Multiverse 7 - 10:5:23, 10.20 PM
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[00:00:00] /You're listening to the multi-verse podcast today. And Green lantern rebirth and a little bit of flash to /
Jason: So now we're talking about Green Lantern Rebirth.
Scott: We're going to go back in time a little bit.
Stephen: Yes, we're going to jump in the DeLorean and insert some cool sound
Scott: effects. And for you kids who don't know, this book was set in a time where Hal Jordan had gone crazy, become this entity called Parallax, killed all the Green Lantern Corps, and it gave rise to the 90s Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner.
Who is a, a great filler, great character in his own right. The greatest
Jason: of all Green Lanterns, I would
Scott: say. Well, well, it depends on our measuring stick. So,
Jason: We have some disagreement here
Scott: on who the best Green Lantern is. As we were [00:01:00] talking about the guy that became the, the fixer for universes, Jeff Johns, after, after a successful, semi successful taking over of Justice Society.
Was he writing Wall E in Flash at this point? No. He had not shown up to that. That was after this. Well, no, he did the rebirth for Barry. But, Johns was on Flash. Oh, yeah, sorry. Just a regular Flash. Yes. That gave us, you know, our second generation Professor Zoom. And He, that was his And we're angling, we're angling towards Infinity Cry, or, you know.
Yeah. Sequel to in in Infant Infinite Crisis. Infinite
Stephen: Crisis. I think John's was, I believe John's started as a regular monthly Yeah.
Scott: Star Girl with Flash. Flash Girl. '
Stephen: cause he had done Stars and Stripes and which was Star Girl. And the Flash got him to Justice Society. He took that book over from James Robinson and David S.
Goyer. And [00:02:00] then from there it was he went back to The Flash for a little bit, I think. And he also did Green Lantern. Yeah, and it kind of went on
Scott: from there. So this is, this was his pitch to, this was a miniseries, his pitch to DC to bring HAL back. And try to fix all the continuity errors or problems or hurdles that were put in front of him back in the 90s where everyone had to turn dark and grim and I mean at least Parallax didn't have any pockets, you know, you know, no belt, no, no boot flares or He had ankles.
He did. He did. He did. He did. He did have ankles.
Stephen: And if there was any doubt as to where you were going with this, that really shouldn't
Scott: be able. And there was also a point in time where John's wrote date of days of judgment where he changed parallax. He changed how the specter, because the specter plays into this as well.
So we had. [00:03:00] You know, we're trying to redeem how that that was a, I don't know, I know what you're talking about.
Jason: So yeah, so he, how was, how was the specter? He was a specter when this started. When the series starts, how's the specter? But I think, so what was, what was interesting about this, about the whole storyline is that leading up to, leading up to, well, I The Parallax story, but I don't think we fully understood what was happening
Scott: in Parallax.
Well, Banks wrote, it was Banks that wrote. Artist, who wrote? Mars? I think it was Mars. When they wrote Parallax, it was... Hal broke bad. Over the destruction of Coast City and he couldn't use his powers to fix everything. So he was going to be a... This was back in the 90's where he was going to be a bad guy because we're shedding our legacy characters.
Ollie is dead. We got Connor, Oliver, [00:04:00] we're losing all, in this time frame, we lost access to Oliver. We, you know, we had Wally already. Wally was leading that generation of showing up after, you know, your... Superman was blue. Yeah, Superman was blue. Morrison days.
Jason: No, that's before that. Morrison
Scott: on JLA. Oh, exactly.
That's coming up, yeah. He was a mulleted Superman. Yeah, mullets. So, yeah, so we're breaking bad. Everyone had to, we all had to change, but
Jason: at that time, that's when the, the big, the big vulnerability was yellow. Yes. So green layers were rings worked on anything except for the color yellow. Right. Right. And Sinestro had the yellow ring.
He had the green ring. And, but we'd never knew why, like there was never a reason why yellow was a thing. And that was the genius I thought. John's brought in here and expanded upon for like the next five years, really right with the whole [00:05:00] spectrum of lanterns. So the idea was that parallax and truth wasn't just this alter ego of Hal Jordan's.
He had been in been corrupted. Yeah. He had been possessed by this parasite, this parasite that was the impurity. Inside the power battery. Right. That was called Parallax. Right. And that was actually, it was, it was the parasite that drove fear and they kept in the power battery in order to that was its jail cell, right?
Right. So the power battery was a jail cell. It created the yellow impurity, but Parallax was the spirit of fear. And yellow was the fear color.
Scott: Right. So it
Jason: was about spectrum. It was about fear on the emotional spectrum and starting in, in this storyline rebirth, he came up with the idea of, okay, green is willpower because the green lanterns were all [00:06:00] about using their willpower to overcome great fear.
And then yellow is, is the fear itself. And then in subsequent stories, he starts fleshing this out. Orange is avarice. And then. Blue is Hope, and he just kind of builds out this full spectrum. Just nobody had thought of that. It just, it fits so well. It worked so well in the whole story, and nobody had really put that together up to, up to this point.
I thought it was, it was absolutely brilliant.
Stephen: Entry thoughts into this before we, before we get into the, the meat and potatoes that is rebirth. Because it's, I don't wanna use the word perfect, but I'm going to, it's a, it's almost like a perfect superhero story. It is. It's a perfect little story. It starts off great. It establishes the characters.[00:07:00]
It gives you some real. Add a left field things and then it closes it out with and it's all kind of back to what it should have been all along. But, but before any of that gets an opportunity to happen, shine its light. Yeah, you've got, you've got at least two decades worth of. One mistake after another when it comes to all things, I think, Green Lantern.
The Emerald Dawn and then you've got around about the same time you've got Cosmic Odyssey and what that does to Jon Stewart as Green Lantern. It's funny you talk about those yellow impurities because I think that's how one of the... Yeah, the, the evil guys, they,
Scott: they painted the, painted the engine
Stephen: yellow paint, paint the engine yellow, so you can't do anything.
And there's that kind of fun little magnolia drawing where the guy's just standing there with a canny, yellow paint, a brush like . You can't do
Scott: anything. And that, and that's [00:08:00] Jim Starland telling the whole world what he thought of.
Stephen: Yeah, basically that. Yeah. And then you've got Parallax and then you've got Carl Rainer, which that was the first Green Lanin book.
That I read regularly, because I dipped in and out. The Kyle Rayner book? Yeah. I dipped in and out and just, I just, I didn't like, because I didn't have the history. I knew who Green Lantern was from the Super Friends cartoon as a kid, but I'd never read the comic. And then when it started to become cool which is right about Emerald Dawn, where they're sort of giving all of these characters a chance to be groom and gritty.
I was like, I don't, I don't care because I've got no investment in how Jordan is character. And then Carl Reiner comes along and I, it was recommended to me, like it was like the third or fourth issue in and it was recommended to me like, Oh no, I think this is going to go places. And I was like, [00:09:00] okay, I can grow with this green lantern.
And, and I thought it was a lot of fun. I thought the relationship that they had with with Jade was kind of, okay, it was Jade. Okay. Now we're going to get into the golden age. We're going to get into Alan Scott.
Jason: He started out with a different girlfriend. He had Alex, the girlfriend.
Scott: You see
Stephen: the one that ends up in the fridge.
Jason: Yes, he's the reason people are like, girlfriend's in the fridge. That is a Kyle Rayner related thing.
Stephen: But here's the kind of takeaway. Major force. Major force, that's right. Major force. Is that if you've got a good writer, you can, that's one of the beautiful things about comics, you can kind of undo anything.
As long as the writer is good enough. I believe, and I have from the get go of Rebirth, Rebirth could not have happened without Kevin Smith on Green Arrow. Hmm. [00:10:00] Because it's a similar predicament. Green Arrow. Now, Green Arrow was a character that I followed. I ran all the Mike Grohl stuff. When I reacquainted with my dad, I actually discovered that Green Arrow was my father's favorite superhero when he was a kid.
Because I was at a comic book store. Green Arrow? I don't know they still made that. I love Green Arrow, you know. But he of the orange gloves, the Kirby era. And... So you've got Mike Grell in this great, and then introduction of Conor Hulk, and then he's blown up in a plane, and he's like, I don't want to lose my arm, and it's like, oh shit, thanks DC, you kind of screwed the pooch on this one.
And then Kevin Smith has this idea, and not only is it very, very well executed, but we get that, all these nice little beats, all these nice little notes, all those relationships, we touch on them. Who thought it was a good idea to put [00:11:00] Ollie and Carter Hall in the same room? You remember that bit? You know, the most extreme liberal with the most extreme conservative and they're laughing their asses off and then fighting.
And then it puts it back in a place where, here we go, we can start again, everything's great. Clearly Johns is like, we can do that with Green Lantern.
Scott: What I like about the story, and I have, the reason why I've been critical of John's of late is because I see what he's able to produce. And I realize, once again, you only have so many stories, as someone who's never written a story.
Brad Meltzer did the foreword in this edition, and he touches, I'm going to touch on things that he touched on as far as When you're coming back to one of these legacy characters, that somebody's gone and done all this, it'd been very easy to kill off Kyle. It'd have been [00:12:00] very easy to go, Oh, disregard, everything has come behind, he's got the ring on, yay, we're flying back off to him.
John's obviously sat down, thought all this out, and covered no matter what fan of the legacy you are, he touched on. Made it relevant. Didn't disregard it. You know, If you liked Kyle, Kyle's still there. If you liked Guy, Guy came back from that horrible 90's Warrior career. You know, Stewart is still there.
Whatever small fan base of Kilowog, Kilowog had a, you know, and became a major hitter other than When they first created him, he was a kind of a, I don't understand why communist doesn't, communism doesn't work because it worked in my country, my planet kind of thing. Right, right, right. You're doing all that and then you brought HAL back to what HAL should always be.[00:13:00]
And it's, I love when they're describing every one of their power signatures. You know, you can see all the bolts over here. You can see where HAL's about, I'm just about precision. Now there's a line that's marked. Later on where it's James Robinson that did this in that Cry Vengeance or whatever that Justice League thing where he, Hal says he only wants to be remembered for the planes he flies.
I don't know why people latched onto that and meme it up and stuff, but the essence there is he's a pilot. Right. You know, he's not the smartest of the group. I mean, he's not. No. I can't even say he's the bravest. Of the group. In this book.
Stephen: No, no, I think in this book it's, it's called Reina.
Scott: Yeah, but, but, But every, Everything that he has to overcome, Everything, You know, from overcoming [00:14:00] Parallax, Sinestro, Batman's opinion of him walking into a room where you know, You're not the favorite, you know, you're being, you're, you're going to be credited for slaughtering the Green Lantern Corps.
He focuses on the mission, completes the mission, and at the end of it, cool scene at the end, him charging his power battery, I've never forgot that. But Hal is homeless and broke, if you think about it. Wait, wait, you wrapped it all up, but you, if you're Jeff Johns, you've attached, Okay, Parallax, what was Parallax, he just decided to become, ah, that's Parasite.
I've got the green layer. Okay. Yeah. These guys are back there. Even guys following how Batman's not going to trust you. It's kind of cute where it's because Batman uses fear and how doesn't, I'm going to say it's more because Batman watched how blow up all of his friends and he's used to the Joker trying to be good.
And it's really not that but John, you gave it, you know, you gave it a good go, but well,
Jason: and they do a really [00:15:00] cool thing. So there's that famous punch
Scott: that, yeah, he reverses it
Jason: on him. Yeah. So Batman famously punches oh,
Scott: Guy, Guy, Guy Gardner out
Jason: in justice. It's like a cover image and really well really famous.
And in this one, there's a, a a scene where Hal Jordan knocks out Batman, which I don't, I mean, let's just talk about realism. This comic book is completely unrealistic that he could punch
Scott: Batman. Well, you know, people get lucky. Let's say, yeah, Batman takes a punch. It's just, Hal's not going to out plan Batman.
No, no. But, and I'm also going to go on saying that Ethan's art, you had to have, with this story, you had to have him. Yes.
