Tagged: Green Lantern

What are the Alpha Lanterns of Green Lantern Corps?

  • News
  • February 10, 2008

With the debut of the "Alpha-Lanterns" in the most recent issue of Green Lantern, many readers (myself included) are wondering exactly what the heck these part-organic, part-robotic "police" are and what role they’ll play in the greater Green Lantern universe.

Luckily, Newsarama has an interview with writer Sterling Gates about his upcoming arc in Green Lantern Corps that provides some back story for the mysterious new members of the Green Lantern mythos.

NRAMA: We saw a little bit of what the Alpha-Lanterns do in Green Lantern. But can you elaborate on what role the Alpha-Lanterns play within the Corps?

SG: The Alpha-Lanterns act as "Internal Affairs" for the Green Lantern Corps. If someone isn’t doing their job right, they get flagged, and one of the Alpha-Lanterns is sent in to see why they’re not doing the job.

You know, Grant [Morrison] really hit on a wonderful idea and started the ball rolling with the Alpha-Lanterns, conceptualizing them, then Geoff developed the idea even further in Green Lantern. I’m focusing in on one of them in particular and really delving into her character and what drives her to be an Alpha. So as we follow Boodikka’s investigation, we’ll also be exploring her past and why she left her family behind. This story really serves as an origin story for Boodikka, looking back at her life while moving her forward as a character and an Alpha.

Gates’ Green Lantern Corps storyline begins with this month’s issue #21.

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52 Weeks of Reading Recommendations by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • February 6, 2008

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When ComicMix launched a year ago, we were especially pleased to include the legendary Dennis O’Neil as one of our regular columnists.  Denny has written and/or edited every major character in comics, including Batman, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Superman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Iron Man, the Question, Azrael, and Millie the Model.

Back in the day, when comics had letter columns, Denny would usually share his reading preferences with readers.  We’re delighted to have continued this tradition here on ComicMix in Denny’s weekly columns.

To celebrate the last 52 weeks of Denny’s contributions to ComicMix, here’s a list of what he’s recommended so far, in the order he recommended them and with his thoughts on the recommendations (when he provided them). You’ll notice that, sometimes, he suggests the same book more than once.  And sometimes, he suggests more than one book at a time.  That’s the kind of reader Denny is — he takes his time, and he’s eclectic.

Good reading!

2/13/07

Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud

This is the one essential book for anyone with a genuine interest in the subject.

2/20/97

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by Sam Harris

2/27/07

Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, by Thich Nhat Hanh

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Flickr Green Lantern Art: ‘Power.Less’

  • News
  • February 5, 2008

A friend directed me to this great piece of Green Lantern art created by Derek Chatwood and located in a public album on Flickr.

It’s titled "power.less" and the story that goes along with the art is price.less (click through to the image homepage  on Flickr for the full text):

Ego. Hal Jordan was walking ego. His excuse was that he had to be. The Green Lantern was powered by will. No will, no power.

For some reason, that day, Batman wasn’t having it. He called Hal out, and told him he shouldn’t underestimate the abilities of his team-mates. Hal laughed. C’mon Bruce, you know how this works. Whatever I can think of, whatever I put my will to, the ring can make happen. I can move a planet if I want to. I can do anything.

Hal, Batman said, as he rose from his chair. In some ways, you’re the weakest member in the League. …

(Artist: Derek Chatwood, All Rights Reserved; Hat-Tip to "Friends of Fipilele" for the link.)

William James and the Superbowl, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • February 5, 2008

Big game day. As I sit down to write this, the coin toss that will start this year’s Superbowl is about 90 minutes away. Let a hush fall over the universe. The Pats and the Giants are preparing to vie for godlike supremacy. Who’s your favorite QB – Eli or Tom? Me – I’m going for the Giants, not because I know anything about them, but rather because Marifran likes the Patriots and we have this annual bet. Winner gets to choose the next movie. Call us sports.

Wonder what William James would have thought of the Superbowl?

William James, brother of Henry, as the English majors and philosophy fans among you probably know, launched the concept of the “moral equivalent of war.” Although he was a self-proclaimed pacifist, he recognized that war has its uses – he even declared that history would be “insipid” without it. And it does. It hastens technological development, helps young men understand others who are not of their tribe, offers an opportunity for individuals to test themselves (and maybe learn what they really feel), provides an opportunity to develop managerial skills…You can probably add to the list.

War also kills and maims the innocent and destroys economies and nations and minds and brutalizes the survivors and gives money and power to those least deserving of them, such as men who have never fired a shot except, maybe, at forest animals and who knows? – even then the shooter might miss his target and hit a companion instead. Feel free to add to this list, too.

The trick, then, according to James and like minds, is to find a way to do the good things war does, and omit the bad. It’s a trick nobody has learned how to do. But we have some activities that approximate war that don’t do significant harm and may do some good, and sports is one of them. It allows young folk to obey their evolutionary imperative to engage in strenuous physicality with the goal of beating someone or something and maybe copping some glory and admiring glances and, please, let us not knock that imperative; it helped our distant, burrow-dwelling ancestors to claim a home on the Earth’s surface after a big chunk of rock did in the dinosaurs.

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Hate, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • January 29, 2008

Calling movie actors “stars” was appropriate when I was a midwestern lad, long ago, because they seemed as distant and unattainable as those celestial twinklers that speckled the summer sky. None of my friends or relatives were movie stars — they were butchers or clerks or drivers or printers — and what the stars did, acting, wasn’t a real job and so those who did it weren’t real people. They were…stars. But if you knew someone who knew, or at least had spoken to, one of these distant beings who lived in places you never expected to visit, the stars became somehow real — or maybe realer, anyway. They were, if not people, then some sort of demi-people.

