Hey look! New content!

So... haven't been reading new stuff lately (as I mentioned in the last post). But Franny and I each have an article in this month's edition of that nifty online zine, The Comic Foundry.

True to form, Franny writes something intellectual, citing actual theories and forming coherent sentences.

I, on the other hand, write something that is equal parts ZOMGFLAIL and fanboy snark.

So go, check that out. Let us know what you think, and maybe we'll do that again.

...If you're here because you Googled one of us after reading our stuff in CF, welcome! Please take a look at the "Best Of" links to the right, and enjoy your stay.

Creative titles are overrated

So. I haven't written in a very long time. And there's a very important reason why.

First off, I didn't want to come in here after Franny has written some very well-composed, articulate pieces about very good indie comics and sound like "that guy" on comics forums, the asshole who rants about the most inane shit:





But that feeling quickly passed. I'm passionate about comics. When I'm passionate about something, I tend to swear like a sailor. And I still think dumb shit like the O RLY? owl is really, really funny. So fuck trying to be "academic" and "safe for work."

So the real reason I've been silent for so long? I got tired. I got really, really fucking tired of new comics. I'm tired of One Year Later, I'm tired of Infinite Crisis, and saddest of all, I'm really tired of 52 and I haven't even read a damn page of the thing.

That's what made me realize it. After I graduated from MSU earlier this month, I moved away from my beloved comics shop back to my parents' place in Saginaw. So I haven't read any new comics for over three weeks.

And, amazingly, I don't miss them at all. I've missed the first three issues of 52 and I couldn't care less.

I had way more fun reading old issues of Action Comics Weekly than I did reading most of what's come out in the past four months. And that's sad.

Seriously, people. In ten years 52 will be in exactly the same position Action Comics Weekly is now. Some of it is pretty good, some of it is eye-gougingly bad... and all of it will be in the quarter bin. So why freak out about it? I have so many other things I'd rather spend my energy on. Like playing World of Warcraft and doodling little pictures of Art Spiegelman getting sexually harassed by furries.

So! Here's to the old ones, the bad ones, the cracktastic ones. Here's to the issues in your longbox you'll love long after the latest crossover has been retconned out of existence.

For the first time in my life, I'm without my precious, mile-long pull list.

And it feels pretty good.

GODDAMMIT GEOFF JOHNS, GET OUT OF MY TEETH

Reading Green Lantern Rebirth #5, I said to myself: Oh for Gods sake, he better not waste too much time next issue with Batman. Just hit the bastard and get to the real fight. The next month?



KRAKK.

I've always wished for Arisia or Katma Tui to come back to life... and I'd really love Arisia to come back as this sexy butch broad who doesn't take shit from anybody...



In Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, I got a butch version of Katma Tui. Close enough.

I've always wanted to see Hal break the Cyborg Superman in half for what he did to Coast City. (I cannot overstress my visceral hatred of that character.) Reading the previews for May's comics, who do I see on the cover of Green Lantern 12?



Oh, fuck yes.

Walking home yesterday with my comics under my arm, I planned in my head an entry about Steve Englehart's run on Green Lantern Corps... specifically, the issues where Kilowog heads off to the USSR, and the Earth GLs have to deal with the conflict of being heroes for the whole planet vs. their status as Americans. I've told Franny that I'd really love for someone to update that story... After all, you had 7 people with weapons of mass destruction living in a compound in southern California. It's not a stretch to imagine an administration that would declare them a terrorist cell and a threat to homeland security. Or, at the very least, they'd make a lot of other countries very, very nervous.

About ten minutes after formulating that thought, I opened this week's Green Lantern.



Arguing the political complexities of Green Lanterns. While fighting ROCKET REDS, for God's sake!

Literally everything I've ever randomly hoped for in Green Lantern over the past couple of years has been delivered to me by Geoff Johns.

...I swear to God, if I had any fillings I'd be checking them for radio transceivers right now.

Franny, who is always the voice of reason when I lose my shit over things like this, said it's most likely because Geoff and I have a lot in common: Michigan native. MSU alum. Unreasonable obsession with Hal Jordan and test pilots.

But still. It's spooky as hell.

And as long as there might be a chance I've got a psychic connection to Mr. Johns, the Lord and Master of DC Continuity, here are a couple of requests:

*Hal and Guy watching the MSU vs. U of M football game. Hal wearing an MSU T-shirt just to piss Guy off.

