Darkseid vs. Green Lantern

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

This is from Green Lantern 80-Page Giant #3. It's written by Scott Beatty and illustrated by Grant Miehm.

Comments

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Man, that Darkseid's a jerk. Good thing Batman shot him, eh?

[aegof.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

Yeah.
Would've been funnier to see him try to force-feed ol' Darky the bullet, though.

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

Rather nice of Darkseid to actually let him go, wasn't it?

[interrobamf.insanejournal.com]

Well, ol' Uxas needs somebody to deliver the message of "Fuck off."

[mullon.insanejournal.com]

I never understood why the Corps didn't all gather together and take out Darkseid.

[shanejayell.insanejournal.com]

Apparently there WAS a GL/Darkseid war that ended with the GLs getting spanked.

[mullon.insanejournal.com]

So basically evil is stronger than good. That's nice, real nice.

[shanejayell.insanejournal.com]

Well, evil's smarter anyway.
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/188639.html?thread=3889119#t3889119

[aegof.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

Well, that's usually how it goes, yeah.

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

Common universes suck like that.

JLA Another Nail (an Elseworlds) showed even with the entire Corps and the New Genesis New Gods helping battling Darkseid and his forces the GL's and good New Gods would pretty much lose.

Of course the real question is how the GL's actually go to Apokolips. I thought it was like an enormous space that could only be accessed via boom tube to even put you on the same size as the New Gods.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

you telling me a GL ring couldn't create a Boom Tube?

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

... that's a really interesting question. What's more sophisticated, a GL ring or a motherbox? GL rings no longer seem to possess the same sentience they exhibited pre-Crisis, while 'boxes are still quite alive and have personalities, so in that sense they're probably a step up, but their actual ability to analyze and affect the world around them seems far more limited.

[blake_reitz.insanejournal.com]

Well, going by Final Crisis, the mother box would be the more sophisticated entity, since using a green lantern ring was only part of what was needed to build a "cargo cult" mother box. Actually, this is one of the reasons I'm glad the New Gods have their own little corner of the multiverse.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Well, componency isn't necessarily indicative of greater end sophistication. A living cow, for example, is a much more sophisticated thing than a hunk of ground beef or a leather car seat. Without knowing whether all of the ring's function was required, or whether the ring was even being used in the way it was designed (a desktop PC can make a very effective space heater in winter, which is an absurd waste if you buy it for that purpose, but if you need a space heater and already have a PC on hand...), we can't say whether the motherbox is really "Lantern Ring Plus."

[blake_reitz.insanejournal.com]

Going to be honest here in my personal comic cosmology, cosmic power is measured in Kirby Dots. Slight bias...

An interesting point in that we don't really know in what way the ring was used. One might assume that the GLC battery might be considered the higher level of technology, as it was the target of Granny Goodness. Now that I'm thinking about it, we've really not seen all that much of mother boxes in terms of raw power compared to GL rings. The reason being that for most of the corps, the ring is the whole of their superpower, while the New Gods are using mother boxes as, well, "fancy god ipods."

I'm still leaning towards mother boxes as the more sophisticated tech, since they seem to contain a metaphysical or spiritual aspect to them, and pull off feats that I've never seen out of a ring (Boom Tubes being the big one, also healing.)

Now, if we gave Himon, creator of the motherbox, a GL ring, would he be able to re-create the motherbox? Didn't Scott Free get his soul transferred into a GLC ring via motherbox in the sequel to The Nail? Crossover questions are starting to muck up my thoughts.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Rings can heal and teleport, though the second use we haven't seen since Crisis and the first only seems available to people who don't know any better (Ice did it with Guy's ring, and Guy has never been able to duplicate it because he "knows" it isn't possible... much the way the yellow weakness has been retconned). I don't think there's any reason to think a ring couldn't make a Boom Tube whatsoever. On the other hand, there's fair reason to think there aren't many Lanterns who could make a Boom Tube. Motherboxes are fundamentally user-friendly, while GL rings are manifestly not.

