Before I get to the meat of this one, let me take a second to harken back to my last Bat-Centric blog and point out another mention of Tim Drake as Robin from "Batman & Robin" that was pointed out to me by Brian Thomer aka @PAComicExaminer:
Also something else that has occurred to me in the light of the fact that in Batman #13 it is explicitly stated that The Joker is coming back after a year away which means that Detective Comics #1 was one year ago, which means any Zero issue story marked "One Year Ago" took place around the start of the New 52, which means Damian's "Year and a Half Ago" moment of meeting Bruce (while he was still Batman & before he disappeared for a year) took place around 6 months prior to the beginning of the New 52, which means he has only been Robin for very a short time at the start of the New 52, which means it would be quite difficult for Dick to have been Batman for a year, which means I am going to make my f'n head explode trying to make sense out of it meaning sometimes I wish I could still think like I did when I was a little kid and not really care about this all continuity making some semblance of sense. End scene...
Waiiiiiiiit a second, another thing came out during NYCC after I wrote that opening paragraph, something playing into all that. Courtesy of Bleeding Cool, Dan DiDio, Jim Lee, and Bob Wayne claimed that Tim Drake was NEVER intended to be a Robin and that the trade edits were intended to maintain the status quo they wanted in the first place. Okay well, I'm not going to argue my personal feelings on the whole "Not Robin" idea but rather point out that both the 1st New 52 Batman collection AND Batman & Robin collection came out with references to Tim as Robin before the edited Teen Titans collection came out.
SO if the "Not Robin" stance on Tim was ALWAYS intended, then who fucked up A YEAR AGO when the New 52 began and then fucked up again in May & June when the collections were released? I mean did the ball get dropped by numerous people here or did the top level forget to tell everyone else that Tim was never supposed to be a Robin? Too much to get DC Comics to just say "yup, we fucked up"? Regularly scheduled program time now...
I almost feel like I should start this off by saying that I am a big fan of Green Lantern with Geoff Johns at the helm. Prior to the day I was given "Rebirth" as a gift, I hadn't really kept up with the adventures of GL in his own book and aside from reading Hal Jordan in "Death of Superman", the only GL I had every really known was Kyle Rayner via his inclusion on the JLA team first penned by Grant Morrison.
Suffice to say that I was hooked and quickly got my hands on the "Emerald Twilight" story to see what happened with Hal Jordan as I had experienced his villainous side in "Zero Hour" and other major stories like his sacrifice to reignite the sun in "Final Night" and his dawning as The Spectre in "Day of Judgement".
After reading "GL: Rebirth", I quickly snatched up all of the collections I could, caught up just in time for the finale of the "Sinestro Corps War", and have continued to read the core book as well as "Green Lantern Corps", "Emerald Warriors", "Red Lanterns", and "The New Guardians". From the original DCU into The New 52, I have followed the exploits of Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and the rest of the GLC.
I have enjoyed the story within the GL book probably more in the New 52 than I did in the latter months of the Original DCU. Sadly the same can't be said for GLC, The New Guardians, or Red Lanterns, at least not initially, but GLC & New Guardians have turned a corner for me in recent months. Unfortunately I still find Red Lanterns to be a chore to read and if it wasn't for the manner in which I read it, I would have stopped long ago...
Now that the pleasantries and whatnot are out of the way, let me get down to the meat of the thing....my exploration of the threads that make up the current Green Lantern universe and what happens if you follow them back to their origins.
This is where the current face of the Green Lantern corner of the DCU was born...the day Coast City was annihilated by the machinations of The Cyborg Superman Hank Henshaw & Mongul. Some would argue it began here...
...and that the story started there runs all the way through to this...
...and continues into the most recent issue #13. Yes, I do believe that that belief is right, but only partly right, even my thought that it began with the destruction of Coast City is only PART of the story. See I firmly believe that the current face of the GL-verse, the face that Geoff Johns has worked so hard to construct, is quite dependant on a number of factors that pre-date his time in DC Comics and thus, obviously, pre-date the creation of the New 52. This is not a statement on the quality of the New 52, this is not a judgement on the story that HAS Been told thus far in the last year. Rather it is my look at the events of the Old DCU that played into the formation of the GL Johns-verse and my wondering how/if they fit into the New 52.
First up:
Well at the core of the Blackest Night story, or rather at the core of the Black Lanterns was a certain BL Battery on the planet Ryut, the battery that powered the zombie tribe, just like the one on Oa powers the Green Lanterns. Well the power source of that battery was none other than the Anti-Monitor! How did he end up there you ask?
Well that makes another aspect of a certain old DCU story required in some format or another, and that story is none other than the Sinestro Corps War! See in the Sinestro Corps War, the Anti-Monitor was part of an alliance of Sinestro, the Cyborg Superman, Superboy-Prime, and the Parallax entity (brought to "life" by possessing Kyle Rayner). As the SCW neared its conclusion, the Anti-Monitor was near defeat following the detonation of the Central Yellow Lantern battery and was ultimately tossed into space by Superboy-Prime where the Anti-Monitor crash landed on Ryut and was consumed by the BL Battery.
Why did Superboy-Prime toss Anti-Monitor into space you ask? Well that is also very dependant another aspect of the Old CU, probably the most important story in the history of the Old DCU actually, Crisis on Infinite Earths. See Superboy-Prime was a resident of Earth-Prime where he was the only superhero of that Earth but it was destroyed by the Anti-Monitor during the Crisis. Prime joined up with the heroes of Earth-One to stop Anti-Monitor but is exiled to a "paradise" dimension along with three others from alternate Earths including a Lois Lane & Superman from Earth-2 and Alexander Luthor from Earth-3. Once there he grows frustrated and his punching of the walls of reality create changes including the resurrection of Jason Todd and inconsistent origins of Superman over the years. Eventually he, along with his trio, break free from their "prison" and the subsequent events are known as "Infinite Crisis". In this crisis we see Superboy (the clone Superman) die, Superboy-Prime go nuts and kill a lot of people, and eventually get locked up inside the Science Cells on Oa.