Jason: I mean,
Scott: this, this, this was the pairing you didn't know you needed that's right at that moment. Oh yeah. This
Jason: book and he did the the flash rebirth. I have a, I have an original [00:16:00] sketch original flash sketch from Ben Skyver that's hanging up in my house right now.
But, he sort of got cancelled later. Yeah.
Scott: Well, he, you know. Yeah. Can we get off that for a minute? Because I want... It's always
Stephen: Cyberfrog. Yeah. But no, it's gorgeous. I mean, Vanskyver is, you know, he, he follows He, he follows Brian Bolland in terms of very, very precise line work. Vanskyver, it kind of always reminded me a bit of Bolland.
But it's, it's a little more kinetic. He's got a little more energy to it. Whereas Boland is always very, very polished regardless of the context. And when it comes to the, whose different approaches that each lantern has in terms of their constructs, it really. Yeah, that's guy that does a
Scott: fantastic job.
He does great work. And the fact that John's just decided to write that into the story. Yeah, because before it was just, [00:17:00] you're still fine with, Oh, it's a big, it's a big boxing glove. Oh, it's a big, you know, flicking the finger and knocking or it's just an energy blast. But to, to dive down into this shows that this time in John's career, yeah, now he's always says he's been a huge flash fan and we saw that.
And maybe I missed a source somewhere, and if I have, forgive me. He had to be a huge Green Lantern fan as well. I would say so, yeah. He's definitely about bringing everything back to pre crisis as far as who your legacy characters are. Because he's brought Barry back, he's bringing Hal back, and nothing wrong with that.
Because you can... I remember one time someone saying, you know, they'll keep writing Wall E as the Flash until they find the right Barry story. Right. And they, they did. And then, and then now they found the right Wall E story to bring him back around. So this, being a Are we just
Jason: skipping over the fact that they screwed
Scott: up Wall E?[00:18:00]
Well, I mean, which, which time are you talking
Jason: like when they, like, Oh, heroes in crisis. Oh,
Scott: yeah. We all agreed that didn't happen. That didn't happen. That's, that's in the Zack Snyder verse. I hear that one. Well, whatever. That's an Elseworlds story. It could be. But, you know, and this also became, even though Green Lantern Corps was always a team concept, this kind of for a while became a team book until they spun it off.
And they did the storytelling. So they kept it balanced where. It wasn't like back in the 80s where, okay, issue one is a Hal story, oh, issue four is going to be a John story, and then we, you know, we're going to change creative teams. The fact that you could write a miniseries and acknowledge everything from, you know, Parallax to being Spectre to just every bit of Hal history.
Yes. And not ditch the other. I will always give it extraordinary high marks. And it's also what makes, when you're looking at that, As we will get into here in a minute. [00:19:00] Who's the best Green Lantern? It makes it, it makes it hard to come up with a case when we're talking about this particular miniseries.
You go on down, you can pick out why I think this person is, why Kyle is here, why John is at this time, because different writers, different stories, but right here in this universe. If you walked up and you were a Justice League animated fan, your Jon Stewart's behaving pretty much like your Jon Stewart did there, and that's what people were exposed to.
If you were the 90's Kyle Rayner fan, and that was your first Green Lantern, other than the kind of subtle costume change, he's still Kyle. He's still the artist. I know there's an underground Guy Gardner fan base. Oh yeah. Because there's, you know, and you got him back to... , the bomber jacket, motorcycle jacket, you know, smart ass kind of bowl haircut.
Yeah. And Kellogg just happens to be there to represent the rest of [00:20:00] the corps. Right. And you even got the guardians back. Mm-hmm. .
Jason: Well that like the main guardian you've had the
Scott: whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Gant that
Jason: Gant that he's, he's parallax for, for this scene.
Scott: The half a second.
Jason: Yeah. Right. Yeah, he's, he's got the, the symbio going.
Alright, ERs, who's the best who's the best
Scott: Green lantern. Now, once again, are you talking about, we got to talk about in this context. In this context. In this, okay. In this story. Who's your favorite Green Lantern? My favorite Green Lantern is Alan Scott. Who's not in the story. He is in the story. Is he?
He makes a, he makes a little bit of an appearance when they go, Parallax says, I tried to corrupt your power. You're the elder statesman. I tried to correct, corrupt your power too. Yeah. But it didn't work because they, they show up there and there's a point where he's vomiting green. Green energy. At some point, Jay's holding them up when they're trying to go to the, so yes, he touched on, they got every green light, but overall, I enjoy Alan Scott because I [00:21:00] enjoy the justice side in World War II.
In this book, Rebirth, it's Hal. Because Hal had, because everyone enjoys a good redemption story. So,
Stephen: no, that's that. See, you, you, you've got it. Just one, one, one name change. For me, it's Carl Reiner. Because Carl Reiner was the, was
Scott: that your favorite? Let's let's go by his favorite Green Lantern.
Stephen: Okay.
So lantern is Carl Reiner because Carl Reiner is the, is the character that sort of got me into that, that universe. I was familiar. Like I said, I was familiar with, with how Jordan. Actually, it's funny because I'd forgotten it and I'd just remembered it. I, the only familiarity I had with Hal Jordan was reading DC's 80's reprints of the Green Lantern, Green Arrow series.
But in that series, Hal Jordan plays a very specific [00:22:00] role as does Green Arrow. And so it's not, I don't think it's the best representation of their legacies as heroes. They're just really good characterizations for that, for that, for Denny O'Neill's run. So it's Carl Reiner but in this book, it's Hal Jordan because it's Hal Jordan's moment to have some depth, have something interesting,
Scott: and there you go.
This isn't the most interesting Hal Jordan's ever been, to me.
Stephen: Yes, I would utterly agree with that, and that leads into the point that I'll make. Coming up, but you, so of all time, Green
Jason: Lantern of all time, Green Lantern of all time. I'm a Kyle Rayner fan, but the reason I am, I think it might be a little bit of the same reason as yours.
Like that's when I was really getting into it, though. I did read Emerald Dawn, Emerald Dawn 2 as they were coming out and they were, they were fine. I always love like super friends, [00:23:00] Green Lantern, right? So that, that was Al Jordan, super friends, but. The Kyle Rayner version. I think Kyle Rayner is the hero of this story and Hal Jordan is the redeemed Yeah, right.
