Guy Gardner, the DCU's Shitkicker

This as you all know, is the cover to Guy Gardner's first appearance in Green Lantern. Frankly I think that it sums up his character rather neatly...especially when you consider, that at this point in time, Guy was NOT the ballbusting, wise-cracking, Jordan-torturning and all-around fun guy that we all know and love. No, he was a rather nice young gym teacher from Baltimore, who was apparently just as qualified to be a Green Lantern as Hal Jordan, but happened to live farther away when Abin Sur crashed on Earth. At the time I believe this was a one shot kind of story, the writer and editors certainly had no idea what they were unleashing upon the world. And yet somehow, all of Guy's attitude is magnificently displayed in that cover. Astride Hal Jordan's recumbant form, evil grin on his face, and No mask because Guy Gardner doesn't NEED a mask dammit!

Which brings me to another point. There is a great interview of Geoff Johns at Newsarama, in which he discusses Green Lanterns and such. He even stands up for Guy, saying that Superboy Prime would NEVER escape on Guy's watch, 'cause Guy is just too cool, or words to that effect. He also apologized for the lateness of the books and how they were working to get them back on schedule. This of course led to a great deal of frenzied speculation on the message boards, with various opinions being aired. While I would love to have Green Lantern on a regular monthly schedule, and get rather cranky when it isn't in, I would on the other hand, prefer to keep Mr. Johns and Ivan Reis as a team and just suck it up because they are so
damned GOOD! On the other hand, I can understand the disappointment of going into the comic book store and not getting what you expect...which is an issue of Green Lantern. Therefore, I have come up with what I consider to be a reasonable solution. I don't necessarily want fill-in issues by a different writer or artist, because that can alter the flow of the story. What I would like to see instead, are perhaps reprints of some of the best of the old stories as a filler. A lot of the old stories are either too expensive or too difficult to find, wouldn't it be nice to have Guy's origin story, or Hal's or John's, or even Kyle's, maybe with a short original story at the end, like the origins in 52? How about Katma Tui's first appearance, or Kilowog's or Salakk's? DC already has the stories, I don't think that it would be too difficult to reprint them whenever the regular book is running late. Any thoughts?