DCU Blog has another Red Lantern image

[sherkahn.insanejournal.com]

Team Scarlet Centurio... wait, no no .... the Blood Stryke Forc- no no, that's not it.... the Crimson Commando's?

From Red Lantern Corps 101

"Red - the blood of angry men!
Black - the dark of ages past!
Red - a world about to dawn!
Black - the night that ends at last!"

From Les Miserables, "Red and Black"

Comments

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

You can keep calling him "Dex-Starr" as much as you like, Johns, but you're never going to change the fact that his name is actually "Ruffles."

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

It must be changed before publication! Ruffles demands it!

[buttler.insanejournal.com]

They can insert it in slightly different lettering like they did with reprints of the GayGrim Ghost.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

"Dex-Starr?" Does Johns get his names for his characters out of the back of his seventh-grade notebook?

[parsimonia.insanejournal.com]

I really do enjoy the Red Lanterns for some reason, despite not following GL or GLC at all.

[darklorelei.insanejournal.com]

I enjoy Ruffles. A lot.

Although I had kiiiind of been thinking about looking at GLC, but I really don't know if I want to get involved with an event.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

As with all events: just keep walking, don't get involved, don't make eye contact.

Otherwise they'll never learn.

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

As I said before on the dear departed s_d: applicants must have pointy teeth, spikes, and/or an odd number of eyes.

[interrobamf.insanejournal.com]

Ratchet defies your speciesism!

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

Technically, although his logo-yarmulke does have a certain eyeballish aspect to it.

[crinosg.insanejournal.com]

He's a giant portugese Man o War.

I think we should allow predators into the possible prerequisites for Red Lanterndom.

This promo pic is clearly inaccurate ...

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

... Because it does not include either myself or Jesse Baker.

Or is the "Nerdrage Corps" in the infrared spectrum?

[tohofuhai.insanejournal.com]

All it needs is pouches and they might as well call it the 90s corps.

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

With Laira dead the only hot raging girl left now is Bleez!

I love how Ruffles actually seems to be clawing Atrocitus. That takes serious furballs.

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

*reads the wiki on Laira, as "hot raging girl" is always an intriguing concept worthy of further research*

Wow. The Guardians are real prickholes, aren't they? Just about everything in her backstory is one fuckover after another, and they then have the raw arrogance and sheer audacity to condemn her posthumously for the "crime" of being pissed off. Who the hell wouldn't be?

My question is, as an outsider to the whole mythos, is this deliberate or is it bad writing? Because this isn't the first thing I've read that paints the Guardians and the GLC in a far less than flattering light, and it really makes me wonder if we're supposed to sympathize with them or not.

[statham1986.insanejournal.com]

From what I can tell, it's usually the idea that the Guardians have noble intentions that get them into the most trouble, and this usually leads to them being pricks. The Corps, by and large, are all good people, but they have to follow the orders of a bunch of idiots, usually.

For instance, all the laws they've initiated in the Corps since the Sinestro Corps War have been with the best intentions in mind, but have ended up for the worse. The authorisation to kill led to Laira's dismissal, the rule forbidding relationships between Lanterns saw the retirement of hundreds of Lanterns, and so on. It seems to be in their nature to screw up.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

I thought they were always idiots. Even when they were right they were portrayed as being jerks about being right. COurse that was in the Silver Age during the era of Superdickery

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure its purposeful especially now. A lot of people love seeing the ups and downs of the new corps' but the GL's have big ones too. Willpower itself can be looked at negatively as stubbornness like the Guardians right now.

So we can sympathize with them but remember no one is perfect. Everything has a downside or flip side.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

The Guardians used to be a bunch of basically good, generally fair, very powerful and occasionally shortsighted and arrogant bunch... kind of like Hal himself actually.