Yeah, so Kyle starts out. He's the only Green Lantern, right and he's he's managing all the space sectors he's like way off on the edge of the galaxy trying to deal with some random thing and These people are chanting that parallax is coming, right? So that's a that's And he's, he's got to ultimately stop parallax in order to stop parallax.
He has to reestablish the core because he can't do it by himself. So this story is, is a Kyle Rayner hero's journey. Yes. Through the redemption of Hal Jordan. Yeah. So I, I still, I still like Kyle in this. There's a couple of reasons when they describe all the different powers. I love the artist of artistry of [00:24:00] Kyle Rayner, even in his, his book, like when he, when he was on the title book, they just did cooler stuff.
Like he wouldn't just, it wouldn't be like the, the punching bag or whatever, or the glove. It would be like major forces over here. I'm going to build a locomotive and ram that straight through his head. You know, just that, that sort of thing. He would, he would come up with, and they were, you know, much more.
Intricate constructs that he came up with and it made the story more interesting to me that he would, he would always find a different way to do it. So he had more imagination. And then it was, it's funny that the story, I feel like Jon Stewart and Hal Jordan are almost the same character. Like they, they, they, they seem like very similar characters, like the straight laced kind of.
I mean, Hal Jordan is the test pilot later on, but the way that they're portrayed in the books, it's still [00:25:00] very similar. I
Stephen: don't agree with that. No? No, because to me, because John, they're similar in so much as I think they could have been each other. Yeah. But, whereas Hal Jordan is this cocky, irresponsible Air Force pilot, Mm hmm.
Jim Stewart. is the hyper responsible Marine. So, they've got these similarities. That's very true. But, if you look at the destruction of Zanshee in Cosmic Odyssey, which has been the burden of guilt on Jon Stewart's shoulders for Ages and ages and ages, the difference is how Jordan would have gotten over it like that.
How Jordan would have been like, hey, you know what, I did my best, and there you go. Whereas Jon Stewart is like, no, I could have done more, I could have done more, I could have done more. That's the difference between them. And
Scott: that's kind of, there's a, there's a [00:26:00] point in time where I think Jon and Guy are talking.
And they're, they're talking about how, and how, you know, how could be, they could have been stranded in a cave with Jews out of their rings and while all three of them would have succeeded in getting out of that situation, Hal probably would have treated it as another day at the office and had a little smirk in his step where a guy would have to be loud and John would have to be disciplined.
And in this story, yes, they, they, they are very close, but there's enough recklessness in how. Yeah. There, there, there was, there was always a question and John's never really answered it. I remember he was asked at a convention, could parallax have taken over Jon Stewart?
And at first people were like, well, you know, it's a all [00:27:00] cosmic entity and all this, the, the, I just, I'd like to find on YouTube that the guy was asking the question, you know, clarified is like, you know, it was always because Hal tried to. Reconstruct Coast City, and you kind of touched on this about him carrying Xanthe on his way.
John never tried to go back and abuse the power and pull everything together. So could parallel, if Sinestro's grand plan is just taking Hal and switching to John, would John have become susceptible to that? And it was almost like John's was like, no. Yeah. Now later. John Stewart and Different Rider had some temptation, I mean, I think there was something that happened there, I don't remember as well.
That's a,
Stephen: no, that's a really interesting question.
Scott: And, and, same thing with Kyle. Kyle didn't try to bring Alex back. He would, you know, had her in a nightie one time or something [00:28:00] like that, but, you know, Kyle burned through Jade and Donna Troy and, you know, just kept on going. And, and What's wrong with you, man?
Well, but, you know, like y'all. He's the what is it? He's the Matt Murdock. Him and Dick Grayson are out at a bar together. Apparently Donald Troy
Jason: is the one.
Scott: That's the point of conversation. With 90's Wally. Before he settled down. That would have been all three of them out there.
Stephen: It's a miniseries in this, I know there is.
Jason: Wally's not great at satisfying women though. He's super fast
Scott: at everything. But, you know, for, you know, for all of our differences about who our favorite Green Lanterns are and things like that, this, I think everyone that reads this book, and even three, three gentlemen sitting at the table, this changed DC's course a little bit by bringing Almost simultaneously, Ollie and Hal back.
Because [00:29:00] if that hadn't happened, we wouldn't have gotten Barry back. Mm hmm. Like, granted, Grant just pulled Barry out of the sky, went, Oh, he's back. You know, it was Johns that came back and had the flesh. It did the same. Yeah, same job.
Jason: So good at the time that remember Green Lantern was was one of their flagship
Scott: times.
It was so it did. When John, when John was involved with that, it was It, it, it, it was just solid because it led into, you know, this led into Blackest Night and all these other, Blackest Night,
Jason: Brightest Day, the whole, the whole spectrum, like there was a whole spectrum series, the Sinestro
Scott: War, Sinestro War, that's what it
Stephen: was.
So that's where I said I would come back to it. So that's, that's kind of the, in some ways, that's the unfortunate aspect of all of this for me. is Hal Jordan was never as [00:30:00] good in John's run as he was in Green Lantern Rebirth. The problem is, there's not a tremendous amount of depth given to Hal Jordan after, once he's reestablished, once he's back, he's resurrected, he's got his ring, there's, if you then go through John's main Green Lantern series, The first year is actually kind of dull.
There's not, there's the thing with the gremlins.
Scott: Well, it is about reestablishing. Yeah, but it's not. We get him a different, we get him a different girlfriend for a bit. And the, what happens, No, no. No, what happens is John gives you those last two pages, which shows you what's coming up for the next year.
Yeah. And that's what he's building towards. So the rest of this is, you're right. It kind of feels like filler. Hal shines in the miniseries. Yes. This one, and then the Sinestro Wars, which is a series within, because that's where [00:31:00] Hal is dealing with, that every time he shows up into the commissary, all the aliens are like, Oh, there's a Jordan guy that blew up the...
And then we had Blackest Night again, so Hal's better there than he is with the rest of the... You disagree? I totally disagree. You don't believe, so... No.
Stephen: Because what made Sinestro core, so the interesting, the real thing, is the emergence of the Sinestro core. So now you kind of get to see something that we've never seen before.
Which is this core of horrible, horrible, horrible things, creatures and things. And Sinestro, who's never been more interesting as a character. Now we get to see, you know, cause he's spoken of as the greatest Green Lantern. Well now you get to see why. Because his strategy, his tactical skills are unmatched.
This is why, there are moments [00:32:00] in John's run where I actually found myself saying, Actually now I understand why Sinestro cannot stand Hal Jordan. . Yeah, because Hal Jordan, there's, there's too much of a recklessness. You know, I can sort of imagine ster, like, you know, this, this
Scott: guy took
Stephen: my job. This guy, this is the guy now.
John Stewart was the one who came after it. I could see Ster going, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I can, I can go along with that. But Hal Jordan, oh, you know, and then what you get is Oh, semester Co. That that was, that was so much fun. and then Red Lanterns and then the Orange Lan.
Jason: So who did they come out in? The Red LANs?
The orange LANs. Was that just in the normal? Yeah,
Scott: it was in, it was, it was in normal ones. It was in the, it was in the, the issues thirties through, yeah. It's because it is building up the black. Yeah,
Stephen: this, this underlying thread through pretty much once you get past [00:33:00] the first year of Johnson's run on the regular book, so there's a guardian's.
Story, which basically all the first six issues do is to reintroduce Green Lantern, how Jordan Green Lantern, and then you've got this weird thing with gremlins and Black Hand and the big shark
Scott: and all that kind of stuff. Well, you're trying to, I think he was trying to introduce Black, I think he introduced Black Hand too early.
Because it was going to be in Black Night. Yeah. And that's when I, you know, when I say like, I feel it in the Blackest Night and, Sinestro Wars, Hal's character is a little better is because this rebuilding isn't as interesting as, oh, Hal's in the middle of crap now. Sinestro is, I mean, Sinestro is stomping Hal's ass.
We, you showed up, you blew up, you know, you have, you have blown up, we're all having lunch and snipers are zapping, [00:34:00] zapping people and in Black is Night, you've got Dead guys pushing hands through people's hearts and not, not, not Hal's forte. No,
Stephen: no, no. I know, but that's, that's where the crux of this comes for me.
Is that having read the entirety of Jeff Johnson's run, my final analysis was, is that with the exception of Rebirth, Hal Jordan was the least interesting thing. In Johns's regular monthly run on the book. For me, the excitement came from, let's see what these red lanterns are. Let's see, the, the, the, the crayon box.
Scott: The cat. The red cat. Yeah, absolutely. And then when you finally
Stephen: get. The cat's great. When you finally get to Blackest Night. Because I also appreciate, I love the art, I love the design. Oh my gosh, we're gonna see these different costume with the different colored lanterns. What they're, I mean, Laughleys.
Laughleys kind [00:35:00] of, you know, is the, is the MVP for the whole bloody thing to a certain degree. But then when you get into Blackest Night. All those reanimated corpses and the variations on their costumes and the nastiness and Firestorm. Firestorm is more interesting as
Scott: the Deathstorm
Stephen: Black Lantern than he ever was as his own character.
And then when we finally get through that to the Indigo Tribe, there's a misstep there with Sinestro, but that was because of New 52. I don't hold that against John's. We finally get through the Indigo Tribe and then it's like, okay, you know what, now we're done. So this story was less about Green Lantern and more about the emotional spectrum.
But the consequence of that is, outside of Rebirth, Haldron was the least interesting character to me in the series. So that earlier question, we were like, who's your least favorite Green [00:36:00] Lantern? It is actually Howard Jordan,
Scott: because
Stephen: I have more, all the other Lanterns have given me
Scott: more.
Jason: Interesting. Yeah, I'm
Stephen: But we'll see, because he's, he's the evergreen, he's, he's the Green Lantern we're gonna, we're gonna get.
We're not getting, we're not going back to Carl Reiner as a solo act anymore. I don't think Though we
Jason: should. The Ion stories were pretty good, I just re read Ion. Yeah, they were,
Stephen: I don't think we're ever gonna get a John Stewart book that's gonna last more than about 10 issues because that just seems to be the case.
Guy Gardner is the, the solo of the Lead Green Lanter book could be funny, but is gonna get old real fast. Yeah. And he
Jason: needs to be on the team Gardner does. You know, and, well, I don't, that's it. I don't, so I don't mind the green, I don't mind the green Layer book being a team book. No. Like the, like I said, the last if.
The [00:37:00] last thing I want to see in any Greenlander book is Hal Jordan in a jet. If you show me Hal Jordan in a jet, something's gone very wrong.
Scott: Is that
Stephen: jet thing going to blow up? Is
Scott: he going to crash somewhere?
Jason: He's literally the worst pilot ever. Every time he
Scott: gets on a plane, he crashes. He's left his ring in his locker.
And Sinestro is like,
Stephen: Well, I'm just going to destroy the plane, extract you from it, and, you know, go put your suit
Jason: on. Let's just talk about the number of times we've seen Hal Jordan safely land a plane.
Stephen: Have we ever seen Hal Jordan safely
Jason: land a plane? He's literally, he's like, I'm a pilot. I'm like... You can take
Scott: off, but you can't Well, you know, the test pilot is that you keep crashing these things so that the regular pilot doesn't have to do all that.
The insurance. And you know, if I, if I, you know, if I have a ring that that protects me and I don't leave it in my locker, then I'm the perfect test pilot. 'cause I'm blowing your stuff up left and right. He's a super forgetful test
Jason: pilot. That's what
Stephen: he is. I did like that joke in the first [00:38:00] issue of the, the new series.
Mm-hmm. where he's, he's crashed the pen and he find out he's actually flying in a simulator. I thought, okay, that's kind of funny.
Scott: Well, you know, Hal himself is, it's always been hard luck Hal. Right. If you look at, you know, he's gone through, and I'm going to touch on a Mark Waid book, back when they did the Brave and the Bold miniseries with him and Barry, years in the 90s.
I remember that. And it was, you know, jumping decades. Right. And, you know, Hal stint as a toy salesman. Hal Stent is an insurance salesman. Right, right. You know, as, as a Green Lantern, he's always been formidable. Yes. But as Hal Jordan, you know, he's two days away from being homeless. He's worth all, he's worse off than Peter Parker.
Well, they sort of give up
Jason: on it at some point. Like, at some point they're like, Oh no, he lives on Oa. That works
Scott: out.
Jason: Wait, shouldn't he get paid for being a space cop? Space cops
Scott: should get paid. I'm sorry, if I'm a member of [00:39:00] the Justice League, I should have my own room in either a cave or a satellite or a launch tower.
That's where I'm staying. You know, Bruce is a whole
Jason: justice, man. Yeah, you should live in the hall. Yeah, that's that's where I'm
Stephen: staying Gardner can get himself organized enough to own his own bar and franchise it and Franchise it. Yeah, how Jordan would not be able to do
Scott: this and that's and they touch on that there once again at the end of that Yeah, Hal at the end of this miniseries is, you know, recharging his lantern, you know, all, it's all, it's all great, but he is homeless.
He hasn't held a job. Ferris Air has gone out of business because, because... He keeps crashing their planes, actual planes. So, I mean, it's great that Hal is back. And I love all that. Yeah, I have a great love of his ministers, but Hal is a menace sometimes. Yes.
Jason: And has the Carol Farris thing ever worked out?
No. That's terrible. Like his relationship has
Scott: always been horrible. It's the Mary Jane and Peter Parker. It's what's, what's fun. [00:40:00] Well no, sometimes
Jason: Mary Jane likes Peter Parker. Well that's... Like I've never seen her be like, Oh
Scott: Hal, I'm happy you're here. when she had her Star Sapphire ring, there were many times when she was very happy, but then in New 52, The first issue after House jumped across from one building to another to beat up a film producer.
She, you know, they're going to dinner. She thinks he's going to ask her to marry him. And he's actually asking her to sign, co sign on a loan for a car. They wrote that in there. That was great. You know, that was great. She threw wine on his face. They're, you know, he's out of there. You know, I know that's part, what does he need a car for?
He's green Lander. Yes. That's same thing with
Jason: like, can't you just make your own car, can't you be like, and now we're gonna have a Maserati
Scott: dudes. If I had a green lander ring, I wouldn't own a car first off. And I don't need gas. I don't need an auto insurance policy. You don't really need anything. I mean, I, I can fly in visibly, whatever, if I'm trying to hide my secret identity.
I'm zippity doo don everywhere like that, that's You know, [00:41:00] I'm not laying out dime one to take the family on vacation. We'll fly over, we'll fly over to Europe, and y'all just have to vomit in the green sphere, and I'll leave grill work on the bottom so it'll seep out, but we're gonna get you there. See, at least you thought through these things.
I've been waiting for a ring for forty fucking years. I'm sorry, it's a fall out of the sky. That's you
Stephen: know. Now you get a bleep. Now you get a bleep. Actually, no, you know what I said? I don't think having Guy Gardner have his own book, as Green Lantern, would be a good idea. No, you know what? I take that back.
If you can convince Howard Chaykin to come and write and draw it, I will do that. Because he does a two issue prestige format. Story. Guy Gardner collateral damage. That was a lot of fun.
Scott: It was because you turned Gnord into a threat. Yeah,
Stephen: and Chaykin writes really good.
Jason: I think, I think that it should be a Guy Gardner cooking show book.
[00:42:00] Have you seen The Bear? No. Okay, so The Bear on, I think it's FX on Hulu now, I think. Anyway, so it's about this chef that takes over a diner kind of place. It's a whole cooking show. It's pretty interesting. Guy Gardner celebrity chef. Because he's had a restaurant. Yeah, that's pretty true. And I think his temperament is exactly the same as the Kitchen Nightmares guy,
Stephen: Did you this, okay, well, he's, this
Scott: is... What's the Kitchen, oh, this is gonna kill me. What's Kitchen Nightmares guy? Okay, yeah. Oh my gosh, the chef. The loud chef, the British guy. Oh, oh. Gordon Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay,
Jason: yes. Make Guy Gardner the Gordon Ramsey of the DC Universe.
Stephen: Make Gordon Ramsey Green
Jason: Lantern.
Both of those would work. They're the same character.
Stephen: At the time that this came out, we also had Green Lantern Corps, which was written by Tomasi? Yes, thank you, Peter Tomasi. Well,
Jason: so that's what they did after this. That was after this. So they split [00:43:00] the books. And you had Green Lantern, which was Hal's book, and Kor, which was all the Kor people they reintroduced.
And that's how you still got to see Kyle and these other guys do their thing. Did you,
Scott: did you follow that one as well? I did because it was interesting when Kyle and Guy became honor guards on Oa. Yeah. And they were, it was the Riggs and Martok pairing that they used to compare that to. And that was, that was a, that was a good time as well.
It just, there were some times where. You'd put John in there with him and it got old for a little bit. John was always the... I didn't mind some of his solo... I saw those stories, but like you, I don't know if he could carry a book for more than about 10 issues because that mosaic didn't really go. No, it was terrible.
Interesting idea, but just not,
Jason: they needed somebody to be Joe Pesci. They had Briggs and Martaw. They needed somebody to be Leo Goetz. That'd be Nort. Leo
Scott: Goetz. It, it just, it just also sometimes the [00:44:00] art was so inconsistent between what you're getting over here. 'cause you had Im Reyes over here. Oh, so much, much better.
And, and then you had this other one. Yeah. I forget who was drawing Dick Gleason, somebody Jabi, I don't know Patrick Gleason. Yes. He, he was doing something which was, I'm really like to, but yeah, it is fine. But when I contrast the two now, but. During that time frame, Green Lantern and both of them were very high on my reading list.
You know, when that came out, that, we were talking about this at the time, this was one of the top sells. That was, you know, I grabbed those books first. And, you know, I knew which weeks those were hitting. And Dave Gibbons also tried it. Yeah, he did, he did that. And
Stephen: Cause they had that character that turns out it's Sinestro's daughter, isn't it?
