Countdown to “But there were at least two female Green Lanterns!”
To which I reply, I KNOW. That is NOT A FLATTERING NUMBER.
Shortpacked! by David Willis
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What about selecting a GIRL SQUIRREL
WITH TITS
sorry, don’t know where that burst of B3ta came from
Idk you did the same thing at DOA.
Willis works lend themselves well to boobage.
What about selecting Squirrel Girl?
…
…
/me starts searching fanfiction.net’s Marvel / DC crossovers…
MONKEY JOE AS A BLACK LANTERN!
Literally my first thought. Glad to see we’re in good company, here!
My first thought as well.
Because giving Squirrel Girl a Green Lantern ring would just slow her down!
I agree, Grace would make an excellent lantern, and she already has super powers. For that matter Scarlett would be a good one also.
That’s the exact Squirrel Girl I was thinking of when she said that.
And now I’m imagining Tedd building something of the sort.
uh oh
But it DID, Amber. IT DID. TWICE. Granted they were both aliens, but still.
And weren’t there TWO different squirrel Green Lanterns?
So that does make the odds even.
A squirrel, a fly, a robot, and a planet.
All male though.
What makes a planet male or female?
Good question. Maybe they just call Mogo a “he” for convenience’s sake? You know what, we need a new word as a gender-neutral, dignified, and singular alternative for “he”, “she”, “it”, and “they”.
Well at least in English we call nature female, and mother earth sometimes? So that’s three female Green Lanterns!
What’s wrong with “they”? It’s served as a gender-neutral singular pronoun since before any of us were born.
And the proposed alternatives (“ey”, “xe”, “ze”, etc.) all have a problem in common: they’re all totally ridiculous sounding.
Those gender neutral alternatives discredit the whole cause. Who would want peace between genders if that means using Xe or Ze? Not only the people who invented those have no clue of how lenguage works but also have not clue of how to speak.
They is perfect, the problem is “IT” cause is seen as derogatory, an insult for not being a person. On the other hand English have “They” and “you” and all the words are gender neutral, so any English speaker complaining about sexist lenguage is an ignorant in my book.
I like the word ignorant, is offensive but accurate, the only thing you have to do is knowung a little more than your victim, and is gender neutral!
“They” is imperfect because it implies the plural, which is preserved in the conjugation of the remaining sentence. If it were okay to say, “they is” instead of, “he/she is,” and not “they are,” then you might have a valid point — but that’s not how gender-neutral “they” is used, and it sounds just as ridiculous to do that as to use a newly coined word.
A “perfect” gender-neutral pronoun would preserve singular/plural discrimination, not be biased towards on gender (i.e. the traditional “he” for he/she), and would sound natural. There is no such word; “they” is just another ridiculous sounding compromise.
When using “They” as a singular, it immediately feels like the person speaking is intentionally hiding gender, rather than specifically referring to someone with a neutral gender. This is all the more apparent because it feels sloppy and inaccurate.
We really do need better gender neutral pronouns, if nothing else than it’s better than assuming one or the other if you don’t know (say, haven’t met or seen the person yet, may have ambiguous name such as Pat, or just when you want to curse at the idiot driver in the other car).
I don’t see any big problems using “they,” but having a dedicated gender-neutral pronoun would be nice.
No, my point is totally valid as I diferentiated They (plural) from It (singular)
And having one word that works for both plural and singular is too complicated, I dont like “YOU” cause is completly impersonal but I admit Its polysemic nature make`s It very usefull.
But anyway stablishing gender neutral words for general speaking is ridiculous, the single fact that someone wanted too “shape lenguage” is ridicuous as well. It would only work in certain closed and monitored comunities, is just plain idealism.
Also falls in the “liberal sensitivities” that Rosarch talked about, so I keep my original conclusion, you should be grateful english lenguage gives you many gender neutral options as It is now.
But there is no need to agree with me, I just want to keep my right to say I told you so, and maybe a little privilege to laugh.
It doesn’t imply that to this native speaker.
Besides, if “they” seems to you like an evasion, then any gender-neutral third-person pronoun will seem that way as long as the “default” is still gendered.
Since English is half loan-words anyway, I like the idea of nicking the Hindi third person pronoun “yah”, which is gender neutral. Still sounds a bit odd, but no odder than most actual English words when you listen to them….
In fast speech it’s hard to differentiate between that and the second person, which is usually reduced to “ya”.
A giant Volcano or a giant chasm near the lower bottom of the centre of the planet?
If your planet has a Florida, then it’s male.
Read the comment box…and realize you just fullfilled his count down in about a minute or so.
Two minutes at the most, certainly. I’m almost surprised it took so long.
Arisia, Katma Tui, Boudicca off the top of my head. So it’s slightly more likely to select a female than a squirrel.
Boodikka. And I think Amber is thinking of -Earth- female Lanterns, as I suspect Mr. Willis is. Also, Laira of Jayd, Soranik Natu, Brik, KT-23, Soranik’s snooty princess partner whose name escapes me at the moment because it’s been a while since I’ve read much of the Corps, two of the four former Lanterns that Kyle worked with to take down the Black Circle were female, the Lantern that slept with Kyle and took his ring to try to be a GL again (and then committed suicide from despair)… so yeah, there have been more female Lanterns than people realize, it’s just that A. we see the males much more often, and B. we don’t always get -told- their genders. For all we know we could’ve seen tons of female Lanterns and just -thought- they were male.
He didn’t restrict it to green rings either, so there’s Bleeze, Indigo 1, Sister Sercy(or whatever her name is, the blue one), Krybb, that one yellow lantern with the dog creatures, and the entire Star Sapphire corps.
You, Zach, are referring to Karu Sil.
And, in an alternate universe, Alexandra DeWitt (Kyle’s girlfriend and the cause of the saying “Girls in Refrigerators”) was also chosen as a Green Lantern. From Earth, at that! So, technically, there IS a female Green Lantern from Earth! Granted, from an alternate dimension, but still. It counts.
Also, if anyone was wondering: Ch’p and Bd’g. Those are the two squirrels I mentioned earlier.
But nobody is following her adventures
There was also the rule 63 world where all the genders were reversed. I think they had a Helen Jordan instead of a Hal. Most of the Zamarons are women too, right? Although that reinforces existing stereotypes that women are obsessed with love. I’d say Soranik Natu and Jade are positive green lanterns, Arisia has been portrayed as a ditz with a crush on Hal. Still though, 2 out of thousands? Women are just as likely to overcome great fear as men.
How many male green lanterns have there been?
In order of importance: Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, Jhon Stweart, Guy Gardner, Killowog and Tomar Re. There is also Mogo who is as important as any of the mentioned, but is not male (or female). There have been the comedy relief characters like Ch’p and G´nort (a squirrell and a dog).
There are theorically thousand of Green Lanterns, but the above are the only ones that have plot relevance and are featured in several issues and are important.
On the female side we have: Katma Tui (deceased), Arisia, Jade, Soranik Natu, Bodikka, Laira,. There are more but those are the stars of the Green Lantern Corps books.
We dont need more Earthling Green Lanterns or more diversity in costumes, we need to increase the quality and diversity of Civil Characters, also diversity is not about making your covers look like the Colors of Beneton, anyone can do that.
I belive if you achieve good storytelling diversity will come by necessity, if you try to impose diversity with cheap moves then that works against you cause people start seeing diversity as correlated with crapy comics. But for example discusion about Miles Morales stoped when people actually readed the comic. Bad news is that comics are actually made to be sold (or to mantain character rights) and not to be readed. And I dont see no company losing money
*cough* Actually? That Alex DeWitt wasn’t real, so she doesn’t count, sadly. She (along with all the other “Lanterns” and Oblivion) was an unconscious ring creation by Kyle (and all of that was pointing to Kyle slowly heading towards the Ion power.)
Adding the other six Lantern Corps does not improve the odds of a woman getting a power ring, it just applies those odds to a wider population.
On the other hand, I did not recall seeing a squirrel with a yellow power ring, or a red one, so the larger sample size definitely puts women ahead of squirrels.
Women can only be Star Sapphires.
You parsed that wrong. The mere existence of female lanterns counters your statement as it stands. What you should’ve typed is “Only women an be Star Sapphires.”
And then I mistype can as an… *facepalm*
Thats cause Star Sapphire leaders are a little sexist, and thats fits with their tradition (after all they were comrades of the Guardians who are also a little fascists). I didnt like their outfits, they were right for 80´s or early 90´s but nowdays “sexually empowered” is less treatening and more of a “fetiche”. Exept for Otakus, they seem to prefer the cute and submissive type, different cultures I guess.
