Many a comic book reader was sucked into superhero comics, or any comics, by the compelling stories of one writer: Dennis “Denny” O’Neil, who passed away Thursday, June 11, fifty years after the publication of his most celebrated work. O’Neil created some of the most admired tales of our favorite superheroes. His stories ushered in an entirely new, modern era of comic books that historians refer to as the Bronze Age of comics (following on the heels of the Golden Age that introduced the first superhero books with Superman in 1938, followed by the Silver Age in 1956, which gave us new sci-fi and space fantasy stories by the likes of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee). The Bronze Age began with the “Hard-Traveling Heroes” story arc (illustrated by Neal Adams) that forever re-defined Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Oliver Queen’s Green Arrow, and Dinah Lance’s Black Canary. But it would be looked back on as much more than that.
Yes, San Diego Comic-Con is still about comics. So how about a free one?
In the spirit of great promotional comic book ideas over the years like The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man comic book, DC Comics and Kentucky Fried Chicken have done the unthinkable. The unimaginable. It’s the comic book you didn’t ask for and didn’t know you wanted: Green Lantern co-starring Colonel Sanders. That’s right, a team-up of Green Lantern and The Colonel!
It includes an homage cover based on the classic Silver Age comic book cover for Green Lantern Issue #76 drawn by Neal Adams. This is one fans of all things retro won’t want to miss.
Tom Grummett and Trevor Scott created the cover and Tony Bedard supplied the story with interior art by Tom Derenick, Trevor Scott, and Tom Parsons.
You’ll also see The Colonel meet up with several guest superheroes.
Every year something exciting makes its way to public auction. Back in 2011 we discussed some great art from The Dark Knight Returnshere at borg.com and again in 2013 here we discussed more cover art from The Dark Knight Returns hitting the market as well as some Dave Gibbons Watchmen cover art. In December 2015, one of the most iconic covers of the Silver Age hit the auction block courtesy of Heritage Auctions. That cover was Neal Adams’ original cover art to Green Lantern Issue #76 (learn more about it here), the book that launched the Bronze Age of comics in the minds of many historians, and the beginning of the “Hard-Traveling Heroes” story arc that forever re-defined Hal Jordan, Oliver Queen’s Green Arrow, and Dinah Lance’s Black Canary.
So what was the total paid, the auction hammer price including fees, for the cover art?
A whopping $442,150. The twist on this auction is that in the 1970s, most original comic art was not returned to the artists, as has generally been done since then. So many artists, including Neal Adams, have renounced the possession and sale of such pieces as “stolen”. But this seller made a deal with Adams to share in the proceeds (with a cut for the charity The Hero Initiative), and so Adams agreed to endorse the sale with this comment:
“Since the proprietor of the cover has agreed to equitably share the income of the auction with me and my family I hereby validate sale and ownership of this piece and I will, in fact, supply a Certificate of Authenticity to the highest bidder of the auction, and the ownership of this cover will never be questioned by me. This sharing of profit with the creator, of the sale of artwork produced back in those days when ownership has ever been in question, will in this case and may in all cases go far in bringing underground artwork into the light of a fair and open marketplace.”
For everyone who wasn’t that winning bidder, on shelves now at your local comic book store and via Amazon.com here is a deluxe hardcover edition of the entire Green Lantern/Green Arrow story by Dennis O’Neill and Neal Adams. It’s a great full-color reading copy and reference.
Check out a high definition copy of the original cover art for Green Lantern Issue #76 that sold this past year:
This month IDW Publishing, the licensee holder for Star Trek comics, and DC Comics teamed up to release the first issue of Star Trek/Green Lantern: The Spectrum War. The burden of any crossover is successfully combining two well-known worlds in a way that is true to them both, while forging ahead on a combined path that makes them better together. It’s a tall order with Star Trek and Green Lantern. Yet, writer Mike Johnson and artists Angel Hernandez get this new series not only off on a good start, they created a fun read true to their source material that will keep readers around for Issue #2.
First, they made an interesting choice of players. They combined the new, Star Trek reboot crew with the classic, original lantern, Hal Jordan. We don’t get a big dose of Hal in issue #1, but the mannerisms of the crew from the 2009 movie and Star Trek Into Darkness are spot on. With Hernandez’s renderings of the actors behind each character the result is a seamless believable blend of worlds. Even better, they select one of the top five all-time best Star Trek villains for their first bad encounter.
The story begins with a Watcher from the DC Universe and a quick fantasy set-up as true to the classic Hal stories as you’d find anywhere. Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk and Karl Urban’s Doctor McCoy couldn’t be better–both as their new incarnations and in their play on the original 1960s versions of themselves. That sounds strange, but read it, it really works and it’s really well done. A villainous vessel, and a handful of power rings, and BAM! We have the set up for a solid series here.
So what would a Klingon do with a Green Lantern Corps power ring? We’ll find out in July when IDW Publishing, CBS Consumer Products, and DC Comics team up to present the reboot Star TrekEnterprise crew and Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps in Star Trek/Green Lantern: The Spectrum War.
