It's Guy Gardner Week!

I haven't been paying much attention to Guy for a while, and I imagine that he's beginning to pout. Hal has such a tendancy to seize the limelight, that I occasionally neglect the rest of the boys.



In case you are new to this particular blog, Guy Gardner is my favorite Green Lantern. He's brave, obnoxious, loud, faithful,rude, boorish,cunning, brash, crude, used-to-be-brain-damaged, obnoxious, inspiring,disdained and admired,crass and obnoxious. Did I mention obnoxious? But in a GOOD way.

He started out as a young and sweet-tempered teacher, who just happened to be the other choice of Abin Sur's ring when it was looking for a replacement Green Lantern. He also served as Hal's back-up, although he was temporarily out of action due to falling off of a cliff, after being hit by a school bus. Then when Hal's ring went kaflooey, he filled in, and was blown up by the faulty battery, thrown into the phantom zone and then tortured by Sinestro just for fun. Hal also ran off with his fiancee and was about to marry her, when she finally noticed (being a psychic Gypsy) that Guy wasn't actually dead. Hal went and rescued Guy, as he had a habit of doing, but he still managed to end up in a coma for several years, until he was awakened by some of the Guardians during the whole Crisis on Infinite Earths kerfuffle.

Guy got a ring, a mission and a whole new attitude. He was mean, cranky, and man-oh-man did he hate Hal Jordan's guts. With a certain amount of good reason, to be sure. He did eventually calm down a bit, but he was still portrayed as prone to childish tantrums, rude outbursts and could always be counted on to rush blindly into trouble.

Frankly, I was enchanted. I started reading about Guy back during the JLI days, of Giffen, DeMatteis and Maguire, and I thought that this incredibly loutish fellow was a welcome relief from all the altuism and sanctimony of the other heroes. Guy was heroic too...in his own fashion. He was pretty damned powerful and efficient too...in his own fashion. And as much as I liked Hal, it was fun seeing him try and cope with all this arrested adolescence.

Eventually, Guy lost his Green Lantern ring, and through his own stubborness managed to get ahold of Sinestro's own yellow ring, and furthermore, use it quite well. Eventually, he lost that ring as well, not to mention an eye, courtesy of Hal as Parallax, and fell into another shorter coma. He woke up, and by golly, if he didn't go out and look for some more powers, finding out that he was the only one who could drink the Waters of the Naba Jungle, and access his Vuldarian DNA, which granted him morphing abilities, enhanced strength and tattoos for some reason.

It's a little convoluted.

He changed his name to Warrior, and went around kicking butt with great aplomb. Then Hal came back from the Dead,and along with Kyle and John, he and Guy kicked some Parallax butt, and lo, the Green Lantern Corps was reborn, and so was Guy. Then in Recharge, he managed to save not only the Corps but just about the entire Universe, and they made him the First in the Honor Guard. So he's finally got his brains back, and a little respect, and he's STILL kicking butt across the Universe.

He was a member of the Justice League for a heck of a long time, he had his own book for several years, and he's been in the Green Lantern books, and the Green Lantern Corps books forever, so Guy has always managed somehow to stay around. Possibly because he must be a hoot and a half to write. Because bless his little heart, he's also funny as all heck. That's fairly rare for a character these days. The more light-hearted heroes have been mostly killed off, such as Blue Beetle and the Elongated Man. Plastic Man is around (I think) but I haven't seen him in a while. They did supposedly kill Guy off for a while, but it didn't take, and he was back, full of piss and vinegar in no time.

So anyway, here is a great picture of Guy from his post-GL/pre-Warrior days.



Shooting a dinosaur. And evil NAZI dinosaur. With evil Nazis, and cults and Warrior Women and stuff.

Let's see Hal top THAT!