*Boodika beating the ever living piss out of Hal in revenge for the loss of her ring and hand.

*More gloriously slashy Hal/Kyle moments.

*Hot hot pilot makeouts between Hal and Cowgirl in the back of an F-15. (Yes, I know it's not even remotely comfortable/possible from a positioning standpoint. It's my fantasy. Shut up.)

*The untimely death of Carol's husband Gil during the course of 52

And if any of this actually happens... well, don't say I didn't call it first.

Because how do you remember Elvis? You KNOW how you remember Elvis.

You know that bit from Denis Leary's No Cure For Cancer where he talks about how someone should have shot Elvis in the head back in 1957 -- before he got fat, pretentious and bloated -- so we could remember him in a nice way?

I've just been thinking about that bit a lot lately, is all.

Love comes in four colors. (And yes, I'm still bitter over Sue Dibny.)

Another day of work is nearly over
You must have seen the whole thing on TV
Seventeen more city blocks and I can almost smell you
Waiting at the windowsill for me

It's our forty-first anniversary

But we don't look a day over twenty-three
Not in this life
Not in this universe
We were still in high school when I met you
If you believe the continuity

I rescued you from robots
And untied you from the tracks

And you pretended not to know that it was me
We didn't even kiss
Until issue #26
This world still feels like 1963

I love this life
I love this universe

And you'll keep my identity a secret
And you will know the touch beneath my glove

I may go out every night and risk my life for strangers
But you're the only girl I'll ever love

Gwen Stacy isn't dead, she's only sleeping
And Elektra isn't evil or insane

Those bastards at the Pentagon can't really kill Sue Dibny
No more than they could kill off Lois Lane

And I swear to God there'll be hell to pay
If anybody tries to take you away

Forget this life
Forget this universe
You're everything I need

You are my life
You are my universe


They'll have to go through me



Lyrics from "Four Color Love Story," by The Metasciences.

Happy Valentine's Day, folks.

Some things are worth ignoring canon for.

So I finally got the Showcase Green Lantern trade for Christmas. I've really enjoyed reading it, both for the history (the origins of major characters, the first time Hal uses a boxing glove construct, etc.) as well as comparing this version of "rookie Hal" to the versions presented in Emerald Dawn and DC: the New Frontier.

But one panel stopped me cold.





I absolutely refuse to believe Hal Jordan went to college. You'll never, ever be able to convince me otherwise. I don't care if it's canon, I don't care if the image of Hal as Idiot Frat Guy works on a certain level. Some things are more important.

I know, deep down, this conviction is all wrapped up in my ideosyncracies that equate Hal Jordan with both Chuck Yeager and my dad, neither of whom graduated from college. But there's more to it.

It is extremely important that not all of the Green Lanterns of Earth have a college degree. They should be as socioeconomically different as possible. To present them any other way is ignoring one of the most profound elements of the whole Green Lantern mythos.

That is: in order to be a Green Lantern, you need to be two things:

• completely honest
  
• totally without fear
  

That's it. Honesty and fearlessness. It doesn't matter what race you are, or what class you're from, how much money you make or how much education you have.

As long as you're trustworthy and brave, as long as you work hard and believe in justice, you can gain the power to overcome any obstacle -- to do anything you can imagine, as long as you have the willpower to see it through.

The Green Lantern Corps has no officers, save for the symbolic (and now defunct) three-member Honor Guard. Rookie GLs defer to their seniors because of experience, not hierarchy. All Corps members are treated equally, whether they're an Air Force test pilot, an architect from the inner city of Detroit, a gym teacher with a disability, an out-of-work graphic artist... or an over-idealistic lesbian from Middle-of-Nowhere, Michigan.

They each have an equal shot at proving themselves worthy of the ring.

They're not perfect people, of course. They bicker over women and harbor petty grudges. They say dumb things sometimes and get hit on the head a lot. But for all their faults, all their flaws and all their failures, they represent a single, beautiful, absolute truth:

Strive to be the best human being you can be, and someday your rocket ship will come.

I can believe in that.

OMGOMGOMGOMG

There is a God.

Behold:



My prayers have been answered.

There is a God in Heaven, and he's got a fucking awesome sense of humor.