Clark Gable was a star. But Rock Hudson was both more and less than a star because I knew a girl who had worked as an extra on one of his films. Julia Adams…heck, she was a person, because she did a personal appearance at the grocery co-op my father belonged to when she was co-starring with Tyrone Power in Mississippi Gambler and people I knew actually saw her in the flesh. And didn’t that make Power a demi-person, too, by association?

Which brings us to Heath Ledger. I was never in a room with him, never saw him on the street, spoke to him on the phone, none of that. But when a heard about his death a few days ago, I felt just a tiny bit worse than I usually feel when someone whose work I admire passes. Why? Mr. Ledger and I lived in two of the same neighborhoods, one in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan, though not at the same time, and my big 2007 project was writing a novel based on the script of a movie Mr. Ledger performs in. Somehow, all this makes me feel a dim and distant connection to him.

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JLA Bites The Dust

In comics, as in most facets of entertainment, it’s all about the concept. What fits together better than a girl, pirates and a nice, juicy curse. Aracania Studios’ Cursed Pirate Girl begins in March and we’ve got your preview here on ComicMix Radio.
 
Plus:
• That’s it for the JLA movie
• Green Lantern scores a sell out and Boom! has one, too
• Millar and Hitch extend their stay on Fantastic Four
 
Press The Button or we’ll send you an e-mail full of Cloverfield spoilers!

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Cut Them Off At The Past, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • January 15, 2008

And the Screen Writers Guild lurches into a tenth week and if there’s any end in sight, I haven’t heard about it.

Last time, I mentioned the Academy of Comic Book Arts and its failure to do any significant negotiating on behalf of its members. ACBA wasn’t the first attempt, though, to organize those glorious mavericks, the comic book community. In the 60s…

Wait! Better issue a warning before I go further. Do not regard anything that follows as gospel. (In fact, you might consider not regarding the Gospel as gospel, but let us not digress.) I have no reason not to believe what I’m about to tell you except one: About a year before he died, Arnold Drake, who was a busy comic book writer at the time we’ll be discussing, told me that the story I had wasn’t the whole story, or even necessarily accurate. I don’t know why I didn’t press him for further information, but I didn’t.

Okay, the story:

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Cartoonists Of The World Unite, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • January 8, 2008
The television and movie Writers Guild strike lurches into its ninth week. If it goes on much longer, we may be doomed to even more staged “reality” and contest shows. Might be a good time to rekindle a book reading habit.
 
I’ve heard grumbling from folk who work that side of the street to the effect that the strike could have been better managed. Although I’m technically a member of the Guild, I don’t have an opinion – about the strike, that is. Two years ago, I was told that since I hadn’t done any United States television work for a decade, I was being put on retired status, which means, I think, that I can still benefit from the Guild’s services, but I don’t have to pay dues or have my mail box filled with notices of seminars and other industry events. 
 
All fine with me.
 
About the Guild, as separate from the strike, I do have an opinion. I think the Guild is a noble organization, one that does exactly what a union should do, and no more. It collectively bargains, it protects members’ rights; it offers education and retirement benefits. And membership costs are more than reasonable. The current disagreement is over whether/how much writers should benefit from ancillary use of their stuff, mostly new media and computer related. I can imagine no sane reason why writers should not get such benefits, but I admit to bias.
 

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Little Ditty About Danny and Fred, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • December 25, 2007

Danny and Fred were the last two kids in their grade to still believe in Santa Claus. 

 
Danny had first believed in Daddy, but he stopped when Daddy began to yell a lot, and drink whiskey, and throw things. So Danny could believe he had a father, because he could see a man coming and going, but he stopped believing in Daddy. 
 
But he still believed in Santa Claus. Santa Claus would never yell or throw things or drink whiskey, and besides, he brought presents and all Danny had to do was be good, which he was anyway. Fred, who lived next door, also believed in Santa, though he and Danny never discussed the etiology of it, so Danny didn’t know why Fred believed. He didn’t care, either.
 
Then, when Danny was fourteen, Father, who was once Daddy, came into Danny’s room on Christmas Eve and pulled Danny from bed and hustled him into the front room, where the Christmas tree was. Father sat Danny down on the sofa and got a big cardboard box from a closet.
 

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Hot Who Links and Much More!

  • News
  • December 23, 2007

OK, so we get a little sappy this time of year. Just bear with us and accept ComicMix Radio’s gift of some cool web links. And in the spirit of giving, a few of these haven’t even made it to the podcast yet!

• In two days, a lot of us should be treated to the first new Doctor Who adventure in months when the BBC airs this year’s Christmas special (and the Internet Fairies drop it somewhere online). In the meantime, did you know there is an online adventure calendar poster here. If this doesn’t put you in the mood for more Who, nothing will. 
 
• As we told you on Saturday, Shadowline is creating a contest geared toward writers to create a super-heroine for the 21st Century. The character will be 100% creator-owned as all Image and Shadowline books are (trademark and copyright to be shared by writer and artist). The winning entry will be featured in their own self-titled three issue mini-series to be drawn by Franchesco!, artist for She-Dragon and Green Lantern Corps Quarterly. Contest will be divided into three parts and for Round One: Contestants e-mail a BRIEF one paragraph story synopsis by January 31, 2008 to: superheroinecontest@gmail.com. Stories/concept must be original with original characters. No pre-existing characters may be used unless owned by contestant. 
 

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