Green Lantern Round and Round

Dennis O'Neil, who has written actual Green Lantern stories, references my orginal Green Lantern Theory post and writes a bit about the politics of the character:

Green Lantern's proclivity for that ol' action wasn't my biggest problem with the character when I began writing monthly stories about him way, way back in the last century. We were just past the fabled Sixties, the era of peace and civil rights activism, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, love-ins, be-ins, the march on the Pentagon, the Chicago Seven...(You can add your own examples, or consult one of the remaining hippies; look for tie-dye and a grey ponytail.) The rebel-activists weren't right about everything, far from it, but I think they were right when they advised their contemporaries not to trust anyone over 30. Translation: be wary of authority figures. I don't know when you're reading this, but I'll bet your current newspaper has evidence that mistrusting authority figures is an excellent life strategy.

Which brings us to Green Lantern: here's this guy, a human living on Earth, who takes his orders from a bunch of high-and-mighty blue extraterrestrials and is expected to act on their commands without questioning them. We might assume him to be George Bush's idea of a hero, if we recall that Mr. Bush and cohorts discouraged questioning by keeping as much information as possible secret, and stage-managing what were supposed to be public events, but he isn't my idea of a hero and I hope he isn't yours. Our heroes, yours and mine, are warrior-philosophers, who make their own decisions, do their own thinking and question the hell out of everything.

My tendency is to look at the Guardians as a kind of awesome interstellar United Nations. It's true, however, that they aren't actually an interplanetary organization in the way that the UN is an international organization. Nobody's represented in the decision-making process except the Guardians themselves who have no source of legitimacy except their own sense of rectitude and their practical power. The Guardians, in a sense, are like a "benevolent hegemony" vision of the American hyperpower.

Comments

Well ... If a sitting US Senator could compare Iraq to the "eye of Mordor," I suppose I can cut Matt some slack for using the Green Lantern as a political Rorshach.

Posted by DanF | February 21, 2007 10:13 AM

Yes, but the Guardians are blue. And the UN ... I'm just sayin': spooky.

Posted by jhupp | February 21, 2007 10:40 AM

O'Neil's remarks about warrior heroes put me in mind of a great C.S. Lewis essay, 'The Necessity of Chivalry'. There's an excerpt, unfortunately not the whole thing, on-line:

http://yourdailycslewis.blogspot.com/2005/08/necessity-of-chivalry.html

I don't know much about the Green Lantern. Did he really obey dubious orders without question, such as assassinating Person X without having personal knowledge that X was a bad guy?

Matt's remarks about the Guardians put me in mind of something that bothers me about the Federation and Star Fleet in (classic) Star Trek. In a society that doesn't even execute murderers, there is one death penalty. That is for visiting a 'forbidden planet', and only a handful of high-ranking Star Fleet officers know why it is forbidden. That's an excessive level of trust to put in any organization, but especially a military one.

Posted by David Tomlin | February 21, 2007 10:48 AM

Well, I suppose there's a balance between the mindless follower of authority who takes orders regardless of their morality and the gung-ho hero who thinks that rules don't matter if he has a "pure heart" or whatever and screws everything up because he thinks authority is for other people.

Posted by Julian Elson | February 21, 2007 11:03 AM

I meant to write, before somehow I forgot, that Bushian conservatism somehow manages to combine some of the worst aspects of these two things: for those on top, the rules don't matter, because the rules are to restrain immoral people, not people with pure hearts and motives like them ("screw UNSC" approach to Iraq War, treaty repudiations, etc.). For people below, loyalty is the only worthwhile value: you don't need a conscience; your boss already has one.

Posted by Julian Elson | February 21, 2007 11:12 AM

Y'all are objectively pro-Sinestro.

Posted by norbizness | February 21, 2007 11:38 AM

Actually, the "UN with teeth" idea did exist in the DC Universe (pre-Crisis, at least; and yes, I am a hellacious fanboy) - the United Planets. The UP exists in the 30th century and the Legion of Superheroes - teen-age super-types wishing to emulate the heroes of our day - becomes their de facto army. Of course, this idea sprang from an early 60s ("Kennedy 60s?") utopianist vision of the future, so I dunno if it still holds. At any rate, it's worse than a one-world government; it's a multi-world government. Those wacky liberals...

Posted by Shawn | February 21, 2007 12:01 PM

"Did he really obey dubious orders without question"

I don't recall many instances when the Oans' orders were "dubious" as such. They usually seem to order what is "right" but never explain their reasoning or open it to questioning. As of late, however, there have been growing indications that their agenda might not be quite as benevolent as has usually been assumed. The Star Fleet, on the other hand, always seemed a little New Age cum Fascist for me, so I don't know much about it. Besides, I prefer comics to TV.

Posted by hocabsurdumst | February 21, 2007 12:21 PM

About this Green Lantern, "the ring doesn't work against yellow stuff" business -- when a yellow-clad baddie came around, why couldn't GL use his ring to pick up a nearby red firetruck or grey boulder and drop it on old yellowtights?

Posted by CJColucci | February 21, 2007 12:24 PM

"Matt's remarks about the Guardians put me in mind of something that bothers me about the Federation and Star Fleet in (classic) Star Trek. In a society that doesn't even execute murderers, there is one death penalty. That is for visiting a 'forbidden planet', and only a handful of high-ranking Star Fleet officers know why it is forbidden. That's an excessive level of trust to put in any organization, but especially a military one."

