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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Nov 13, 2015 12:45:39 GMT -5
Prince Hal -- Well articulated post, of which personally, I cannot attest to. That's part of history from school for me. So I appreciate you sharing your perspective.
wildfire2099 -- Of the random issues I have of Guy retired, tending bar, I did enjoy them. He does seem to be the guy you shoot the $hit with over drinks. He seemed to be more likeable and less egotistical without the ring.
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Post by MDG on Nov 13, 2015 12:47:43 GMT -5
Time may not have been kind to this famous scene from GL 76, but in its time, it was moment of earth-shaking humility, not just for Green Lantern, but for the world of comics. You hate to play the "hadda be there" card, but... I find the O'Neil/Adams GL/GA pretty tiresome, but have to acknowledge this articulate description of the context. Well done. |
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Post by Action Ace on Nov 13, 2015 12:55:09 GMT -5
X-Men: They're a pack of whiny freaks that deserve every bit of hate and discrimination thrown their way by the Marvel public. Wolverine: He is the best at what he does, make me not want to read a comic book. Green Arrow, Hawkeye and Roy Harper: Wisecracking idiots that should have been killed in action decades ago. Thanos: The last time I encountered something that lame, I had to take it out back and shoot it. Punisher: My favorite Punisher moment is when Batman beats him up off panel in ten seconds. Thor: I'd keep the hammer, the rest can go. Firestorm: He's the reason Vibe, Moon Maiden, Faith and the rest of the unworthy ever got in the JLA. This puffy sleeved, Disco Era hothead should have been left in the 1970s. PAD's Supergirl, Helena Bertinelli Huntress, Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown: Dan Didio should be given a medal for getting rid of this trash, even if it was only temporary. Lobo: So awful I voted for Wolverine to beat him in the Marvel vs. DC series. Kirby's Fourth World: Can DC trade everyone but Darkseid to Marvel for something else? Perhaps a straight up trade for Razorback? Demon: He can go to Marvel for free. Guy Gardner: His best era was when he was in a coma. There. I said it. That's a lot of anger...  You should see me after I miss a three foot putt. By the way, who's the green haired goof above? |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Nov 13, 2015 13:01:57 GMT -5
That's a lot of anger... You should see me after I miss a three foot putt. By the way, who's the green haired goof above? That's Doc Samson from the Hulk cast, and he is the only super hero psychiatrist in comics to my best knowledge.  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 13, 2015 13:23:32 GMT -5
Time may not have been kind to this famous scene from GL 76, but in its time, it was moment of earth-shaking humility, not just for Green Lantern, but for the world of comics. You hate to play the "hadda be there" card, but... I find the O'Neil/Adams GL/GA pretty tiresome, but have to acknowledge this articulate description of the context. Well done. Thanks. I get that the GL/GA series probably sounds preachy and self-conscious now, but since comics, movies, literature, etc. are imitative by nature, O'Neil's edgy approach became the standard approach, which cheapened its impact. And in a culture which idolizes celebrity rather than accomplishment and mistakes snark for political philosophy, qualities like idealism and honesty have little cachet, I'm afraid. I once heard Marshall McLuhan give a talk in which he posited that every innovation or breakthrough eventually evolves into its own opposite: dungarees were the cheap, disparaged uniform of the working class, but evolved into overpriced designer jeans for the upper class; credit cards, which were intended to serve as a safe way to have "cash" in an emergency have become not just cash, but cash you don't really have; and so forth. The same pattern holds for so many artistic movements or changes: witness the popularity and proliferation of "dark" comics, for example. |
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Post by Action Ace on Nov 13, 2015 13:23:33 GMT -5
You should see me after I miss a three foot putt. By the way, who's the green haired goof above? That's Doc Samson from the Hulk cast, and he is the only super hero psychiatrist in comics to my best knowledge. I was afraid Marvel had done something stupid to Rick Jones in the 45 years of Hulk comics I skipped. Full disclosure: I like Rick, though not nearly as much as I like Snapper Carr. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 13, 2015 13:24:15 GMT -5