Actually, it totally does. Other than the orange and blues corps, they’re all of comparable size to the green lantern corps, and other than the orange and pink corps they all appear to have roughy the same demographic breakdown between male and female, with the star sapphires being 100% female. The odds of finding a female corps member should go up by approximately 20% by adding in the other corps
No, In fact Mr.Willis is not thinking, he doesnt know anything about Green Lantern nor does Ethan as he said he didnt care about the Gay Alan Scott.
Out of mi mind Katma Tui, Laira, Bodikka, Giolande, Soranik Natu, Arisia and Jade were all IMPORTANT green lanterns, as important as Killowog, Tomar Re and Jhon Stweart (of course the Main Characters have always been Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner, with Guy Gardner evolving from C-List to A-list thanks to JLI). Saying there are only 2 female Green Lanterns is like saying there is only one Batgirl or thinking Tim Drake was the second robin.
We dont need another earth green lantern, less one as ludicros as this one. And if Ethan think this is progress then he is either naive or a fool. The fact that some people are capable of swallow anything if you put pretty words like “diversity” is the reason Republicans think, unfairly, that “Liberals are idiots”.
And dont get me started in Alan Scott (golden age GL) being gay, thats the most ludicrous thing I´ve seen, and If Im seen as a reactionary then fine, people are not right just because they are ofended.
“was not thinking” I dont know if he is thinking right now.
Conversly you are also not right just because something seems ludicrous to you. I don’t really get the fuss about Alan Scott on either end of the spectrum, he was a straight character before, now he’s gay. That doesn’t really change the character on any fundamental level, it doesn’t really change anything. So I don’t really get both the people rejoicing over it nor do i get people such as yourself who think it’s ludicrous. But authors are permitted to change details about characters but this detail is minor it shouldn’t even be a blip on the radar.
Yeah riiiiiight, good on you then. But the whole earth 2 thing is such a ridiculous thing that is bliping all over my radar. If you are able to enjoy It, fine, It wont make It a better decition. Of course Im may be partial but saying that Alan Scott is the same character….. Im sorry, coments like yours make me act like a condesending jerk.
Lets just say I think It has no sense making gay a character that has been straight for 80 years and has two retconed kids, a strong female and one gay character that had a whole subplot in about his sexuality that was actually well writen.
I dont think Alan Scott being gay is ludicrous because Im against gay people in comics. Im against It cause is absurd, ridiculous and ludicrous, a chance to exploit sensationalism and worst, really poor aproach to golden age characters. I know some one might say the Marvel gay weding is also sensatioanlism, but thats mostly because of marketing the comic.
Characters like Northstar and Batwoman doesnt make a huge deal of their sexuality, they dont go screaming Im gay (not anymore at last) but at the same time they keep their identities. The marriage between Northstar and his Boyfriend and the relationship Kate and Maggie share is a celebration of normality. Alan Scott blips hard in most people`s radar cause is a blatant attempt to deal with the diversity issues without actually caring.
All I say is I preffer good story telling before diversity, cause with good story telling not only you would eventually get to try new things but because diversity must come from the form not from just changing a character`s sexuality.
The Alan Scott in Earth Two has never been straight or had kids. You’re thinking of the character who was more or less killed in Flashpoint. A lot of characters were removed from reality in Flashpoint.
Alan Scott’s son, Obsidian, was gay. This has pretty much been a part of his character for what seems like forever. He may not have come out of the closet until the 00s, but when I read stuff with him in the 90s, he was basically gay.
And with the idiocy that is the New 52, both of Alan Scott’s kids, Jade and Obsidian, are in the same limbo as Wally West. Alan Scott being gay in Earth 2 (which is basically just a parallel earth, so really this is as relevant to the main DCU as one man pissing is to the Atlantic Ocean) is more about James Robinson trying to keep Obsidian in comics SOMEHOW
Another thing: Even though there’s no indication in the comics that the original Alan Scott was gay… it’s not like turning Alan Scott into a Mexican female or something, which while awesome, would be a total revamp of the character and violate any suspension of disbelief. It is completely plausible for a character that we thought was straight throughout most of his/her history to turn out to be gay. It happens frequently, moreso now that society is more accepting of it. Even if it was a publicity grab, it’s a reasonable one. Not to mention that there are hundreds of superheroes who are heterosexual white men. We can give up a few of them.
He is the same character and if he is not, it’s not because of the orientation difference. It’ll be because they actually changed his personality as that is what defines a character, a gay man and a straight man can react to the same situation the same way. So again, same character.
Maybe you’re right and it was just a blatant attempt at diversifying, you could just as easilly be wrong and the writers decided to do it of their own volition. Afterall it wasn’t the writers making a fuss about his orientation, it was the readers and the media. Hell according to Robinson, he decided to make the character gay because he had to age the characters so far down Obsidian couldn’t exist and he personally didn’t think it was big deal. So that kind of flies in the face of your opinion if we take that at face value.
Hell the entire point of the Earth 2 comic line is to put new spin on the original versions of characters. So why is everyone fussing about THIS silly little spin? Furthermore, there was nothing poorly written about how the reader found out he was gay, the character was already out. All he did was kiss his boyfriend Sam, which to me is handling his sexuality very well, it’s not like the character screaming “I’m gay.” every other scene it was just very matter of fact.
It only seems on the nose because you weren’t expecting it.
Also Jade (daughter of Alan Scott, back when he still had kids) had a GLC Ring for awhile there.
I miss C’hp. Bd’g, not so much…
This doesn’t make comic book readers sound all that good if this is the case.
Well, remember us comic readers are the same people who phoned in to a hotline to decide whether or not a Robin would live or die.
And they say that otaku are weird…
And some of them do.
If I had to rebut that argument in only a single word, the one I would use is “dakimakura.”
And voted against him.
To be fair, it was the jackass one. And now we’re stuck with Damian, so consider that karma.
At least there was a good Robin or two in between,
…I like Damian.
Yeah, me too, BUT…he is a little schmuck, you gotta admit.
Bat-Cow. That is all.
The Rule 34 hurts my soul.
Definitely two good robins in between. Tim AND Steph.
Steph as Robin was OK.
Steph as Batgirl was AWESOME.
Grrrrr. Stupid mostly successful DC Reboot.
Well, at least there’s Batgirl: Spoiled coming soon on YouTube.
Jason was and is my fav robin, he was a million times more interesting than boring mr perfect drake. And the vote to kill J only one by 72 votes out of close to 30,000. And one guy confessed to voting a few hundred times to kill him.
And some comic readers think Liefeldian art is edgy.
So was Picaso in his day.
Picasso at least learned to draw before…
Le_Gourmet, a 111 year old painting, is better than anything Liefeld has ever done. Whatever anyone feels about cubism, Picasso knew anatomy.
Bad Fresco Jesus is better than anything Liefeld’s ever done.
And now I’m imagining that fresco with tiny pouches all over it.
And pointy feet.
And muscle bulges where no muscles are present in the human body.
Comics in general, particularly Mainstream US Superhero Comics coming out of the big 2, are rife with sexism, racism, and in general come from a very narrow and largely negative perspective on humanity. What do you expect to see in the fandom when the source material goes so far out of its way to alienate anyone outside of its ever narrowing target demographic, and takes a patronizing and derogatory tone even while pandering to them?
It’s long past the point of being a self fulfilling cycle, as the comics themselves tend to drive away decent people, and the dregs left over in the fan pool grow up to become even worse artists and writers and especially editors than those that came before. There are, of course, a few notable exceptions, withing both the creative community and the fan community, but those in charge at DC and Marvel, those with the most control over the general tone and direction of their product lines, are among the worst and most flagrant examples of this pattern, and it poisons all the books and properties under their care.
the point is that nerds are terrible people
Unless it’s a Star Sapphire.
In which case, the likelihood of said power ring outfit being tasteful is zero.
They’ve actually started covering up more. (New Guardians #13 I think has the new Star Sapphire outfit) I’m as surprised as you are.
Unless it’s being designed for GLTAS. In which case they still show cleavage and midriff, but, y’know… less. I think some of them aren’t even midriff-bearing!
I seriously want to see a guy get accepted into the Violet Corps, partially because Johns’ schpiel about “only a woman can fully embody love” (and his concept of what constitutes love, especially a love that only a woman can show, is terrifying), but mostly because I want to see the guy wind up with an absolutely stripperiffic ensemble.