Wasn't the whole point to bring up this very moral dilemma, especially in the midst of the Vietnam War? I don't remember the episode that well, but I think I read it as an allegory to then-contemporary events, which many Star Trek episodes have been, a bit like I hear Battlestar Galactica is today.

Posted by Reality Man | February 21, 2007 1:10 PM

CJ-
That's basically what he did. Though the "yellow flaw" in the ring has been retconned about a bajillion times, and if I recall correctly is absent from some rings now, and can be overcome by a sufficiently strong-willed Lantern in the others.

Posted by Julian Sanchez | February 21, 2007 1:33 PM

Actually, when Green Lantern and Green Arrow were first teamed up in the early seventies, Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams did a series of "social justice" stories, where they made clear that the Guardians could be too hung-up on law and order vs. actual justice. Oliver Queen was quite the firebrand back in the day.

About this Green Lantern, "the ring doesn't work against yellow stuff" business

Well, too be fair, it was usually a little more than the bad guy wearing a yellow velvet robe. Sinestro's second power ring used yellow, yellow projectiles would not be deflected by the power ring's automatic wearer protection, etc. And hey, Hal Jordan usually won, right? So presumably he always did find a way around the Yellow Peril. And if Mr. Sanchez can't completely untangle the latest iteration of the "yellow impurity" / Parallax / leprechauns, I'm certainly not going to attempt it.

Y'all are objectively pro-Sinestro.

Typical anti-Korugarism from The Left.

Posted by mds | February 21, 2007 2:10 PM

Though the "yellow flaw" in the ring has been retconned about a bajillion times, and if I recall correctly is absent from some rings now, and can be overcome by a sufficiently strong-willed Lantern in the others.

On the most recent retcon, the yellow flaw results from the parallax fear anomaly:

Despite this re-introduction of the "yellow impurity", which is now referred to as the Parallax Fear Anomaly, the power rings' weakness against yellow no longer applies, as experienced wielders are now able to consciously recognize its source, and overcome the fear associated with it. It is still, however, a considerable weakness for new GL recruits, who are ignorant of the impurity's nature or of how to combat it.

The source of the anomaly is, of course, Parallax -- a yellow fear-inducing parasite who lives in the central lantern.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | February 21, 2007 2:18 PM

"It's true, however, that they aren't actually an interplanetary organization in the way that the UN is an international organization. Nobody's represented in the decision-making process except the Guardians themselves who have no source of legitimacy except their own sense of rectitude and their practical power."

Is merely adding additional voices to the leadership enough to bestow legitimacy? Is a Guardian Council that represents three planets more inherently trustworthy than a single group? If not, how many planets would they need? Whence would any such group derive legitimacy?

"Why should I listen to you, anyway?"
"Well, you see, there are fourteen of us, and I assure you we are all very different."
"Oh, ok then. Who do I kill?"

Posted by Mario | February 21, 2007 2:30 PM

Parallax -- a yellow fear-inducing parasite who lives in the central lantern.

And, of course, the real reason Hal Jordan wigged out and killed off the Guardians and the Corps. The whole Parallax thing is actually not too bad as retcons go; the Spectre stuff was pretty "out there," though.

s merely adding additional voices to the leadership enough to bestow legitimacy?

Not necessarily, but "We're short, blue, immortal, and have supertech at our disposal" seems an even less adequate source of legitimacy.

Posted by mds | February 21, 2007 3:06 PM

Never mind that the Guardians were the source of about two-thirds of the galaxy-spanning threats the DC universe had to face (whether they were experiments-gone-wrong or former-champions-turned-evil or whatever). Least competent protectors of the universe ever!

Posted by Tom Scudder | February 21, 2007 3:15 PM

Least competent protectors of the universe ever!

I dunno, the Marvel universe had a substantial collection of supposedly outrageously powerful folks who were nonetheless about as effective as a wet Kleenex if, e.g., Thanos so much as looked at them sidelong.

Posted by mds | February 21, 2007 3:47 PM

Ha! You witless representatives of the Guardians! I have a special Warrant from the Kryptonian Science Police!

Posted by James Killus | February 21, 2007 4:54 PM

I dunno, the Marvel universe had a substantial collection of supposedly outrageously powerful folks who were nonetheless about as effective as a wet Kleenex if, e.g., Thanos so much as looked at them sidelong.

This is true. God knows, the Shi'ar Imperial Guard are supposed to be nigh-unstoppable and yet they either get their clocks cleaned or outsmarted on a regular basis.

What that says about the limits of force is open to debate. I guess it depends on if one sees the Guard as being "us" or "them".

Come to think of it, is Cheney actually Dark Phoenix?

Posted by Shawn | February 21, 2007 6:22 PM

Cheney can't be Dark Pheonix. His tits haven't gotten big enough.

Posted by Reality Man | February 22, 2007 3:52 AM

His tits haven't gotten big enough.

Perhaps he's wearing a sports "bro."

Posted by mds | February 22, 2007 11:16 AM

Best. Yglesias. Post. And. Thread. EVAH.

Somewhere, Denny O'Neill's cohort, Neal Adams, is gloating.

Posted by Captain Goto | February 22, 2007 1:51 PM