If I made a team of Green Green Lanterns!

This blog post and the eight companion pieces that will follow will be about which characters I would select if I were to make a team of Green Lanterns based on a strong connection with the colour green, be it skin colour, outfits, hair colour, I suppose even things like the energy they fire etc. I will be working on a similar train of thought for the other Lantern teams, and of course I will have a twin for each team, the twin being a serious version based on the traits the rings represent. Without further ado here's the Green Green Lanterns!

The Green Ranger AKA the one who turned evil and the same actor came back as the White Ranger!

Ho ho ho Green Giant!




Elphaba Thropp, more commonly referred to as the Wicked Witch of Oz, although she wasn't as bad as she was made out to be.






Piccolo who in the Dragonball Z films was AKA Big Green!

She Hulk AKA Shulk or Shulkie!

Fear his green cape, Dr. Doom or outside evil Doctor Associations, Victor Von Doom!

Sailor Jupiter, the earth powered Sailor Senshi!



The wise and venerable Master Yoda!



Link, here to save you from Ganon!


Gon Freecs, the chirpy hunter!

Over to you Norman!


Thanks Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: Green Green Lanterns!

How Green Lanterns can overcome their weakness of yellow

Before Geoff Johns made an interesting use of why the Green Lanterns were weak against yellow, it seemed to me quite a silly weakness, laughable even. The original comics only said it was a "necessary impurity" and left the matter there. In this blog entry I will be outlining how the Green Lantern Hal Jordan overcame this weakness in the early comics.

DC Showcase Presents (Issue 22) Green Lantern: Stopping a yellow car: In the first adventure of Green Lantern way back in the '60s, before Green Lantern issue 1, a group of evil doers who assembled some sort of radiation gun were challenged by Hal Jordan. Coincidentally the evil doers had a yellow lamp in their apartment base. Excuse my Geordie pun: he was lamped.

When Hal recovered he chased after the fleeing ruffians who were escaping in a yellow car. The wheels however were black so Hal turned his emerald beams into ice picks which deflated the wheels. The criminals tried to run away but Hal caught them with beams shaped as lassos.

A similar thing happens in Showcase Presents (Issue 24). A rollercoaster car gets derailed, sending its passengers flying in the air. Hal wills spring constructs in place under the crashing car which alongside the passengers is saved.



In a second story of Showcase Presents (Issue 22), Green Lantern Hal Jordan encountered a yellow missile headed towards Coast City. Hal realises at the last minute (or to quote the issue "with split seconds to go") that the missile has a red tip. Hal traps the red tip and thus the whole missile in a green net he creates. The city, or possibly just a building or two (the exact potential of destruction wasn't stated) is saved. Hooray.

DC Showcase Presents (Issue 23) Green Lantern: The second Green Lantern adventure before his own comic featured Hal Jordan fighting a yellow pterodactyl. Forgetting the inability of his ring to work against yellow things Hal attempts to fire an emerald beam at the creature. This doesn't work so he tries to punch it on the nose to no avail. Hal then uses his Green Lantern ring to summon a giant hawk construct. He uses the hawk to lure the pterodactyl and its mates (friends to Americans reading this) into a cave which he seals off.

Green Lantern Issue 1: In the first proper Green Lantern issue, Hal has to fight a man in a yellow outfit. How does he beat him though? He uses his ring to create a small green arm which grabs ropes that bind his foe.

Green Lantern Issue 2: When good explanation is companion to the use of the yellow weakness, a Green Lantern story can seem cool and clever. In Green Lantern issue 2, Hal fights a man wielding yellow thunderbolts. In their first encounter Hal turns invisible so his foe won't know where to aim. Using this confusion "Green Lantern casts a power lasso over him" (quoted from the issue).

Unfortunately Hal notices his friend Telle-Teg, (who he was protecting from the man) was hurt. The man with the bolts AKA The Destroyer bolted (excuse my pun again non-British readers, it means ran away). When Hal caught up with The Destroyer, how did he then save the day? To quote from the issue once more: "From the power beam emerges a charging football player of huge bulk, to strike The Destroyer from behind before he can loose a bolt!"

Green Lantern Issue 3: Members of the Quardian people from the anti-matter universe of Qward stole Hal Jordan's Green Lantern Power Lamp. Each Green Lantern has a Power Lamp they must use to charge their rings when they have been in use for 24 hours, or need to be charged regardless after 24 hours, the continuity on this varies.


The Quardians put Hal's Power Lamp in a yellow dome. Hal spots a pin hole in the dome structure and sends a beam of his power through the hole transforming it into a hammer construct within, smashing the dome open. Fortunately for him, the Quardians hadn't thought far ahead enough to make sure the dome was yellow inside.

Green Lantern Issue 7: Hal Jordan allowed himself to be captured by Sinestro and a bunch of Quardians in exchange for the safety of the lives of 100,000 people. He was imprisoned in a yellow bubble until a clock hit a certain time. His captors calculated his ring would run out of power at that time so they released him.

Hal used his power to strike and pin down Sinestro. He swept the Quardians away with a green tidal wave. How did Hal screw up the calculations of the Quardians? To quote him in his explanation to Sinestro: "...My ring could not pierce your yellow bubble, but I discovered one thing that could get out-- the subparticles of carbon dioxide from my own breath! And what I did was use my green beam... To propel the invisible Co2 particles out of the bubble at the clock..."

Hal tells Sinestro his inner monologue before he was freed: "They don't suspect what I'm up to! But if I'm right, these particles I'm shooting at the clock will speed up its atomic mechanism-- and make it run fast!" He concludes his explanation to Sinestro: "So you see I still have plenty of power in my ring!"

Green Lantern Issue 9: This time Sinestro traps Hal Jordan in a cage construct created from his yellow lantern ring. I think this is the first example in a Green Lantern comic of the weakness of yellow being overcome due to manipulation of the language from the verbal command of how a construct is created. To put it simply: Sinestro used the cage command on the name Green Lantern, not Hal Jordan. Hal takes off his Green Lantern ring and outfit, thus can escape the cage.

Finally over to Norman Osborn for his approval.



Thank you Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: the colour yellow.

Geek references in my first novella

Usually I don't mention my writing in my blog unless it deals with something geeky, even if it is only the context not the content that was geeky as was the case with my first blog entry, the Prometheus Bound post. True to my word this is about something geeky! In this case it is the geek influences and references in my first novella: Culiref. The novella isn't published but I completed it way back in 2007, the best year I have ever lived. My ex has the original handwritten copy of the novella but I have typed backups so she won't be stealing my work! Anyway my first novella was only geeky in terms of the inspirations behind it, something I didn't think much of at the time but I didn't have this blog then!

Without further ado here are those influences and references behind my first novella.

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Without this manga I might not have chosen the Seven Sins as the adversaries of my first novella Culiref.

These are Arakawa's seven sins not mine. Mine Wear robes.

2. Harry Potter: I completed my first novella when I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It has the same tone of increasing grimness towards the end, just before the protagonists save the day.

3. Naruto: The techniques under the umbrella of what I call Zodiac magic in the novella is very similar to the ninja magic used in the Naruto manga. Also my second protagonist of the novella is called Shikashinzo which means 'deer heart'. The shika part of the word is inspired by the Naruto character Shikamaru.

4. Dragonball: I clearly remember having Majin Buu in mind when I was writing the part of the novella when Sloth curls into an inpenetrable ball. The Culirefian Sasha was directly inspired in physique and temprament by the warrior in the Bardock tv special called Fasha, who some Dragonball fans including myself argue it is possible was Goku's biological mother. The muscle expansion of Hesus when he snaps is a homage to Trunks in the Cell saga, he isn't obviously bulky to start with then bulks up when he transforms into Ascended Super Saiyan.

5.The Avengers: The battle cry of the Culirefians "Culirefians Unite!" was a very conscious mirror to the Avenger's battle cry "Avengers Assemble!"

No I really couldn't resist. However this version of Norman Osborn isn't the same as my regular meme guest. I have no intention of changing my guest from Osborn.

6. His Dark Materials: The idea of an evil angel pretending to be a god.

And now over to Norman!

Thank you Geordie Green Lantern. I have never approved of Avengers, Dark or regular. Interesting to see an alternative version of me up there. He seems to be wearing some sort of armor. Wonder how he got that. Anyway, today I approve of geeky inspirations in writing.

Love of Lovecraft

In order to fully understand one of the new gods in my novella mythology I had to read a little HP Lovecraft. Admittedly I didn't enjoy "The case of Charles Dexter Ward" which I found dry and dull. The overwhelming brilliance of the other stuff I read in "The Thing on the Doorstep and other stories" collection made me love his work. Here's a rundown of stories I read in that collection.

1. The Temple: This short story was great because it explored nautical madness and was very implicit about the horror that lay within.

2. Beyond the wall of sleep: The appeal of this short story for me came from its mixture of human repulsiveness and cosmic horror.

3. The Tomb: I liked this story because it dealt with how obsession can make one monstrous.

4. The White Ship: This was a very good story due to its interesting mix of gorgeous fantasy and a sense of tragic loss at the end.

