Emerald Archer
05-08-2004, 09:45 PM
This is the end, Beautiful friend
This is the end, My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
Black-White. Ying-Yang. Good and Evil. Most people seek in their lifetime to keep all things in balance. I have an unwritten rule. You can be happy in your personal life, or happy in your work life. But seldom are you happy in both. The good news is that you are seldom miserable in both. It works something like this. 50% of the time you are either happy on a personal level or happy or a professional level. 25% of the time you are happy both personally and professionally. The final 25% of the time you are miserable in both. At least that’s the way the world seems to me. What does that have to do with Kyle Rayner and is position as the last of the Green Lantern’s? Read on!
For those who haven’t encountered my reviews before, be warned, they are LONG:) and they are not spoiler free, nor are they opinion free.
Remember the Good Old Days of Spoiler Spaces
Where I use to say something Pithy here...........
Hmm, well, ummmmmmm........
Hey, if your a real comic fan, you need to be playing City of Hereos!
And in Paragon City tonight their is indeed an Emerald Archer on Patrol.........
Ok, on with the show!!!!!
I couldn’t believe it when I looked in my records, but it’s been over a year since I did a GL review. Before I launch into a review of what has to be a seminal issue of GL, I guess I better explain why I stopped reviewing the tales of the ring slinger.
First, I didn’t stop reading GL. I can’t. No matter who the creative team is, or who the bearer of the “most powerful weapon in the Universe” is, I have to be part of it. Not that it has been an easy ride. I guess I better get this out in the open right now. I am a Hal Jordan man. To me, Hal will always be the greatest of the Lanterns, followed by Alan Scott, John Stewart and Guy “One Punch” Gardner. Kyle has never thrilled me. I have found him to be a poor substitute for Hal. With that said, I don’t dislike Kyle. I dislike how he’s been written, and I dislike the way he’s been handled.
I also have to state that I think the previous story arc to this one was pretty much superfluous. Its major task was to begin to clean the deck of the supporting cast of characters that has grown up around Kyle. Indeed much time, WAY too much time, was spent on showing the exit of Terry and his boy friend. I cannot fault Ben Raab, the writer of the arc. The cards had been stacked against him from the moment he touched the title. His major task was one of beginning the destruction of the fabric that held Kyle’s universe in place. But the faults here are not Rabb’s. Indeed the tenure of Judd Winick on the title pretty much killed Kyle Rayner the character. Over the next few months we are going to take part in the funeral. And the beginning of the end starts with Green Lantern 176.
Part I: Where we meet the central characters of this little tragedy.
If you don’t want to know anything about this issue, or the future of Kyle Rayner and Green Lantern, then don’t read beyond this point. Do us both a favor and take a deep breath and just ignore that this post is here.
Let’s get the messy facts out of the way. As of issue 181 Green Lantern is being cancelled. In October of 2004 Geoff Johns is going to helm a 5 issue mini series called Green Lantern: Rebirth. Lots of things are promised to happen in this mini series, but the most important one is the rebirth of Hal Jordan as a Green Lantern. Please not the phrasing, “a Green Lantern”. Not the only GL. Remember, at one time their were over 2000 GL’s in the galaxy. Indeed at one point Earth was the home base of close to a dozen GL’s. So even with the return or Hal, that does not mean the end of Kyle as a GL, just a change in his role. We can only speculate what that role might be. Will he be the GL on another Space Sector? Will he relocate to OA and be a trainer of the new Corps? Time will tell. But we do know one thing for certain. Kyle Rayner has little if anything to keep him on Earth anymore…………which brings us to the review in question.
If Kyle Rayner has a creative Father it’s Ron Marz. Marz was there when Kyle became GL, and was the writer for GL issues 48-125. Indeed Ron was succeed by the afore mentioned Judd Winick. In recent interviews Ron has indicated that he was brought back to the title to close the current chapter of the GL mythology. He has been quoted as saying that fans of Kyle are going to hate him for what he’s going to put Rayner through. If issue 176 is any indication, that was not hyperbole on Marz’s part.
http://www.dcdirect.net/images/gl%20176.jpg
A Most Glorious Cover. GL #176
Let’s start where any good review should, focusing on a truly glorious cover. What a simple, and yet elegant design. Kyle’s gloved hand, a cosmic scene in the background, and the ring. The most coveted of all items in the Universe, one of the last of the Lantern Rings. The cover was done by Brandon Peterson and I have to say that I love what he’s done here. That said, I’ve always had a problem with the redesign of the Ring that Kyle has used, it just looks pretty much like something you’d get out of a gumbotron.
The first 4 pages of the story serve to give a small history of whom and what Green Lantern is. The fist image is that of Alan Scott. In the revised, post Crisis universe of DC, Alan’s powers came from a green lantern carved out of an intergalactic rock known as the Star Heart. In reality the Star Heart was a portion of the central Power Battery on Oa. So while Alan is not in reality a true member of the GL Corp, his powers are almost identical. He was the first, and to many, the classiest and best of the Lanterns.
Ah, but the true artistic treat awaits on pages 2 and 3 of the story. A nice splash page of the Green Lantern Corp, lead by the greatest Lantern of them all, Hal Jordan.
http://www.dcdirect.net/images/gl%20176%20corp.jpg
DC Direct needs to make this into a poster!
The next page gives us a view of Kyle in his original costume. The one less influenced by the image of the Corp and the Guardians. Page four, the one page panel of Kyle Rayner Green Lantern has an interesting quote on it, one heavy of foreshadowing:
“Kyle Rayner, Last of the Green Lanterns. The one who was supposed to carry on the legacy”.
For those that have been following the tale of Kyle for any length of time, you’ll recall that Kyle left Earth with his lady love Jade (The Daughter of the Original Green Lantern, Alan Scott), to “Find Himself”. Kyle was angered by the savage beating of his friend Terry at the hands of several back ally animals; the reason for the beating was that Terry is gay. Kyle went off the deep end. He captured the thugs, but only after stepping over the line several times, and almost losing control, coming close to killing one of the perps. After this Kyle decided that he had no great love for the human race and decided to leave Earth, to head into space, to perhaps rediscover a reason to watch over the people of Earth. He asked Jade to accompany him on this trip. Jade is also a former GL, and also posses the power of the Star Heart, much like her father does.
