Friday, 23 December 2011

By Lantern Light

Geoff Johns put a lot of work into reimagining Green Lantern when he did Vol 4. (I think the reboot makes it vol 5 now? Either way, that's a good point to cut off, and I'm only a few trades off finishing the vol 4 collection.)

One big change is that the universe came from light, which became seven colours (conveniently the colours of the spectrum we know). Each colour is associated with its own corps... and each colour is the emotion which drives that corps. Now, as I said, Geoff did good work and wove it well into Lantern history, however there are a few issues I have with it, mainly that they aren't emotions. Mostly. Let's look. And, because I'm communicating, let's use "I feel" statements. (And see how people feel these emotions with google searches, using quotes to get exact statements.)

"I feel rage." (727K searches) Okay, that works as an emotion. ("I feel anger" gives over 2 million hits.)

"I feel avarice." (2,770 searches) Hmm... not really an emotion. "I feel greedy" gives 345K searches.

"I feel fear." (3+ million) Fear, emotion no doubt. This is yellow, btw, which does ties in very nicely with Lantern mythos.

"I feel hope." (2.5+ million) Yep, another emotion.

"I feel compassion." (534K) Yeah, okay... 'compassionate' is only 116K searches. This is supposed to be one of the rarer emotions, so that works.

"I feel love." (4.8+ million) Love, big emotion. Retconned to work with Star Sapphire, who originally dressed in red (now rage), but slid towards violet.

And lastly, the emotion that drives the Green Lanterns themselves...

"I feel will." (...hard to search for given its usage of "this I feel will..." style) Yep, will is an emotion... according to Geoff. Not buying it, which is a shame.

And happiness and sadness doesn't make the cut as significant emotions? Or other emotions? ...not sure how effective the Apathy Corps would be...

[END]

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