#26 Green Lantern

It’s 2011, Marvel’s cinematic universe is finding its footing and is approaching an Avengers movie, so it’s finally time for DC Comics to bring one of its most beloved characters to the big screen.

No, not that one (again), we’re working on one for next year though

No, not that one either, it’ll be 2 years before we see him again

A girl as a star of a superhero movie? Please… She’ll have to wait 5 years before she even gets a supporting role in a superhero movie.

Oh no…

DC’s reputation with comic book movies had suddenly rocketed back with the release of the Dark Knight, the best Batman movie and one of my personal favourite movies. So maybe now’s the time to try and make a movie with another character. Unfortunately they picked this one

That’s not to say I dislike Green Lantern in the comics but Green Lantern is a sci-fi series with a lot of lore and backstory

I mean let’s try and sum up Batman’s origin in a single sentence

His parents were killed so he gets trained up and fights crime wearing a ‘terrifying’ bat-suit

Superman?

His planet was destroyed so he grew up in Kansas, learning American values; he gains powers from the sun and fights crime.

Wonder Woman?

She’s the son of Ares, or maybe Zeus and she was modelled from clay and erm… OK, bad example

But Hal Jordan

He’s a pilot who’s kind of a jerk who receives a ring from a dying alien named Abin Sur; he takes the ring, which is fuelled by his willpower and becomes a space-cop of his sector 2814 under the watching of the guardians of the universe; he’s trained by Sinestro and Kilowog and then starts fighting crime.

See my point? Green Lantern is far better suited for something that can reveal it’s lore and back story a bit more slowly, such as an animated series (a live action series could be costly given the amount of CGI required for it)

Oh you have got to be… Yes, for those who don’t know, the exceptionally good Green Lantern: The Animated series met it’s end not because of low viewership or bad writing, no, it met it’s end because this movie was so bad kids wouldn’t buy Green Lantern toys, making toy stores lose any confidence in buying Green Lantern animated series toys. Well done movie, when your sh*t sinks, it drowns others in its wake.

Made with a $200m production budget, the movie barely made that making $220m at the box office, considering another $100m went into advertising this stinker, that’s a pretty bad performance.

The movie wasn’t greatly received gaining 26% rotten tomatoes and 39/100 on Metacritic. And it totally deserves that rating.

I know what you’re thinking, this is an a**-numbingly long opening to a review, can you just get on with it? Well let’s dive in

#18 The Fall of Green Arrow

Bad stories spawn bad follow-ups. So here we are, this month I’ll be dealing with the two follow-up stories of Justice League: Cry for Justice (and Superboy #0, man I'm doing a lot of comics this month).  And oh man, do the both suck. We’ll be tackling the story of the fate of Green Arrow first, because it’s the better of the two. Not saying it’s any good, it isn’t, but…

So after the events of Cry for Justice, a lot was up in the air about the fate of Green Arrow (Oliver Queen and Red Arrow (Roy Harper) the two who had been most affected by the book. The concluding stories from the Green Arrow book (which was relaunched shortly afterwards under the “Brightest Day” moniker) and the one-shot Justice League: Rise and Fall special dealt with Green Arrow’s fate, setting up he’d be in the relaunched title.

J T Krul was the writer, the same guy who’s responsible for making the Teen Titans (before Scott Lobdell decided to sh*t all over them with the relaunch) good again after the awful run of Felcia D Henderson. What I’m saying is JT Krul is usually a good writer. But anything related to Cry for Justice turns to sh*t, so let’s see exactly what we have here.

#12 All-Star Batman and Robin #9

For those that don't know my history with comic books, which is everyone since I've never mentioned it before, I started out reading a magazine called Batman Legends that collected 2-3 issues of Batman related material into a single volume. A few issues into this magazine a comic was printed called All Star Batman and Robin #5. And I hated it, sure I kept buying the magazine for the other issues (I wasn't even aware of my local comic store, and the appearances of trades in book shops was fairly new) issues 5-9 were printed in the magazine with issues 1-4 printed prior to me picking up the book.

All Star Batman and Robin is written by Frank Miller, known for fantastic works of Batman such as The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, and sh*t works of Batman such as The Dark Knight Strikes Again. The art is done by veteran Jim Lee, who produces some fantastic art, but he's not particularly quick and the series was plagued with delays. Issue #10 ended on a cliff-hanger, with a new series Dark Knight: Boy Wonder supposedly to be released to finish the story. This has yet to come out, and the blame lies, by his own admission, entirely with Jim Lee. Jim Lee was beginning working on projects with decent writers like Geoff Johns and Scott Snyder. (Although you could argue DC editorial decided it was too sh*t to send out)

If you're wondering why I'm not reviewing back-issues of this comic. It's quite simple, Linkara has already covered them. And while I'm certain he'll do a much more thorough and much funnier review of this issue than I do, I have nothing else to say that he hasn't already. Besides so little happens in 8 issues it's barely worth me going back.