Permit me a moment here to give a little history of Jade. If you are going to understand the great betrayal of Kyle that Jade is responsible for, you have to understand who Jenny Lynn Hayden is, AKA Jade. Jade has the powers of a Green Lantern, but they are internal powers, she needs no ring. This is a side effect of the countless years that her father has been a GL and the constant exposure to the Star Heart radiation that he has withstood. When Alan fathered his daughter, that radiation inveighed the body of Alan’s daughter. She needs no ring, no power battery.
For awhile in Jade’s life the power became dormant, and she no longer could call upon it. To help her compensate for this loss of something that she considered such an integral part of her, Kyle created a GL Ring just for her, and she became a true GL. In a near fatal fight with the Green Lantern Killer Fatality, Jenny’s ring was destroyed.
At one point Kyle’s powers began to grow. He was soon approaching the power level that Hal Jordan had when he was Parallax. When this happened, Kyle’s abilities boarded on that of godhood (The Ion story line) . He began to do everything he could to help the impoverished and unlucky of the world. At one point, he used the powers he had acquired to revitalize the Star Heart energies in Jade, and so caused her to regain her natural abilities. Jade owes her current existence to the love and benevolence of Kyle Rayner. To top it off, Kyle asked Jade to marry him, an offer that she turned down on more than one occasion.
Jade followed Kyle into space at his request. But while Kyle felt more alive then ever in the galactic depths, facing numerous challenges, the like of which he had never seen on mother Earth, Jade grew restive and home sick. They separated in space. Kyle to continue on with his quest to find himself, Jenny to return home and look after Kyle’s affairs on Earth and to later join the Outsiders. Be clear on this. They parted as two people who love each other often will. Knowing that right now life was taking them on separate paths, but also knowing that the future would bring them back together and the love they shared.
Indeed, Kyle’s cosmic quest may have helped form the seeds for the new Green Lantern Corps. But in time Kyle too missed his life on earth and the woman he loved. It was time to go home.
Part II: You Can’t Go Home Again!
Our Tragedy opens on a rain swept street. Kyle is staring up into the sky, looking at something that we can’t see. Whatever he is focusing on, he is in a very pensive mood. He reviews the events of the last few days in his life, what has happened to him since his return to Earth after his adventures in the dark coldness of space.
http://www.dcdirect.net/images/gl%20176%20page%208.jpg
Heavy foreshadowing. This is not a good thing.
Kyle has returned. He’s home. But time awaits no man, no superhero. Things have changed in his absence. Kyle’s best friend, Terry and his boyfriend are moving to the west coast. This saddens Kyle, but at the same time, the most important person in Kyle’s life is still there, waiting for him, or so he supposes.
He misses Jenny; it’s been months since he’s seen her. Indeed he’s in such a rush to see his lady that he flies right up to his apartment in full daylight in his GL garb. Kyle has a valid point; no one in NYC ever looks up. If you doubt that, visit the city and see how many people ever really look up, except for the tourists.
Kyle lands on the fire escape outside his apartment and opens the window. Entering his abode, he uses the emerald ring to create green glowing roses for Jade. But the apartment, HIS apartment is quiet. Kyle surmises that Jen is out running errands. That’s ok, he thinks, she’s worth waiting for. But as he enters deeper into the apartment he hears the shower running, a sly smile creeps across the face of the emerald gladiator. Perhaps this reunion will be even more “enjoyable” than Kyle had originally anticipated. Indeed Kyle had first met Jen when she was showering. He takes this as a sign that this really will be a wonderful homecoming. He moves stealthily into the Bathroom and the shower stall. He pulls the curtain aside inquiring of the waterlogged occupant if there is room enough in there for two. Unfortunately it’s not Jade in the shower.
It seems that while Kyle was off in space finding himself, helping to start reforming the Corps and just being an all around good guy, Jade got bored waiting for him. The man in the shower is one Lucas Simon. And he and Jade are now an item.
I think at this point it’s important for the reviewer to make a few revealing comments about himself. I have loved and lost, and I think that it’s better to never have loved at all in that position. I had a fiancé that I later found out, after the engagement was cancelled, had been entertaining one of my co-workers. After more than my fair share of negative relationship experiences, I have come to the general conclusion that I pretty happy being single. Now don’t get me wrong, if a wonderful woman were to walk into my life today, I’d be more than happy to spend time with her, and get to know her. I have many friends that don’t understand that, but that’s ok, I have to live my life they don’t. So what follows from here is Emerald Archers interpretation of events.
Impressively Mr. Lucas Simon seems to have no idea who this guy standing in the bathroom is. Let’s see, he’s wearing a costume, has a glowing green ring, and seems to know Jade pretty well! Is it possible that Jen never bothered to mention to this guy that her current boyfriend, the one she’s cheating on, happens to be the current Green Lantern? Better yet, do her actions not endanger Kyle’s secret identity? Everyone knows that Jade was involved with GL. And here is a guy in a costume with power ring. Hmm, he just might be GL. And he says that the apartment is his. And the apartment is rented by a guy named Kyle Rayner. Do you think that Kyle and GL are one in the same?!?!?!?
Jen suddenly appears at the entrance to the Bathroom in an advanced state of disrobement. Kyle tries to give her the benefit of the doubt. This Lucas guy is a relative, a friend, anything but what it looks like. Jen will have none of it. Give the “Lady” credit; she flaunts it right in front of Kyle’s face. At least she’s honest enough to admit what she’s doing. That’s about the only thing I can give Jade credit for, because as far as I am concerned she has now managed to sink to the most bottom rung on the food chain of life.
See, it gets better. This is Kyle’s apartment. She’s been entertaining her boy toy in Kyle’s own house, in his own bed. Oh, she rationalizes it. She’s been paying the rent for the last few months. And after all Kyle been out in space, she needed someone to take care of her. Kyle is slack jawed, and then it dawns on him………………..
http://www.dcdirect.net/images/gl%20176%209.jpg
The Slap heard round the world!