Actually, there's the solution - there are various New God Lanterns in the various mythoi. Do they still carry motherboxes, and if so, why did they bother to accept rings in the first place? If your society has access to guns, a crossbow-wielding military service isn't going to hold much appeal for you as a way to make a difference in the world. I think we're looking at something more like a laptop/hybrid car distinction - two devices only comparable in the most broad terms, given the disparity in purpose and the cultural take on usage between them.

[blake_reitz.insanejournal.com]

Agree on all points, especially the laptop/car comparison. Both devices show very little overlap in application (even personal flight - new gods always seem to be zipping around on those hover-disks). The ring may be the more flexible of the two devices, especially if the owner isn't aware of it's limitations, but does have the will/imagination to pull it off. You mention Ice healing with it, and I remember in JLA that Dream had referred it as a literal "wishing ring."

There's another aspect I hadn't thought of, to the "can a ring make a box" question, which is: could a mother box make a ring? I'm actually leaning towards "no" although I have no evidence to back this up.

[blake_reitz.insanejournal.com]

Sidethough: There's a GL who talks to the dead. Is that a ring-powered ability? Especially in recent years, there's been a lot of unique ring-bearer specific powers.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

Actually the answer is "Of course it can"

The ring relies on the imagination and will of the user. You got enough willpower and you think you can create a mother box you can.

There was a JLA or GL 80 page Giant where Kyle was doing some training with J'onn and after Kyle mentioned not knowing the chemical formula for something J'onn told him that shouldn't have been a deterent.

[lonewolf23k.insanejournal.com]

They tried. See, there's a continuation to that story. Raker goes back to OA, convinces the Guardians to let him round up an army of Lanterns, and go back to Apokalips en masse.

...Unfortunetly, by the time they get there, Desaad had dissected the Power Ring's functions and realized it's vulnerability to yellow. So when the Lanterns arrive on Apokalips, they're faced with an army of Yellow-clad Parademons.


...After that massacre, I believe the Guardians agreed to leave Apokalips to it's own devices.

[vignettelante.insanejournal.com]

Wow. But unless he covered the surface of the planet in yellow, they still could have ripped up chunks of it and used them as weapons, right? Or, I dunno, pulled a John Crichton and used the ring to open a portal from the heart of a nearby non-yellow sun.

Or was it like that scene in ASBAR? If so, I hope Darkseid made enough lemonade for everyone.

Was there ever a version of this encounter after rings became capable of overcoming the yellow flaw?

[filbypott.insanejournal.com]

The rings only lost their yellow weakness after Kyle got his (that is, after Parallax left the central power battery), and the GLC wasn't rebuilt until 2005 or so. Darkseid managed to destroy the Fourth World all on his own since then, so nope, no GLC/Apokalips war since then.

The Corps did get involved in the war against Darkseid in Final Crisis, but they didn't take him on directly.

[lonewolf23k.insanejournal.com]

It was just an army of flying yellow Parademons, as I recall. The GLs were stopped in orbit, so no ripping off chunks of the planet. Also, they were caught by surprise, and got attacked before they could recover.

[killermoth1.insanejournal.com]

I can never take "all-powerful God of evil Darkseid" seriously, it just always feels so off to me, especially how each successive writer tries to portray him more powerful than the previous one. I much prefer him to be a fearsome and feared opponent because of his ruthless and unrelenting determination, backed up by his strategic mind. Kinda like STAS, where he was still beatable but you'd only have a bittersweet victory, as it cost so much to stop him.

[gunny.insanejournal.com]

wait wait, Darkseid took the GL's ring and he's still able to use the lantern for the powers?

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

If Darkseid took the ring, then how exactly is the GL flying out of there? As best I know, the lanterns are just rechargers; they don't have any inherent powers of their own that you can tap into without the ring. So how is he flying? Happy thoughts and fairy dust?