For all my bashing of Hal Jordan as Douche Supreme of the Green Lantern Corps, I’m sure I’ll take an equal amount of shinola for my favorite GL being John Stewart – the guy in the background of all the group photos who only steps into the fore when he has to do something awful for the greater good. The guy who some consider the Winston Zeddemore of Green Lanterns. The Justice League animated series is one of the key factors in getting me to pay attention to DC Comics with greater regularity, and thus, I have a predilection for John as my go-to GL. Outside of Kilowog, that is, because you have to love a big burly alien who calls people ‘poozers.’ Guy Gardner’s an amusing jackass, and Kyle Rayner is the emo introspective guy, they’re all well and good. Let the rest of the world fellate Hal Jordan as The Greatest and Best Green Lantern That God Ever Gave Man On This Earth. I’ll take the no-nonsense guy who does his thankless job and doesn’t make a big goddamned deal about it. Ernie Hudson is the motherfuckin’ man.
Folks probably don’t know this, but I’m fairly sure that the whole Marine aspect of Stewart’s history was a product of the cartoon, and it was later just incorporated into his history, much like Harley Quinn and the origin of Mr. Freeze. There’s also the fact that the most enduring legacy of Stewart’s is his failure to stop the destruction of the planet Xanshi because the doomsday device was yellow, which is epic, but also sad in that the original story was very poorly put together – complete with Martian Manhunter encouraging him to commit suicide after the fact, and then making an almost hilarious fart-face when he didn’t. That being the only thing anybody remembers about him, it played right into the “War of the Green Lanterns” storyline, right before the New 52 reboot. Stewart was forced to actively kill another planet – this time the sentient Green Lantern world Mogo – in order to prevent the Black Lanterns from taking it over and ruining everything. After all that, one of the first things he had to do in the New 52 was kill a fellow Green Lantern who was about to break under the torture from The Keepers and let Oa be destroyed – and thus, he was put on trial for his life. Thus, it’s easy to see why some might consider John Stewart an unlikeable hardass and a fuck-up.
Now, in Green Lantern Corps #18, aka Leonard Part 6 – er, Wrath of the First Lantern Part 6, the emotional vampire known as The First Lantern has tracked down Stewart and Yrra Cyrril – the last survivor of Xanshi, formerly Fatality, an anger-maven obsessed with killing Stewart, and currently a Star Sapphire who has formed some ill-defiend bond with the man she was once determined to murder. Writer Peter J. Tomasi delves into Stewart’s history and redefines it for the New 52 by way of The First Lantern playing ‘This Is Your Life’ with them – which is what the previous few parts of this story have done outside of Geoff Johns’ main narrative over in Green Lantern. Guy and Kyle both had a turn, and now it’s John’s.
The First Lantern’s M.O. is to feed on the angst surrounding crux points of a person’s life, showing them how different things could be if they’d made a different decision, and slurping up the resulting emotional turmoil as well. The first thing we see is a brand new bit of history for John – his mother was apparently killed in front of him while running for Senate, and if he’d only reacted quickly enough, he might’ve been able to stop it. That’s something The First Lantern shows him, and we see that as the defining moment that led him away from his potential life as an architect and into the military. It also shows us why he’s so determined to make the hard choice in favor of quick, decisive action rather than hesitating long enough to let the bad guys potentially win.
We then see a rehash of Xanshi, with some of Stewart’s hubris from that story still intact, but obviously, the New 52 Martian Manhunter isn’t involved at all. It’s just Stewart alone on a rock in the aftermath contemplating suicide with a green gun to his head, with the First Lantern implying that he really should have pulled the trigger at that crucial moment. We see that Yrra still harbors a desire to kill John, and there’s a twisted panel where they kill each other on her violet construct and their entrails float in space in the shape of a heart around them. I may not always enjoy the art of Chrischross in this issue – sometimes it’s great, other times it’s too strained and exaggerated – but that panel was sickly poetic.
We see other potential avenues for Stewart, such as how ruthless he would have become if he’d accepted the positon as an Alpha Lantern – the GL Internal Affairs – and how he and Kyle may have killed each other in the midst of the Mogo disaster, if he’d been the one to break at the hands of The Keepers instead of Kirrt, and even reliving his own execution for Kirrt’s murder at the hands of the Guardians. At the end of all this, we don’t know if The First Lantern is actually reshaping reality, or just casting illusions to feed on the emotions that result from them, and the final panel of FL puppeteering the helpless, naked forms of John and Yrra is rather disturbing.
The “Wrath of the First Lantern” storyline hasn’t been the best, but I enjoyed the deep look into the mind and new origins of John Stewart in Green Lantern Corps #18. I’m hoping he’ll remain somewhat relevant in the outcome of it all, but it’s looking as though All Things Defer To Hal Jordan’s Infallible Greatness will be how this all plays out. Yawn.