He never gets to finish the sentence, Jen slaps him. But if it makes you feel any better Kyle, I agree with you, she is.
Kyle then begins to launch into a defense of his actions, the reasons he was gone so long. I have to admit that I was pretty hard on Kyle when he took off for deep space, left this world to find himself. But he was doing what he thought was right. I will credit him with that. Jenny doesn’t see that. Either that or she doesn’t care. On the flip side, Jenny knows that what she has done isn’t right, but does everything she can to rationalize it. Pretty sad in my book.
At this point she volunteers to leave the apartment. Kyle says no, that he’ll leave. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m a petty human being but I would not leave my apartment so that the woman I loved could continue to use it for her little tryst. Perhaps Kyle is more of a gentleman than I, or perhaps he’s more stunned. Either way he leaves. And for the first time since I’ve met Kyle Rayner, the last of the Green Lantern’s, a man thrown into an impossible situation and trying to do the best he can, for the very first time, I feel very sad for Kyle.
With no place to go, Kyle heads to the Moon and to the headquarters of the worlds greatest Super Heroes, The JLA. In part he is going here because he has no place else to go. But it’s also because he feels at home here. Kyle thinks about his early days as GL. How belonging to the JLA intimidated him, because he was such a rookie. In the beginning he wasn’t sure he belonged, but now, now he feels that this is truly his place to be. Unfortunately for Kyle he is wrong.
He enters the Watchtower to find The Martian Manhunter on monitor duty. Kyle asks J’onn how he got the short straw and ended up getting stuck alone in the tower. Manhunter tells Kyle that he feels more and more at home here. That the tower feels like home. Kyle can relate to that, because for him, this is home now
I find the characterization of J’onn to be off here. He doesn’t react with surprise to see Kyle. He doesn’t even seem overly happy to see him back. The whole scene is played very low key. Now granted that JJ has never been one for great emotional scenes, but this is a friend, a team mate, that he hasn’t seen in over a year. All JJ manages to do is get up and shake Kyle’s hand. There is no expression of true friend ship here. Perhaps that is intentional. Because Marz is going to make good on his promise to destroy everything that Kyle has held as important to him.
After a very subdued welcome of J’onn, Kyle asks where all the other members of the team are. The Manhunter answers with a mini role call. Superman is on NY. Batman in Gotham and Wonder Woman in Paris. Then J’onn proceeds to say that Green Lantern is in….. But he catches himself. He realizes that the man in front of him is the GL of Earth, or at least he was until he abandoned it out of anger and spite. He quickly changes it to the fact the John Stewart is in Washington taking care of some business. Besides the fact that the slip of that tongue makes Kyle realize that he has been gone to long, and has been basically replaced on the team, it does something else. It establishes that John Stewart is in DC. That may not seem important right now, but is a few issues hence it will be very important.
Kyle suddenly realizes that his personal life is in a shambles, and that the one thing that he thought he still had, his identity as Green Lantern no longer has as much currency as it did before. The reason is simple. John Stewart has become the Green Lantern of Earth, and he is doing a great job of it. The problem for Kyle is the John Stewart was a Green Lantern long before anyone had ever heard of Kyle Rayner. Stewart was trained by the best Green Lantern of them all, Hal Jordan. He was also Jordan’s back up. If anything had happened to Hal, John would have taken over.
Of course we all know that it didn’t work out that way. Several things intervened preventing John Stewart from accepting the mantel of GL after the whole Parallax mess. First, John had some mental instability due to his self imposed guilt over the destruction of the planet Xanshi, which he felt he caused by being over confident as a GL. Secondly, Stewart became a paraplegic. Even after his paralysis was cured by Hal Jordan, right before Hal sacrificed himself to reignite our sun, John still could not walk. Many years later it was determined that his inability to walk was mostly psychological, because he felt responsible for the death of a sibling when he was a child.
As Kyle is conversing with J’onn, the Martian notices that a damn in India is about to burst. A faint flicker of a smile creeps across the face of Kyle. While he doesn’t look forward to a tragedy, this impending disaster will at least allow him to get out of the Watchtower and go to work, allowing him a respite, no matter how brief, from the turmoil that his life is in. But even that small mercy is not meant to be, because Superman is on the scene in seconds. “Wait, Superman is on the scene already. He will handle the situation”, intones the Manhunter from Mars. Kyle hangs his head in a dejected fashion, “You bet, what would we do without Superman?”
Kyle tells J’onn that he’s going to basically moving into his living space at the Watchtower. The Martian asks if there is a problem with Kyle’s apartment back on earth. “Uh..It’s a little crowded right now.” As Kyle heads to his room he makes sure to stress to MM that if anything happens he knows where he’ll be. J’onn replies, “I will let you know if we need you.”
Kyle enters his new home. He tries to get comfortable, he fidgets, he sulks, he creates a power ring based TV and watches reruns of I Love Lucy. Nothing makes it better. Both his personal and professional lives are in complete chaos. He can’t stand it any longer. He has to do something…….
He leaves the moon and heads toward Earth. But not just anyplace on Earth. He goes to his apartment, more accurately he is outside his apartment. And now we understand. In the beginning of this issue, Kyle was standing in the rain, looking up at something, something that we couldn’t see. Well now we know what he was looking at. He was looking at the light shining out of the window of his apartment. “I thought that everything that mattered to me was here. But now I know better”. Kyle Rayner, last of the Lanterns, bows his head, and walks off into the cold wet night.
Scene Change. Slabeside Penitentiary. Slabeside is where some of the most dangerous and deadly meta-humans are kept. The Warden of the prison, Warden Norman is being presented with orders to release a prisoner. These orders can only come from the highest levels of the government in Washington. Who is prisoner to be released? Outside of Parallax, the greatest killer of Green Lanterns in history, Fatality.
