Sunday, March 30, 2008
Green Lantern #29 may be the worst comic book I have ever read
Every once in a while I read a comic book that is so bad, so poorly written, I want to swear off funny books for the rest of my life. GREEN LANTERN #29 is one of those books.
Much of the story takes place while Hal Jordon is in the United States Air Force. It was obvious from reading this that writer Geoff Johns knows absolutely nothing about the Air Force or the military in general. It’s also clear he didn’t feel like doing even some basic research to make up for any lack of knowledge.
I don’t get that. If I was going to write about something I didn’t know anything about, I would try to learn as much as I could about the subject.
I spent close to 10 years in the Air Force and a good majority of that time was spent working on aircraft. Many of the gaffs in this book were just simply ridiculous. Most of them could have been avoided by simply doing a quick Google search.
Hal Jordon enlists in the Air Force on the day of his 18th birthday and then becomes a pilot. It doesn’t work that way. Enlisted people don’t become pilots. Someone who wants to become an Air Force pilot must first graduate college with a 4-year degree and then receive a commission to become an officer. Officers do not enlist. Only enlisted people enlist.
Major Stone is said to have more Silver Stars then the American flag. That means he has at least 51 Silver Stars. The Silver Star is the third highest military decoration awarded for valor. The most Silver Stars ever awarded to any one man was to General Douglas MacArthur. He earned a whopping 7. That would mean Major Stone was awarded at least seven times as many Silver Stars as General MacArthur, a five-star general that served in World War One, World War Two, and the Korea conflict. Even though Major Stone has earned 51 Silver Stars, he still somehow cannot get promoted to lieutenant colonel.
That’s just silly.
If a Marine threatens to kill a woman unless she leaves a bar with him to go have sex, other Marines wont just passively sit still and watch it happen. They certainly wont gang up and attack someone that defends the woman from her attacker. Threatening to kill a women unless she has sex with you is actually a big no-no, even in the Marine Corp.
They’re United States Marines, not Klingons.
I could go on and on with more examples of just how badly this book was written. What’s the point? Just because you personally don’t have the life experiences connected to a topic doesn’t mean you can’t still create credible stories. If you don’t personally know about something, seek the assistance of people that do. If you are going to write about a Air Force fighter pilot, maybe talk to a real life fighter pilot. If you’ve never seen an actual bar fight, talk to someone who has. Run your ideas past them first.
At least spend a couple of minutes on Wikipedia.
Cameron Stewart, artist for THE OTHER SIDE, the Vertigo miniseries about the Viet Nam conflict took the time to actually travel to Viet Nam and tour the countryside. He wanted to make sure he gave the book the right look. If Cameron Stewart can go to Viet Nam to do research for a comic book, Geoff Johns should be able to take a few minutes to read the Wikipedia entry for the F-16.
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I think you are missing the big picture. The book is not about the Air Force it is about Hal Jordan and the events that have shaped him into The Greatest Green Lantern. Sure, they may have gotten everything wrong about the Air Force but that is not the point of the book. The reader is supposed to be looking at Hal’s relationship with his family.
Simmons wrote:
I understand the Air Force isn’t supposed to be the point of the book. It’s just that the amount of gaffs presented in this book obstruct the rest of the story. It’s not like the Air Force is some obscure secret organization shrouded in mystery that nobody knows about. In that case, the writer can take as many liberties as they want. Nobody is going to know the difference. In this case, millions of Americans have served in the military. They know some of the things Geoff Johns presented in this book were just absurd, stupid, and really unnecessary. More Silver Stars then the American flag? Does Geoff Johns even know how retarded that sounds?
Who ever said that line is an ad wizard. You could have one silver star and that would be more silver stars than the flag, because the flag has white stars, not silver stars.
I’m just saying.
>>Sure, they may have gotten everything wrong about the Air Force but that is not the point of the book.
Right, that’s why I’m writing a Batman comic in which he travels to England and everyone carries a musket, says “cheerio”, and dresses like the Beatles circa Sgt. Pepper, because the story’s about Batman, not England.
Back in reality, playing fast and loose with the facts may have flown in comics fifty years ago, but there’s a different expectation in modern storytelling as far as accuracy of background details. This is especially true in an action comic like Green Lantern where the wonder and spectacle of the book work because the mundane elements are grounded in reality. (On a side note, bad fact checking would’ve gotten a fan reaction even fifty years ago. If you don’t believe me, dig up some old war comics and read the letter columns).
