It's honestly kind of fascinating how different our perspectives are on this. (Which I hasten to clarify is perfectly fine. I've been on the internet long enough to worry I'm coming across more combative than I intend.)
For me, this is second only to Batman in feeling similar to the main universe. Particularly grim, yes, but still... This is two fundamental forces of the universe embodied in human form facing off against each other. Pretty standard stuff for Green Lantern. (And I'm not expecting Hal to last out the first year of the book - Jo's likely going to have to put him down once she gets a handle on her powers. Because, again, particularly grim take.) And given that this is part of a universe, the scale of the destruction Hal's power can wreak is inherently bounded by the need not to derail the other 5 books. (... OK, editorial being committed to not derailing most of the books for one of them seems a bit naive, given...you know, almost every big crossover for the last 40 years...but I still don't think GL is going to be the one they do it for.)
Meanwhile a low-powered Superman is facing off against a worldwide corporation that has clearly suborned multiple national governments (including the US) and has its own private army which is apparently more technologically advanced than said governments'. It's basically a cyberpunk story without the cool tech. (Aside from what Kal and Lazarus Corp have.)
Wonder Woman is kind of similar to how I described GL, but Diana is, to my eye, more fundamentally backfooted, because her weakness is not her own lack of knowledge so much as her allied forces being hogtied.
Flash, unlike all the above, assuming it doesn't take a severe change of direction after the first arc, seems to be going less for 'one power vs another power' than it is 'Wally against his own power'.
Batman, again, feels more like a remix of the main universe version than it does an underdog version, so we both agree on that.
Now, the way I see it, none of them are 'hopeless', as that's a fundamental impossibility with the characters, even with the flash forward to Darkseid's Legion suggesting it's going to go his way in the long run. (I have a personal objection to the idea of an inevitable trajectory in any story, but that the current canon.) But Jo just feels like she has less of an uphill battle than Kal, Diana, or Wally, and not significantly more than Bruce. (I kind of hate leaving John and the Martian out of the discussion, because I do like the book, but...again, more Vertigo than Absolute.)
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For me, this is second only to Batman in feeling similar to the main universe. Particularly grim, yes, but still... This is two fundamental forces of the universe embodied in human form facing off against each other. Pretty standard stuff for Green Lantern. (And I'm not expecting Hal to last out the first year of the book - Jo's likely going to have to put him down once she gets a handle on her powers. Because, again, particularly grim take.) And given that this is part of a universe, the scale of the destruction Hal's power can wreak is inherently bounded by the need not to derail the other 5 books. (... OK, editorial being committed to not derailing most of the books for one of them seems a bit naive, given...you know, almost every big crossover for the last 40 years...but I still don't think GL is going to be the one they do it for.)
Meanwhile a low-powered Superman is facing off against a worldwide corporation that has clearly suborned multiple national governments (including the US) and has its own private army which is apparently more technologically advanced than said governments'. It's basically a cyberpunk story without the cool tech. (Aside from what Kal and Lazarus Corp have.)
Wonder Woman is kind of similar to how I described GL, but Diana is, to my eye, more fundamentally backfooted, because her weakness is not her own lack of knowledge so much as her allied forces being hogtied.
Flash, unlike all the above, assuming it doesn't take a severe change of direction after the first arc, seems to be going less for 'one power vs another power' than it is 'Wally against his own power'.
Batman, again, feels more like a remix of the main universe version than it does an underdog version, so we both agree on that.
Now, the way I see it, none of them are 'hopeless', as that's a fundamental impossibility with the characters, even with the flash forward to Darkseid's Legion suggesting it's going to go his way in the long run. (I have a personal objection to the idea of an inevitable trajectory in any story, but that the current canon.) But Jo just feels like she has less of an uphill battle than Kal, Diana, or Wally, and not significantly more than Bruce. (I kind of hate leaving John and the Martian out of the discussion, because I do like the book, but...again, more Vertigo than Absolute.)