ok, so when they brought him back from the dead, I accepted the new mask. But whyare they using it in this "origin" story? Also, since when does he call Pieface "Tom" ?
Green Lantern - Secret Origins
- Thread starter A beaker full of death
- Start date
oh.
I haven't seen ol' Pie since the mid-80s. Not sure how I feel about retconning for the sake of political correctness. But I guess, since this current "origin" would take place in the 80s or 90s, that it works. Weird, though. Kinda changes the dynamic. Robs the relationship of some of its character.
It wasn't even so much about being PC at the time...Tom had felt "marginalized" in Hal's life and even "put upon" by some of Jordan's expectations of him, all the while GL was kind of in the dark about Tom's wife and family life and Tom basically had just felt that, as an individual, he'd very much outgrown the nickname.
I'm sort of interested in this, but I'm inclined to wait for the trade paperback (or hardcover if that's the case).
I guess I didn't see the mask as being the 'new' mask when I read it; it just looked like a more modern artistic interpretation of the original (the new mask having the more obvious points at the top corners). And Ivan Reis did take the care to depict Hal in his original costume (with the 'tank top' style of the green torso of the uniform, going straight up instead of coming down to points on the shoulders).
As far as Tom/Pieface, well, it's true that the Pieface nickname has long since gone by the wayside, but it is a bit of a retcon to not have Hal call him that in the early days. It's just a matter of what was acceptable in 1959 vs. what's acceptable in 2008. Fifty years ago the heroic Great White Protagonist could affectionately use a mild racial epithet for his sidekick's nickname. In the modern cutural climate, such an action would not be suitably heroic, I suppose. I give Geoff Johns points for addressing the issue, as a matter of paying homage to the past, and then moving past it.
I liked the story overall. I think the only element of the original that I missed was Hal being pulled to Abin Sur's crash site in the flightless trainer/simulator (here Hal is simply pulled bodily through the air by the power beam). I'm not going to go fanboy-insane and cry out that Geoff Johns raped my childhood or whatever, but to me the shock Hal experiences when he realizes he's flying in a flightless trainer was kind of a key element of the sense of wonder to that origin story. I miss that element, but the story as a whole still has enough going on to keep me entertained.
As far as Tom/Pieface, well, it's true that the Pieface nickname has long since gone by the wayside, but it is a bit of a retcon to not have Hal call him that in the early days. It's just a matter of what was acceptable in 1959 vs. what's acceptable in 2008. Fifty years ago the heroic Great White Protagonist could affectionately use a mild racial epithet for his sidekick's nickname. In the modern cutural climate, such an action would not be suitably heroic, I suppose. I give Geoff Johns points for addressing the issue, as a matter of paying homage to the past, and then moving past it.
I liked the story overall. I think the only element of the original that I missed was Hal being pulled to Abin Sur's crash site in the flightless trainer/simulator (here Hal is simply pulled bodily through the air by the power beam). I'm not going to go fanboy-insane and cry out that Geoff Johns raped my childhood or whatever, but to me the shock Hal experiences when he realizes he's flying in a flightless trainer was kind of a key element of the sense of wonder to that origin story. I miss that element, but the story as a whole still has enough going on to keep me entertained.
^Excellent points.
I've enjoyed it so far - while it changes a lot of the details of Hal's early career - it does keep a lot of the feel of the early stories. And to be fair, many of the points from the original stories had been retconned by Emerald Dawn. I do admit that I enjoyed seeing Hal's original uniform - it's my favorite of all of the various Green Lantern outfits. And I just like seeing the uniform as a uniform again. While I understand why they would want individual outfits for the various GL's so that they can make them stand out as individuals - I still like the original concept.
On a slightly ironic note, someone donated the first two volumes of the Green Lantern Archives to the library that I work at, so I have been able to compare and contrast the stories a bit, and the original stories stand up extremely well after nearly fifty years - while there is a bit of Silver-Age silliness in them it is more than counterbalanced by a lot of Silver-Age goodness.
One thing that has annoyed me since Rebirth is the different insignias for the Green Lanterns. Different outfits is one thing, but one would think that the emblems at least would be standardized, but even if they aren't going to do that I would at least expect that an individual Lantern's emblem would stay consistent from panel to panel. I was amused to find out that Gil Kane did the same thing throughout the early stories in both volumes as well, and that he had a greater variety of designs than I had been aware of (I had only read a few of his stories from the mid-to-late Sixties). There wasn't anything like that much variety when I jumped on board with the Mike Grell revival in the mid-Seventies.
On a slightly ironic note, someone donated the first two volumes of the Green Lantern Archives to the library that I work at, so I have been able to compare and contrast the stories a bit, and the original stories stand up extremely well after nearly fifty years - while there is a bit of Silver-Age silliness in them it is more than counterbalanced by a lot of Silver-Age goodness.
One thing that has annoyed me since Rebirth is the different insignias for the Green Lanterns. Different outfits is one thing, but one would think that the emblems at least would be standardized, but even if they aren't going to do that I would at least expect that an individual Lantern's emblem would stay consistent from panel to panel. I was amused to find out that Gil Kane did the same thing throughout the early stories in both volumes as well, and that he had a greater variety of designs than I had been aware of (I had only read a few of his stories from the mid-to-late Sixties). There wasn't anything like that much variety when I jumped on board with the Mike Grell revival in the mid-Seventies.