Yes, he created, you know. And I liked that. And the Daxmite. Yeah. So for that was kind of didn't help how Jordan's case in my eyes because the Green Lantern book again was more about the, what's the universe, what's the universe. Green Lantern Corps is actually the, [00:45:00] the, as you say, the police procedural. But
Jason: that was my favorite time for Green Lantern Corps and I think that's what they're going to do with the.
The TV
Scott: show. I hope so. I mean, the, during that, it's that era of like about 2004 to, yeah, about 2000 right before New 52 now toward the end of Green Lantern run. And that one before New 50 had the war of the lanterns where, you know, oh gosh. Yeah. That's you know, everyone's got a different color ring and you know, estro, they have, you know, they get stuck telling the Estro Green Lantern story, which was fine in new 52.
That was, you hadn't done that before. When you're touching on. Why he hates Hal so much. You know, look at this schmuck. I'm having to power his ring. I still go to the end of Johns run on that. And I've said this to you, I know, many times, Stephen. Where Hal and them are wrapping things up and Hal looks at Sinestro and goes, Have we ever been friends?
And Sinestro's like, [00:46:00] that's the sad part, Hal. We're always, we've always been friends. And that just always... Gave me a chill. That, yeah. And there was something about where they, those two understood each other. Yes. The thing about Kyle and I keep meaning to bring this on, I don't know if it's Mark way that said this or Grant Morrison, when they were doing the relaunch of the justice league, you know, they enjoyed Wally and Kyle together because they were like, Hey, we've made it to the Beatles.
This is great. But there was always this, There's always an extra sadness to Kyle because he knew that when he showed up, people were always wanting to howl. Yeah. You know, he, he, he, he earned his place, there was respect, but, and, and Wally kind of went through that early on with the Mike Barron run where people would pat him on the head and tell him stories about Barry and it's like, yeah, but this was a different, you know, that's like, we expected you to be Flash.
You over here. [00:47:00] You know one time Hal did this, have you ever, did you ever read a book that Hal did this, did that? And then, you know, Kyle had to live and exceed those expectations. And, and I'm glad they never played it so hard where he's like in his room kicking his, his shoes around going, I'm just not Hal.
I mean, cause there was a point in time when he's like, oh, the other guy. Yeah, I didn't go, I didn't go crazy and turn bad. So here's my, but it was very much, I don't know if it was Morrison or Wade where it's like, every time he shows up to a fighter, when it's all said and done, they're all going, is he as good as Hal?
Is this going to be, is this going to be a thing? Cause Hal
Stephen: energizes the team. I mean, that's, you know, it's the, the way that all the different characters play off of him. You
Scott: know. Well, John's touched on that a little bit in the Flash Rebirth run, where Barry is, you know, back and he's narrating and he and Hal are meeting.
He's like, you know, I never liked Hal. He always laughed incessantly when [00:48:00] the JLA was overpowering, you know, overmatched and looked at Wonder Woman too long until I heard him say the word perp. Then it all straight, you know, that, that's right. Other than Hard Luck Hal, that's the Hal that I see is... That was
Stephen: my favorite bit.
Flash Rebirth, actually, that, that line. I thought that was great. Oh, he's a cop. Oh, okay. I can
Scott: relate to him. You're a screw up, but you're still a cop. I can talk to you. Yes. Yeah.
Jason: I, so, I loved Green Lantern Rebirth. I didn't love Flash Rebirth. I think the, the, the problem that I had with the Flash one was that Flash Rebirth was the story of the return of Barry Allen, but it wasn't the Wally West hero story.
And I liked, I liked this one because, I liked Green Lantern Rebirth because it took this Green Lantern that I really liked, still let him be a hero, reestablish Hal Jordan as kind of the main Green Lantern, but it didn't diminish the [00:49:00] guy that was there before. And I think they missed the mark on the Flash one a little bit.
Well, they didn't know what to do with Wally after that. They didn't know. They never, they never figured out what to do with
Scott: Wally after that. Because there wasn't a Flash core. There was a Green Lantern core. So you could go, but there was never, you know. It was a Flash family. Flash family, but, but you know, there was never a, I'm a member of the Flash core, so I could do Flash core over here and have, you know, Johnny Quick, Max Mercury, and Impulse.
Yes, it was. You're either going to have a book called Flash and Wally West, or Flash and Barry Allen. It's sort of the
Jason: problem right now. They switch off. So right now the Flash is a Wally book. And I'm just reading it as long as
Scott: I still can get Wally stories. And also I think with the Flash from 85, 86 on.
Yeah. Kyle showed up much later. Nine days. Yeah, so you had, you had some exposure. Longer exposure to [00:50:00] Wally. And once again, like Kyle, there's a lot of people, more people than not, that Wally was their first Flash. Yeah. And Barry's just that, Barry's that guy that died. And... I got a theory about this. Go
Stephen: ahead.
Okay, I got a theory about this. Because I, I agree with you. Flash Rebirth fell very flat to me. So, cast your minds back to the death of Barry Allen. So, one of the things that you have with Crisis on Infinite Earths is there's all the DC comics that came before that, which, let's be fair, they tend to run quite vanilla.
There's not a lot of edginess, there's not a lot of character, deep character, you know, dissection and all these sorts of stuff. Those, those comics are becoming more sophisticated. Thoughts that really start to occur at the end of the [00:51:00] 80s and into the 90s. Barry Allen missed all of that. So, one thing that we never really had with Barry Allen is any kind of real character deep dive.
Hal Jordan did have that with the Emerald Dawn stuff and the Parallax stuff. Even if you didn't like it. It was adding layers to him as a character. Mike Roll does it with Green Arrow. You know, Jeff Lowe does it to a certain degree with Superman I think. And Frank Miller absolutely does it with Batman.
Okay. I have to
Jason: go revisit that by the way. Yeah. The DC documentary. broke my perspective on Dark Knight Returns. I have to take a look
Stephen: at that, but it's, but nobody had ever done it with Barry because it wasn't the hip thing to do. So in that respect, having Barry Allen, Barry Allen is, I think, was, [00:52:00] was more valuable dead.
