Green Lantern by "lerms"

From lerms, on DeviantArt:

An entry in the SD CCI Souvenir Book.  It's unknown whether or not it made it into the book.

But I think it's pretty cool!  I love how easily Hal Jordan lends himself to cartoonification.

Batman or Shakespeare?

Quick, who said the following:

Smoldering, I burn you—burning you, I flare, hot and bright and fierce and beautiful.

Or this?

Welcome destruction, blood, and massacre. I see, as in a map, the end of all.

Were those two lines from a Shakespeare play, or from a Batman comic?

You can put yourself to the test at Sporcle's "Shakespeare or Batman" quiz.  You might be surprised at the answers.  (I scored a measly 67%.)

After that, you can go on to quiz yourself in how many U.S. Presidents you can name in ten minutes.  I somewhat redeemed my self-esteem for the paltry showing in the Shakespeare/Batman quiz by naming 36 out of 44 presidents.  I'm not sure if knowing who James K. Polk is is a better thing than being able to name a Batman quote, but I take my comics quizzes seriously.

There are quite a few other comics-related quizzes at Sporcle, even quizzes relating only to DC Comics, if you want to take a look.

(Also sad: I didn't know what Captain America's real name was.  Have I mentioned I want to go in to every Marvel movie completely fresh?  Doesn't get fresher than that.)

Have fun!

Oh, and Frank, this one's for you:

Color me surprised!

Fisher-Price Oa Playset

And how adorable is this, folks?

A Fisher-Price Oa playset, complete with Hal Jordan, Kilowog, and, nope it's not Ch'p, it's B'dg.  (But I can pretend it's Ch'p all I want.)  I love how GL characters (Hal Jordan included) translate so well into cartoony-ness.  It's too bad they're going all sturm und drang for the movie.  And guess what?  The little lantern lights up, and the gun shoots stuff (yay violence!) and the tether thingy that Kilowog is on spins around and stuff.

This is why I'm not allowed in Target, becuase I would buy this for myself.

And then actually play with it.  By myself.

Green Lantern movie Wonder-con footage...

Did anyone get a gander at the exclusive scenes shown to Wonder-Con viewers?

I can't embed it, but if you go here, and click on "Wonder-con Footage," you'll see a four-minute clip from the upcoming Green Lantern movie.

I can't help feeling more and more that the approach to this movie is completely wrong.  It's just too steeped in Chris Nolan Batman-esque tones, complete with Hal Jordan imitating RAWRI'MBATMANVOICE in the last lines of the clip.

I could live with that, though, if Hal Jordan still had white gloves.

But there's one line that I find ridiculous:

Tomar Re is sent to greet Hal Jordan as he arrives on Oa, and suddenly Hal's (ugly, misshapen) mask disappears.  (Apparently Hal has no input into the appearance of his uniform, either.)

Hal looks puzzled, to which Tomar Re explains, "Your mask will appear when protection of your identity is required."

Hollywood-ese translation:

Ryan Reynolds wanted more face time.

*sigh*

Guy Gardner sketch by Marcio Takara

I think this will make Sally happy.

How about a sketch evoking the good ol' JLI days?

Here you go!

Here's what the artist says about this piece:

Guy is awesome! JLI was what got me into reading comics! Maguire is one of my gods!

I couldn't agree more.  Check out Marcio Takara's DeviantArt account for more comics goodness!

Comics Go Historical?

It's funny how legitimate conversations can veer into the world of comics.  This past week one of the history teachers at work brought up how there might be an error in the AP History textbook regarding Aaron Burr.  While she was doing research online, her conversation consisted mostly of, "Did anyone know that [fill in random Aaron Burr fact here]?" about three times and me replying, "Yes, I did."  I'm not really a history buff, but I was a little obsessive about the Federalist era there for a while.  Let's just say that Alexander Hamilton was the Hal Jordan of his day, and that entertains me.

So, while on our respective lunch breaks, we were all trying to figure out whether Aaron Burr held a position in Jefferson's cabinet, and being the Paragon of Information of my workplace, I went immediately to Wikipedia, and of course this jumped out at me:

Leave it to comics to make history more awesome than it already is.  And thank you, Wikipedia.

Are you as surprised as I am that Hal actually knew what year Aaron Burr died?

How often to you see something historical in a comic book today?  Comics today seem to exist in a cultural bubble: I'm not sure what world the characters live in.  I know they live in the U.S., becuase pop culture references get dropped every now and then.  Because I'm just one of those people that likes to learn random things, I kind of miss the "educational" value that comics had in the Silver Age.  Even if they got the science wrong in a Flash comic, at least they were trying.  And there were those little articles in between the stories that were somehow related to the stories: an article about astronomy in Mystery in Space, for example.  I think reading a comic would be a little richer if some knowledge was added to the mix, and if those little informational columns came back, they could be an incentive to buy single issues, assuming they aren't printed in trades.

Well, if you consider going on a power trip and prompting the aliens' western territories to secede from the Union, well, then sure, I guess he succeeded.

While I don't need an overtly-historical story like this one to make me happy, I'd like a little mention of something I could use to win Jeopardy someday.  Maybe the Flash rogues were the ones really responsible for stealing The Scream, for example?