Over the years they've gotten more and more incompetent and evil, a graph the slope of which has skyrocketed since Johns took over the mythos - unsurprising, he seems to have a very hard time with the basic "hero bows to more powerful superiors who gave him his mission" dynamic that the Guardian-Lantern relationship always used to be.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

To be fair, the Guardians were treated as jerks as way back as the Green Arrow/Lantern days. Though that was largely to make Ollie look better than Hal, who was weighed down by 'The (blue) Man'.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Well, they were kinda jerky, but O'Neil and Adams also use them to beat on Hal for being privileged/douchey in a couple of places, so their essential virtue and the legitimacy of their authority is still maintained there.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

It was just Hal who got torn down, so no complaints there, ;)

...and people wonder why Johns ditched that characterization.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Heh. Actually the one thing about that arc that does really impress me is how much Hal did come across, in the end, better than Ollie. Ollie's a sanctimonious prat, basically, and while he's often (even usually) right, he's not very nice about it. Hal, on the other hand, realizes when he's wrong and makes an effort to change - which I always thought was a really powerful and important message, because with social justice stuff, that's exactly what you want to model. That yes, you can be a good person and still be an utter douche, and the important thing is to be willing to hear that you're a douche, and understand it, and try to change. That you're not going to be perfect, and trying to protect your self-image as perfect is the opposite of the heroic response.

Now, though, Hal's all perfect-never-harm-a-soul-not-a-shred-of-racism-or-sexism shiny-man, which makes him way less interesting IMO and loses a really good place to make that kind of really needed commentary.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I dunno, I prefer 'Take Charge Space sheriff' Hal to 'Whiney, ignorant goose stepping' Hal.

As Kurt said, writers defaulted to that and tried to keep Hal in that era regardless of sliding time scale, which meant he was a whiney, insecure middle aged man. How is that not lame?

Hal's pretty much the action hero now that he should be, strong, witty and confident in action while flawed, unsteady in his private life.

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

Piffle I say! His grey streaks were dashing!

[kingrockwell]

Motto!

[filbypott.insanejournal.com]

Well, in fairness, this is the second generation of Guardians (though I realize Johns tried to retcon their current jerkiness onto the old ones in "Secret Origins"). Ganthet could be seen as representing the old Guardians' nobility, with Sayd his disciple-turned-partner.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

The Guardians are real prickholes, aren't they?

I've been saying this for the past decade, yes.

And much like the Time Lords on Gallifrey, or the Pro-Reg side of Civil War, there are plenty of times each when their prickishness is either a) intentional, b) the result of shitty writing, or c) both.

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

I volunteer to get Bleez (the yummy-looking blue-skinned female with batwings for ears) laid and thus dispel her rage and deprive the Red Lanterns of a member.

While I'm at it, I'll provide the kittykitty with a lifetime membership to an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet, thus eliminating him as well. Bleez and I will also spend our downtime petting and cuddling the kitty, and giving him a warm bed to curl up on and lots of curtains to shred.

Between the three of us, we'll all be contented and purring most of the time and far too tired and happy for rage, death, or destruction.

Someone else can deal with the rest of the freaks, but I got those two.

You're welcome.

[=^.^=]

[statham1986.insanejournal.com]

All Atrocitus needs is a nice mug of hot chocolate and a name change by deed poll - I know if my folks had named me Atrocitus I'd be pissed, too. Perhaps 'Smileyhappius' is something he should look into.

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

Yep, having names like that would screw anyone over.

Reminds me of a funny internet thing of a Transformer who becomes a gun. "Predestination: It's hard to be a good guy when you turn into a damn gun."

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

Tell that to the Targetmasters and Quickswitch.

[bluejaybirdie.insanejournal.com]

Sector 666? Wow, that's subtle.

Ruffles the Rage Kitty yay!

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

Eh a bit bit but I think it's been handled pretty good.

While the sector has a bunch of monsters (Red Lanterns) they actually do a nice turn around to the fact the Inversions (which Atrocitus was a member) weren't evil but driven to rage after the Guardians screw ups with the Manhunters led to their sectors almost total annihilation.

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

I hated that. Moore set up the Empire of Tears as basically sci-fi demons, so scary that the Guardians had to fight them hand to hand. Johns turned them into just another group of aliens with a victimization complex.

