Mike86

Hal is better known but I think they'd be better off using a different Green Lantern after the flop that was the 2010 movie they made using Hal Jordan.

taffer

I doubt it. John Stewart was the Green Lantern in Timm's DCAU. Remember when the Hal Jordan movie came out and everyone was asking why Green Lantern was a white guy.

TGM

no. nope. I don't remember that at all.

"everyone". ROFL.

taffer

Sarcasm?

You're either joking or just don't remember. It most definitely happened.

Not "everyone" of course. That's an exaggeration. Don't take things so literally.

MOST people (i.e. 99% of the audience that doesn't actually read comic books) had no idea that there is more than one Green Lantern. Most people don't know there is a Green Lantern Corps. Most people think Green Lantern as a singular superhero, not a Corps with a multitude of Lanterns.

So yes, many people did indeed ask why Green Lantern was cast as a white dude in the movie.

Supermallet

I agree that most people think there is only one Green Lantern, but I'd say most people think it's Hal Jordan.

The Cow

Yep.

Hokeyboy

He was far -- FAR -- from the only one.

Man, the Internet's mad-on for Kevin Smith is ridiculous

JordanGLC

Word.

RocShemp

Actually, there were vocal complaints from people that only knew GL from JL/JLU that accused the movie of being racist for changing GL into a white man. I found that hilarious.

RocShemp

They meant that it's his time to be the token black guy of the JL. Expect him to start saying things like "damn" and "that's whack" whenever they feel like giving him any lines.

Dragon Tattoo

Yeah, if you're not a huge comic nerd and only know DC from the DCAU (which MANY people do) then the only GL you know is John Stewart.

No one fucking reads GL comics.

Mike86

Is that a joke? Blackest Night was a pretty hugely popular storyline.

RocShemp

To comic book readers. The general public knows GL from the cartoons. The only reason Hal Jordan was GL in the last series was because general audiences had no clue who he was when the movie came out. That's why all the cries of racism came about. General audiences thought that Jon Stewart was the only GL and had no clue he was a mostly disliked character (as far as comic book readers where concerned) until JL/JLU made him cool.

ivelostr2

i had a high school friend message me on Facebook the other day...I've become her "go to person" for her son's questions about superheroes.

He wanted to know who the black guy was in the justice league cartoon. I told her Green Lantern and she messaged me back that her son said Green Lantern was white and this guy is black, so it can't be Green Lantern. Then I had to explain it all to her.

This kid is like 6 or 7. There might be a narrow group of people who identify GL as being black but I think the rest identify him as white either because of the movie or because of comic.

taffer

At least someone remembers it.

Hal Jordan might be known now AFTER the movie, but BEFORE the movie there were many people asking why Green Lantern was a white dude in the movie. Most people here are either just joking when they say they don't remember it or they just have bad memories. It definitely happened. Just google it and you will get many hits.

I also remember when Alan Scott (the Golden Age Green Lantern) came out of the closet last year and revealed to be gay. Many people were like, "Ryan Reynolds is gay?" even though it wasn't Hal that was revealed as gay.


No one reads comics anymore period. The top five selling titles sell about 150,000 copies a month.

If you seriously don't think anyone reads GL though, you simply haven't been paying any attention at all to the comic industry for the last decade. The GL title has consistently been one of the most popular and best selling comics ever since Geoff Johns started writing it back in 2004.

When DC did the New 52 reboot back in 2011, Batman and Green Lantern were the only two that didn't get the reboot hammer. Its because their comics were so highly popular and selling well. Superman and Wonder Woman both got heavily rebooted though.

Its like I have said before, in terms of comics, the Big Two are now Batman and Green Lantern rather than Batman and Superman.


Not just Blackest Night, but the entire Geoff Johns run of the last decade was hugely popular.

BTW, The Sinestro Corps War was better than Blackest Night.

Dragon Tattoo

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...3/2013-10.html

I guess a ranking of 26 makes it one of the most popular books now?

You're right, though. That's certainly higher than I thought it would be.

This however, is clearly wrong, according to those sales figures, unless you think Superman Wonder Woman and Batman/Superman don't have Superman in them.

taffer

:facepalm:

Geoff Johns' last issue was #20. Look up sales on that one.