The writers would most likely make him gay then.
and promptly kill him, because you know, ewwwww
Bueno.
…can it be Bueno?
Oh HELL yes.
The closest they’ve come is some guy in Las Vegas with an unrequited crush on a waitress got possessed by the Indigo light entity. He was a creepy stalker jackass.
That issue also had Larfleeze discovering Vegas, which was awesome.
VIOLET. VIOLET light entity. Gah. Mixing up my purples.
I was going to say “…since when is Indigo “purple”? o.O”
And then I googled it.
Most of the “indigos” I’ve seen have definitely been more blue – in fact, a quite lovely shade of it – but apparently “electric indigo” and “deep indigo” are pretty dang purple, as is the HTML version.
Soooo… apparently indigo is “anything you freaking feel like that is somewhere between baby blue and ultraviolet”.
I learned something today. Something kind of annoying, but something.
Yeah, Katma Tui and Boodika were kinda it in the uterus having department. Dunno if Jade should count, she only got a ring after she lost her inborn Lantern powers.
What about that Arisa? The one that was awkwardly underage but then magically aged herself up so Hal wouldn’t think it was so creepy? She’s gotta count for something…maybe?
There was also Arisia. How could anyone forget Arisia?
Because only lions remember Arisa, apparently.
A lion never forgets.
WE ALSO NEVER FORGIVE
What I don’t get is Geoff Johns had a hand in said Arab-American Green Lantern, and he’s half-Lebanese? The hell, Geoff? I know you love your tokenism, but this is too much.
I suspect my half-Mexican/half-Lebanese aunt would find this as sketchy as I do.
The next GL should be someone’s aunt.
I am now imagining Spider Man’s Aunt May with a power ring.
…
YOU are now imagining Spider Man’s Aunt May with a power ring.
Well, she got the Power Cosmic at one point (one of those Assistant Editor Specials but still).
She was called “Golden Oldie”.
At two points, IIRC. The story had a sequel, or a what-if or something.
@Platonix Well played sir…. well played.
Actually, thanks to that one issue of Deadpool, I’m now imagining Blind Al with a power ring.
And I, am picturing Raven with a Violet Lantern power ring….
Now I am picturing Jimmy Olsen with a Yellow Lantern power ring….
…I want this to be canon.
I would SO read that.
Don’t worry Amber…there’ll be a female green lantern. But from Ethan’s theories it seems she will be a one-dimmensional drama queen whining about feelings and that time of the month before any quality writing can come along.
And depending on who’d be writing it, lots of jokes about possibly being a Red Lantern (due to rage and blood) during that time of the month…now I just made myself sad…
don’t forget the obligatory boobs or butt poses or the much more likely, boobs AND butt poses.
In space, nobody can hear your boobs.
That’s not true, there are a lot of female green lanterns.
Of course, instead of wearing normal uniforms, they get either a swimsuit or a ridiculously short skirt.
But I’m sure there is nothing sexist about that.
To be fair, there was Katma Tui, who had both an uterus and a dignity.
She’s dead, of course, but you can’t have everything, right?
Now if only she could manage to juggle a uterus, dignity AND a pulse…
Now I’m envisioning someone in a green lantern suit juggling uteri.
I think there’s a Yellow Lantern with that schtick.
…I just had the most disgusting visual involving Red Lanterns. :~(
Amber, meet Ch’p.
Ch’p, meet Amber.
You two are going to get along swimmingly~
I was going to say – I’ve got his toy sitting right on the shelf. Because hello? Squirrel super hero!
Go that myself =) Now if I could just get it away from the kids…..
I think that was the joke, about as many squirrels as women end up Green Lanterns.
thats_the_joke.gif
There’s a thought I semi-agree with where stereotypes can be used a shortcut to get the basic information about the character out quickly with the edges softened as you flesh out the character, or in the case of one-shot stories get to the meat of the story. This works in theory, provided you don’t get into offensive levels, which happens more often than most of us would like.
There have been some examples of it working over time in television. The Cosby Show and Queer Eye come to mind.
Maybe it’s because the green power rings go for Willpower, and Will is a dude’s name.
Willhemina?
I was just about to say the same thing.
And as we all know, Willhemina Slater has the most willpower of all.
Dear god, I pulled the Ugly Betty card. What is wrong with me?
Absolutly nothing
W.I.T.C.H. says otherwise.
What about Willa? Willa Ford, female rocker. Willa Cather, female author.
…how do you get Willa and bypass Wilma?
WIIIIILMAAAAAAAA!
C’mon, just because he wore a ski mask doesn’t mean he’s a nutjob claiming to be a Jihadist.
It’s not like Jaimie Reyes had to look or act stereotypical and offensive to lure in fans. He was just a fun character!
WHAT A CONCEPT
Ehhhhh I’m not so sure about the stereotypes thing. I do know that Geoff consulted a few Arab American cultural organizations in order to develop a multi-dimensional AA character in Baz so he is aware and sensitive to the issue of stereotypes and does work to try and avoid them.
How many of those female Green Lanterns were also non-white?
I think at least half of them were purple.
I sometimes forget that women are allowed to be all kinds of crazy colours in comics.
Natural green-haired fully-human females. Or is that just anime?
There’s Polaris, from the X-men. But she’s a mutant, so I don’t think she counts as “fully-human”.
Polaris’s mutant powers: control over magnetic fields and green hair.
And originally, it was just green hair! They only gave Lorna Dane magnetic powers later.
I have no response to this, but I felt like I had to comment anyway, given the selected hair color.
woah woah woah. We can only handle SO much diversity in comics! Are you asking us to make a female character who is ALSO black!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!?
I don’t know what got in to me. I’m so sorry. It’ll never happen again.
Meet Zale: http://www.comicvine.com/zale/29-52200/
What have you done?! No! It burns!
Why is she wearing blinders on her mouth?
But it’s a good thing to put all that diversity into a single character. Her lack of personality won’t be so obvious when she has several issues to deal with, and we can keep all the white male characters without risking cast inflation. Instead of adding new token characters, we just add new token traits to the one token asian black lesbian bipolar paraplegic muslim.
Damn, my trollface got stuck writing that.
Human Resources departments call that “a twofer.” Bonus points if she’s also disabled in some way.
There are exactly three White green lanterns, not counting Alan Scott.
One is black, and the rest are weird alien freaks.
Now if you wanna talk alien crackers… I acutally can’t think of one that was white, come to think of it… Well… wait, was Boodika white? Maybe… Wasn’t the martial artist chica with the pony tail like blue or something? I never can remember her damn name…
I might be tired. I seem to be having two separate yet semi-related conversations… With myself.
Alien crackers sound delicious.
Wasn’t Jen a GL? She has green skin. But she’d be while if it wasn’t for that.
Yes. Jen had her own ring and was a GL at one point.
…who was the other female earthling GL?
Do it like Priutt used to do it.
I just wanna know why everyreaking Lantern from our sector of the universe is a human from earth, and why they have like four or five of them at once, when every other sector MAYBE gets one.
Maybe because sector 2814 is full of criminals?
Cuz apparently earth has like…100 heroes just flying around. I’d send a bunch of rings there too
That’s actually a pretty good point.
The red lantern of 2814 used to be a cat.
And I think the blue lantern of 2814 is a dog
Used to? What happened to
Ruffles the RagecatDex-Starr?why everyreaking Lantern from our sector of the universe is a human from earth
A coupleyears ago there was a flash-forward mini showing that one of the future GL’s of Earth was a Blue Whale.
Should have been a dolphin.
Bonus points if they worked “Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish” into the Green Lantern Oath.
Look, I admit, I don’t read the books often, but I’m sure SOMEWHERE out there, there’s gotta more than just the two female lanterns, right? Riiiiight?
…eh.
I dunno, I don’t buy into Ethan’s theory. I mean, WWE took Mohammed Hassan from an Arab-American who was sick of being stereotyped, and then…made him a stereotype.
And that’s just 2005.
So yeah…progression. :/
Comics like to keep our standards low, there was more integration in the 90, after 2000′s several comics with female and minority characters have last less than 3 years. And many females have been disposed without any plot relevance, so comics have gone back to the 50`s.
Ethan is trying to be positive. But is obvious that big corporations are not into social service.
Katma Tui, Soranik Natu, Arisia, Boodikka, and several whom I can picture but don’t know the names of come to mind.
