Friday, January 8, 2010

"Real" Men Can Wear Indigo (AND Violet!)

I'm sitting in Logan Airport, which has no outlets in its international terminal, waiting to board my Virgin Atlantic flight, which has no outlets in its economy cabin, so I thought it'd be a good time for a long-needed blog update. When without the ability to recharge your laptop prior to a 7 1/2 hour flight, clearly you need to write about comics.

Clearly!

So you know what was cool this week? The Deputy Lanterns over in Blackest Night #6. This almost made up for the Black Lanternization of Bart, Ollie, and Kon. And, yeah, Superman. My friend pointed out that Ollie has to come back to suffer the post-Roy-becomes-Dark Knight-Ollie storyline from Cry for Justice, so he's going to be okay. And Superman is Superman. But I worry about my former Young Justice people.

Anyway, BN #6 was accompanied by Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2, which was yet another ridiculously awesome Greg Rucka book. This was a slam bang issue, man. I loved the overlap of Diana's thoughts with those of the Black Ring. And it was a totally emotional ride through her life. I had no idea it was fake until her mom showed up. Then I was a bit suspicious. Then Batman (can someone tell me why Bruce is Diana's symbol of love?), then Aphrodite.

Let me say, as an aside, that every time I think of Aphrodite I picture her like so:

Yeah, I'm a Xenite. I don't apologize. (Please enjoy Gabrielle's expression in that picture. For serious.)

Right, so the Deputy Lanterns. I'm not mega familiar with GL mythology. Has this happened before? I know the rings choose the right people, but I dig the emergency, planet-specific deputization. And I like the people they chose. One of the things I do like about the GL stuff is that there are good guys and bad guys in the good corps and bad corps. I mean, Mera's in red, right? Cool.

I guess there's been some kerfluffle about Diana's uniform. Yeah. It's a bit showy. So is her normal uniform. Now it's showier. Yeah. How about the blood running down Mera's face? Not an issue?

Okay.

I'll let other people go into that. Personally, I don't get why men can't be loving enough to be part of the Star Sapphires. If women can be angry enough to be part of the Red Lantern Corps, against the stereotype of meek and non-angry women, I don't get why a man couldn't have been chosen by the violet ring. I'm going to be honest, I'd probably have given the ring to Kal-El. But okay, give it to Diana. It's not like I'm a writer at DC or a Violet Ring. You know. And I did like how over in Action Comics he was a blend of all the colors. Or good colors, I guess. Green, blue, whatever.

Something I like about Doctor Who is that it makes Earth out to be this really special place. There's a reason the Doctor likes it so much. The people here are terrible and wonderful and they change the course of time itself. I sort of wish that attitude could be found in other genres. Maybe Earth could be the place of the first male Star Sapphire. What about planets with no genders or more-than-two genders? What do Star Sapphires do there? Just skip over that sector?

I liked this issue. Now let's fix Bart (I have a sad sad feeling that now that Irey is Impulse, Bart's not as necessary to the DCU) and finish up this Black Lantern stuff (I know, I know, April). It's been interesting, but there's only so much of the undead I can take.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to London. Cheers!

7 comments:

  1. The Green Lanterns have def deputised people before. John Stewart and Guy Gardner were deputized by Hal Hordan in the 60s/70s, but i'm not sure how that may have changed or been retconned after the first crisis.

    I think all the Black Lantern heroes will come back alive, so I'm not worried about the YJ folks.

    Ooh, you're in London, have fun! It's somewhat snowy here at the moment!

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  2. I don't really have anything to say about Blackest Night since I'm not reading it. But speaking of Wonder Woman, have you seen Kate Beaton's version?

    Enjoy your trip to London!

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  3. There is a man in Indigo. Ray Palmer.

    Wonder Woman's whole Love one being Violet.

    Not being picky or anything, just figured some accuracy would help your already awesome article

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  4. @Flip the Page - Ah, thank you. I don't consider it picky to be corrected on a mistaken fact. :) When I was learning the spectrum of light in school, my teacher refused to accept indigo as a color. We actually had a debate about it. Not sure how that relates, but hey. Thanks!

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  5. @Flip the Page - Ah, thank you. I don't consider it picky to be corrected on a mistaken fact. :) When I was learning the spectrum of light in school, my teacher refused to accept indigo as a color. We actually had a debate about it. Not sure how that relates, but hey. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  6. There is a man in Indigo. Ray Palmer.

    Wonder Woman's whole Love one being Violet.

    Not being picky or anything, just figured some accuracy would help your already awesome article

    ReplyDelete
  7. The Green Lanterns have def deputised people before. John Stewart and Guy Gardner were deputized by Hal Hordan in the 60s/70s, but i'm not sure how that may have changed or been retconned after the first crisis.

    I think all the Black Lantern heroes will come back alive, so I'm not worried about the YJ folks.

    Ooh, you're in London, have fun! It's somewhat snowy here at the moment!

    ReplyDelete