The Four Color Media Monitor: Wow, that's sure some way to market Green Lantern related books

Trouble With Comics writes about at least 3 covers, one for Green Lantern and two others for Emerald Warriors, including the one I've posted here with a heavy heart, which aren't exactly something sensible publishers would want to use for marketing the movie planned for next year. As they say about this abomination:

To be blunt, this has simply got to be the worst superhero cover of the year. I look at it and wonder who would be enticed to purchase it. If someone has bought issues one through four, then I guess they’d buy it to ensure they haven’t missed an issue. But otherwise it’s worse than buying an issue of Playboy and reading it on a bus full of school children because at least then you could claim that you bought it for the articles and, look, there’s an interview with Philip Roth and short fiction by Tom Robbins. This cover, with the main character bleeding from his eyes and projectile vomiting towards something off-screen, is disgusting. It does not sell (or tell anything) about the comic. It is horrible beyond description.

Absolutely. It's also an insult to Guy Gardner fans, and makes me feel as sorry for him as I do for Carol Ferris, also mentioned in the blog post. And it actually makes me feel increasingly discouraged about the GL movie too. Any decent moviegoer who discovers the existence of obnoxious, mind-numbing covers like these might either be discouraged in turn, or will regret spending money at the box office. I also don't like the near-computerized approach many cover artists are taking these days, yet it pales in comparison to any stunt they pull with vulgarity.

This is not a great time to be a GL Corps fan, and hasn't been since 2004.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful artists, Green Lantern, misogyny and racism, violence, women of dc

Well, I agree in that it's over the top, but to say it doesn't have anything to do with the story is not necessarily true. Guy Gardner has been infected by a red lantern ring fueled by rage, and replaces the blood of the infected with a fiery red plasma. Guy had the opportunity to cure himself, but because of a certain scenario involving the Green Lantern central power battery being drained by an external source, Guy decided to hold onto said extra power until the source of said drain could be discovered and taken out. That said, it could have been much more tastefully presented IMHO. By the way, the main villains in the upcoming Green Lantern cartoon by Bruce Timm are the very same Red Lanterns. Hopefully they'll be drastically toned down for the cartoon.

Posted by reedsolomon.matr1x at gmail.com | 8:54 PM