Prince Hal -- Well articulated post, of which personally, I cannot attest to. That's part of history from school for me. So I appreciate you sharing your perspective. Thanks. To me, all of that era is vivid, writ large in my memory, and seems like yesterday. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 13, 2015 15:12:26 GMT -5
Time may not have been kind to this famous scene from GL 76, but in its time, it was moment of earth-shaking humility, not just for Green Lantern, but for the world of comics. You hate to play the "hadda be there" card, but... I find the O'Neil/Adams GL/GA pretty tiresome, but have to acknowledge this articulate description of the context. Well done. I thought so too, even if I'm 180 degrees from Hal on this topic. Perhaps it was time for the old genre paradigms to be challenged (I'm ambivalent on that score) but GL was the wrong hero to do it with. Flash, Wonder Woman, even Superman would've been a better choice. Instead, O'Neil vitiated ten years' worth of characterization and world-building for a moment of cheap drama. Sadly, the title was on its last legs anyway so a radical reinterpretation was perhaps inevitable. It might have worked if the issues raised had been addressed in something more than the facile, grossly oversimplified and occasionally smug manner seen during this run. The only truly effective issues were the "Snowbirds Don't Fly" two-parter, which rooted its story in identifiable, human motivations and behaviors. And while GL/GA enjoyed *critical* success, there was very little impact on sales aside from a small spike for #76 and it was cancelled barely a year later. Clearly, this approach was NOT what the general readership wanted. Cei-U! I summon the on-the-fly counterpoint! |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Nov 13, 2015 15:37:16 GMT -5
I read that scene and those comics so out of context of the time they were written that I really didn't think nothing of it. But this makes me think about it again. But I found Hal boring way before I read these. Truth be told, I never cared for either Ollie GA or Hal GL. I started with Conner (good god I hate that name) and Kyle. But if a gun were pointed to my head I find Ollie, just a tad bit more interesting than Hal. But that's mostly from Longbow Hunters. Anyway ... thanks for making me think about that again. I might read those again this weekend. Time may not have been kind to this famous scene from GL 76, but in its time, it was moment of earth-shaking humility, not just for Green Lantern, but for the world of comics. You hate to play the "hadda be there" card, but... The sea-change in comics at that time is well documented, and I don't want to rehash it here, but those three or four panels were essentially comics' Pleasantville moment. The trees caught fire, color flooded the world, and suddenly there was a connection between that world and the world we were all living in. There had been other stories before this that flirted with “relevance,” like the JLA two-parter about pollution (also a Denny O’Neil story) and a Spider-Man storyline set amidst a campus protest about tenants’ rights, IIRC, but the super-hero lines of DC and Marvel were firmly ensconced in business as usual. As so often happens, the first ripples of change were being seen outside the spotlight, in Sgt. Fury and the DC war comics, where the many issues raised by our involvement in Vietnam could be examined without straining credulity. You’re right, Green Lantern had saved the world countless times, but in comics, that “world” was white and upper middle-class. The old black man, who appears in those few panels became and remains one of the iconic figures in comics history because he was the first character ever to force one a traditional near-omnipotent comic book hero to look into the mirror and see how narrow his world-view was and how undeservedly self-satisfied he had become. It was clear even then that Green Lantern represented not only the rest of his costumed pantheon, but comic book readers, publishers, and creators as well. Yes, Green Arrow was generally insufferable, but that is quite in character with converts, and O’Neil knew this, which is why GA was so appropriately humbled on the cover of GL 85. Yes. The run was a kind of “Issue of the Month” approach, but it took us on a tour of an America in the throes of social revolution, which was happening with the same rapidity as the travels of GA and GL. Over the short course of this run, comic book readers saw accepted mainstream views challenged and the rules of the super-hero universe broken left and right in stories that dealt with issues in general, like overpopulation, conformity, and drug abuse, but also astonishingly timely issues, like the disrespect for the law of the Nixon administration and the show trial of the Chicago Eight. These kinds of stories were undreamed of before GL 76. Yes, comics readers had read political and social commentary