Fade Out
A few thoughts……
First, I have said it before and I’ll say it again. When a character is forced to behave in a way that goes against everything they have ever stood for, then we have a problem. I call it characterization rape. And this issue has that in spades for Jade. This is not the Jade that we have come to know in other venues. What does it say of a person when they turn their back on someone they are supposed to love, especially when that person is performing a vital task? Kyle was indeed performing a vital task, and yet Jade found that she couldn’t control her biological imperative and decided to end her relationship wit Kyle. Relationships end every day. That is the nature of man. But Jade goes one step future. She uses Kyle’s own apartment for her love shack. I’ve talked to a lot of fans since this issue hit. And in general the damage done to Jade, in the perception of these fans, is devastating. I cannot begin to write what I’ve been told, because I’d be banned from Toonzone. Suffice to say, Jade has stepped over the line in the mind of many fans.
At the same time a case can be made that in the final analysis that this really is all Kyle’s fault. If he had not left Earth in an immature huff after the incident with Terry then Jenny would never have had the chance to stray. At least, not this time. Because I think in general, if a person is going to cheat on their significant other, it will happen eventually. So, if not now while Kyle is off in space, it would have happened at some other point. Bottom line it raises a lot of very troubling and decidedly unpleasant questions in regard to Jade. Questions, which, if left to linger, will forever tarnish the reputation of the female hero. Of note, both DC and Marvel have 2ed tier female heroes that are green skinned and are direct offshoots of a male version. DC has Jade, a female, green skinned, Green Lantern. And Marvel has She-Hulk, the green skinned female version of The Hulk. Both characters seem to have a problem with monogamous relationships. Indeed the latest version of She-Hulk opens up just as the title character is awakening from a one night stand with another pretty boy male model. Perhaps comic writers have seen one to many Star Trek episodes when the green skin women are from the planet Orion and they have one goal, to please any man that wants them. I think it’s time that a little maturity is injected into both universes. This wasn’t an issue with Jade until the latest story arcs in GL. And that’s where another problem lies.
Much of this feels forced on the part of the writers. Both Rabb and Marz seem to be rushing things along. It’s fairly obvious why. They have been given a dead line. Strip the GL mythos back to the basics. Get rid of any and all supporting characters, and make way for Geoff Johns and the new Mini Series which will reestablish GL’s place in the DC Universe. This is fine. But is so doing they are forcing characters that we thought we had a handle on to act in ways that just don’t fit the persons involved. Jade’s sudden inability to act like a responsible person, and to destroy a relationship that to her, at least at one point, was very important. Martian Manhunters strange reticence when he sees Kyle for the first time in over a year, the final scene, where some high personage in Washington is ordering the release of Fatality. None of these things make any rational sense.
Another “Poor Kyle” comment follows. If they bother you, if you think I’ve gone soft, well think about this. I can very much relate to what Kyle walked into in his apartment. No, not the exact same situation, but I can tell you what it feels like when someone you love kicks you so hard in the gut emotionally that you walk bent over for a year.
So here is the “Poor Kyle” comment. It seems writers have become fixated on making his personal life with women a disaster. His fiancé is murdered shortly after he becomes Green Lantern. He has a wonderful relationship with Donna Troy that deflates. And now Jade betrays him in the most personal and horrible way imaginable. I know that happy superheroes in the personal relationship department are pretty rare, but do we have to keep using Kyle as the poster child for miserable men and the women who love them.
On the professional side, it is easier to believe that Kyle has been replaced by John Stewart as Green Lantern. John has more experience in the role than Kyle and was indeed trained by the great Hal Jordan. Kyle needs to realize that when he left Earth, he passed the mantle of GL over to Stewart. This has happened before. Hal passed the task to Guy Gardner at one point. GL, more than any other hero, is less about the person and more about the ring. But Earth is a pretty big place and there is more than enough room for two Green Lanterns. The problem is that Kyle seems to want to be THE Green Lantern. That’s a unique problem that Kyle faces. No other GL in history, except for perhaps Alan Scott, has been a legion of one. Perhaps, and this is just supposition, the reason that Kyle has always failed in resurrecting the Corps is because he subconsciously has always wanted to be the one and only ring slinger, just a thought.
Creativity wise this is a good read. Not perfect, but good. The art is steady and strong, with the splash page of the Corps well worth the price of the book. And it is only fitting the Marz, the man who brought life to Kyle Rayner, perhaps the only writer who really cared about Kyle, is handling the dismantling of his life. As I have said, it does feel forced and rushed, but that is more a function of the fact the Marz has 5 issues to tie up almost a decades worth of plot lines. But give him credit. If the measure of the success of a comic is that it provokes a visceral reaction from the reader, then Green Lantern 176 is a success, at least for this reader. At the same time, I’m not sure that Jade will ever recover from the way she was portrayed here. That’s too bad, because I use to like the character, now, well I pretty much can find no redeeming value in her at all.
As a final point. The problem with Kyle has never been Kyle. The problem as of late has been the people writing Kyle. Marz, for the first time, made me care about the character. I want Kyle to continue being a GL, but not the only GL. I do want Hal Jordan back. But Kyle should be able to keep a ring and do what he does best, be a part of the Corps. Winick never made me care about Kyle as a person. Perhaps it was because too many side issues always seemed to get dragged into the story telling process. Marz is cutting it all back to the basics. Like any surgery it’s painful, and it’s not fun to watch. And for a long time this particular patient has been near terminal. This is simply a case of to little to late. DC knows that, and that’s why we are seeing the title getting cancelled with issue 181, and the Johns mini series to follow. I’m not sure what the future hold for Kyle Rayner. For a long time he’s been the favorite whipping boy of the fan boys. That’s going to change, one way or another it’s going to be different for Kyle. We can only hope that it’s going to be better.
Kyle has now hit the unhappy 25% of life. Both his Personal and Professional life have been gutted. Well iy can only get better…….can’t it?
For reference purposes I have placed on my website the Who's Who 1985 and mid 90's listings along with the page on Jade from the Secret Files and Origins of Green Lantern Isse # 2.
