Tuesday Musings
Oh God, it's Tuesday again. My bete noir. My weekly nemesis. My LEAST favorite day of the week. And to top it all off, my Sweet Babboo is somewhere in deepest darkest Iowa, attending yet another Bridgestone/Bandag conference...thing.
Dagnabit!
So instead, I'm going to worry about the Guardians again. It's like a toothache, nagging and irritating, and I just can't leave it alone. What on earth is going to become of the Guardians after the whole "War of the Green Lanterns" kerfuffle? How can they possibly just pick up and go on as they always have? They keep getting rescued...by Hal, by John and Guy and Kyle and Kilowog and Salaak and all the rest of the Lanterns...and they Never Seem To Learn A Thing from the experience. I'm not even sure if they even bothered to say thank you after the LAST time that the Lanterns pulled their tiny blue butts out of the fire.
The problem with the Guardians is that they are immortal...and that they have been at the job of Guarding the Universe for a Very Very long time. The problem with age is that you have a tendency to grow to rigid, and too set in your ways. It really IS hard to teach an old dog new tricks. The Guardians keep making mistake after mistake, and they NEVER seem to learn a thing from the experience, with the exception of Ganthet, and possibly Sayd. Heck, even Scar, evil though she was, was willing to do something different.
Geoff Johns latest riff on the Green Lantern Legend, seems to be bringing in Krona as a somewhat sympathetic creature. In the past he's always been portrayed as being an utter villain...although I can't really see that being curious and wanting to know the origin of the Universe is THAT big of a sin. We're always trying to learn those very same questions, it seems. And the Guardians have their own peccadillos that they are trying to cover up, and each crisis seems to let more light into their forbidden closet full of dark and dangerous secrets.
Now it turns out that Krona was inadvertently responsible for the Manhunters wiping out Sector 666...but hey, at least he was sorry about it, which apparently is more than the Guardians felt. He's also the one who discovered all those nifty Green Lanterny sort of things...not that he's ever been given any credit for it.
I went back last night and re-read all of my new Green Lantern:Emerald Warrior books, and it's repeated a couple of times, that Guy is highly suspicious over the fact that the Guardians let him go gallivanting out in the uncharted sectors without any sort of resistance, other than sending Arisia and Kilowog with him. Are they up to something? Do they have a different agenda? Is the fact that there are fewer and fewer of them after each Crossover ever going to sink in?
Or will they finally be replaced with the New New New Guardians? New Guardians have been presented before...in fact several times, and it's never really stuck. However, if they are going to idiots then SOMEbody has to pick up the slack. I'm sure that Sinestro is more than willing to volunteer to run things.
Which is why I'm so glad that Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps are coming out tomorrow. And why I'm so pissed that Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors is NOT.
Dammit, I love comics.
posted by SallyP @ 12:04 PM
7 Comments:
"inadvertently responsible"?
He was directly responsible for it, deliberately changing their programming to massacre Sector 666 "To prove there are flaws in an emotionless police force."
He gets no sympathy from me, I'm afraid.
He DID change their programming, but I got the impression that he didn't really know WHAT was going to happen. I don't think that he calculated on their wiping out an entire sector.
But it did happen, and he IS responsible. The difference between Krona and the Guardians is that he feels some twinges of remorse, and they don't.
I believe your interpretation of Krona's intentions is more literal. However, I have to agree with Gary as far as what is supposed to be interpreted.
Regardless, your post was more about the Guardians and their future after this "event".
A paradigm shift is likely coming, but a change in the Guardians' perspective is unlikely (in the long term). We can look at these characters as outsiders and say to ourselves what would be "best" but if everyone in these stories (or real life for that matter) acted in such a way that was "best" for everyone, we'd lack any drama and thus become utterly bored as readers.
What writers can do is engage characters with different perspectives that believe each one is doing what is "best". That's why characters like Sinestro have been working out so well. I LOVE his portrayal since Rebirth because he isn't really a "bad" guy - just one that has a method that does not synch with our heroes.
Likewise, the Guardians aren't "bad" - they just have a different perspective on what they think is the right way of going about things. Sure, to you and me they may be stupid, but who's book are we reading? It sure isn't Herupa's. It's the story of the Green Lanterns so naturally, we are conditioned to take their side in these things. They are written to speak to our common beliefs and motives.
The Guardians however are written to be "others". They express a viewpoint that does not match our own, but not one that drums up images of "evil".
The disagreement between these viewpoints, but common goal to protect the universe is a large part of what drives the GL mythos going back decades. And it more resembles the kind of drama people can relate to.
If the Guardians suddenly "came to their senses" and were perfectly aligned with their soldiers, we'd easily find ourselves back in the Silver Age with Hal being a loyal and dedicated obedient of theirs and a random mad scientist to fight each month.
I agree with you Todd...to a certain degree. I certainly don't think that the Guardians are evil by any stretch of the imagination...in fact their whole raison de'etre seems to be FIGHTING evil.
But they are rigid and inflexible in their thinking, and I'm afraid that they are finally going to get a serious spanking.
I didn't mean to say that you felt the Guardians were evil. I hope that's not how the above comment was interpreted.
And I agree that they need and will receive a much-needed spanking. It'll be a cathartic release for us readers. :)
I just believe that any status quo change in their strained relationship with Hal (and by extension, the entire GL Corps) will be either minor, short-lived, or non-existent as it is an integral element of why the GL story has worked for decades.
(Oh, and I should also add that my comment about the Silver Age stories wasn't an attack on those old stories. I love them and own all of the Showcase books as well as a number of back issues. I just read them in a different light than I do today's. And yes, there was an element of the Hal vs. the Guardians concept back in the 60's, but the cool thing about comics that last as long as this one is that those concepts evolve over time. Probably a discussion for another day. ...I really need to get back into blogging on my own...)
On Krona as an okay guy who's just a little too curious - sure I buy that for the origin story (his one, I mean, not the universe's), but then, he did try to destroy the universe on a number of occasions since then. And yes, most of the time he was actually trying to find stuff out even then, but that just means he's not really a very good scientist, especially for a really powerful and wise immortal guy. Doesn't he know he could just ask some angels, or the Spectre, or the Endless, or a bunch of other entities who've been around pretty much since the start, without the whole risking the universe aspect of it all? That'd at least make a nice starting point dagnabbit. Why are all the scientific geniuses of the DCU really a lil thick?
Anyhoo, sadly, I'm way behind on my GL reading, so it'll be a while before I get to Johns' reinterpretations (I'm sure it'll be pretty kewl - and like Todd, I've been loving his Sinestro). Thanks for keeping us slackers in the loop, Sally :)
My pleasure.
Post a Comment
<< Home