The Non-Fan's Perspective: GREEN LANTERN

And welcome to Entry Three. It's occurred to me that it'd be more accurate to call these entries "The Fan's Perspective on the Casual Fan and Non-Fan's Perspective," but that fatigues the tongue a tad. Oh well. For the week currently under discussion, the class read GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD DAWN.

As I walked into the classroom, some of my fellow students who also arrived early were chatting about the Green Lantern mythos with the facilitators. And what one guy said confused me. He was explaining some background but all the information was completely off. I was wondering just what on Earth was going on until I realized it: He was conflating Katma Tui and Jade into one character and thought they were the same person. Then it all made sense.

Thinking about, I suppose they do *kind of* look similar if you take each from the period she were wearing the standard Green Lantern Corps uniform. I mean, they both have dark hair and inhumanly-hued skin, so if one were to forget what the colors were and only remember that they're unusual ones... Okay, no matter what angle I look at it from, it's still a pretty strange mix-up.

Well, moving onto classtime proper... Wow, they *really* didn't like this one. So, to recaputilate: The Non-Fan's Opinion -- THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN - Eh, BATMAN: YEAR ONE - Yay, EMERALD DAWN - Nay. According to the facilitators, the student response to EMERALD DAWN was predominantly negative, something reflected in the class discussion. What's funny was the nature of the criticism. A number of people expressed their distaste towards the "politics" of the Green Lantern concept; they detected an unhealthy ideology inside. They found the character of Hal Jordan and the GLC concept as a whole as very "American," in the bad sense of the word. There were comments about about moral relativism and how the Guardians of the Universe have no right to enforce their values onto other cultures. Certainly an amusing discussion to watch, have to say.

Heck, one guy even talked about how he saw the color green as a metaphor. As he put it, the Guardians are trying to spread morality, but it's only their culture's morality, a filtered light (one color) instead of white (all colors). Personally, I find that a pretentious interpretation, but at the same time a small part of me finds it neat.

A secondary target of criticism was the absurdity of, well, *all* the story's science. A bunch of students just found it too much, really. I suppose the Green Lantern concept does require a sizeable scooping of suspension of disbelief, doesn't it, even by superhero standards? And oh yes, you can bet the phrase "weakness to the color yellow" was uttered. Personally, I always liked that bit; it works really well in terms of visuals.

The following week's trade paperback was DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN.