The Four Color Media Monitor

And in this story written by Grant Morrison, what are the chances it's depicted as more negative than one might think, even if Hal kills a villain? What's worst is how CBR makes it all out to sound bad in the same way the Parallax era was:

The Green Lanterns have always been depicted as a peacekeeping force, but in Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp's The Green Lantern, they are now space cops. There is protocol to follow and decorum to keep in mind, but everything goes wrong in Issue #3, when Hal Jordan straight up murders a criminal.

Sometimes even the most experienced and skilled veterans see more than they can handle. After witnessing horrific acts across the universe, and even withstanding his own time as a maniacal space tyrant, it's hard to believe that anything could ever be too much for Hal Jordan. Still, it would seem that even one of the most decorated Green Lanterns of all time has his breaking point.

And just to show how lame CBR's grip on history is, the GL Corps have always been depicted as space cops, or at least the interpretation was already enabled long before. As for the premise of this yarn, sounds pretty bad already, doesn't it? I wouldn't be shocked if the Parallax/Zero Hour era is still kept canon, recalling Morrison wrote at least 2 of the first years of the 1997-2006 JLA volume, and had no issues using Kyle Rayner as the resident GL, and may have even written a scene where Batman told Kyle he liked him more than Hal because unlike the 2nd GL, Kyle knows the meaning of fear. As if it weren't bad enough that political correctness post-1988 sent GL downhill, all because they thought it was such a big deal an aviation pilot would be seemingly fearless in any instance. The article goes on to give additional description of the tale:

After hearing what Vulgar Zo had to say about what he had done, Jordan did what he though in that moment to be just and right. He didn't arrest him, or read him his rights, or do anything an officer of the law should do. Hal Jordan murdered this villain in cold blood, right in front of his fellow Green Lanterns. Then, he lied about it and said he had attacked in self defense.

If the villain didn't actually murder anybody himself, this story is made all the more abominable as a result. And even if he did, that's why I take issue with the description of Hal's actions as "murder". Maybe he blew him away without arrest and trial, but it's still ludicrous they'd describe this as murder, and worse if they believe this nasty little yarn should remain canon. Also bad is that Hal would lie about his actions and not have the courage to justify them, if the villain did murder innocents.

An officer of the law has now committed an act of murder, and every sense of justice demands that he pay for his crimes. After all, the Green Lantern comics just dealt with a similar situation, where ex-Green Lantern Tomar-Tu led the Darkstars on a crusade to kill every criminal in the universe and finally make the universe a safer place. Jordan condemned that method then, so if everything is as it appears to be, expect resistance to it now.

Umm, I believe it's the audience that should resist the whole monstrosity (and pan the stupid CBR article), and not pay a cent for such a dogpile.

But what does it mean for a superhero to turn his back on justice and know only revenge? Punisher is an unhinged murderer, but at the end of the day, he does what the heroes of the Marvel Universe are incapable of doing -- making the world a safer place. Killing may not be the answer, but a permanent solution to the evils of man can be a satisfying alternative. After all, who out there doesn't think Batman should just kill the Joker at this point?

Well at least here they're offering a valid viewpoint. Time and again the Joker slays busloads of people, both innocent and guilty, in cold blood, yet all that's been done by successive writers and editors is to send the Clown Prince of Crime through the revolving prison door instead of conceiving another villain with an elusive past who could fill the shoes of the Joker as we know him.

And look how they reiterate the liberal claim Frank Castle's an "unhinged murderer", despite the fact he goes after criminals, not innocents, and usually defends the innocents too, recalling a 1993 Annual story where he served as bodyguard to a young heiress being targeted by a robot assassin. What they're saying is even worse than what Gerry Conway thinks of his own co-creation, making you wonder why anyone sees the Punisher as perfect fodder for TV and film adaptations if they despise what he stands for - vigilante justice.

What makes this a different case for Hal Jordan is his history as a villain. We have seen him lose faith in his mission before and turn into the mass-murdering Parallax as a result. At the end of the day, he still wanted to save the world then too, but his methods had turned him into a monster. If Hal is going down that road again, how can the Green Lantern Corps hope to stop him? How can he hope to stop himself? If he's willing to murder one slave trader, where will he fall to next?

I've read arguments that whatever Grant Morrison writes shouldn't be taken at face value, but it doesn't make what he's writing now any less distasteful. I do know that, if Guy Gardner had done this and that would be viewed as acceptable, that would definitely be dumbfounding. Why is it okay for Guy to "commit murder", but not Hal Jordan? Because Guy was developed in the mid-to-late 80s as an allusion to a "jingoist"? Gee whiz.

No less dumbfounding is how this tale seems like an atheist's idea of how to spite the religious, and Hal gets booed as a "fascist" at one point, as seen in the following panel:
The article says:

I think this is the first time that a Green Lantern has arrested God. And despite having a plot that would never have been signed off fifty years ago, maintains a kind of narrative madness from those days, with more modern sensibilities. It’s a heady balance to tread and Liam Sharp’s readiness to portray the most insane demands while still being a superhero story is utterly admirable. He stands somewhere between a Neal Adams and a Jack Kirby and also holds both demands simultaneously. [...]

That’s right, the Green Lantern goes from arresting God to arresting the entire population of Earth. Oh and surrounding it in police tape as a crime scene. And this is not a parody, and it never comes off as one. Even when…

Even when he punches God with a green boxing glove. Not even Savage Dragon went so peculiar. And that really really tried.

Oh, I see. So now Morrison is aping Erik Larsen's revolting directions ever since the mid-2000s, and possibly in another metaphor for drug culture? At this point, it's just so sad this is what superhero comics have been reduced to, right down to a leftist's notion of comparing the Green Lanterns and other superheroes to fascists, which only hints at what they really think of the whole genre.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, golden calf of villainy, Green Lantern, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, violence