The title has taken a bit of a sales dip since Johns left. That happens sometimes when creative teams change.

A ranking of 26 isn't bad at all though. Look at Action Comics and Superman on that same sales chart and they took ranking 51 and 52 respectively.

The big surprise to me on that chart is The Walking Dead #115 with sales of over 300,000 copies. WTF? I don't read that comic, but was that a special issue or what? It sold more than double what Batman sold in the #2 ranking.


You think Batman/Superman sells well because of the Superman name? That's precious. It sells because its Batman. You can put poop in a box and put Batman's name on it, and it will sell well. A Batman/Green Lantern would sell just as well as Batman/Superman does.

Superman/Wonder Woman topped the charts simply because its a #1 issue. #1 issues always sell very well, so that's skewed data.

Look at Superman's actual two titles, Action Comics and Superman. They were ranked 51 and 52. That's much more telling than a Batman team-up title and a #1 issue.

Edit to add:

I took a closer look at that sales chart you posted.

Rankings are actually a bit skewed because Marvel double ships so many titles per month. For example, Superior Spider-Man #19 and #20 both get a ranking, but they're really one title. Also crossover events like Marvel's Infinity and DC's Forever Evil aren't ongoing series. They're short miniseries, and these events always top the charts so they skew the data a bit as well.

So that means Green Lantern's ranking of 26 is actually much better than it sounds once you count all the double shipping titles as one rank and count out events. Looking at that chart, Green Lantern was indeed the best selling DC title that isn't either a Batman title, a Justice League title (which also stars Batman), or the Forever Evil event (which again stars Batman). So Green Lantern really is second only to Batman.

Edit to add more:

Haha. I just noticed Aquaman was ranked 40. He outsold Action Comics (ranked 51) and Superman (rank 52).

TGM

sorry, I don't buy it. I've always thought Green Lantern was a white dude. And I bet most of the general public thought so too. Why? because he was white on the Superfriends.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/3TOT5updrUI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

taffer

Bruce Timm's DCAU is more known with modern audiences (i.e. mostly young people under 30) than Super Friends.

Super Friends is something their parents and other old codgers watched.

And face it, "old people" like us aren't the primary demographic for this Hollywood stuff. The primary demographic is and has always been young people.

Hokeyboy

Yeah, I also remember the "I thought Green Lantern was a BLACK guy!" brouhaha. The fact is, the JL/JLU cartoon was the driving image among the younger crowds.

majorjoe23

115 has a ton of covers (like 10 or 12), is the kick off to a new arc they've been hyping up and may be returnable for retailers.

Not sure of either.

This Green Lantern argument is silly, people need to just whip their dicks out and end this.

For a lot of people, Hal Jordan is Green Lantern because he more or less has been for 50 years.

For a lot of people John Stewart is because JL/JLU was running/in reruns for the decade leading up to the Green Lantern movie.

A larger group of people don't know or give a damn who either character is. Or might have an idea that he's white/black because they caught a glimpse of their kid watching Super Powers/JLU.

Yes, there were some people who said "I thought Green Lantern was black" when the movie came out, just like there were people who said "I thought Green Lantern was white" when the cartoon started.

Now I'll add a facepalm or laughing smiley, because by taking part in this conversation I have had to become a self-assured dick.

Solid Snake

Yeah. That was funny.

DonnachaOne

TGM, you should accept that you are incorrect about the general public's view of Green Lantern.

Tom Creo

Yeah, GL is white. End of discussion.

taffer

You must have missed the Parallax stuff of the 90s. Hal Jordan has only recently (relatively speaking) returned from that.

SPOILERS

Hal Jordan went bat shit crazy and turned into the supervillain Parallax. He went insane because Mongul and Cyborg Superman had destroyed his home city, Coast City, during The Death and Return of Superman.

Hal destroyed the Green Lantern Corps. Then Kyle Rayner was introduced and was the sole Green Lantern for about ten years from 1994-2004. Then writer Geoff Johns came on board and brought back Hal and the Corps from the dead.


Three Green Lanterns are white. Two are black. Thousands of Green Lanterns however aren't even human.