Was it ever confirmed IF Mogo had a gender?
Jade, Laira, Iolande, Brik, Fatality, and so many more.
Green Lantern is a pretty diverse world. For the most part. There aren’t that many more developed male GLC members then female. It’s a pretty good split when you take the characters who receive fair panel time.
Though there are only two Earth females. One isn’t counted. She was in an obscure Mini-series and lost her ring at the end. The other never got her powers from the ring. Jade got a ring later but she was always more of Alan Scott’s successor then a corp member. Which isn’t really fair. Also I’m pretty sure neither exist anymore.
Don’t all the other corps have more female members than the Green Lanterns?
I was always more weirded out that they all came from America. Like, that’s the protector of the whole space sector. Ring never gets further than the States?
Yeah, though, awkward stereotypes from the same braintrust that brings us: “Superman’s sexy new sidekick: Wonder Woman! Coming up next, Lois who?” doesn’t surprise me one bit.
In most cases it makes sense.
The Ring picks the closest worthy one. So Abin Sur fell in America and Hal was chosen because he was the closest. Guy was the second closest at the time. The ring chose him to replace Hal at a later time. I think John was the same deal but I’ve never read his first appearance.
So it’s something they’ve kind of explained. But I do agree its still kind of silly.
I swear I remember that Hal only sought out John Stewart because Guy (back when he was a kindergarten teacher, and boy, don’t ya have to take a minute for that one to sink in) got himself injured and Hal was having a freak out over “what if I die, and Guy’s hurt, who will be the Green Lantern THEN!” So yeah, it makes a certain amount of sense, but again, he’s got all of space to fight in, and all of Earth to fight on, so it’s one of those things that’s just a little weird.
John Stewart’s original entrance pretty much proves Ethan’s theory though. He wasn’t running around shouting “Sweet Christmas!” at everything, but he, ah…well…he certainly loved to point out that he was a Proud Black Man. And there may have been a bit of jive.
Fast forward a few years, and he’s the only GL I’d trust to do…well…anything, really. (To be fair, I’m not that familiar with Kyle, though. I just doubt he can out-awesome John.)
You technically have a point, but really these are comics made and primarily consumed by Americans. I’d say that American companies fall far short of being truly international, but do much better than any Japanese entity.
You technically have a point, but really these are comics made and primarily consumed by Americans. I’d say that American companies fall far short of being truly international, but do much better than any Japanese entity.
There’s just no strong-willed people outside of America, okay?
By this argument, shouldn’t all earth lanterns be Texans?
“…a squirrel”. Yeah thats about the size of it.
I’m glad someone else in the comments already mentioned Ch’p, who was kind of awesome. There are a few female GLs — Katma Tui, Arisia, Boodika, Laira, K’ryssma, Lashorr, and others. That’s not even getting into Corps members who don’t have a gender (or have 3). Of DC Universe organizations, they’re actually relatively diverse… off stage. On stage, the female GLs are rarely even shown, let alone given serious roles. Even the characters that started out strong (Katma?) end up killed before too long.
And heaven forfend any of those women could be HUMAN.
And nobody cares that the only way to bring the GL with a gun, Jack T. Chance, into the New 52, was to make him human?
And whatever happened to Nightrunner, the black Muslim Batman of France who didn’t look like a stereotype? Has he been seen since the reboot?
In the “Leviathan Strikes!” one shot, albeit brasinwashed to fight against Batman. I also think he might be one of the guys posing as “Matches Malone”‘s muscle in the current storyline of Batman Inc.
I think a Squirrel lantern would be a comic worth reading. Perhaps some kind of “just for kids” spin-off that’s really just read by us adults pretending to buy them for “our nephew.”
The squirrel lantern actually exists. That’s the joke.
There have actually been two, Ch’p and I can’t remember the other one’s name.
Oh, awesome. As usual, I should have googled before I opened my mouth.
Green Lantern is DC right?
If he was a Marvel comic I would soon expect Chip and Dale, Green Lanterns.
That’s… not funny.
Disney owning Marvel did little more then give Marvel more money to do amazing things like the Avengers film series.
You are correct about that. But it’s still funny.
but DC is owned by warner brothers, so maybe they can get secret squirrel? or slappy squirrel?
i was going to suggest screwy squirrel, but i found out he’s owned by MGM.
Daffy duck was a green lantern for a while.
Chip and Dale are chipmunks. They wouldn’t count.
Why is there a new Green Lantern at all? Aren’t there already like…four from Earth? Not even counting Alan Scot who’s apparently on another Earth now.
(Also, even more than the gender issue: why Arab-American? Has Guy convinced the Guardians that the rest of the Earth isn’t populated?)
Starfire should totally be a GL so she can wear the ring on her nipple.
That sounds only slightly less painful to wear than her Red Hood and the Outlaws costume.
…You know, she could work as a Star Sapphire.
She wears even less clothing than they do these days.
I feel compelled to point out that I always thought Ch’p was a chipmunk, not a squirrel, because his name was “Ch’p”.
So just because a squirrel’s name is “Ch’p” he automatically has to be a chipmunk? Glad to see you’re showing your true colors…
…wait, I thought there was an all-female division?
Wait, all of the earth lanterns have been Americans so far? And we’ve had what, like six or seven of them?
There’s even less black ones. And absolutely no Non-American Earthling GLs. Diversity is a slippery slope that’s NEVER really handled well, as it’s almost never presented by anyone other than straight white American males over 35. Y’know, they ones who think anyone different from THEM is a “niche” or novelty.
False. There have been non-American Earthling GLs. For an example, see here: http://www.comicvine.com/anya-savenlovich/29-53827/
was the new corps any good? i may have to look for a trade next time i go comic shopping.
Yeah, I don’t at all see how this:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2012/08/greenlantern.jpg
… looks like a Muslim stereotype. In fact, if not for the Arabic on his forearm I’d say he’s far more of a black stereotype.
More than a little of an overreach here. With you on the female green lanterns though.
Looks a bit like an incorrectly coloured KickAss.
Or Ambush Bug!
His mask reminds me of Mr Terrific.
He has a ski mask and a gun. I don’t think it’s intentional, but it’s really unfortunate.
It’s more lucha than ski mask. And he has a pistol. So if we were going to play the racial stereotype cards, it’s more racist against latinos than Arab Americans. So, uhh, good job at being offended incorrectly, I guess?
So we have a Green Lantern with a mask that actually covers their entire face? I can see the unfortunate implications, but god damn do Domino Masks SUCK ASS
Yeah, the one good thing about the live action movie was how they pointed out how terrible domino masks are at hiding your identity.
Ski masks and pistols do not equate with Islamic negative stereotypes. If it was an assault rifle, beard, turbin, or any such thing you’d have something. Again if he was black or Mexican American you’d also have something. I think some were a bit too eager to jump onto the racial stereotype bandwagon. As others have pointed out, he looks like a thug cosplaying Kickass.
I love the Green Lanterns because they’re the only organization that has an equation as a member. Dkrtzy RRR rules.
Plus an alien who has no concept of light or color and is under the impression he’s part of the “F-sharp bell” corps.
And Leezle Pon, the sentient smallpox virus.
His nemesis is Black Lantern Edward Jenner.
This has basically been my theory on how minority character’s are introduced into all medium.
Be they gay, female, or any minority.
I’ll bet Gnort had some squirrel in him. It would explain a lot.
You know, something occurs to me. New 52 comes around, and Stephanie Brown is nowhere. Writers are forbidden to use the character for god know’s what reason.
Why not make Stephanie Brown a Green Latern member or something. Hell, if it’ll bring more diversity, make her French! Considering her energy and imagination, she’d make a darn good one.
A low number of female Green Lanterns is very flattering. Green Lanterns are crap. I’ll never get what’s so great about a superhero who gets his powers from a bunch of self-righteous aliens who have decided that they have the right to police the whole galaxy even though their first try destroyed a whole sector.
2? Aren’t we going to count Sonya Blade from that crappy crossover game? I’m not saying 3 is any more flattering but just asking in regards to accuracy. And n regards to the new Green Lantern all I can say, with a face palm that alters the revolution of the earth around the sun, is “Well, at least he doesn’t use the ring to put a green energy bomb around his chest.” I’m guessing that is how they plan to kill off the character though. Bastids.
Dust was a Arab before being an Arab was cool. And she wore a niqab. And she was a she.
