The Green Lantern franchise is famous for its fridges

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

In my last post I left John in a bit of a tough spot, imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. I figured it wasn't really fair to leave him hanging and I ought to post how that entire mess was resolved...and I will. Eventually.

I thought it was important that I first establish how exactly he ended up in that situation. It's a tale of dickery, theft, torture and one of the most blatant and indefensible cases of WiR imaginable.

So...Arisia and Hal have been living in John and Katma's apartment and John (showing considerably more patience than I would in his position) is politely suggesting that Hal and his lady friend kindly GTFO.





That's...a surprisingly bad idea, John.

And Hal, being the numbskull he is, decides to go through with it.





Yeah, I can't imagine THIS will ever come back to bite him in the ass. (Protip: It does, and John takes the blame for it!)





...Yeah, that wasn't a waste of interesting and well established heroine at all. WTF, Owsley/Priest, WTF?









Wow, Guy's a dick. That's not him laughing at the bottom of the page, that's Star Sapphire. She and Hal fight, and during the course of the fight she knocks a jet out of the air, which leads to;



He confronts her at her designated meeting place and during the course of the battle Hal seriously contemplates killing her, even making an attempt that the ring will not allow (Hal suspects it's because he lacks the will to kill Carol, no matter what she's done). Due to his hesitation she gets the drop on him and he is soundly beaten and taken captive.

We then cut back to John.











I'm not gonna lie to you, John...that looked pretty bad.







Yeah, Hal's on an unpleasant planet where he gets struck by 'near fatal lightning' every few moments. After a torturous ordeal he makes it back to Earth and that's where 'The List' opens.

Eventually Hal gets John out of prison, but not before making an appearance on Oprah to discuss his various issues.

I'm not kidding. Hal, as Green Lantern, made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show. I don't think this that was Priest's PAD's best work...

All scans are taken from 'Action Comics Weekly' issues #601-605.

Comments

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

...Wow. So that's what happend to Aresia.

Damn that was blatant.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

Do you mean Katma Tui? Arisia made it through this arc okay (aside from coming across as a bit of a flake).

Arisia wasn't fridged until sometime later (and by the same guy who LITERALLY shoved Kyle's girlfriend into the refrigerator).

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

I meant Katma Tui.

I can't beleive I screwed that up...

...Wait, she died later?

God, being a Green Lantern's Girlfriend apparently has the same survival rate as being a Red Shirt on Star Trek.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

Indeed. It's especially annoying as Arisia and Katma Tui were Green Lanterns, heroes in their own right, and they were still killed in order to give the men in their lives something to fight for/about. At least Arisia managed to put up a bit more of a fight before she went. It's a rather distressing trend in the Green Lantern comics. Arisia got better, but it still irks me.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

Gil Kane !

That is the worst Star Saphire outfit EVER...

[darklorelei.insanejournal.com]

At least it doesn't have the horrible star-crotch.

[trueredorion.insanejournal.com]

The Oprah thing was actually Peter David when he tried to retcon the whole fearlessness thing into being the Ring lobotomizing Hal.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

fearlessness thing into being the Ring lobotomizing Hal.

. . .

guh duh huh?

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

Well, in the story Hal was starting to wonder what it meant to be 'a man without fear' (having a studio audience laugh at the very concept and being completely unaffected by 'fear' when he was being attacked by an enemy targeting his emotions probably had something to do with it).

Eventually he asked the ring, and the ring replied he was fearless 'as per instructions.' Apparently Abin Sur requested someone without fear, but the ring was unable to find anyone who matched that criteria (at least anyone who was sane), so it was forced to find someone with a minimal amount of fear (Hal Jordan) and change him to suit Abin Sur's instructions. Hal demanded the ring return him to his previous state and it complied. Hal subsequently fell out a window when attempting to fly. Thankfully watching him struggle to overcome his fear and fly to safety inspired the suicidal man he was attempting to rescue to climb off his ledge and seek help.

Yeah....

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

That's the stupidest thing I've heard since the last Golden Age Wonder Woman post.

He's completely honest, or totally honest . . . . and without fear.

(completely/totally: honest) and (without: fear).

Simple.

Straightforward.

Does not require GRIMDARK.

Or IDIOCY.

Fucking 90s.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

Oh, shoot, you're right. Apparently I had Owsley/Priest on the brain. Oh well, at least that means I couldn't post it even if I wanted to.

Of course that also means I can't post the scene with Hal running around and flapping his arms like a mental patient because he's lost the ability to fly. Nuts.

Thanks for the correction.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

STAR SAPPHIRE: I'm going to kill you. Not because you used to be a Green Lantern. Not because, if you still had a green ring, you could kick my ass seven ways from Sunday. Not because your husband is a standby Green Lantern. I'm going to kill you . . . BECAUSE YOUR ROOMMATE IS A GREEN LANTERN!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

. . .

Yeah, that was . . . I can't even figure out what to call it. It's so . . . beyond the pall of normal Fridging. It's halfway between Kyle's first girlfriend and some random person off the street. The drama is so . . . forced. God, I can't even. I. Can't. Even.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

It's almost like he just didn't want to write Katma Tui, and this was slightly less insulting than having her hit by a bus. It's just...bad.

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

It was later retconned that she was possessed by a demon named Predator. S'why Star suddenly became all killcrazy. Sadly, few remember the retcon, only the stupid death of Katma.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

That's to be expected, I think. Katma really made out poorly, no matter who did the deed. Plus that Predator stuff is just...weird. I don't know much about him, but what I've heard makes it sound like a bit of a mess.

[thehefner.insanejournal.com]

And this? This? Is exactly why, even though I'm a huge Hal Jordan fanboy, I stopped trying to track down all the back issues of ACTION COMICS WEEKLY. Between this and WILD DOG, the shit just wasn't worth the trouble. Sighh.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

You're lucky, my curiosity got the best of me and I had to keep reading. I find these really weak stories especially frustrating as Owsley and PAD aren't bad writers, they just seem to have produced some painfully bad to medoicre work on 'Action Comics Weekly.'

Normally I'd avoid posting things I don't like, but someone asked about the entire John situation in my last post, and I figured it couldn't hurt to post the full arc.

[thehefner.insanejournal.com]

Well, I appreciate you posting this. These comics are much more palatable when I can read other people's reactions to them.