Be aware that these pages are bandwidth intensive, and they can be found here (http://www.dcdirect.net/jade.html)
Be here in 30 when Kyle and Jade have to work together. Oh Joy,
This is the end, My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
Black-White. Ying-Yang. Good and Evil. Most people seek in their lifetime to keep all things in balance. I have an unwritten rule. You can be happy in your personal life, or happy in your work life. But seldom are you happy in both. The good news is that you are seldom miserable in both. It works something like this. 50% of the time you are either happy on a personal level or happy or a professional level. 25% of the time you are happy both personally and professionally. The final 25% of the time you are miserable in both. At least that’s the way the world seems to me. What does that have to do with Kyle Rayner and is position as the last of the Green Lantern’s? Read on!
For those who haven’t encountered my reviews before, be warned, they are LONG:) and they are not spoiler free, nor are they opinion free.
Remember the Good Old Days of Spoiler Spaces
Where I use to say something Pithy here...........
Hmm, well, ummmmmmm........
Hey, if your a real comic fan, you need to be playing City of Hereos!
And in Paragon City tonight their is indeed an Emerald Archer on Patrol.........
Ok, on with the show!!!!!
I couldn’t believe it when I looked in my records, but it’s been over a year since I did a GL review. Before I launch into a review of what has to be a seminal issue of GL, I guess I better explain why I stopped reviewing the tales of the ring slinger.
First, I didn’t stop reading GL. I can’t. No matter who the creative team is, or who the bearer of the “most powerful weapon in the Universe” is, I have to be part of it. Not that it has been an easy ride. I guess I better get this out in the open right now. I am a Hal Jordan man. To me, Hal will always be the greatest of the Lanterns, followed by Alan Scott, John Stewart and Guy “One Punch” Gardner. Kyle has never thrilled me. I have found him to be a poor substitute for Hal. With that said, I don’t dislike Kyle. I dislike how he’s been written, and I dislike the way he’s been handled.
I also have to state that I think the previous story arc to this one was pretty much superfluous. Its major task was to begin to clean the deck of the supporting cast of characters that has grown up around Kyle. Indeed much time, WAY too much time, was spent on showing the exit of Terry and his boy friend. I cannot fault Ben Raab, the writer of the arc. The cards had been stacked against him from the moment he touched the title. His major task was one of beginning the destruction of the fabric that held Kyle’s universe in place. But the faults here are not Rabb’s. Indeed the tenure of Judd Winick on the title pretty much killed Kyle Rayner the character. Over the next few months we are going to take part in the funeral. And the beginning of the end starts with Green Lantern 176.
Part I: Where we meet the central characters of this little tragedy.
If you don’t want to know anything about this issue, or the future of Kyle Rayner and Green Lantern, then don’t read beyond this point. Do us both a favor and take a deep breath and just ignore that this post is here.
Let’s get the messy facts out of the way. As of issue 181 Green Lantern is being cancelled. In October of 2004 Geoff Johns is going to helm a 5 issue mini series called Green Lantern: Rebirth. Lots of things are promised to happen in this mini series, but the most important one is the rebirth of Hal Jordan as a Green Lantern. Please not the phrasing, “a Green Lantern”. Not the only GL. Remember, at one time their were over 2000 GL’s in the galaxy. Indeed at one point Earth was the home base of close to a dozen GL’s. So even with the return or Hal, that does not mean the end of Kyle as a GL, just a change in his role. We can only speculate what that role might be. Will he be the GL on another Space Sector? Will he relocate to OA and be a trainer of the new Corps? Time will tell. But we do know one thing for certain. Kyle Rayner has little if anything to keep him on Earth anymore…………which brings us to the review in question.
If Kyle Rayner has a creative Father it’s Ron Marz. Marz was there when Kyle became GL, and was the writer for GL issues 48-125. Indeed Ron was succeed by the afore mentioned Judd Winick. In recent interviews Ron has indicated that he was brought back to the title to close the current chapter of the GL mythology. He has been quoted as saying that fans of Kyle are going to hate him for what he’s going to put Rayner through. If issue 176 is any indication, that was not hyperbole on Marz’s part.
http://www.dcdirect.net/images/gl%20176.jpg
A Most Glorious Cover. GL #176
Let’s start where any good review should, focusing on a truly glorious cover. What a simple, and yet elegant design. Kyle’s gloved hand, a cosmic scene in the background, and the ring. The most coveted of all items in the Universe, one of the last of the Lantern Rings. The cover was done by Brandon Peterson and I have to say that I love what he’s done here. That said, I’ve always had a problem with the redesign of the Ring that Kyle has used, it just looks pretty much like something you’d get out of a gumbotron.
The first 4 pages of the story serve to give a small history of whom and what Green Lantern is. The fist image is that of Alan Scott. In the revised, post Crisis universe of DC, Alan’s powers came from a green lantern carved out of an intergalactic rock known as the Star Heart. In reality the Star Heart was a portion of the central Power Battery on Oa. So while Alan is not in reality a true member of the GL Corp, his powers are almost identical. He was the first, and to many, the classiest and best of the Lanterns.
Ah, but the true artistic treat awaits on pages 2 and 3 of the story. A nice splash page of the Green Lantern Corp, lead by the greatest Lantern of them all, Hal Jordan.
http://www.dcdirect.net/images/gl%20176%20corp.jpg
DC Direct needs to make this into a poster!
The next page gives us a view of Kyle in his original costume. The one less influenced by the image of the Corp and the Guardians. Page four, the one page panel of Kyle Rayner Green Lantern has an interesting quote on it, one heavy of foreshadowing:
“Kyle Rayner, Last of the Green Lanterns. The one who was supposed to carry on the legacy”.
For those that have been following the tale of Kyle for any length of time, you’ll recall that Kyle left Earth with his lady love Jade (The Daughter of the Original Green Lantern, Alan Scott), to “Find Himself”. Kyle was angered by the savage beating of his friend Terry at the hands of several back ally animals; the reason for the beating was that Terry is gay. Kyle went off the deep end. He captured the thugs, but only after stepping over the line several times, and almost losing control, coming close to killing one of the perps. After this Kyle decided that he had no great love for the human race and decided to leave Earth, to head into space, to perhaps rediscover a reason to watch over the people of Earth. He asked Jade to accompany him on this trip. Jade is also a former GL, and also posses the power of the Star Heart, much like her father does.