My favorite panel.  Too bad this didn't happen in real life.  In the sequel to this story, Hamilton shows up and is all awesome and finishes what the monster started.  Okay, not really, but that would be cool.

I have no idea what a "GLO BALL" is, but this isn't what I had in mind...

Apparently Hal Jordan has a snack cake made in honor of him.

It's called Glo Balls, I kid you not.  [Insert joke here.]

I have no idea if "Glo Balls" existed before, or if this is something completely new.  I tend to walk past the Hostess aisle of the grocery store and make a beeline for the Oreos and Pepperidge Farms instead, but now I'm going to keep an eye out for this.

Pic shamelessly stolen from here.

Do they glow in the dark?  Do they disintegrate if you put them too close to a bottle of mustard?  Is Hal Jordan's costume really made of sparkly coconut sugar?  You be the judge.

If you look in the background, you can see "Flash Cakes," which sounds a lot classier.

Read a Comic in Public Today!

Today is International Read a Comic in Public Day!  So go out there and read a comic.

I don't have any plans to "go public" today, so I celebrated yesterday.  I was at the doctor's for four hours getting a simple (albeit ridiculously long) test done, and brought along some comics.  A little boy whose mother was having the same test done was sitting next to me, and try as I might to catch his attention with my copy of DC Universe Legacies, he was too busy with his iPod to notice.  (Then he took out a real book and read that.  The horror!)  So, I failed to seduce another innocent into the cult of comics.  Oh, well.

On the upside, my doctor's office had a copy of the Green Lantern preview of Entertainment Weekly and I snatched that baby right up.  I gotta say, I hate the suit.  I just like the classic uniform best.  I'm a traditionalist.  Then I kept on pestering my mother by making loud comments, like "Aw, they got the mask all wrong," and "Hey, the guy playing Hammond is the guy who was on NYPD Blue.  Oh, wait, no.  It just looks like him," and "Oh, geez, the girl is from Gossip Girl?" which eventually did engage my mother into conversation.

Mom: So, Green Lantern?  I guess they're running out of characters?
Me: Ma, there's literally hundreds of superheroes in the DC Universe!
Mom: But does anyone know who they are?  Who's left?
Me: The Flash.
Mom: Who's he again?
Me: You know.  He wears a runs real fast and wears a red suit?
Mom: Sounds vaguely familiar.  Is that the guy playing Green Lantern?  He's good-looking.
Me: ... His hair's all wrong.

What can I say?  I'm hard to please.

Oh, and the ring is wrong, too.

75 Favorite Moments in DC History: Number 64

64.  Young Hal Jordan takes a trip to the stars (Green Lantern: Secret Files and Origins, collected in Green Lantern: No Fear, 2005.)

There are two comic creators who can do no wrong in my eyes.  One of them is Darwyn Cooke.

Likewise, there are two ways people generally feel about Hal Jordan: you either love him or you hate him. My little pet theory on Hal Jordan polarization is that he's more liked by the female demographic than the male, thus proving the pop psychology maxim that deep down, girls are suckers for a smartass in a bomber jacket with nice hair.  Swap out the bomber jacket for striped pants and a blaster and you've got Han Solo.  You get the picture.

Anyway, my introduction to Hal Jordan was via Darwyn Cooke's DC: New Frontier, which showed Hal Jordan in a light very different from most comic book heroes: he actually wanted something, and yearned for something in much the same way that great characters from literature or classic films do.  Rick Blaine wants Ilsa, Jay Gatsby wants Daisy, and Hal Jordan wants the stars.  I don't see Hal Jordan written with such desire outside of any Darwyn Cooke comics, however, and the only comic book character who has a similar yearning is the Martian Manhunter, but more on that later.

Anywho, in a story showing Hal Jordan as a child, we see that yearning for adventure as he idolizes his father, a fighter pilot, despite his disapproving mother.  His dad then wakes him in the middle of the night to take him on a flight, with an unforseen twist:

Hal's dad looks like an actor from the 50's but I can't place him.  Rock Hudson, maybe?  Anyone?

Now who wouldn't want a father like that?

And here, in this beautiful panel, don't you feel like you're flying along with Hal?

Sheer beauty, that's all I can say.

Though Geoff Johns is credited with the script, I think he lifted a few ideas from Cooke's interpretation of Hal in DC: New Frontier.  I could be wrong, but that's just a hunch.  But one thing I know for certain: Darwyn Cooke needs to be drawing (and writing) more comics for DC.

Autocomplete Me, Google

I was aimlessly browsing the internet and trying to figure out (of all things) the "birthdays" of DC's superheroes.  (I just found out that Nightwing's is March 20th, apparently.)

Anyway, I went to Google and typed in "Hal Jordan" and one of the autocomplete suggestions was "Hal Jordan for Congress."  Well, lol, I'd buy that T-shirt and wear it.  Wouldn't that be funny.  Hey!  They should make a whole line of "So-and-so for Congress/Public Office" T-Shirts.  So then I clicked on the link to see what Hal's platform was.

Oh, wait.  It's a real guy.  Named Hal Jordan.  Running for Congress.

http://www.haljordanforcongress.com/

Oh, and it gets better.  He has a Twitter account.

Imagine how much fun I could have with this...