What's wrong with comics? Many things.
Here is one:
I did not click on the linked story. I have no idea what's behind this. I have heard nothing else about "Green Lantern: Dark" other than this blurb.
It is all I need.
Because it lumps "rotten", "grump", and "adorable" into one package. And, to seal the deal, uses Guy Gardner as a point of comparison.
This is one of the things that is wrong with comics. Giving us characters who are not positive role models. Giving us characters we are supposed to love for their flaws rather than for their virtues. Giving us cats instead of dogs. If I want that crap, I'd read Marvel.
Who is the audience for this? I can only assume women, because, frankly, women are used to putting up with MEN, who often SUCK, which some women somehow think is cute. I don't know any men who are fans of Guy Gardner, for example. I also don't know any men who are fans of that obnoxious little shit Damian Wayne.
I don't even know whether the character IS a man. It may be a woman. I don't care.
Maybe women don't actually find such characters adorable and it's just what writer and editors THINK they like. I'd love for that to be the case.
Call me rotten and grumpy, if you want. I do not find such characters "adorable" and I'm tired of being told I should.
8 comments:
Yeah, your posts are usually good but this ain't it.
The character is a woman. She's the Green Lantern of the Tangent comics series (Earth-97, according to some reckonings). I don't recall her as being either grumpy or adorable, instead she was just kind of spooky.
Well, I'm a fan of Guy Gardner and Damian Wayne, but only if they're written well. (Insert your own punchline.)
I don't like them because they're assholes; I like them because, asshole tendencies aside, they also try to be better than mere assholes. Damian was raised to be an assassin but tries to be more like his father. Guy is comfortable being loud and abrasive, but these days he doesn't actually undermine the team like he used to in the post-Crisis days.
My favorite take on Guy was a short-lived one, in the new 52: he was an ex-cop who'd been unfairly drummed out over a hostage situation that had gone south. He still had it in him to be a good LEO, when he could set aside the crap. Interestingly, when things were rough for Supergirl (rejected by pretty much everyone), he was something like a ne'er-do-well uncle to her: that relative that parents worry about but kids love, because he actually treats the kids like people.
- HJF1
I don't know anything about this character, but I'm wondering why we need more Green Lanterns at all. Aren't there like 10 from Earth now? If you want a cranky Lantern I feel like there's already options. And that's not even looking at the other lantern colors. Isn't being obnoxious the default for Red Lanterns? If you want rotten, grumpy, and adorable clean up that Red Lantern cat and put it in a comic.
I think you could describe Wolverine as "rotten" or a "grump", and he certainly has a lot of male fans.
The women I knew who were fans of Guy Gardner liked him for a lot of the reasons Anonymous described. That they saw growth in him as a person across the JLI years and his own solo book. How even when he was at his most obnoxious, he would work to rein himself in for people he cared about.
Just listened to a podcast on the JLI where half the (100% male) guests called Guy Gardner their favorite character in that run. Not one of your smarter posts.
I don't agree that those kinds of characters can never work. There even used to be a time when Wolverine was an interesting character...
I absolutely detest Guy Gardner though, he simply went beyond the pale. Every time they try to present Gardner as this kind of gruff badass, I get flashbacks to that early-ish JLI-Story, where he wants to r*pe a 14-years old girl to teach her a lesson. And the preview of his original future in Armageddon 2001, iirc, in which Gardner became an Andrew Tate/Keith Ranier style cult leader. Nevermind being an obsessive stalker to ice, or generally being a nationalist, racist, sexist *****.
There was a good reason they gave him brain damage (again), because the "real" post-crisis Guy (well, after his first brain damage) was anything but a "rotten, grumpy, adorable" tough guy. He was a narcisstic, hateful monster.
Other Anonymous - you aren't wrong that, for too long, Guy was utterly bereft of redeeming qualities. I tend to blame writers more than the characters though. My approach is, when someone comes up with a version of a character I can like, I decide that is the definitive version, and the crappy versions are just writers who don't have a feel for the character.
Honestly, post-Crisis DC was a cesspool. If I had to mark a point at which it was safe to go back in the water so to speak, it'd be when Morrison took over the JLA, returned it to its original seven, and wrote them like he gave a damn. Not that there were zero good DC comics prior to that, or zero bad ones after. But I identify that as the point at which DC decided to not produce garbage because they hate their universe.
- HJF1
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