5. The Quest of Iranon: This was probably my favourite story of the anthology. It combined fantasy, a naval journey but a sense of doom and foreboding.

6. The Music of Erich Zann: I enjoyed this one, it was quite disturbing. It reminded me of a description of the manga Adolf where a Jew who played a violin next to a Nazi officer was shot by the Nazi (called Adolf). Subsequently Adolf was haunted by the violin music in regular nightmares of guilt. OK Erich Zann was dealing with a sense of demonic in music rather than nightmares in music.

7. Under the Pyramids: Beautifully grotesque and macabre in the night time parts but interestingly historical in the daytime parts.

8. Pickman's model: Oddly I didn't mind the genealogical parts despite usually being bored by that kind of thing. The grotesqueness of the art and the hellishness was a good reflection of Pickman's trafficking with demonic forces.

9. At the Mountains of Madness: I skimmed or skipped the parts concerning geological detail because I have no interest in geology. Overall I loved this story though. It was especially interesting in my opinion due to the excellent explanation of the different abomination races/ sets of gods.

Now for our regular guest speaker/ proclaimer of approvals: Norman Osborn!

Thank you Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: Eldritch Abominations.

DC top 3 reads of 2010

In the chronological order I read them:

1. Rage of the Red lanterns: it was good to experience the pre-Blackest Night war from the eyes of the corps who were neither green or yellow. This was my first taste of the other corps, the second important entry for me into the Geoff Johns rebooting of the Green Lantern mythos, the first being Green Lantern Rebirth.

2. Agent Orange: Pretty much the same as above but this time from a corps with only one member, Larfleeze the avatar of greed.

3. Blackest Night: tales of the corps volume 1: Same as the two descriptions above but with a difference. This great volume focuses on the origin stories of several corps leaders.

Over to you Norman Osborn!

My thanks Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of Geoff Johns.

Marvel top 3 reads of 2010

In no particular order:

1. Old Man Logan: The last time I was this impressed with a story centering on Wolverine was Kubert and Millar's "Origin". Even some of the better comics aside from these can be essentially Logan facing a torrent of enemies which he will proceed to take down until he is the only one left. This isn't a bad thing, it's true to his character. Old Man Logan goes beyond all that and focuses on a what if whereby Wolverine was the only surviving superhero living in a world of supervillains locked in a power struggle to become the supreme ruler of the world. It is what Marvel would call a "what if story" and DC would call an "Elseworlds tale". This adds additional appeal for me.

2. Planet Hulk and World War Hulk: Usually what I expect from the Hulk is very pulpy stuff, the kind of thing the layman thinks of when someone mentions comics. Typically of the Hulk I would expect him to smash property and public spaces up, war with the military complex and now and again fight with cosmic entities like The Silver Surfer and Thor. Greg Pak changed my perceptions a little and introduced me to a side of the Hulk I had never seen previously. This Hulk was smart, noble, courageous, loyal and just. He was a betrayed hero who through new shared battle experiences and the bond of captivity made new allies to fight alongside.

3. Spiderman: New Ways to Die: Before this it had been years since I had found a solo Spiderman title or story which I was able to really get into and enjoy. It reminded me of the united Spiderman and Venom, as seen in the Spiderman game for the Playstation, except this time it was a conflict of Spiderman and Anti-Venom against Venom. The twist being the former host of venom being the new host of anti-venom.

Now, over to Norman Osborn.

Thank you Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: Warrior Hulk and the new and improved more psychotic Venom.

Preacher

This completed comic series is good in so many different ways: religious themes, plot, characterization, collected human emotions, comedy, the wild west, the deep south and so much more.

It is both cosmic and small town at the same time. We get large scale cosmic conflict between potent entities but we also get squabbles on the local level in rural communities and inter-family disputes and rivalries.

The broad, literary inclusion of many elements which makes this series so great is enriched by a strong history, which although is partly fictional (in that the characters don't exist in real life), it encompasses a broad scale of time which adds further depth to the already strong narrative.

The billions of years of cosmic activity, the millions of years of Earth forming and growing, the thousands of years of humans surviving, the millenia of religious struggle and development, the centuries of social change, upheaval and evolution, the lifetime struggle of a family, the childhood and growing up of a man, the months and weeks searching for the highest being, the hours of desperate frenzied climax, the tender moments with his love.

All these intertwine a great yet finely detailed tapestry of a brilliantly written, detailed, artistic yet gritty and necessarily violent masterpiece.

Norman Osborn, it's your turn to speak, let there be voice brotha!

Thank you Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of the Saint of Killers.