Set in the 23rd century of the “new” Star Trek universe, the Federation and the “entire” Green Lantern Corps will team-up to protect the universe when some power rings gets in the hands of some familiar Star Trek antagonists. Boldly going where no one has gone before…in brightest day, in blackest night… IDW revealed this weekend at WonderCon in Anaheim that the six-part monthly mini-series will be written by veteran Star Trek comic writer Mike Johnson with interior art by Arrow artist Angel Hernandez.
Look for some great variant covers in the series by artists Francesco Francavilla, Gabriel Rodriguez, Else Charretier, Garry Brown, Declan Shalvey, and Marc Laming.
In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight.
For the past nine years Geoff Johns has been writing DC Comics’ Green Lantern monthly series, including tales interweaving the stories of Earth’s five Green Lanterns: Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner, and the New 52 creation Simon Baz. In the first DC Comics prestige format comic book in a long time, Johns says farewell to writing for Green Lantern this week in Green Lantern, Issue #20. Although it’s not a good entry point for readers not familiar with the Green Lantern Corps, it is a must read for fans both of Geoff Johns’s writing and his many Green Lantern stories now available in various trade editions. Johns is probably the single most important contributor to Lantern lore since O’Neil and Adams’ run in the 1970s and it’s his Hal Jordan, like it or not, that ended up in the big screen adaptation back in 2011.
As last stories go, Johns manages to do something unprecedented with his last issue–the book seems like a memorial not only to Green Lantern Hal Jordan but oddly a memorial of sorts for Johns himself. You might ask yourself: Is Johns seriously ill? Did I not get the memo? The format begs these questions because a full nine pages are offered as mini-notes from friends and admirers of Johns congratulating him for his long run on the series. It’s strangely self-indulgent, but if you can skip over these tombstone-like epitaph pages, the ads for the continuing Green Lantern (featuring Hal Jordan), Green Lantern Corps (featuring John Stewart), Green Lantern: New Guardians (featuring Kyle Rayner), and Red Lanterns (featuring Guy Gardner) monthly series, Johns’ sign-off note to fans and four pages documenting his past works in trade editions, there is still a complete story here, including panel art, splash pages and a fold out poster contributed by the likes of Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Cully Hamner, Aaron Kuder, Jerry Ordway, Christian Alamy, Mark Irwin, and Marc Deering. I think even diehard fans of Johns would probably rather see the nine pages of commentary replaced with all of the commentary on one page in a smaller font and more story and art.
Beginning this week you might have a double take at your local comic book stores as several incentive alternate covers grace DC Comics’ New 52 line issues numbered 19. They feature the 58-year-old perpetual 12-year-old Alfred E. Neuman getting his own cosplay on as one of 13 superheroes. This week check out Alfred as Green Arrow and Green Lantern. As the online harbinger of all things Green Arrow that’s the one we picked up, but we think that Green Lantern cover pretty much exemplifies all things MAD the best.
Other great covers include this nice run-in with Supergirl:
With DC Comics having wrapped it first year with the New 52, it is now releasing the second hardcover volume of its flagship title, Justice League. If you don’t read the monthly series, now is the time to catch up on the full first year with Volumes 1 and 2 now on the shelves. Justice League, Vol. 1: Origin reprinted Issues 1-6, and now Justice League, Vol. 2: The Villain’s Journey reprints Issues 7-12, both volumes including variant covers and cover sketch art by the popular artist Jim Lee.
Justice League, Vol. 1: Origin, now available in both hardcover and trade paperback, began the entire New 52, a new DC Universe unveiled first 5 years ago, a reality which may or may not have been manipulated from the universe we’ve known all along by the red-hooded Pandora, who has managed to flit in and out of nearly every DC Comics series since the reboot in September 2011. In Volume 1 we met the new original seven members of the League–first a comical run-in of Batman and Green Lantern Hal Jordan, who then have their own run-in with Superman (run-in meaning lots of bruises and destruction of property). Then Barry Allen’s Flash entered the picture as probably the most interesting character in the new League. He formed a relationship with buddy Hal Jordan which provided many of the most entertaining scenes of the series so far. Then we met Wonder Woman, who in this incarnation of the DCU is far more Valkyrie than Amazon, and this plays nicely off of Aquaman’s entrance, whose Atlantis origins are here very much influenced by the world of Thor. This is all tied together by a new League entrant, the young Vic Stone, transformed by happenstance into a cyborg, now known as the League member Cyborg. And they all must come together to protect the world from being devastated by none other than classic villain Darkseid. We reviewed the monthly series at borg.com least year here.
This is not an eye-catching lede or a crazy supposition, this is a fact: the only way that Batman could beat Superman would be if Superman didn’t try. If you read the first six pages of the first issue of writer/creator Mark Waid and artist Peter Krause’s comicIrredeemable (or the first six pages of the trade paperback, which tends to be what I collect these days) you would see that basic scenario laid out in graphic detail as the Plutonian faces the Hornet. (You can see a free digital preview of these six pages now at comixology.com).