[filbypott.insanejournal.com]

I didn't take it that they weren't evil to begin with. The difference in my mind is that Moore wrote them as though they were saying, "Yeah, we're evil, and we got what was coming to us. Mind if I claw your face off?" while with Johns they were still pretty vile to start but think they were unfairly screwed over. /fanwank

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

I totally missed that.

I feel ashamed.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

actually the massacre was so horrible that it set off a galaxy wide unconscious memory for all sentient species. That number is now tied to horror for everyone

I'm not sure but I think they actually tried to suggest something like that.

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

That's pretty much immediately what I thought would have happened upon seeing the sector number.

I don't really care about anything else

[midare.insanejournal.com]

OH MY GOD IS THAT A KITTY

Um

I mean

Re: I don't really care about anything else

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

Yes. Ruffles the Rage Cat. AWESOME INDEED.

Re: I don't really care about anything else

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

AHEM. Ruffles the Rage KITTY, thank you very much.

Re: I don't really care about anything else

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

\o/ Kitty!

[menagerie.insanejournal.com]

I like Vice, Skallox, and Bleez best I think.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

*stares, as only a cat can stare*

[04nbod.insanejournal.com]

I demand a cat fight

[crinosg.insanejournal.com]

So wait... they retconned the Empire of Tears from being an empire of ultimate evil to a victim of circumstance?

Are they just undoing everything Alan Moore ever conceived for the GL corps? whats next? The big dramatic reveal that Mogo isn't really a living planet, but just a giant space hamster on a wheel that powers the planets motion?

[sherkahn.insanejournal.com]

Quiet about Mogo!

It's the 'Wizard of Oz' trick, so that bad guys think they have killed the 'planet', when it's really only a teeny weenie hamster. Part of next year's major arc: "When the Fur Flies: Battle of Planet of the Hairless Apes" when they bring back Ch'p.

[interrobamf.insanejournal.com]

Well, with the description given, you could fanwank it so that the Five Inversions of Sector 666 are prisoners amongst the actual Empire of Tears.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

The Empire of Tears were terrorists, supposedly. However, remember: everything we previously knew about the history of the Guardians was stuff the Guardians said. One good thing about Johns' run(though questioning the Guardians goes back to O'Neil) is how he's shown that the Guardians have lied(though for the greater good) and that, however well-intentioned they might be, they might just be trying to assure their own hegemony, rather than protecting the universe.

Indeed, like the British in the Empire period, they may think "something outside their particular control" and "chaos" to be synonymous.

There's a lot in all this too, and I haven't noticed this mentioned, that seems to be inspired by Europe after the Cold War, with all the splinter nationalisms and ancient hatreds(i.e. Yugoslavia) coming back to the fore without the USSR to repress them. Totalitarian systems oppress much that is good, it is true, but keeping order is also about repressing certain destructive things too, and opening the door to one meant opening it to the other too, and so with the GLC and the other colors.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

we don't know the full extent of what happened. They couldve been just a sort of criminal empire before hand. We haven't seen anything to suggest they were upstanding citizens before the Manhunter massacre.

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

Well, "programming error" is in scare-quotes so there's room to reveal that the actual cause was the Empire of Tears.

[dustbunny105.insanejournal.com]

OMG IT'S A KITTY ♥♥♥

... What? There's other stuff in the picture? Where?

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

It's the kitty with the hairball of doom!

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

(http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v216/Lamashtar/macros/?action=view&current=5e1aec5476f063be8450015fa90dbef6.jpg)

[werehawk.insanejournal.com]

I can't wait for the Rage of the Red Lanterns: Dex-Starr vs Streaky one-shot.

[seawolf10.insanejournal.com]

Huh. From his earlier appearances, I was expecting Ruffles to be a bit larger. Like, the size of a human torso, not counting his tail.

[thormonger.insanejournal.com]

RageCat! You're back! :D

[queen_marshed.insanejournal.com]

RUFFLES!!!!!!

[kingrockwell]

Ruffles wears his ring on his tail!
My god, that is so fucking adorable!

[yotsuba123.insanejournal.com]

Power ring on the middle finger? Really works here. :)