I’m not as upset by the inaccuracies as Rick is (though it makes sense given your background), but I do think that Johns’ apparent decision to not let the facts get in the way of the story makes for sloppy writing.
As an addendum, and to address the blog entry itself, I did want to say that of the examples provided: the enlistment thing is a big mistake, the thing with the marines is kind of borderline, and the comment about the stars, I think, is hyperbole. As written, it seems to be illustrating a point rather than something to be taken literally, a character exaggerating for effect rather than suggesting the Major actually has 51 stars.
Davinder, my point about the Marines is that it was completely unrealistic. I realize that it’s just a funny book and unrealistic stuff happens in funny books. It’s just that there really are Marines and they act a certain way. If you are going to feature them in a comic book, they ought to be portrayed in a way that is not completely outside the norm. For instance, coming to the aid of a fellow Marine that threated to kill a woman unless she agreed to sex. There’s lots of other ways to realistically get a group of Air Force officers and some Marine Corp enlisted men in a bar fight. That would require some research on the part of Geoff Johns.
He might have to even talk to someone that’s actually been in a bar fight.
Actually, Geoff Johns did do quite a bit of Air Force research a number of years ago as he was revving up to do the Green Lantern revival. I think he went on some fly-alongs and spent some time with some officers….but I’m sure it wasn’t an extensive, immersive process. At least he gave an effort to understand the guys he was writing about…which is more than most comic book writers can say. Most comic book writers seem to gravitate toward caricatured distortions of military characters with no attempt to get into their culture and understand them….and I *did* see that effort made with the latest Green Lantern issue. Geoff Johns may not have gotten everything right and you certainly have the qualifications to quibble on his presentation, but again, at least he’s giving *some* effort in trying to capture the culture of the fighting man (warts and all).
You mean Geoff Johns actually researched the Air Force before writing #29? Ouch!
From a 2005 article on Newsarama:
“Geoff Johns kept mum about “Green Lantern,” except to say that he’s been doing research to prepare for the return of Hal Jordan, including spending time at Edwards Air Base with the test pilot department, and checking all his facts with a major.”
Here’s the link:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=4839
Again, it’s seems obvious that Johns muffed some facts (I believe your beefs with his story are legitimate), but I still admire the guy for at least putting in the time researching and talking to some people “in the know”. Maybe he’s no longer using those “filters” with his stories.
Whoops. I guess that article was from Comic Book Resources, and not Newsarama.
You mean Geoff Johns has actually BEEN to Edwards? And I thought he was just too lazy to look at a map of California and he figured that if the base was in California, he just had to be near the ocean.
I grew up outside Edwards Air Force Base. It’s nowhere near the coast. I had to laugh when I read how Edwards is 20 minutes from “Coast City”. You can drive 20 minutes and not get off the base. It’s a good 25 minute drive from when you enter the base to when you come to the main gate.
Geoff Johns is telling the origin story that has been told before. All the things you are complaining about where things other writers did way back in the 60s. Hell, Gotham seems to be in a different location depending on the writer. Don’t even mention the fact that Metropolis has been in Kansas for a few stories and has a dock, a dock in the middle of Kansas!!! Johns is just telling these stories again is because he is adding important events that happening behind the scenes. The last page was the only part that was new, all has already been told in other green lanterns stories.
JP, did the writers back in the 60’s show Marines coming to the aid of a fellow Marine that was attempting to sexual assault a woman? Did any of these old books state someone who has been awarded at least 51 Silver Stars can’t make rank above major? Did any of these old books state that an F-16 — an aircraft that didn’t even exist on the 60’s — could go Mach 3?
These for the things I was complaining about. They all seem to be coming from Geoff Johns.
I meant 60s to now. that Marine part was from the 80s when John Stewart became a green lantern (the marine he fights in the bar). F-16 came around the late 70s in the comics. The 51 silver stars came from Johns but Johns was trying to make the guy seem more heroic but he has to keep the rank he had in the original. You seem to be arguing logic in a universe where the Flash can time travel by going the speed of light on a treadmill.
JP, I just think that since the reader is expected to throw common sense out the window for so many things — such as the Flash being able to warp time and space by using a treadmill — that things found in the real world should be kept as believable as possible.