Arabian Knight preceded Dust and this new GL by many many years. Te current Arabian Knight, Navid Hashim, is a sorely underused character who partnered up with Union Jack a while back and recently assisted Red Hulk and Machine Man.
The question is, how many squirrel Green Lanterns were there?
Two.
There have been a number of female Green Lantern Corps members, actually. Arisia, KT21, Boodika, Jade, Soranik Natu, Droxelle, Katma Tui, Donna Parker, Kraken, Sendrina, Iolande, Laira, Cary Wren, Kaylark, Adara, Anya Savenlovich, Shilandra Thane, Jeryll, Krista X, Zale… I could go on and on. Women are quite prevalent in the GLC.
They’re still a fairly small minority, especially if you’re talking one with prominent roles.
The real question is, “How many squirrel lantern’s are there?”
2 Ch’p and B’dg
I think half the main cast of GLC were female. Well, maybe not half. A third, I’ll say. Granted, main cast was 8 or 9 characters, but…
Pre-Flashpoint GLC, I should add.
I have to say, I actually like the new Green Lantern’s costume, and while I have major reservations about the gun, it might not be such a bad idea. After all, Lanterns’ power rings sometimes run out of light before they can recharge, so in a combat situation a gun could theoretically be a decent backup weapon.
Fan art of female Shortpacked characters with power rings? For some reason I think Leslie is the most plausible.
The female Shortpacked! character with the least fear, huh? I’m thinking Roz for some reason, though Connie may be better – she’s certainly gone places no woman should go without flinching.
I can think of 4 female gl’S but only 2 Squirrels
and no that wasn;t a joke there really have been 2 who come from a squirel like alien race they were uncle and nephew…also i’m wrong i can think of 5 female GL’s one of home is sinestro’s replacement and from the same planet (HATES his guts too)
Looking at the roster on wikipedia lets see
Female lanterns : theres Katma tui, Mother Mercey, Soranik Natu, Princess Iolande, Olapet, R’amey Holl, bodika…i could go on
Squirrel GL’s Ch’P, B’dg
By my count, you’re off by a factor of fifteen. In alphabetical order:
Adara
Anya Savenlovich (bonus points: from Earth but not American AND not dressed in tooth-floss)
Arisia
Blu
Boodikka
Brik
B’shi
Cary Wren
Donna Parker
Droxelle
Iolande
Jade
Jeryll
Katma Tui
Kaylark
Kraken
Krista X
K’ryssma
KT21
Laira
Lashorr
Mother Mercy
Olapet
R’amey Holl
Sendrina
Shilandra Thane
Soranik Natu
Wachet
Zale
And I don’t even READ DC Comics . . . those are just the ones I found by Googling “female green lanterns.”
Note, not saying sexism isn’t appallingly rampant in comics, and that the female GLs aren’t criminally overlooked and underutilized . . . or, even more frequently, used as sacrifices for the sake of “dramatic tension.” Just pointing out that it isn’t nearly as uncommon as you’re making it out.
Also like to note, coincidentally, the good folks over at Blind Ferret chose today to post, basically, this very same comic. Thought that was amusing.
http://www.the-gutters.com/
I’d say it’s not basically the same comic, because the Blind Ferret people addressed the actual issue: That people make a big deal about there being an ethnically Arab Green Lantern when the Corps includes Planets, Mushrooms and sentient small pox.
As a non-DC reader, I propose that you are ill-equipped to determine how many of these are actual character characters and how many of them spend all their appearances shooting green lasers in the background while a white guy does the stuff we’re supposed to be paying attention to.
Oh my, dear, you’re RIGHT, the comic CLEARLY STATES that the power ring has more chance of selecting a squirrel than it does of choosing a female THAT HAS PROPER EMPHASIS AND CHARACTERIZATION. How terribly ignorant of me!! How COULD I have missed that?!
Wait . . . maybe because it DOESN’T SAY THAT. The premise was that there are no (or only two) female lanterns. The premise is flatly wrong. As for whether they are underused, I pointed out SPECIFICALLY in my original post, that they in fact WERE minor and appallingly ignored or killed off with reckless disdain by the writers. In short, no, most of them ARE NOT actual character characters. But then, that didn’t have anything to do with the premise, now did it?
Congrats on reiterating my point in a way that implied I didn’t bother to READ any of the pages from which I obtained those characters’ names. Because I’m too ill-equipped to bother with RESEARCH.
Side note, the lanterns should totally unionize. Those Oans can be major dicks sometimes. That’s why I don’t mind the gun, you need alternate protection in case they turn your ring off on you(happened on 52 I remember). Lose the ski mask though.
Are there more than 2 female Green Lanterns? Yes.
Have any of these female Green Lanterns ever been anything more than minor characters, short-term villains or love interests? IIRC, No.
I don’t think it’s surprising that out of all the GLs identified as female here, I only recognize about three of them. Let’s look at the big names:
Arisia – the infamous GL who is recruited as a 13 year-old girl to become Hal Jordan’s love interest until they lose their rings and then she falls down a long spiral to being fridged, then years later resurrected for Blackest Night and now is a minor character again.
Katma Tui – Arguably the most competent female GL, she eventually marries John Stewart and gets fridged by Star Sapphire for her troubles, getting sliced to death in her own kitchen off-camera, totally powerless…just to make Hal Jordan (AND NOT EVEN HER GL HUSBAND) angry. Brought back during Mosaic…and then killed by Hal Jordan as Parallax. Brought back as a zombie during Blackest Night and dies nobly. So the most famous female lantern dies three times…and all three times the focus of the story is on the male GLs and how it affects THEM.
Boodika – Probably the third and only well known female GL: started out as a strong anti-authority female GL (who needed training from Hal Jordan to become a Lantern). Gets written to abandon her duties in the middle of the fight to have a sexual encounter with Lobo (!). Spends almost all of her time existing as a foil or villain to the main GL cast members, eventually becoming an Alpha Lantern, then being possessed by Cyborg Superman and then just killed.
Jade: the only female from Earth. manifests her natural GL powers by being sexually assaulted. More successful than most in terms of character, though she gets her powers from her father, ring from her boyfriend and eventually dies to make HIM more powerful during Infinite Crisis. Is resurrected during Blackest Night but has not reappeared in the new 52.
So, there’s the ‘big’ female lanterns. They just don’t get leading roles and often get killed to make the male Green Lanterns feel bad or make the male Green Lanterns more powerful. Pretty much agreeing with David’s point.
Yes, because when male characters are used that way, it’s normal. But when female characters are, it’s obviously sexism.
Actually, it IS obvious sexism to point out that SOME female Lanterns got used this way while not pointing out that THE MAJORITY of non-Earth Lanterns (whether they’re male, female or other) appear only as background characters or, if fleshed out more, turn evil.
I therefore choose to believe that David’s point for this comic is that Ethan correctly points out something and that the squirrel bit is there to point out that Amber is not ALWAYS right when she points to what she perceives as sexism in Comics.
I choose to believe this, because I have to believe this. Because I can’t continue to read this comic if I choose to believe that Willis’ natural reaction to discrimination in comics is: ‘Oh look, discrimination in comics! Let’s find a way to turn this into something about sexism and have my anti-sexism mouthpiece character in these instances comment on sexism without actually checking the track record the comic she’s commenting on has for sexism.’
I do admit, the pacing of the comic did throw my off. I was all in mindset about ethnic stereotypes in comics and had my mind going off in that direction when the thing ended with Amber dismissing Ethan with a “Whatever” and turning it into something about women when the whole of this particular comic about that was about something else entirely. It threw my mind off a bit. That, accompanied with Willis’s accompanying text box and most of the discussion being about the female Green Lanterns over the Arab American thing, just sorta wrecked the pacing of today’s strip to me.
Also, I am wondering about the image of the guy himself. If someone didn’t tell me he was ethnically Arab, I would’ve guessed black or Mexican or something. Ethan’s point still stands, I think. Diversifying in *any* medium is a tricky thing and I liked his metaphor. I dunno if it counts in this instance, but the point still stands.
In fact sexism doesnt work like the people think, before sexism was a form to justify why women werent allowed to do things. It was as easy as to say “you are a women”, now no one belives that so in a certain sense sexism doesnt exist. So now is harder to know what is sexism and what is not because you dont know what actions are triggered because of gender.
I think this comics point out people want diversity because of ethical reasons but they really dont care. And is easy cause we cant miss what we dont have, only someone who has experienced diversity in comics know why is important. I doubt Ethan, Donna or Willis care for Green Lantern, if they do It is only to make a point about diversity, they meant well.
“Yes, because when male characters are used that way, it’s normal. But when female characters are, it’s obviously sexism.”
But… the men aren’t written that way. I really don’t see how you can see otherwise? You can just counter an argument with “sure, that is true for those specific examples, but if they applied to men it would be different, even though they don’t and vagueness.”
“Yes, because when male characters are used that way, it’s normal. But when female characters are, it’s obviously sexism.”
It is when it ISN’T as common for that to happen to a male character, and the main characters are all male, and female characters don’t last long or aren’t important or rapidly start to suck because the writers can’t be bothered to write a decent character who happens to be female… you get the idea.
Or did you forget that THE origin of the phrase “stuffed in the fridge” came from a really lame GL story?
Stop and think what it would be like to have NOBODY, at first, even matching your gender as a hero character, let alone an important one… and then suddenly, there is one! Or even more than one! But then all that crap happens to them. All that crap happens to them, without it really being “about” them; it’s all about the character of the opposite gender who hogs all the story time.
And imagine that that’s all you get of characters that happen to be the same gender as you. Imagine that nine times outta ten, the other gender gets all the cool stories or all the long-running stories, or all the attention IN stories. Imagine that your gender’s characters are written to suck or worse, just written to die in some way that’s supposedly traumatizing to somebody who isn’t them.
Imagine that IS all or most of what you get.
Imagine that “character of the same gender as you who happens to be a good character who gets good stories consistently and for a fairly long run because the writers actually care enough to make it good and the publisher cares enough to actually promote it” ISN’T common, it’s … “refreshing”.
Imagine you have to use the words “refreshing” with that. Imagine that that isn’t common, it’s UNUSUAL.
That is what it is like to try and read comics as a woman.
Yes, there are comics that buck or seem like they will buck that trend – like Marvel’s Runaways, or Batwoman over at DC- but that’s the thing:
THERE IS A TREND TO BUCK.
It’s not like I can’t enjoy a story that happens to be about a male character. It’s just that, you know, ALMOST ALL OF THEM ARE. And when they aren’t, it’s usually disappointing. And when they are, it’s “for a change”, it’s “suprisingly good”, it’s… “refreshing”.
I wanted to believe that nowadays it had improved, or was improving… and then they fucked up Starfire in “Red Hood”, and I just said “fuck it” to anything other than Batwoman.
Because Batwoman is… Refreshing.
Sadly.
Jade was more than a love interest and so was Katma Tui, Arisia was very important co-character and then became nothing more than a love interest. Boddika and Laira had plots centered in them, specially Boddikka. Bodikka and Arisia appeared in Guy Gardner solo comic (that failed). And all of them apeared in GLCorps books.
The thing is Characters like Laira and Bodikka apeared just two years before DC destroyed the corps to make Kyle “more unique”. And Bodikka having sex with Lobo was funny cause both missed the battle LEGION and the Corps were having. Now that I think about It Bodikka and her snarky attitude was on par with Lobo. Maybe she was introduced to fill the place Lobo had in LEGION.
So you see this building up that didnt last more than three years, (36 issues) vs other characters that have been around for so much more. But Arisia and Katma Tui were very important, and the fact John and Katma Tui were marketed as an “item” doesnt afect Katma Tui prominence in GLC and GL.
Jade was created for the Earth-2 proyect of “All Star Squadron” and “Infinity Inc.”, she along with her father were re-introduced into GL lore, and was co-protagonist with Kyle in much of his solo series. Green Lantern Corps vol 3. featured every relevant green lantern character like Bodikka and Laira but also introduced two mayor female characters like Giolande and Soranik (wich play a huge part in Sinestro War).
Arisia was resurrected the moment Geoff Jhones returned and became maybe THE female green lantern given her backstory. Her affair with Hal was slowly forgoten and before the reboot she and Soranik were the most important female characters.
Now Im going to imitate you and write nonsense that belongs to a more popular lore and has a more notorious fandome.
Its not surprising that when you question people about batgirl they only identify Barabara Gordon, other batgirls didnt become anything more than b or c list characters. It takes only a short look to see Cassandra Cain was nothing more than an “experiment” that was borne in one of those batman sagas. And dont forget the scrappy doo of the Batman lore, Stephanie Brown, who was nothing more than Robin´s Robin
And the number of prominently featured squirrel GLs is? If that had really been the point of this strip, then the squirrel comparison wouldn’t have been used. As it is, the strip directly steers the conversation towards listing female corps members regardless of context
I don’t know, this seems like kind of a weird criticism to throw at the Green Lantern franchise of all things. Because not only are there a bunch of female Lanterns, a whole Lantern Corpse. that’s exclusively female, but of all American comic’s the GL franchise is probably one of the best situations where you can introduce female protagonists easily and openly without much controversy. It’s kind of all-inclusive as a concept.
I mean, aren’t there more female Lanterns than there are female Transformer characters?
Read WizarDru’s post above yours. Yes, the Lantern Corp, as a sort of team thing, could be an excellent place to introduce more and better written female characters, but it hasn’t been used that way.
And as for the exclusively female lantern corp – it’s all pink, dressed in the most sexually objectifying lantern costumes, dedicated to ‘love’, if by love we mean ‘lust’, because in Superhero comics girls are sex objects, end of story. The pink lanterns aren’t anything positive, they’re the walking embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the portrayal of women in comics.
Be that as it may about the Sapphire Corp. read the post three above mine and see there are at least 30 female Green Lanterns found in just a casual search. And that doesn’t include elseworld/parallel universe Green Lanterns like the Tangent GL (who is also Chinese) or Big Barda.
I could do a search on female crew members that were on the Enterprise in 60s Star Trek. Doesn’t mean that most weren’t treated in a sexist way or that the men on that show didn’t spend a disproportionate amount of time learing at them.
(Note, 60s Star Trek was sexist, but tried not to be. And even by the time of the movies, most of that had gone. That was 30 years ago, and comics aren’t even close to that level yet.)
I just re-watched “Green Lantern: Emerald Knights” which is an animated dtDVD movie, and not only does it feature a female lantern in almost every story, one story being exclusively about a female Lantern, the whole movie is framed by the training of a female Lantern and that female Lantern saving the day at the end of the movie, but on top of all that it also shows how the four founding Green Lanterns were two men and two women.
I mean, that is a mass-media production, exposing the GL franchise to audiences well beyond the comics, and it features female GL’s prominently and heroically.
I would say It doesnt matter cause not too many people reads Green Lantern. It would happen the same that happened with Blue Beetle, fans ask for diversity, they are given a character that is a complete characterisation of latin americans and is beyond stereotypes, the comic is cancelled for poor sales.
Sometimes I think fans like the way minorities are misrepresented, then they have more to complain about.
Proportionally yes, but TF has gotten a lot better on that count. We get female TF’s pretty regularly, including toys.
There are more than 150 entries in the “Female Transformers” category on the wiki! The entire original G1 line was ~150 characters, wasn’t it?
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/List_of_female_Transformers
Green Lantern (silver age on) was always nothing but a bad Lensman knockoff. Lensman was a pulp take on space opera from 1948. Now it’s more of a bad sci-fi ensemble cop show type of thing mixed with dumb “the prophecy will change everything-rinse-repeat” elements. It’s still trying to ignore the whole Hall Jordan went evil idea that was cooked up to save the book in the 90′s. It’s a mess but people seem to like it because it is being constantly revised with “dark revelations” that are just old plots in disguise. Oddly an even bigger mess was made of Hawkman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman over the years as people flailed around trying to rewrite those characters as something popular at the moment but with little staying power. Too many writers think that adding a lot of complexity and weirdness to comic characters is the way too go. Usually it is a huge mistake that keeps being “fixed” over and over decade after decade and then the attempts to “fix it” with all their contradictions get confused for a history that was planned out and executed to get whatever you’ve got in the present. I think the understanding that editors and writers were flailing around to try and increase dropping sales or appease the egos of a particular set of writers who were sequentially playing chicken with each other’s ideas gets lost. People seem to think that the characters write themselves and evolve rather than just being the product of some people who come in, do something, and then move on when they get bored or deemed to be unable to move books as much as hoped. A lot of the complexity is just built up junk.
Is it sexist? Probably. But then the whole genre it was aping was sexist. Intentionally. When Douglas Adams wrote: “In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.” he was lampooning a real movement in sci-fi writing.
