Green Lantern

Okay time for another rave.


One of my favourite past times is, always has been and probably always will be, reading comics. I just love ‘em (without going as overboard as some people- after all I do have my dignity….more or less). Tintin, Garfield, Asterix and just about anything from DC, Dark Horse and sometimes Marvel. Okay maybe the occasional Vertigo or Image….but I digress.

I especially love superhero comics; Batman, Superman the whole shebang. And if do happen to have crossovers and team-ups, all the better, I say.

Perhaps no more than twenty minutes before I began writing this, I finished a particularly interesting Green Lantern comic. It must be said that the Green Lanterns have probably one of the coolest powers in the world of comics. With their power rings and a decent amount of willpower, they can fly, shoot lasers and conjure up just about anything they can think of. Imagine how awesome it might be to finally unleash a 30 metre tall, sabre toothed rabbit on an unsuspecting Tokyo. Or how liberating it would feel to flip the world the biggest greenest bird anyone has ever seen. Or you know…using your powers ‘responsibly’ to fight crime and save lives instead of carving your initials all over Mt. Rushmore.

Of course, having one of the coolest powers means that there are really BIG drawbacks.

Now don’t get me wrong, superhero’s need weaknesses. Without them, they just wouldn’t be as interesting. Superman has kryptonite, Wolverine has issues with magnets and Batman….well he’s kinda vulnerable to just about anything. But that doesn’t stop him from kicking the proverbial backside.
And what is the weakness of the emerald knights? Why that is simple.

Yellow.

Yep…yellow. A colour. Anything that is coloured yellow.
HELLLLOOOOO? Does anyone else think that’s just a little dumb? I mean as if there aren’t any limitations already.
Firstly, you have to recharge the ring every 24 hours. To do that, you have to find a special lantern and chant a mantra while it charges up. What if you forget the words? What if in the time it takes for the ring to charge, someone decides to shoot you? What if you lose the lantern in a bet? What if your mum thought it was just some tacky knick-knack that was lying around and sold it for five bucks on eBay? You’re pretty much screwed.

Second, there are restrictions in place as to what you can and can’t do. For example…using lethal force is strictly prohibited and will lock the ring. Which is fair enough I suppose, but what if some gigantic, mindless, planet-eating, space slug was intent on devouring earth? You’ve thrown everything at it and still it approaches. Your ring scans the slug and you find out it’s weakness is something that you need the ring to do. Sorry….lethal force is prohibited, ring shutting down….goodbye earth.

Next problem. You need total concentration and ‘pure’ willpower. If there was say some kind of physiological disturbance like, I dunno, a neural scramblising ray or an Angelina Jolie lookalike prancing around in skin-tight spandex, the ring will cut out. Sure you might be able to regain control just you hit the ground after a 5,000 foot drop, but what if you are deep underwater our in outer space? You’d probably implode from the intense pressure or your blood would boil. Lovely.

Then your ring is ineffective against yellow? That’s like being allergic to water. There is a whole heck of a lot thing that are yellow. All your enemies would have to do is wear yellow clothing and paint their bullets yellow and that’s that. How could you stop a raging mutant canary? Or a humongous yellow meteorite? Answer- you can’t. It’s gotta be one of the dumbest weaknesses ever.

Or think about this. According to most comics, how is it that Superman is super? Why due to basking in the rays of our yellow sun of course! Wait….yellow? So technically, Green Lanterns should be completely powerless. Well thanks a lot guys! Now we all gonna die and you can’t do squat!

Now supposedly the reasoning behind this weakness, is that yellow represents fear (is it just me or does that sound kinda racist?) Which is why the rogue Corps founded by ex-lantern Sinestro, use yellow power rings. Finally the writers decided that the more powerful Lanterns such as Hal Jordan could overcome the ‘yellow impurity’ if they purged all fear from themselves. Not at all easy I’d say, especially when surrounded by thousands of monstrous beings trying to shoot, eat, disintegrate, stomp or otherwise obliterate you.

In short, I wonder if the writers ever gave any thought to this weakness. Surely there are plenty of ways to take down Green Lantern without having to resort to having an entire colour as a weakness. Now yellow radiation…that I could understand.

Ah well…

- Professor Bear