Jason: I'm still not sure what his character is. Cause he's like, he's like a good guy, he's like the, the super nice guy. He's basically Superman that's super fast. That's
Stephen: the problem is that Wade. He does an extraordinary job with the Flash, because he gives Wally growth. He gives Wally a character. The impulse, Max Mercury, the black Flash it fleshes this out.
It gives it nuances and maturity that had not existed. I mean, the closest thing that Barry Allen got to that was right at the end. With the death of Reverse Flash. And even that, really, it's like all of a sudden, like, Did Barry Allen actually, is this really what Barry Allen would've done? I, it's, I, I tried rereading it recently and was like, This reads more like, you know this book is wrapping up and no one's gonna give a shit, so You can do whatever the hell you like.
Okay, I'll make him do something really horrible, why not? [00:53:00] Mark Waid, then you've got Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, Then you've got Geoff Johns. And it's all, Wally, Wally, Wally, it's so good. And, what does Geoff Johns want? He really wants Barry Allen back, cause Barry Allen was one. That's great, but you didn't stick around to give us the characterization.
There's none of that appears in Flash Rebirth. The most interesting character in Flash Rebirth is Reverse Flash. And, and the scheme of things. Once we get Barry Allen back as the Flash, and especially with New 52, it doesn't matter what his name is. He could have been Wally, he could have been Barry, he
Jason: could have been Dave.
It's true. It doesn't matter. Green Lantern Rebirth starts out pretty gritty. It
Stephen: does, but those characters are clear.
Jason: You know what you're getting. And they clarify who Hal Jordan is with [00:54:00] the battle between the Spectre persona. And the Parallax Persona, because they're all sort of tied up into one entity.
And he's arguing, and he's saying, this is what I'm all about, I'm not going to do this thing. So you get to know who he is because he has this,
Scott: This conflict. I was going to say, part of the Barry comic problem was the CW flash. It's a little later in that line, but you've now got a TV property, and that flash is Barry.
And you've got some executives sitting up there like, Hey, don't we have a book? Some guy looks like this. Who is his name? Barry? Ah, it's Wally. No, no, he's Barry. But it's, nah, he's Barry. So when we get, so when we get... That was way later though, wasn't it? Well, what I'm saying is, it's later in there, but if you look at what happens, we get the rebirth for Flash.
Flashpoint.[00:55:00]
And even Johns will say, he didn't mean for Flashpoint to be launching New 52, they were like, Oh, hey, because it's in that documentary on Max. But they're like, hey since you're doing this, we're going to relaunch the line. Should be fine, right? We're just going to stick with those classic characters.
We're going to do, and Johns is like, okay, I like getting a check. We'll let you write Justice League. Okay. So then when we have the TV show, and we start adding diversity to the cast, Who do we get as Wally West in New 52? He didn't have red hair. No. So then we have this Wally. But Johns really wants Wally West back too.
Because, who's the catalyst between him and Dr. Manhattan? Because everyone's forgotten Wally. Wally's, I mean, Wally's shown up in his kid Flash outfit. Yeah. I think Flash has always suffered from that. Even from the... In the 80 85 where Carrie Bates is riding on it. They have both now. They do, but what do you do with both?
It's [00:56:00] weird. Well, one is like... You have to excuse one off the planet. He's over here riding the Justice... He's running the Justice League, Incarnate, Super... Well, no Barry,
Jason: but now you've got Wally and Kid Flash Wally. Right. So they, they have like the, the, the TV version and
Scott: the, yeah, the original and the new, you're looking at the relaunch.
I'm looking at the relaunch and that's, and that's Wally. So Barry is off running this multi dimensional justice league, which is great. Which is great. Let him go do that. You, you, you got them over there until someone shows up and goes. Yeah, well, we're going way off topic here, but if, if the Ezra Miller flash movie had done what it's supposed to do, Wally would have been hit by a truck and then we would have Barry back that because there, there are execs that are doing that and it's see that looks like Max in those.
I
Stephen: was just going to say, if I was on the fence. Seeing this little promo art of Mike Diodato Jr., [00:57:00] who only gets better with age, and we get to see Bart Allen and Max Mercury. That's
Scott: the whole reason I picked that book up. Oh, I'm
Stephen: totally there. That's why I bought
Scott: Impulse. Yeah. Oh,
Stephen: I love that. That was... Yeah.
That, that's...
Jason: Yeah, it's just a whole reason you pick up, you pick up Flash all the time. You're a Flash reader.
Scott: I am a Flash reader, but but because there, there's, there is something also about running fast. Yeah. There's something, you know, there's, there's something about being able to vibrate between walls and time travel and all that.
It's a great character. But like any of our favorites, when it's done right, it's great. The problem is when it's done bad, it's really bad. It's not mediocre. No, no, no. It's, it gets, it gets to be really, I mean, I actually enjoy more of the Carrie Bates flash stuff. 'cause at least it's consistent. Right. It's boring.
And you're right. When he snapped, you know, verse flash his neck. But then it was, oh, it was magic. So it wasn't, that didn't really happen. And that was [00:58:00] in, that was in the eighties thing. Yeah. So we've hit,
Jason: we've hit two rebirths. Yeah. In this episode we've got, we've got Green Lantern Rebirth. And, and Flash Rebirth.
Excellent. So I can close with this story about my Flash t shirt. So, I go to this I go to this thing, and I'm waiting for doors to open at this this concert that I'm going to. And I'm wearing my Flash t shirt, and there's another guy over there wearing the same Flash t shirt, and I said, Oh, we're in the club.
He goes, Yeah, I'm a pretty big guy, and he's a pretty big guy. He goes, What, the Slow Flash Club? And I was like, Yeah, that's perfect. There you go. That is my club, the Slow Flash Club.
Scott: GoTurbo. That's good. Well, yes. I am, I am wearing... Is that Darwin? That's a pretty cool...
Stephen: That is Darwin. That is why I bought the shirt.
It's a very nice shirt. This is Darwin Cook. The late, the great
Jason: Darwin Cook. For those of you listening, since you can't see Stephen's wearing a Flash t shirt with very [00:59:00] nice artwork. Graffiti designs. Ah, anyways. There you go. Till next time. Till next
Scott: time. Yes.
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