Wednesday, June 13, 2007

John Stewart, We Hardly Know You

Ragnell the Foul wrote, the other day, wanting to know who John Stewart is. (This is the Green Lantern, not the comedian or the Earl of Mar.)

Here's most of my response:
John Stewart is a builder.

He became an architect because he wanted to build things. He's not satisfied with just designing buildings, though, he likes to get in and actually be part of the building process. He likes to know that he helped to put the forms together so the foundation could be laid. He likes to be able to point to a wall and say that he put the drywall up. And he likes to visit the places he designed and help build to see them being used by people. He designs offices and superhero headquarters, but his real love is designing something families will live in, whether it's a house or an apartment building, or a tenement.

After Hal "quit" the Corps, John saw the Corps as a place to build a brotherhood, so to speak. These people weren't quite a family, but they were all united with a cause of protecting the galaxy. Here were, at the time, 3600 people, each a member of different species, who could work together toward a common goal. This was something that John was always looking for.

Katma Tui was his chance to build a family, the thing he values more than anything else. With her, John could bring new life into the universe and teach that life to value all other life and to bring people together because individuals working as a community are much stronger than individuals working toward their own goals.

The Mosaic World was where John's values were really put to the test. He built a strong community out of groups whose differences were far more than just skin deep as he rebuilt himself. He proved that he can't allow himself to quit.

John's the type of man who can't just do something and then move on. He has to see the consequences of his actions and then attempt to fix them, which was why the death of his wife and the destruction of Fatality's home world hit him so hard; he blamed himself and he couldn't see a way to correct his mistakes. He's the kind of man who knows that upkeep is as important as the initial building.
Honestly, my knowledge of John Stewart isn't that great, compared too many people out there. What I wrote about him is, I think, more the way I want him to be in the comics than he actually is. I know him from his appearances in the early issues of Green Lantern vol. 3, his short stint in the JLA, and the few issues of Green Lantern: Mosaic my brother bought.

My brother was the Green Lantern fan, not me. So, when he decided not to buy Green Lantern: Mosaic, there wasn't much I could do about it. (We were both on very limited budgets.) He did, however, buy a few issues and there's one that convinced me that John Stewart is one of the greatest characters yet to come out of the DCU.

In the issue, Hal Jordan (considered by too many people out there to be the "greatest" Green Lantern) confronts John about what's happening to the humans (Hal sort of ignores that there are about a dozen other species there, too) on Mosaic World. Hal's especially concerned with a woman named Rose, who Hal had (or nearly had, I can't remember) a fling with back in the days he was trying to "find himself" before the Guardians came back, but now she's with John and Hal doesn't like it. He want's to take her back to Earth. John wants to talk with Hal over coffee. They get the coffee and Hal tells John he's gone nuts (which isn't a leap, since John had essentially been raped by the insane Guardian who created Mosaic World). John says he's fine and Hal decides to do a mind scan. John blocks it. Hal picks a fight. So, they fight. I think it was a mental thing. Hal splits himself into dozens of identical copies and advances on John. John splits himself into dozens of different aspects of himself. Where Hal revels in the order and unity, John thrives on knowing that he's more than just one thing. John's a little kid. He's a gang banger. He's a woman. He's a giant fat man (who sounds like Louis Armstrong to me, for some reason). He's a pimp. He's a cop. He's hundreds of different things all in one body. And John's variety beats Hal's uniformity.

(The issue's spectacular. It's science fiction and action and psychology in 22 pages of pictures and word. I wish I owned it. I wish I swiped it from my brother's collection. I didn't though. I guess I'll have to keep looking at shops that are old enough to have back issues from the early 90s.)

I don't follow the newest volume of Green Lantern religiously, but I'll buy it for certain characters. (So far, I bought the one with Batman, the ones with the Cyborg Superman (my favorite Green Lantern villain), the ones where the new Global Guardians appeared. I'll probably buy the Sinestro Corps issues, too.) John appeared in one issue, for about eight panels and that's all I know about it. And what was he doing? He had gone undercover to protect Hal. (Who put a price on Hal's head? How about every women he screwed and then never called the next day? So, that's, what, hundreds of people on Earth and probably thousands more spread across the galaxy.) Then what?

Where's John?

Has he made any appearances since then?

Not that I know of.

Can I give a suggestion to DC about what John should be doing?

How about having him leading a team of Lanterns who are helping to rebuild the civilizations that were hurt during the Rann/Thanagar war? I mean, the Green Lantern Corps does more than just police, right? After being gone for so long, it seems to me that the Corps could use some good will in the galaxy. And then... Well, I don't want to write too much more about what I think should happen, but I know that there's plenty of conflict to be had out there for John and his team.

And I thought that I wrote too much for Ragnell's blog. Jeez. I promise not to write about comic stuff tomorrow, okay?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

DC's messing it all up. Left and right. They're taking us back to a childish 'silver age' when then could be telling me why the 'silver age' should not have been so childish. You shouldn't get GL. I get it to substitute nicotine in my diet, like with the Flash, I am addicted. This does not mean quality.

Ye olde GLs were characterised so well--Hal was the lost, soul-searching vet; Guy slipped out of a coma and came back a jerk (love it, LOVE it); John? Never the hero. Always the second, the sidekick, the trainee.