for years in MAD magazine, but MAD’s stock-in-trade was humor. Sure, GL/GA may have been melodrama, but in its best moments, like the famous sequence with the old black man, its honesty was undeniable. That old man’s righteous anger was a perfect comeuppance for a society convinced of its nobility, blinded by its exceptionalism and deserving of a slap in the face. Yes, GL’s brief success initiated a flood of copycatting, but so what? Thus it has ever been in pop culture. Yes, today the quest of GL, GA and the Guardian probably seems as trite and clichéd as the idealism and the loss of innocence that motivated it. We live in an age in which idealism is scorned, success is measured by celebrity and in which the old black man would be regarded not as a human being but as a “taker.” Sorry to go on like this, but I remember those horrible days, and how eloquently that old black man spoke not just to Green Lantern, but to all America. I only wish we’d listened to him. Unlike you I didn't read that as it came out, since it was just a few years before my comics buying time. But I did read it just a few years after the fact. And with that particular sequence, I get what they were going for and applaud them, but I think the sequence itself was clumsily handled. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 13, 2015 16:02:08 GMT -5
Don't want to make an overly big deal about this, but I just don't see this three-panel sequence...  as clumsily handled by either O'Neil or Adams. Carelessly colored, yes (Look at GL's gloves), but it's simple, direct, and devastating. Melodramatic? Of course. We're neither expecting nor looking for Samuel Beckett here, though.  Now, it's been a while since I reread the story, so I can't swear to the skill, or lack thereof, with which those panels were woven into the story, but standing alone, they don't strike me as clumsy in execution. And I know that especially in the light of history, O'Neil's writing, which was written in the heat of the moment was often as subtle as a pile-driver, but still, those three simple panels clumsy? I just don't see it. And it ain't my way to be snarky, at least to dem as I likes, D.E. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 13, 2015 16:09:15 GMT -5
And I can't see how it isn't mishandled by O'Neil. I'm fine with panels one and two. But panel three is ridiculous. GA acts like a whipped puppy for no reason at all. It's an absurd breakdown in characterization.
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 13, 2015 16:22:27 GMT -5
And I can't see how it isn't mishandled by O'Neil. I'm fine with panels one and two. But panel three is ridiculous. GA acts like a whipped puppy for no reason at all. It's an absurd breakdown in characterization. IIRC, though, the conflict at the center of the issue was GL's support for a slumlord despite the horrendous living conditions of his tenants because he was so accepting of the Guardians' insistence that he apply the letter of the law. He is ashamed at the effects of that kind of thinking, and perhaps Adams laid it on too thick. But if anything, it shows that Hal Jordan has a conscience in that he does take ithe man's words to heart rather than sputter an excuse or try to argue his way out of the essential truth of what the old man says. Had they laid out the story differently, maybe allowed more panels here to show the expression on GL's face changing over three panels, maybe the suddenness of his shame might have been negated. GL has indeed saved the world many a time, but without ever knowing much about that world's inhabitants save the small minority in garish costumes. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Nov 13, 2015 16:24:43 GMT -5
Well looking at just those three panels again (and being years since I read the whole story) I think both characters are reduced to political/social narrative that was either intentional or not. But Hal hangs his head in shame for some perceived misdeed that he was directly responsible for. And GA is pushed to the side of generic liberal because the gentlemen questioning Hal's motives is a real life minority. When both heroes have, at the very least, (of what I have read and know of them) indirectly saved people of all races/nationalities, genders and sexual preferences, by saving the world or at least their perspective cities from all kinds of menaces. These, honestly now that my memory is refreshed, are the kinds of politics, that can be taken as good or bad by the reader, as they take a side on political and social issues. Rather than representing a middle ground for the reader to take what they want about the actions of their heroes. Plus, again, in my limited knowledge of both characters, Ollie, isn't any kind of moral role model himself. So both heroes have their faults, yet they both are, in the end, heroes.
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Post by DE Sinclair on Nov 13, 2015 16:40:59 GMT -5
Don't want to make an overly big deal about this, but I just don't see this three-panel sequence... as clumsily handled by either O'Neil or Adams. Carelessly colored, yes (Look at GL's gloves), but it's simple, direct, and devastating. Melodramatic? Of course. We're neither expecting nor looking for Samuel Beckett here, though. Now, it's been a while since I reread the story, so I can't swear to the skill, or lack thereof, with which those panels were woven into the story, but standing alone, they don't strike me as clumsy in execution. And I know that especially in the light of history, O'Neil's writing, which was written in the heat of the moment was often as subtle as a pile-driver, but still, those three simple panels clumsy? I just don't see it. And it ain't my way to be snarky, at least to dem as I likes, D.E. I appreciate it, and never thought you to be anything but totally sincere, certainly not snarky. In all honesty, I wasn't really happy with my phrasing as "clumsy", but couldn't think of a better way to put it, until you did. "Subtle as a pile-driver" sums it up well.
The other thing that bothered me about that is that he is suggesting that GL should be making socio-economic change happen for the "black skins" because he did so much for aliens, and based on the fact that he hadn't, he was being racist. But GL never, to my recollection, restructured the social, economic, or political culture for anyone else, alien or terrestrial, just saved their lives, planet, etc., just as he had everyone on Earth multiple times. So why should he be shaming GL, insinuating that he made life cushy for aliens but not for one group on Earth based on skin color? He did the same for earthlings as he did for aliens, saved their lives multiple times.
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 13, 2015 16:56:58 GMT -5
Well looking at just those three panels again (and being years since I read the whole story) I think both characters are reduced to political/social narrative that was either intentional or not. But Hal hangs his head in shame for some perceived misdeed that he was directly responsible for. And GA is pushed to the side of generic liberal because the gentlemen questioning Hal's motives is a real life minority. When both heroes have, at the very least, (of what I have read and know of them) indirectly saved people of all races/nationalities, genders and sexual preferences, by saving the world or at least their perspective cities from all kinds of menaces. These, honestly now that my memory is refreshed, are the kinds of politics, that can be taken as good or bad by the reader, as they take a side on political and social issues. Rather than representing a middle ground for the reader to take what they want about the actions of their heroes. Plus, again, in my limited knowledge of both characters, Ollie, isn't any kind of moral role model himself. So both heroes have their faults, yet they both are, in the end, heroes. Oh, sure. That series was a succession of morality plays which finished on a far more mawkish note than I liked, to be honest, with the "crucifixion" of Isaac, the gentle soul. Throughout, GA became more and more obnoxious as he spouted his version of things and GL played the part of the typical person whose version of America had been turned upside-down by turmoil and dissension. I don't know if GA was meant to be so obnoxious, but I think O'Neil was using him as more than his own mouthpiece. As for GL's shame, it dawned on me after I wrote back to Slam that, IIRC, Hal Jordan had become a drifting, aimless kind of guy well before O'Neil took on the series, losing Carol Ferris, becoming a toy salesman (?) and a truck driver. Whether intentional or not, the seeds for hal's soul-searching had been sown, adding just a bit more verisimilitude to that final panel. It's ironic that the GA character became a murderous vigilante as the years went on, a perhaps unintentional comment on the transformation of many 60s liberals into me-firsters, preppies, yuppies and conservatives. My cynical side has always figured that many of those who questioned the war and protested were motivated less by the rise of some generational dream for the improvement of mankind than by the reality of the draft. I think the government noticed, and realized that an all-volunteer army meant no more war protests. I have often wondered how patriotic the nation would have been in 1990 and again in 2003 had the draft still been in operation. I wish I had a nickel for everyone who said of the military being sent over to the Middle East, "We-ell, they knew what could happen when they signed up." It's so easy to be careless when you don't have skin in the game. Just one more way for the powers-that-be to do what they want with the masses' tacit and explicit approval. |
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