank god), but the beginning of the volume in which he took over. I read issues 1-47 (not sure when Kyle shows up exactly, but I think it's somewhere between 48 and 51), which have all been Hal Jordan issues.
Holy fuck, no wonder people were ready for a change. Gerard Jones has never struck me as a Must Read Writer, but I enjoyed his Martian Manhunter and Prime. This is just awful though. No less than three times has a story arc ended with Jordan saying he's done with whining and indecisiveness, and the very next issue he's all whiny and indecisive. Jones tries again and again to pull moves like Busiek, Waid, and even Johns; He brings characters from way back in GL's run and reintroduces them. Unlike those other writers though, he does nothing to make them interesting. Having now read these issues, I can completely understand why some people didn't fuss too much when Jordan went all Paralax. Jordan is so bipolar in this run that if there were no credits, I'd never believe the same dude wrote every issue.
The only saving grace is some competent art from Pat Broderick, some very nice art from Doc Bright, and a couple issues of mostly fantastic art from Gene Ha.
I don't know if I'll dig the Kyle issues or not, but after three days of this Jordan stuff I cam certainly understand why people that spent 4 years with it would accept the change up with open arms.

The Kyle Rayner era definitely improved things. Here was a GL on his own with no Corps or anyone else to back him up having to figure shit out on his own. Plus he used the ring in way more imaginative ways. It's not the greatest comic writing but it definitely brought new life into GL, and is a decided improvement over the last 4 years of Hal you just read.

**Some Stupid Japanese Name** · 29 May 2016, 03:47 PM

Today I read Emerald Twilight and the couple of issues that followed, and now I'm sidetracked into Zero Hour.
ET wasn't bad, but it sure as fuck feels rushed. The beauty of having it read it so long after its debut is that I could do a bit of googling about Marz' feelings on the story. In a few interviews he shared that the decision to replace Hal came from editorial. It was going to happen regardless of who was writing the book. What was more interesting was that Jones had already completed issues 48-50, and the powers that be felt they were so awful that they were tossed out! That's why there was a month delay between 47 and 48. Marz was given very little time to get his issues completed, hence the three different artists, so that clearly impacted the quality of the story. He also felt three issues was no where near enough space to get Hal to where editorial wanted him to be emotionally. I'd completely agree with that. No matter who you are, with the right sequence events we are all capable of doing shit people wouldn't think possible otherwise. An issue or three extra would have helped a lot with making Hal's journey feel less forced.
I can see how longtime fans would get pissed that "this isn't our Hal." But based on how the character had been handled since the beginning of this volume, he hadn't been "Hal" in quite some time.
Anyway, I'm enjoying Kyle's introduction. I kinda want to keep going with the book and get into John's era...but there's a whole lot of issues between here and there and I don't have a love of GL to keep me going when the stories themselves get crappy.

edit: as far as the Corps go, it was kinda funny that the series started with none, made a half assed attempt to get some, and then said "fuck it, get rid of them again!"
The only thing I'm kinda disappointed about is that (whether it be true or not), I've always thought of GL as a cosmic character. I think I prefer him in space as opposed to being on Earth, and I know Kyle was mostly Earthbound. Oh well, we'll see how it goes!

**Space Pirate Roberts** · 29 May 2016, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by bbobb

Maybe Doc Manhattan is behind Cap as well.

Or more likely Red Skull, using the mind-control-y bits of Professor X's brain that he had transplanted into his.

Yeah. That happened. Comic books, everybody.

**Geo** · 29 May 2016, 07:02 PM

I really liked Kyle Rayner in Morrison's JLA, didn't read too much of his solo stuff (my younger brother was into it around that time though) which seemed to pale in comparison. Or at least, for what I was looking for and the stakes of the stories. Morrison did an outstanding job of bringing Kyle to life and coming into his own while working with the greatest heroes of the DC universe.

Never thought about it before, but off the top of my head it's probably the best introduction of a new, young character into a major universe - via its leading book - since Kitty Pryde in Uncanny X-Men? And even then she wasn't replacing an established character like Hal Jordan. I'm sure something else qualifies and I'm forgetting about it. Not Wally though, given how long he had been around as Kid Flash.

