The Four Color Media Monitor

Tim Seeley's leaving Green Lanterns. But not before he concocts a story where Jessica Cruz appears to be made the cheap subject of a storyline about "anxiety disorder", while Simon Baz, on the other hand, seems immune to any such ideas. The interview with Seeley first states:

As Tim Seeley finishes his run on Green Lanterns this week, the writer is bringing the story of Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz back to the flash-forward teases that readers saw way back in the Geof Johns's foundational Green Lantern, who created both characters.

Oh yeah, and who can forget the moments Johns brought his ultra-leftist biases to the fore, introducing the Baz character in a story where a white supremacist turned out to be the terrorist? Totally despicable.

But Seeley doesn't appear to be leaving the characters in a particularly positive place, as the writer confirmed what readers have seen in upcoming solicitations — that the two Green Lanterns appear to be splitting up their unusual two-person team. That will happen when Aaron Gillespie takes over writing the book for two issues, preparing the way for the new series writer, Dan Jurgens.

I'd like to think that's good news, but I won't be shocked if it's not, based on what follows in the interview segments:

Newsarama: Tim, you've been teasing what's going on with Jessica for a while in this book. Why did you want to explore this about her? And how does this theme specifically address who her character is?

Tim Seeley: Well, when I first saw the character, I was instantly interested in this idea that she had some kind of event that caused her to have anxiety disorder, which as far as I knew is not how it worked, having an anxiety disorder of my own.

And so, as I had ideas for that, it just so happened that I was asked to do the book. And I thought, oh, perfect! I can work on that and explain what made her who she is. I can explore who she was before that and also deal with what previous Green Lanterns writer Sam Humphries had kind of set up in his run on the book, which is that Jess' ring is different, and it talks to her in a different way.

I tied all those things together and used this goalpost of picking up something from one of Geoff Johns' book, which was a flash-forward scene where we see Simon and this new bearer of the ring which happened to be Jessica having a confrontation.

So I decided to put all those things together and swirl it in a big ol' stew, and then have it end with those panels from Geoff's flash-forward.

That's how I think comics get made = throw crazy stuff in, make them connect on an emotional level, and then get to a point you want to get to.

What I'd like to know is why Cruz has to have any kind of disorder...but not Baz? I've gotten the vibe he's supposed to near perfect in some ways simply because of his religious background, and so, they're not trying anything perceived as seriously negative with the character.

Nrama: So this is your own making, bringing it back to that scene Geoff came up with? Not anything that Geoff said, "here's what that mean"?

Seeley: Yeah. I mean, the first story I pitched to them when they asked me to do Green Lanterns was actually this one. I kind of pitched it as a Green Lantern / Evil Dead story, kind of an allusion to the Bruce Campbell/Sam Raimi horror movie, because I wanted to do this flashback where Jess is reliving this event she couldn't remember in the other book.

And then we just ended up pushing it back as other storylines started popping up that I wanted to do.

But this was always the idea that I came in with.

Oh, and it's just like them to drag GL into horror-thriller territory, which Johns had basically been doing since the day he got his hands on the GL franchise.

Nrama: This week's issue #47 finishes up the "Ghosts of the Past" storyline. And then this is it for you, right? But it sets up that Jessica's ring gets taken away, as we've seen in solicitations for June?

Seeley: Yeah, this is my last issue. So after this, Aaron Gillespie picks up some issues, and then you get Dan Jurgens, who will probably do a whole lot of cool cosmic stuff, because that's what Dan does.

But the idea, from the get-go with this, was to sort of wrap up that first season, in a way, of what Sam had started, where we were asking the question of why are Simon and Jessica together? And why did Hal choose this? And then, if he's the one that put them together, this ends with him being the guy that has to take them apart.

But do they quietly drop Baz from the story proceedings, or do they intend to continue forcing him - as the propaganda concept they created him to be - down the audience's throats without letting go of said propaganda angle? Or, more to the point, do they intend to banish Cruz altogether from the GL role while leaving Baz in place? All I know is Seeley's one of at least a few writers besides Johns himself who've been normalizing Islam by putting it in these books without allowing for any questions about whether it's an acceptable ideology or not, and Jurgens isn't bound to do any better, recalling what he brewed up in Superman of recent.

Speaking of which, Seeley also recently brewed up an even worse story concept in a book called "Imaginary Fiends", a leftist view of 9-11:
As seen in the above panel, this creator-owned project of his is the kind of revolting propaganda that paints Islamists as the victims, at the expense of the non-Muslim victims who really suffered in that terrible experience 17 years ago. It's a most despicable way to speak about the very country that gives men like Seeley the right to be critical. More on the subject can be found here. Seeley may be leaving the GL titles now, but he should practically leave the whole industry altogether, as this approach of his is just what's bringing it down.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, Green Lantern, indie publishers, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, politics, terrorism