The Moment I realized that John Stewart was...Interesting

No, it wasn't in Mosaic, although that certainly helped me realize that John is a remarkably cool character. This moment came a little bit earlier, back in the days when Gerard Jones was writing the Green Lantern book, when Hal was juuuuust coming under the influence of Parallax, and Guy Gardner was still just a smartass

This was always one of my favorite little bits of characterization. In a single page, we learned that Guy was feeling a bit put-upon, that John liked both Streisand AND Bobby Short, not to mention coffee, and that Hal Jordan was a bit full of himself. This was back in the days when the Guardians were recreating the Corps, and had their hands full with the whole Mosaic. John of course, ended up taking care of the Mosaic, a truely fabulous series, that was cancelled for NO GOOD REASON, while Hal ended up taking on the recruitment duties, and Guy ended up taking care of Earth. Much to his surprise, by the way, he was pretty sure that either Hal or John would end up with that little plum.

Anyway. It was a good story. Lots of things happened, their personalities were fleshed out a bit more, and it didn't take twelve issues to cover roughly twenty minutes worth of plot. There was even a hint of...dare I say it...cameraderie between the boys. Hal was pretty dumbfounded when he found out that Guy had Earth, but he took it pretty well, all things considered. Guy was even considerate enough not to gloat...much.

All this sweetness and light made it all the more reprehensible when Hal decided to take Earth BACK from Guy in issue #25, but I blame that on Parallax. Thank goodness for Parallax...otherwise I'd STILL be pissed at Hal.

I'd rather like to be reading about Hal right now, but with Labor Day and all, the new books won't be coming in until tomorrow, so I have to wait.

*sigh*

But it will be worth it.

But I was actually talking about John, when...as usual...Hal and Guy hijacked the post. Up until this point, I had considered John to be rather on the dull side. He was an interesting contrast to Hal when he first made his appearance, but after Katma's death, he disappeared into the background for me. But with this particular issue, he suddenly started to be interesting again, and that was only continued in the Mosaic series. Then of course, Mosaic was cancelled, Kyle came in, and John again began to fade into the background. Then they crippled him, and had him fail to save Xanshi, and all that dead sister stuff. Thank goodness he's back in the books again, actually doing things and being competent and such. He's making quite a splash in Trinity as well as showing up in Final Crises and in Justice League, plus we have all the Blackest Night stuff to look forward to.

Wow. I actually ended up talking about John after all.