That Captain America idea is revoltingly bad. Worse still, I thought the issue itself was terrible, which is almost unfathomable for a first issue. Shame on Marvel.

DC Rebirth is interesting and I suppose I like it more than I don't, problem is Didio and Lee are still in charge of editorial so I have no faith in those clowns to execute on it. But if I were still buying comics, I'd be interested in Superman by Tomasi/Gleason/Mahnke, Batman by Tom King, and Wonder Woman by Rucka/Scott/Sharp. Those could be rad.

**Shin Johnpv** · 30 May 2016, 12:17 AM

Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name

Today I read Emerald Twilight and the couple of issues that followed, and now I'm sidetracked into Zero Hour.
ET wasn't bad, but it sure as fuck feels rushed. The beauty of having it read it so long after its debut is that I could do a bit of googling about Marz' feelings on the story. In a few interviews he shared that the decision to replace Hal came from editorial. It was going to happen regardless of who was writing the book. What was more interesting was that Jones had already completed issues 48-50, and the powers that be felt they were so awful that they were tossed out! That's why there was a month delay between 47 and 48. Marz was given very little time to get his issues completed, hence the three different artists, so that clearly impacted the quality of the story. He also felt three issues was no where near enough space to get Hal to where editorial wanted him to be emotionally. I'd completely agree with that. No matter who you are, with the right sequence events we are all capable of doing shit people wouldn't think possible otherwise. An issue or three extra would have helped a lot with making Hal's journey feel less forced.
I can see how longtime fans would get pissed that "this isn't our Hal." But based on how the character had been handled since the beginning of this volume, he hadn't been "Hal" in quite some time.
Anyway, I'm enjoying Kyle's introduction. I kinda want to keep going with the book and get into John's era...but there's a whole lot of issues between here and there and I don't have a love of GL to keep me going when the stories themselves get crappy.

edit: as far as the Corps go, it was kinda funny that the series started with none, made a half assed attempt to get some, and then said "fuck it, get rid of them again!"
The only thing I'm kinda disappointed about is that (whether it be true or not), I've always thought of GL as a cosmic character. I think I prefer him in space as opposed to being on Earth, and I know Kyle was mostly Earthbound. Oh well, we'll see how it goes!

I get what you're saying about the story needing more space and definitely an issue or two would have helped, though I'm glad it didn't become bloated and longer than that. One of my issues with modern comics is everything is written for the trade, and some stories just take for FUCKING ever to finish. I'd personally say read a couple years worth of Kyle as GL and then just pick up Green Lantern Rebirth (this one not the new one coming out http://www.amazon.com/Green-Lantern-...antern+Rebirth) and kick off the Johns era of GL there. I think you'll really come to appreciate Kyle if you read a couple of years worth of his stories. I don't think you need to read the entire 10 year or so span before Johns comes in.

Granted it has been some time since I read those issues but I think once the Corps is reinstated in Johns run, things take on much more of a cosmic turn.

**Shin Johnpv** · 30 May 2016, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by Geo

I really liked Kyle Rayner in Morrison's JLA, didn't read too much of his solo stuff (my younger brother was into it around that time though) which seemed to pale in comparison. Or at least, for what I was looking for and the stakes of the stories. Morrison did an outstanding job of bringing Kyle to life and coming into his own while working with the greatest heroes of the DC universe.

Never thought about it before, but off the top of my head it's probably the best introduction of a new, young character into a major universe - via its leading book - since Kitty Pryde in Uncanny X-Men? And even then she wasn't replacing an established character like Hal Jordan. I'm sure something else qualifies and I'm forgetting about it. Not Wally though, given how long he had been around as Kid Flash.

I have to disagree with this, to like the fullest possible extent. It's not bad, but Morrison's JLA are like a bunch of hacks, and amateurs pretending to be the JL. They constantly get taken down by second rate villains, and all of them just come off as inept and unworthy of being called the Justice League. Specially Kyle who I recall getting his ass handed to him in the dumbest of ways multiple times in that run.

IMHO a better set of stories was Kyle visiting all the big A listers, and going how the fuck do I do this. I don't think all of them took place in his book and a lot of them were in the individual A listers books but it was handled really well.