Permit me a moment here to give a little history of Jade. If you are going to understand the great betrayal of Kyle that Jade is responsible for, you have to understand who Jenny Lynn Hayden is, AKA Jade. Jade has the powers of a Green Lantern, but they are internal powers, she needs no ring. This is a side effect of the countless years that her father has been a GL and the constant exposure to the Star Heart radiation that he has withstood. When Alan fathered his daughter, that radiation inveighed the body of Alan’s daughter. She needs no ring, no power battery.
For awhile in Jade’s life the power became dormant, and she no longer could call upon it. To help her compensate for this loss of something that she considered such an integral part of her, Kyle created a GL Ring just for her, and she became a true GL. In a near fatal fight with the Green Lantern Killer Fatality, Jenny’s ring was destroyed.
At one point Kyle’s powers began to grow. He was soon approaching the power level that Hal Jordan had when he was Parallax. When this happened, Kyle’s abilities boarded on that of godhood (The Ion story line) . He began to do everything he could to help the impoverished and unlucky of the world. At one point, he used the powers he had acquired to revitalize the Star Heart energies in Jade, and so caused her to regain her natural abilities. Jade owes her current existence to the love and benevolence of Kyle Rayner. To top it off, Kyle asked Jade to marry him, an offer that she turned down on more than one occasion.
Jade followed Kyle into space at his request. But while Kyle felt more alive then ever in the galactic depths, facing numerous challenges, the like of which he had never seen on mother Earth, Jade grew restive and home sick. They separated in space. Kyle to continue on with his quest to find himself, Jenny to return home and look after Kyle’s affairs on Earth and to later join the Outsiders. Be clear on this. They parted as two people who love each other often will. Knowing that right now life was taking them on separate paths, but also knowing that the future would bring them back together and the love they shared.
Indeed, Kyle’s cosmic quest may have helped form the seeds for the new Green Lantern Corps. But in time Kyle too missed his life on earth and the woman he loved. It was time to go home.
Part II: You Can’t Go Home Again!
Our Tragedy opens on a rain swept street. Kyle is staring up into the sky, looking at something that we can’t see. Whatever he is focusing on, he is in a very pensive mood. He reviews the events of the last few days in his life, what has happened to him since his return to Earth after his adventures in the dark coldness of space.
http://www.dcdirect.net/images/gl%20176%20page%208.jpg
Heavy foreshadowing. This is not a good thing.
Kyle has returned. He’s home. But time awaits no man, no superhero. Things have changed in his absence. Kyle’s best friend, Terry and his boyfriend are moving to the west coast. This saddens Kyle, but at the same time, the most important person in Kyle’s life is still there, waiting for him, or so he supposes.
He misses Jenny; it’s been months since he’s seen her. Indeed he’s in such a rush to see his lady that he flies right up to his apartment in full daylight in his GL garb. Kyle has a valid point; no one in NYC ever looks up. If you doubt that, visit the city and see how many people ever really look up, except for the tourists.
Kyle lands on the fire escape outside his apartment and opens the window. Entering his abode, he uses the emerald ring to create green glowing roses for Jade. But the apartment, HIS apartment is quiet. Kyle surmises that Jen is out running errands. That’s ok, he thinks, she’s worth waiting for. But as he enters deeper into the apartment he hears the shower running, a sly smile creeps across the face of the emerald gladiator. Perhaps this reunion will be even more “enjoyable” than Kyle had originally anticipated. Indeed Kyle had first met Jen when she was showering. He takes this as a sign that this really will be a wonderful homecoming. He moves stealthily into the Bathroom and the shower stall. He pulls the curtain aside inquiring of the waterlogged occupant if there is room enough in there for two. Unfortunately it’s not Jade in the shower.
It seems that while Kyle was off in space finding himself, helping to start reforming the Corps and just being an all around good guy, Jade got bored waiting for him. The man in the shower is one Lucas Simon. And he and Jade are now an item.
I think at this point it’s important for the reviewer to make a few revealing comments about himself. I have loved and lost, and I think that it’s better to never have loved at all in that position. I had a fiancé that I later found out, after the engagement was cancelled, had been entertaining one of my co-workers. After more than my fair share of negative relationship experiences, I have come to the general conclusion that I pretty happy being single. Now don’t get me wrong, if a wonderful woman were to walk into my life today, I’d be more than happy to spend time with her, and get to know her. I have many friends that don’t understand that, but that’s ok, I have to live my life they don’t. So what follows from here is Emerald Archers interpretation of events.
Impressively Mr. Lucas Simon seems to have no idea who this guy standing in the bathroom is. Let’s see, he’s wearing a costume, has a glowing green ring, and seems to know Jade pretty well! Is it possible that Jen never bothered to mention to this guy that her current boyfriend, the one she’s cheating on, happens to be the current Green Lantern? Better yet, do her actions not endanger Kyle’s secret identity? Everyone knows that Jade was involved with GL. And here is a guy in a costume with power ring. Hmm, he just might be GL. And he says that the apartment is his. And the apartment is rented by a guy named Kyle Rayner. Do you think that Kyle and GL are one in the same?!?!?!?
Jen suddenly appears at the entrance to the Bathroom in an advanced state of disrobement. Kyle tries to give her the benefit of the doubt. This Lucas guy is a relative, a friend, anything but what it looks like. Jen will have none of it. Give the “Lady” credit; she flaunts it right in front of Kyle’s face. At least she’s honest enough to admit what she’s doing. That’s about the only thing I can give Jade credit for, because as far as I am concerned she has now managed to sink to the most bottom rung on the food chain of life.
See, it gets better. This is Kyle’s apartment. She’s been entertaining her boy toy in Kyle’s own house, in his own bed. Oh, she rationalizes it. She’s been paying the rent for the last few months. And after all Kyle been out in space, she needed someone to take care of her. Kyle is slack jawed, and then it dawns on him………………..
http://www.dcdirect.net/images/gl%20176%209.jpg
The Slap heard round the world!
