InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "i'm all wet, can i come in?"

sherkahn (sherkahn) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-04-21 10:55:00

Current mood:	silly
Entry tags:	char: atrocitus, event: blackest night, group: red lantern corps

DCU Blog has another Red Lantern image
Team Scarlet Centurio... wait, no no .... the Blood Stryke Forc- no no, that's not it.... the Crimson Commando's?

From Red Lantern Corps 101

"Red - the blood of angry men!
Black - the dark of ages past!
Red - a world about to dawn!
Black - the night that ends at last!"

From Les Miserables, "Red and Black"

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bluefall
2009-04-21 03:13 pm UTC (link)

The Guardians used to be a bunch of basically good, generally fair, very powerful and occasionally shortsighted and arrogant bunch... kind of like Hal himself actually.

Over the years they've gotten more and more incompetent and evil, a graph the slope of which has skyrocketed since Johns took over the mythos - unsurprising, he seems to have a very hard time with the basic "hero bows to more powerful superiors who gave him his mission" dynamic that the Guardian-Lantern relationship always used to be.

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	daningram 2009-04-21 03:28 pm UTC (link)
	To be fair, the Guardians were treated as jerks as way back as the Green Arrow/Lantern days. Though that was largely to make Ollie look better than Hal, who was weighed down by 'The (blue) Man'. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	bluefall 2009-04-21 03:35 pm UTC (link)
	Well, they were kinda jerky, but O'Neil and Adams also use them to beat on Hal for being privileged/douchey in a couple of places, so their essential virtue and the legitimacy of their authority is still maintained there. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	daningram 2009-04-21 03:40 pm UTC (link)
	It was just Hal who got torn down, so no complaints there, ;) ...and people wonder why Johns ditched that characterization. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bluefall
2009-04-21 04:01 pm UTC (link)

Heh. Actually the one thing about that arc that does really impress me is how much Hal did come across, in the end, better than Ollie. Ollie's a sanctimonious prat, basically, and while he's often (even usually) right, he's not very nice about it. Hal, on the other hand, realizes when he's wrong and makes an effort to change - which I always thought was a really powerful and important message, because with social justice stuff, that's exactly what you want to model. That yes, you can be a good person and still be an utter douche, and the important thing is to be willing to hear that you're a douche, and understand it, and try to change. That you're not going to be perfect, and trying to protect your self-image as perfect is the opposite of the heroic response.

Now, though, Hal's all perfect-never-harm-a-soul-not-a-shred-of-racism-or-sexism shiny-man, which makes him way less interesting IMO and loses a really good place to make that kind of really needed commentary.

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daningram
2009-04-21 04:05 pm UTC (link)

I dunno, I prefer 'Take Charge Space sheriff' Hal to 'Whiney, ignorant goose stepping' Hal.

As Kurt said, writers defaulted to that and tried to keep Hal in that era regardless of sliding time scale, which meant he was a whiney, insecure middle aged man. How is that not lame?

Hal's pretty much the action hero now that he should be, strong, witty and confident in action while flawed, unsteady in his private life.

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	ashtoreth 2009-04-22 12:35 am UTC (link)
	Piffle I say! His grey streaks were dashing! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	kingrockwell 2009-04-22 05:46 am UTC (link)
	Motto! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	filbypott 2009-04-22 04:25 am UTC (link)
	Well, in fairness, this is the second generation of Guardians (though I realize Johns tried to retcon their current jerkiness onto the old ones in "Secret Origins"). Ganthet could be seen as representing the old Guardians' nobility, with Sayd his disciple-turned-partner. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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