And things evolved accordingly: The lost lose or the hero becomes the villain, the jerk 'straightened out' (though that yellow ring idea was great; remember when Guy fought Superman?), the prodigal came to power. Good stuff. Good stuff.

John was always torn between duty and passion: the duty to do what's needed more than right, the passion to create a reality for HIS dreams. He finally took his place as Hal's replacement (still living in said man's shadow) and slowly, through bad writing, became the stoic hero we saw in JLA before slipping back into obscurity. I like it to a point.

Let's face it--Hal never should've come back. I call this 'Bullshit'.

(Didn't they throw all this brilliance down the shoot with I Crisis? Or was it GL Rebirth, one of DC's larger mistakes? Was it Hyper Time? Can I blame Mark Fucking Waid?! Please?)

...

That issue of Mosaic you mentioned wasn't the only work of art in that series; over the years I've been lucky enough to piece it together, a puzzle missing only edges, as it were. Today I find Blue Beetle already collected in trade, a crappy series that needs more to die than be re-sold. Where is my mosaic? WHAT'S WRONG AT DC?!

ticknart said...

I had to take a day before I replied because at first I was all like, "Yeah, you're totally right!" But I came to realize that you're kind of right.

First, you're Mosaic is Mosaic. You may have been youngish when it came out, but you were reading it then. And you can still read and enjoy it today. It's always there for you as long as you still have the issues, or the trade, if they ever release it.

Second, you can't stop me from buying the Sinestro Corps storyline. If the Cyborg Superman is in the story, and it looks like he will be, then I'm going to buy it. Throw in the Manhunters and then I have to buy it.

Third, I'm more fond of remembering when Guy went out to "recruit" The Ray.

Fourth, as for "taking us back to a childish 'silver age'" it's unfortunate, but true. Well done, the stories could be taking us back to the child-like wonder created by silver age comics. (Think of that sense of wonder and awe you got the first time you read Flash of Two Worlds.) So far, they haven't really captured that because the editors and writers are trying to mix the modern way to tell serial stories with rehashed plots and continuity that flies in the face of what's been around for the last twelve years, ever since the first CoIE ended. Hopefully, the kinks will be worked out and wonder will replace childish, soon.

All of that makes me wonder, though, what will comics be like when people our age, people who grew up reading comics post-Crisis and post-Watchmen, start running things? Will they try to bring back the status quo from the early nineties where everything was trying to be badass and x-treme, or will they work with the current events and try to build great stories from there? If you were in charge, what would you choose to do? Would you work with Hal Jordan as he is now, or would you drive him mad and kill him again?

This is the first time, that I can see, in comics where it was decided to dash nearly everything and then step back to an older status quo rather than build new stories from what was currently happening. I'm trying to fight my inner fanboy and only hope for the best.

Anonymous said...

I admit I'm planning on buying the Sinestro Corps storyline ... unless it crosses into GL Corps, I stopped grabbing that title after issue ... 5, I believe. Cyborg? Sinestro? Vs some form of Hal Jordan? You bet your ass! Let's bring this boy to the breaking point because--

Yes, I would have left him dead. In this case? I still wonder why it was that the most powerful creature in the universe (Parallax) WANTED to become the Spectre: where does this fit into his plan? My thoughts still lie on phoney deception. Infinite Crisis? Multiverse? This new universe mimics the old. Ooh, that Parallax is a crafy SOB ...

Would I work with him now?

...

I feel he's been 're-wound', that this is not a new starting point, this is old, just a little different: the corpse of Parallax replacing that of Abin Sur, a fight with sinestro instead of Legion. In this universe planned (in Zero Hour) by Jordan, Jordan's will be done. I will work with him from THIS point, sure!

In this case, DC's playing right into my hands; a new story needs to be told. The hero became the villain, the villain redeemed himself with death and in death ... becomes the greatest villain of all.

And, please, let's remember, I LOVES myself some good Hal Jordan. He's just evil now. And the story works. Works so well!

Anonymous said...

Also, the fact that this has digressed from John to Hal, the corps and the uni-/multiverse at large is a grand description of the character that is John Stewart--overlooked, underdeveloped, underappreciated.

Maybe it's time HE went nutso...

ticknart said...

The reason we got into the whole Hal thing is because you brought up your hatred for Mark Waid and the direction that the DCU is moving in general and Hal being a GL again is a big part of that. He was, after all, THE Green Lantern for the most consecutive years. Even when the book's title was changed to Green Lantern Corps, his memory and being called the greatest affected everyone else, not always in a good way.

As for John being overlooked, the thing is that he's probably more recognizable to the average person because he was the GL in the Justice League cartoon. Ask people who watched the cartoon, but don't read comics, who Green Lantern is they'll probably all tell you John Stewart. The problem with that is, he was a special forces military man, not the conflicted architect that I know and enjoy so much. I'm afraid that making John be the GL who tracked down the person who was hunting Hal is a big step toward changing his origin and characterization away from the comic continuity and more toward the cartoon's characterization.

Anonymous said...

The Joker did not kill Batman's parents.

...

Anonymous said...

Good words.

ticknart said...

We appriciate that, Tallulah.