Is GL a big confusing mess of bad decisions that were mostly undertaken to replace or counter previous bad decisions? Yep. Definitely.
Jame Lull states in his book about Mass Media and Comunicaton that no one can control the media. Not only there are a lot of people with diferent view working, but also new blood coming in and wathever “General Goals” they have keep geting distorted and offering “holes”. He analizes China Comunist party but I think It applies to Comics as well.
Sexism on the other hand is nothing more than the extension of the hierarchy sistem of our culture, ways to legitimate power. In other words is an ideology that incorpores to our common sense and changes with time.
There was a point in that “sexually agresive” women were in fact empowering, and even today some men “fear” asertive women. Then there were the 80 feminists that started the train of thought that women shouldnt repress her sexuality, wich was just an extension of the 80 neoliberal thought of “freedom”, freedom to use sex as a way to sell stuff.
Then New Sexism used not the ideology of “sexism” but of feminism and started to legitimate the objetification of women (that already had become a product) under the words “empowering”. Even when some things like publicity were in fact “empowering” what they did was reversed sexism, of course nobody cares cause the add worked.
I dare to say comics are not sexist and most of the times creator arent sexist. Some times the extension of our common sense (Im defining It as our cultural comon knowledge but also to mathematical logic without context.) brings sexism we wanted or not. And many times is ignorance what brings sexism, so Its not something people do but something people dont do (or think).
I dont see Silver Age comics as sexist but as a portrait of their times, and the debut of Barbara Gordon or the first apearence of the Zamarons have invaluable feminist knowledge.
Also if we applie basic lingüístics, the message can at least be divided in enunciation and receptio, both differ with the actual message so we have three hipothetical cases “you are sexist” “you said something sexist” and “people thought It was sexist”. And if we got serious there is the context and the whole other parts in discourse analisys.
The fact is people cant assume they are right because they are offended, but at the same time their resentment exist, is real. Modern american culture is fixated with discrimination and has built a school of resentment, I call It karma but depending on your political glasses could be either “reverse discrimination” or “social justice”.
I honestly don’t see what any of that has to do with what I wrote nor have I claimed that one man controls the media. I just said if you read som EE Doc Smith Lensman stuff you’ll recognize most of what silver age Green Lantern was based on and as a genre it was ABOUT manly men and curvy dames and evil alien plots.
Sorry I didnt want to reply to you. I wrote it from my cell, might have pressed the wrong link, the screen is not to big.
Are we really sure that soccer ball with 4 legs counts as a male?
If only we had a Green Lantern who was an Alien Seahorse, so he could be male, yet still be the one to carry kids in his weird alien seahorse pouch.
Yes It counts, Lanterns like MOGO doesnt.
How does the soccor ball count any more as male than the planet?
Damn it. Soccer.
Did anyone see “Collection Intervention” last night, with Dahveed, the guy who had an apartment full of Transformers? I was hoping for a David Willis cameo at some point, but no. One of the PopCon attendees did look a little like Ethan, though.
There may have been 2 female green lanterns, but how many squirrels?
HOW MANY SQUIRRELS!?
2
Heres a better question. Can Squirrel GLs be controlled by Squirrel Girl?
That is a good question.
Man i’m just fed up with human GLs from 2814, wouldn’t it be cool to have an alien GL from this sector just so he could occasionally show up and Space Police Earth a bit.
Is Green Lantern just the official DC comic that can introduce minority characters? Alan Scott’s gay, Jon Stewart was the only major Black superhero I was aware of for a long time (Grew up on Justice League Animated) and now Arab American? I guess Batman Inc has a Muslim… were any of the female green lantern’s actually main characters? Like, protagonists with their own books?
Alan Scott isn’t in the GL title, though, he’s in “Earth-2″.
What’s funny is that the Jon Stewart of JLA/JLU was WAY better than the shitty inconsistent one portrayed in the comics. Some one said :decent, confident, competent serious, no frills, jarhead and WHAM, suddenly the woeful black green lantern mess had something like an actual personality trait to cling to and started to make sense as a character. No more ex-veteran and architect who accidently let a planet get blown up in a miniseries no one cared about and then went insane BS. No more “an excuse to mention balck people or guy to hang various bedlam and misery on that you wouldn’t want to trouble the REAL Green lantern with crap. Jon Stewart on the JLA series was great! They cut away all the lame whiny second rater crap and just started fresh with something that actually made sense and was easy to communicate to the viewer, so it worked. So did doing Hawk Girl without Hawkman (though they added him in later as a nutty golden/silver age version of who MIGHT be a thanagarian/egyptptian reincarnated as an archaeologist… If not he’s a victim who got his brain damaged by Thanagarian tech. )
The cartoons seem really good at throwing out dumb comic book plot accumulation trash and making the characters fun again, or in some cases (like with Starfire in Teen Titans) fun for the first time. (Before she was pretty much an alien stripper, a creepy 40 year old mans mid life crisis wet dream sort of character that you’d have expect at the time to see in Heavy Metal instead of a super hero comic.)
Oh gosh, THIS SO MUCH.
That’s something that confused me about the whole New 52!! kerfuffle. If the goal was to clear out some of the more convoluted continuity and make it accessible and engaging for new readers…why the hell didn’t they take their cues from the JLU series (nevermind that that Justice League would be the one the readers in their target age group would have grown up seeing, if not reading).
Why on earth NOT use that version of Hawkgirl? I was kinda depressed when I went to the comics to see if she was just as awesome in those as she was in the series, and was confronted with…yeesh, I don’t even know how to describe it. Sheer confusion and a character exclusively defined by her relationship to her male counterpart? Gross. And kinda boring.
And John. Good gravy, John was my hero in that Justice League. You could trust him to Get Stuff Done. I miss that show.
I think one of my favourite parts of Justice League was when they got transported back in time, Johns ring ran out of Power, so he picked up an assault rifle and started kicking ass the old fashioned way.
John Stewart. Professional Badass.
please have more respect towards heavy metal!
ha ha ha ha ha no
So, let’s see: Soranik Natu (revelation of evil parentage, reduced to GF of Kyle), Katma Tui (killed), Arisia (jailbait), Laira (killed, got better, became Red Lantern), Boodikka (banged Lobo, turned into robot, mind-controlled by Cyborg Superman), Jade (fridged, resurrected, retconned out of existence), Princess Iolande (dunno)…
If you think Arisia is just jailbait and Soranik Natu is just a girlfriend then I could easely blame you for sexism. But hey, is more fun to be the one who is complaining so keep the good work.
I’m pointing out that not only are there few female GLs, they tend to get the short end of the stick. Arisia isn’t just jailbait (she actually hasn’t been jailbait at all for a while), but the whole underage-Hal-romance thing is a permanent stain. And Soranik Natu was a really awesome character, then they suddenly decided that she’d be Kyle’s new squeeze (despite them having no chemistry together up to that point…the comic in which they got together was kind of hilarious for how clumsily the “romance” was established).
Yes you are right. Comics advance in two directions, but I think Green Lantern comics have had more steps ahead that steps backwards in the last 10 years. Till now, I see this new green lantern as one step ahead and two backwards.
Any way Im always between thinking It might be unreasonable to expect more and thinking It might be silly to conform with what they give. But Im not surprised at all, people at DC are not doing their job, I just can only hope that fresh blood would come to change things.
And who knows, maybe the cheap trick of stereotype characters would atract more people into comics. Even now people like me who are really against the move discus how minorities should be introduced into comics.
So…we’ve established that there are much more than 2 female green lanterns. A lot of them tend to meet unfortunate ends-I myself would have liked to see a book focusing on Laira before she went red-and more often than not, don’t really get the spotlight.
And that carries through to a lot of the DCU, not just in the lantern titles. Cassandra Cain, for instance. IMO, instead of cramming more women into the DC comics, I’d prefer that DC pay more, and better attention to the ones they have. Unfortunately, that probably won’t happen with Didio in charge. While he gets props for the new 52, he’s erased almost every shred of progression in DC in favor of pulling almost every main character back to the silver age.
I think it’s less that comic book readers have to be presented things in ways they understand but that the people who make comic books THINK comic book readers have to be presented things in ways they understand. Executive meddling, underestimating your audience, and all that.
I suspect that a lot of the women in comics stuff is similar, like the anatomically impossible asset highlighting poses, the artists that do this stuff probably think it’s expected of them by the audience, even while a large portion of the audience is rolling their eyes at it.