He never gets to finish the sentence, Jen slaps him. But if it makes you feel any better Kyle, I agree with you, she is.
Kyle then begins to launch into a defense of his actions, the reasons he was gone so long. I have to admit that I was pretty hard on Kyle when he took off for deep space, left this world to find himself. But he was doing what he thought was right. I will credit him with that. Jenny doesn’t see that. Either that or she doesn’t care. On the flip side, Jenny knows that what she has done isn’t right, but does everything she can to rationalize it. Pretty sad in my book.
At this point she volunteers to leave the apartment. Kyle says no, that he’ll leave. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m a petty human being but I would not leave my apartment so that the woman I loved could continue to use it for her little tryst. Perhaps Kyle is more of a gentleman than I, or perhaps he’s more stunned. Either way he leaves. And for the first time since I’ve met Kyle Rayner, the last of the Green Lantern’s, a man thrown into an impossible situation and trying to do the best he can, for the very first time, I feel very sad for Kyle.
With no place to go, Kyle heads to the Moon and to the headquarters of the worlds greatest Super Heroes, The JLA. In part he is going here because he has no place else to go. But it’s also because he feels at home here. Kyle thinks about his early days as GL. How belonging to the JLA intimidated him, because he was such a rookie. In the beginning he wasn’t sure he belonged, but now, now he feels that this is truly his place to be. Unfortunately for Kyle he is wrong.
He enters the Watchtower to find The Martian Manhunter on monitor duty. Kyle asks J’onn how he got the short straw and ended up getting stuck alone in the tower. Manhunter tells Kyle that he feels more and more at home here. That the tower feels like home. Kyle can relate to that, because for him, this is home now
I find the characterization of J’onn to be off here. He doesn’t react with surprise to see Kyle. He doesn’t even seem overly happy to see him back. The whole scene is played very low key. Now granted that JJ has never been one for great emotional scenes, but this is a friend, a team mate, that he hasn’t seen in over a year. All JJ manages to do is get up and shake Kyle’s hand. There is no expression of true friend ship here. Perhaps that is intentional. Because Marz is going to make good on his promise to destroy everything that Kyle has held as important to him.
After a very subdued welcome of J’onn, Kyle asks where all the other members of the team are. The Manhunter answers with a mini role call. Superman is on NY. Batman in Gotham and Wonder Woman in Paris. Then J’onn proceeds to say that Green Lantern is in….. But he catches himself. He realizes that the man in front of him is the GL of Earth, or at least he was until he abandoned it out of anger and spite. He quickly changes it to the fact the John Stewart is in Washington taking care of some business. Besides the fact that the slip of that tongue makes Kyle realize that he has been gone to long, and has been basically replaced on the team, it does something else. It establishes that John Stewart is in DC. That may not seem important right now, but is a few issues hence it will be very important.
Kyle suddenly realizes that his personal life is in a shambles, and that the one thing that he thought he still had, his identity as Green Lantern no longer has as much currency as it did before. The reason is simple. John Stewart has become the Green Lantern of Earth, and he is doing a great job of it. The problem for Kyle is the John Stewart was a Green Lantern long before anyone had ever heard of Kyle Rayner. Stewart was trained by the best Green Lantern of them all, Hal Jordan. He was also Jordan’s back up. If anything had happened to Hal, John would have taken over.
Of course we all know that it didn’t work out that way. Several things intervened preventing John Stewart from accepting the mantel of GL after the whole Parallax mess. First, John had some mental instability due to his self imposed guilt over the destruction of the planet Xanshi, which he felt he caused by being over confident as a GL. Secondly, Stewart became a paraplegic. Even after his paralysis was cured by Hal Jordan, right before Hal sacrificed himself to reignite our sun, John still could not walk. Many years later it was determined that his inability to walk was mostly psychological, because he felt responsible for the death of a sibling when he was a child.
As Kyle is conversing with J’onn, the Martian notices that a damn in India is about to burst. A faint flicker of a smile creeps across the face of Kyle. While he doesn’t look forward to a tragedy, this impending disaster will at least allow him to get out of the Watchtower and go to work, allowing him a respite, no matter how brief, from the turmoil that his life is in. But even that small mercy is not meant to be, because Superman is on the scene in seconds. “Wait, Superman is on the scene already. He will handle the situation”, intones the Manhunter from Mars. Kyle hangs his head in a dejected fashion, “You bet, what would we do without Superman?”
Kyle tells J’onn that he’s going to basically moving into his living space at the Watchtower. The Martian asks if there is a problem with Kyle’s apartment back on earth. “Uh..It’s a little crowded right now.” As Kyle heads to his room he makes sure to stress to MM that if anything happens he knows where he’ll be. J’onn replies, “I will let you know if we need you.”
Kyle enters his new home. He tries to get comfortable, he fidgets, he sulks, he creates a power ring based TV and watches reruns of I Love Lucy. Nothing makes it better. Both his personal and professional lives are in complete chaos. He can’t stand it any longer. He has to do something…….
He leaves the moon and heads toward Earth. But not just anyplace on Earth. He goes to his apartment, more accurately he is outside his apartment. And now we understand. In the beginning of this issue, Kyle was standing in the rain, looking up at something, something that we couldn’t see. Well now we know what he was looking at. He was looking at the light shining out of the window of his apartment. “I thought that everything that mattered to me was here. But now I know better”. Kyle Rayner, last of the Lanterns, bows his head, and walks off into the cold wet night.
Scene Change. Slabeside Penitentiary. Slabeside is where some of the most dangerous and deadly meta-humans are kept. The Warden of the prison, Warden Norman is being presented with orders to release a prisoner. These orders can only come from the highest levels of the government in Washington. Who is prisoner to be released? Outside of Parallax, the greatest killer of Green Lanterns in history, Fatality.