Wait, what's up with the Superboy who is a clone of Superman you ask?
See that leads to the other story of the Old DCU that I believe is absolutely crucial to the mythos of the current GL-verse:
Superman died...killed at the hands of Doomsday, between the first issue of the New 52 Swamp Thing and recent comments by Grant Morrison at a comic-con, we can confirm that Superman died AND was in fact killed by Doomsday in the New 52. Beyond that, the question is very much up in the air...well, to an extent. It is safe to say that in the New 52, the Return/Reign of Superman story did NOT happen in anyway similar to how it happened in the Old DCU. Superboy was only "born" around the time the New 52 started, meaning he could not have taken part in any story prior to this and Steel in the New 52 is not of the same origin as the original which we've seen in Grant Morrison's Action Comics. No clue if the Eradicator or Hank Henshaw have existed in the New 52, but in SOME FASHION this story needs to have taken place because it is where Coast City was blown up the Cyborg Superman & Mongul.
Why is it so integral that Coast City blew up?
Well Coast City's destruction is what set all the wheels in motion that brought us to this day as far as Hal Jordan's character go. Hal went nuts following the events of Coast City, tried to use his ring to resurrect the city, but was shut down by the Guardians. Hal then went to Oa to try and get the power he wanted and ultimately ends up killing all the Guardians save Ganthet as well as Lantern Killowog and the rogue Sinestro who had been imprisoned in the Green Lantern Battery. Hal takes the name Parallax, tries to rewrite time in Zero Hour, sacrifices his life to reignite the sun in Final Night, becomes the Spectre in Day of Judgement, and that all lead to his resurrection in Rebirth.
So within the story of Hal Jordan, just to get to what Geoff Johns established in Rebirth, we need Hal to decimate Oa (very likely because we saw a trashed Oa in the New 52 version of GLC #1 prior to Kyle Rayner getting his ring) and for Sinestro to be freed. We need Hal to have been possessed by the Parallax entity, for it to have somehow survived his sacrifice to reignite the sun (as it did in the Old DCU) and for Hal to have been Spectre with the Parallax entity riding shotgun.
It has been established courtesy of Phantom Stranger #0 that The Spectre exists in the New 52 but, at least in its initial appearance, it is Jim Corrigan who is possessed by The Spectre. Now this happens at some non-descript time but I couldn't imagine DC introducing Corrigan as the character in the Zero issue only to have him NOT still be Spectre in the following issues.
I'm not even touching on the issues that play into the history of the assorted Earth GL's. Did Xanshi still get destroyed in order to shape the character of John Stewart and actually give added weight to his destruction of Mogo (a pre-New 52 event btw)? Was Kyle Rayner still possessed by the Ion entity or does his New 52 tag of Torchbearer have some different meaning? Was Guy Gardner still in possession of a yellow ring at an earlier point in his career (it seems he was still possessed by a red ring)?
Those are all just pieces of the Old DCU that play heavily into the shape of the New 52 and while I've chosen to focus on the GL-Verse, specifically Hal Jordan, in this rant, I think it is safe to say that DC's decision to keep GL & Bat history relatively intact creates some problems with elements of the Old DCU. For GL these are what I consider the key ingredients to have happened IN SOME FASHION for the shape of the current New 52 world:
1) The existence of an Anti-Monitor (power source for BL battery)
2) Coast City destroyed
3) Hal Jordan as Parallax, destroying Oa (partially confirmed)
4) Hal Jordan freeing Sinestro & Parallax entity from the Power Battery
5) Hal Jordan as Spectre
6) Sinestro Corps War happened
7) Blackest Night happened (this has been confirmed)
8) War of the Green Lanterns happened (Krona needs to exist for the events of Red Lanterns)
I am sure I am missing something here as I am trying to do this from memory as opposed to notes this time, but I hope you get the idea. There are just certain key elements with the Old DCU that had to have happened in some fashion for the current Geoff Johns/GL-Verse to really make sense. They don't have to be perfect, they don't have to have happened completely identical to the way they happened in the Old DCU, but they do have to have happened somehow.
Coast City must die, Hal Jordan must have been evil...they are as important as Luke Skywalker seeing Obi-Wan die on the Death Star in "A New Hope" or Dexter being found in a pool of his mother's blood on "Dexter". They are integral components of an origin story that I had hoped the Zero issues would be used to confirm or flesh out, but sadly that was not in any of the four GL series. GL #0 told us the origin of a new character, New Guardians #0 gave us nothing origin-based, Red Lanterns #0 was a serious waste, and only GLC #0 gave us anything origin based and, while I enjoyed the look at Guy's back story, it did not fill in any of the blanks I have discussed above.
This isn't a cry for answers, not yet at least, rather this was just an exploration into how the Old DCU events could/should tie into the events of the New 52. I will be very interested to see if DC Comics does anything to cement any aspects of the old world as part of the new, or if they find a way to rewrite these histories in a logical fashion.
Thus far they have done a subpar job with the Bat-world, creating inconsistencies in time and logic, particularly with the birth of Damian Wayne and their lack of a backbone on the Tim "Drake"/Robin situation as mentioned at the start of this rant.
I hope maybe, just maybe, they will solidify the ground on which the New 52 Green Lantern world is built rather than just the half-assed "everything still happened" explanation we have gotten over the last year. I know it's a lot to cover in just 14 months of time, but I sincerely hope that maybe in the next 13 months the portrait of GL history is painted with more clarity.
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