The whole thing would imply that there is someone deciding instead of many different people. Thing is that whatever theory of how things work inside of DC buildings have the same value that a conspirationist theory.
You cant assume everybody like each other or that they understand each other. By experience I know that what a writer´s write and what is published are two completly diferent things. I know and have heared authors about this.
There’s already like four Green Lanterns from earth, when generally the rule was like one (now two) per sector. And now we have a Fifth earthling Green Lantern. So what asspullery is taking place to make this happen?
I think (not certain, but I think) that Kyle and Guy are currently on Oa, not actually assigned to Sector 2814. But I haven’t read any DC comics since the reboot, so that could be wildly inaccurate.
guess amber does not follow green lantern or she would know that the power ring has picked females too like katuma and arisia plus also star sapphire. and even wonder woman and also chipp the squirel till he became road kill
Way to completely fail to understand the joke.
Pfft. There’s only one abstract mathematical progression Green Lantern. How’s THAT for inequality?
Ba-dum pssht! Double pun!
At this point, since it’s already established that there’re plenty more than two female GL’s, I’m kinda curious which two GL’s Willis was thinking of in the comic post.
Assuming his main exposure is cartoons and not the comics: Arisia and Katma Tui both appeared on JLU (and I’m willing to bet Willis has a Katma Tui figure). Along with those two, Laira appeared in the Duck Dodgers “Green Loontern” episode, and had her own segment in the “Emerald Knights” movie, and Boodikka played a major role in the “First Flight” animated movie. I addition to appearing in the “Emerald Knights” movie, Iolande had her own focused episode on the recent Green Lantern cgi series. And I don’t know if we’re counting Aya or not, what with her being a robot and not technically a member of the corps.
If Aya isn’t included as a Green Lantern on the grounds of being a robot, I’m calling BS. I remember at least one story about a robot manservant of a family being chosen as a Green Lantern.
Of course she counts. Stel counts and he’s a robot.
I do wonder what two he was thinking of. I know Willis has said he isn’t the biggest Green Lantern fan so I would assume Katma-Tui and Jade. Because Justice League made Katma popular again and Jade was back in the day THE female Green Lantern. I think she was even officially considered Green Lantern V/VI at some point in time.
I for one hail this as a great step for tolerance. My father Ali Qa never thought this day would come.
So… being in the minority is inherently unflattering now? Bold words…
You realize that early on Hal Jordan had an Inuit friend that everyone called Pieface right? Sure they tried to fix that but just now noticing that Green lantern is out of step with modern sensibilities? LOL.
Hell it bothered some people back in teh 60′s so the old cartoon show changed him into a blue Venusian kid. Who rode around GL’s back as he flew sometimes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R59DM00aq9w&feature=player_embedded
That was back when the Guardians were still white guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVWcW3slxpU&feature=related
Filmation, like Echidna of Greek myth, is the mother of many horrible monsters that plague the earth.
It’s kind of like the idea of feminism to certain people, Willis … “WE GAVE YOU TWO WOMEN GREEN LANTERNS SO NOW WE DON’T HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THIS EVER AGAIN!”
Now they gave us a muslim character to keep people shut.
kshenke, While I would hate to diminish any real issues in the portrayal of women in comic books, sometimes, injustices, perceived or real are not the result of active maliciousness, but simply a lack understanding how things are perceived from the outside.
Fixing those issues is difficult in an institution that has….well…institutionalized the way things are done. I don’t know how to address this. Hell, I still don’t understand what was wrong with Catwoman #1, so I may be part of the problem. Thus, I may be well off base in saying this, but it seems to me the pro-feminism tone you’re striking there will push away male fans of DC who might have supported the point.
I could be wrong, I suppose, but my main frustration with dialogue about any feminist problem that it turns into an ‘Us against you’ issue very quickly. I realize that I’m probably too defensive over it, because I don’t have a clear idea what could be done…a lot of the proposed solutions-for the Green Lantern problem, for instance- sound good in theory (Write more, Stronger women) But as lovely as that sounds, the audience is not automatically there for that. Even if there are absolutely no feminist complaints about her, She has to resonate really well with every woman who reads comics, or pick up a significant male audience as well to stay in print. And let’s face it, building a sizable audience is hard even for a male character.
I can’t imagine there will ever be a real solution to how women are portayed in comics until we manage to find a balance point between women making themselves felt as a demographic, and weaning the pervert fanboys (Like me, in some cases) off of fetishizng our favorite female characters. This means supporting comics that work, and boycotting ones that don’t. The latter is easy-the former is hard. As of right now, I’ve heard lots about how people stay away from badly written comics, but not a lot about how people support great ones. (The ones that get supported are usually the longest lived) In an industry that’s kind of threatened by the digital advance, isn’t that just teaching them to stick with what they know and keep the people who still buy comics, rather than risk pushing their boundaries, because they know their loyal audience has their backs?
I suppose there are all kinds of flaws in this reasoning, and I’ll take some flack for not being 100% behind the complaints, but it boggles my mind that so many people care so much about how women (and minorities) are portrayed in comics, but no major change is affected. I’m forced to conclude that a lot of people like to complain, but don’t actually care enough to use their buying power to FORCE a change.
Man, did I ever ramble. I think I must need ritalin. There are like, five different main points in that, and it started out by wondering why I instantly felt defensive over Kshenke’s tone. You all may as well ignore that.
Meh, you’re fine to get defensive. I get pretty snarky with stuff like this, hence my comment. But the fact is that I do care enough to use my buying power to force a change by not buying the majority of mainstream comics anymore… which DC has interpreted to mean that women aren’t their main demographic so why worry about it? It’s a generalization I realize, but in a lot of ways that’s why mainstream entertainment still has trouble with having as many well written and respected female characters as male characters in any given project.
Why does he need a gun? He has a magic ring that can make a gun for him.
Well there was that Green Lantern Hannu, who only uses his ring for flight and shield. He prefers to rely on his own strength rather than constructs unless he needs to. It may be that Baz is simply used to having a gun and not entirely comfortable with using just the ring. Also, it’s actually good common sense to carry a weapon like that given how recent GL history has shown the ring’s getting hijacked, destroyed, shut off or drained of their power, leaving the wearer defenseless. He’s also being introduced in the “Third Army” storyline, where he’ll be fighting Willpower-powered enemies. Maybe the rings won’t work?
As revealed in the Green Lantern annual, he’s been chosen for the express purpose of fighting the Guardians. So it would be nice to have at least one weapon that they didn’t build.
I honestly didn’t see what he’s wearing as a “ski mask” until other people said so, and even now, to me, it’s just a superhero mask. It only sticks out in comparison to all the domino wearers and non-domino wearers in the corps, though actually…why do Hal and Kyle bother wearing those when out in space, when everyone out there knows who they are anyway?
The masks in space always made perfect sense to me, and when you brought it up I had to stop and think why that was. I came up with three reasons:
-As a “space police” type organization, their costumes are considered “uniforms” and if a mask is part of it then they always wear the mask when they’re on duty.
-I dunno if it’s a standard feature, but all the GL depictions I’m familiar with have the costume ring-generated. Perhaps the mask is automatic and they just don’t see any point in going out of their way to not wear it.
-So any aliens who decide to follow them back to Earth won’t be able to recognize them in their secret identities.
Well there’s plenty of GLs who DON’T wear a mask, so it’s not actually a required part of the uniform. John Stewart intentionally chose not have one, and in Hal’s Secret Origin story, to begin with he had no mask, and it only appeared just as someone was approaching him and the ring sensed he’d want to be anonymous secret. But as for out in space, like I said, while he has a secret identity on EARTH, his enemies out there all know he’s Hal Jordan. When he fights them, that’s what most of them refer to him as, so it’s kinda pointless to wear the domino.
Maybe it just makes him feel like a Bad Dude? It’s like wearing sunglasses at night.
Willis, you know the ring HAS selected Squirls before, right? I’m just wondering hwne it’ll hit something not from the USA. (Or when people will stop assuming this Arab-american is muslim)
Yes, that is the joke.
Does anybody really care that this new GL is a Muslim? Just like with Alan Scott being gay, I don’t give a crap. I don’t care who a fictional character sleeps with or prays to.
Hey, there are plenty of female Green Lanterns. And considering the human-centric view of the DC universe, they are essentially all human, just with different skin color (Arisia) or weird hairdoes (Boodika).
The Mogo is female. Score one for the female Green Lanterns?