Fade Out
A few thoughts……
First, I have said it before and I’ll say it again. When a character is forced to behave in a way that goes against everything they have ever stood for, then we have a problem. I call it characterization rape. And this issue has that in spades for Jade. This is not the Jade that we have come to know in other venues. What does it say of a person when they turn their back on someone they are supposed to love, especially when that person is performing a vital task? Kyle was indeed performing a vital task, and yet Jade found that she couldn’t control her biological imperative and decided to end her relationship wit Kyle. Relationships end every day. That is the nature of man. But Jade goes one step future. She uses Kyle’s own apartment for her love shack. I’ve talked to a lot of fans since this issue hit. And in general the damage done to Jade, in the perception of these fans, is devastating. I cannot begin to write what I’ve been told, because I’d be banned from Toonzone. Suffice to say, Jade has stepped over the line in the mind of many fans.
At the same time a case can be made that in the final analysis that this really is all Kyle’s fault. If he had not left Earth in an immature huff after the incident with Terry then Jenny would never have had the chance to stray. At least, not this time. Because I think in general, if a person is going to cheat on their significant other, it will happen eventually. So, if not now while Kyle is off in space, it would have happened at some other point. Bottom line it raises a lot of very troubling and decidedly unpleasant questions in regard to Jade. Questions, which, if left to linger, will forever tarnish the reputation of the female hero. Of note, both DC and Marvel have 2ed tier female heroes that are green skinned and are direct offshoots of a male version. DC has Jade, a female, green skinned, Green Lantern. And Marvel has She-Hulk, the green skinned female version of The Hulk. Both characters seem to have a problem with monogamous relationships. Indeed the latest version of She-Hulk opens up just as the title character is awakening from a one night stand with another pretty boy male model. Perhaps comic writers have seen one to many Star Trek episodes when the green skin women are from the planet Orion and they have one goal, to please any man that wants them. I think it’s time that a little maturity is injected into both universes. This wasn’t an issue with Jade until the latest story arcs in GL. And that’s where another problem lies.
Much of this feels forced on the part of the writers. Both Rabb and Marz seem to be rushing things along. It’s fairly obvious why. They have been given a dead line. Strip the GL mythos back to the basics. Get rid of any and all supporting characters, and make way for Geoff Johns and the new Mini Series which will reestablish GL’s place in the DC Universe. This is fine. But is so doing they are forcing characters that we thought we had a handle on to act in ways that just don’t fit the persons involved. Jade’s sudden inability to act like a responsible person, and to destroy a relationship that to her, at least at one point, was very important. Martian Manhunters strange reticence when he sees Kyle for the first time in over a year, the final scene, where some high personage in Washington is ordering the release of Fatality. None of these things make any rational sense.
Another “Poor Kyle” comment follows. If they bother you, if you think I’ve gone soft, well think about this. I can very much relate to what Kyle walked into in his apartment. No, not the exact same situation, but I can tell you what it feels like when someone you love kicks you so hard in the gut emotionally that you walk bent over for a year.
So here is the “Poor Kyle” comment. It seems writers have become fixated on making his personal life with women a disaster. His fiancé is murdered shortly after he becomes Green Lantern. He has a wonderful relationship with Donna Troy that deflates. And now Jade betrays him in the most personal and horrible way imaginable. I know that happy superheroes in the personal relationship department are pretty rare, but do we have to keep using Kyle as the poster child for miserable men and the women who love them.
On the professional side, it is easier to believe that Kyle has been replaced by John Stewart as Green Lantern. John has more experience in the role than Kyle and was indeed trained by the great Hal Jordan. Kyle needs to realize that when he left Earth, he passed the mantle of GL over to Stewart. This has happened before. Hal passed the task to Guy Gardner at one point. GL, more than any other hero, is less about the person and more about the ring. But Earth is a pretty big place and there is more than enough room for two Green Lanterns. The problem is that Kyle seems to want to be THE Green Lantern. That’s a unique problem that Kyle faces. No other GL in history, except for perhaps Alan Scott, has been a legion of one. Perhaps, and this is just supposition, the reason that Kyle has always failed in resurrecting the Corps is because he subconsciously has always wanted to be the one and only ring slinger, just a thought.
Creativity wise this is a good read. Not perfect, but good. The art is steady and strong, with the splash page of the Corps well worth the price of the book. And it is only fitting the Marz, the man who brought life to Kyle Rayner, perhaps the only writer who really cared about Kyle, is handling the dismantling of his life. As I have said, it does feel forced and rushed, but that is more a function of the fact the Marz has 5 issues to tie up almost a decades worth of plot lines. But give him credit. If the measure of the success of a comic is that it provokes a visceral reaction from the reader, then Green Lantern 176 is a success, at least for this reader. At the same time, I’m not sure that Jade will ever recover from the way she was portrayed here. That’s too bad, because I use to like the character, now, well I pretty much can find no redeeming value in her at all.
As a final point. The problem with Kyle has never been Kyle. The problem as of late has been the people writing Kyle. Marz, for the first time, made me care about the character. I want Kyle to continue being a GL, but not the only GL. I do want Hal Jordan back. But Kyle should be able to keep a ring and do what he does best, be a part of the Corps. Winick never made me care about Kyle as a person. Perhaps it was because too many side issues always seemed to get dragged into the story telling process. Marz is cutting it all back to the basics. Like any surgery it’s painful, and it’s not fun to watch. And for a long time this particular patient has been near terminal. This is simply a case of to little to late. DC knows that, and that’s why we are seeing the title getting cancelled with issue 181, and the Johns mini series to follow. I’m not sure what the future hold for Kyle Rayner. For a long time he’s been the favorite whipping boy of the fan boys. That’s going to change, one way or another it’s going to be different for Kyle. We can only hope that it’s going to be better.
Kyle has now hit the unhappy 25% of life. Both his Personal and Professional life have been gutted. Well iy can only get better…….can’t it?
For reference purposes I have placed on my website the Who's Who 1985 and mid 90's listings along with the page on Jade from the Secret Files and Origins of Green Lantern Isse # 2.
Be aware that these pages are bandwidth intensive, and they can be found here (http://www.dcdirect.net/jade.html)
Be here in 30 when Kyle and Jade have to work together. Oh Joy,