Of course, I’m biased. I’m one of the rare Superman fans as opposed to Bats. I like Green Lantern over Green Arrow. (The obvious parallels break down when I try to shift to Marvel heroes. Captain America? A favorite, but not quite in the power realm of GL and Supes). I obviously have a thing for the ultimate Boy Scouts. I like the characters that have to hold back, that can’t give it their all, because if they did, someone would die. (Don’t bother trying to make me think Kryptonite and the color yellow make a difference in stopping Big Blue and Lantern. They only exist because no one knows what to do with characters this powerful. Lex Luthor? As Douglas Adams would say, “Mostly Harmless,” with Lex’s only good plan being the one he devised in Kingdom Come. That’s not a coincidence that Mark Waid wrote it and that it’s my favorite Superman story).
Supes and Lantern vs. Batman = overkill?
That’s why the first trade paperback of Irredeemable is so refreshing. What would happen if one of the ultimate heroes lost his ever-loving mind? (We saw glimpses of it when Hal Jordan became Parallax and I probably need to go back to read that to see if it needs to be added to my list of great stories). When all a hero has is his (or her) sense of right and wrong to guide them, when all they have are the rules of society and the rules they make for themselves (right, Doctor?¹) to keep from doing harm, it’s a tenuous link. When a hero is the nearest thing to a living God, the only thing that can stop the hero is another God, a hell of a lot of luck, or themselves.
Batman? Who is Batman?
I think the same is true of the great sports heroes and why I love to root for them. It’s amazing to watch a truly skilled athlete do what he does best. To watch Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols hit in their prime is a kind of living masterpiece. To watch Tiger Woods make a golf course seem obsolete is a thrill of human achievement. Well, it’s true while they are young. Unfortunately, like all humans, sports heroes have to grow old. It eventually ends. It always ends.
Those tears are tears of joy, aren’t they Supes? Batman is dead… long live Superman!
But, again, I’m in the minority. How do I know this for certain? Well, I have the great guys at Radiolab to thank for that information. We, as humans, root, root, root for the underdog 80% of the time and if they don’t win it’s a shame. We generally like to see the 15 seeds beat 2 seeds. We generally like to see upsets in the Super Bowl or college bowl games. We generally like to see the Yankees or the Red Sox and all their piles of money lose. We like to think that Batman, the ultimate in human intellect and training could beat the Kryptonian Superman like in The Dark Knight Returns that C.J. Bunce and Art Schmidt mentioned in their favorites worthy of adaptation.²
Most people like the underdog.
So, when athletes age, when they pass 30 and the leap out of bed in the morning gradually changes into swinging your legs over the side and pausing, taking that moment, before rising. The moment becomes longer. The hands move to the edge of the mattress to give that little extra push. The body bends forward so that the momentum of straightening helps to propel the body into space. The body that used to rush headlong into the day now stands before it in repose, knowing it will be there when the time comes to make the forward push into the stream of activity. Part of that pause comes from experience, from the idea that savoring those moments of calm and serenity helps to make the frantic moments acceptable, but part is that little voice in the back of the head that knows that one day the body won’t respond because as much as the mind won’t want to admit to growing old, it notices. It always notices.
Carried off the field = good. Helped off the field = bad.
We grow old. We watch our athletic heroes grow old and have to leave the game. We watch our intellectual and artistic heroes do the same, but the curve isn’t as dramatic and those heroes continue to amaze us and give us hope that we can stay amazing ourselves. Our fictional heroes remain the same though. They are immortal. But, of the immortals, only a couple of them are Gods. If they ever break that trust that we have in them, that’s when they become “Irredeemable.”
1. I think this is one of the reasons that I can’t get behind Rory Williams and his relationship with Amy Pond. I root for the Doctor. I root for him to be happy. The relationship with Amy Pond seemed like it could have been the one. But, that’s because I’m finite. There can never be a true human “one” for a Gallifreyan. Still, boo Rory.
To quote Nathan Petrelli to brother Peter in “Heroes”–“The world needs nurses, too.”
2. I always think C.J. and I get along so well because our interests intersect so much, but are so different. He’s a Green Arrow guy and I’m a Green Lantern dude. We obviously differ on Alan Moore. We still have to discuss The Shawshank Redemption vs. The Green Mile.
What better way to celebrate borg.com’s 100,000th site visit than share some news about one of our favorite superheroes? Hollywood writer Jason McClain alerted me to this news item, as it’s no secret I’m one of the biggest Green Arrow fans around. The news?
The CW Network has ordered a TV series pilot featuring Green Arrow that will, happily, not be related to the Smallville series’ spin on the character. The producer/writers tapped to create the pilot are Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, the two writers responsible for last year’s Green Lantern movie, and ex-writer for the Green Arrow/Black Canary comic book series, Andrew Kreisberg.
Kreisberg took over the comic book series after Judd Winick moved off the GA/BC title. He teamed with artist Mike Norton after Cliff Chiang left the series. I have read Kreisberg’s take on Green Arrow and Black Canary, and I liked it. Kreisberg wrote some good modern stories featuring the trio in both a lighthearted and action-packed way. He clearly knows the roots of these characters and their strong relationships with each other, and hopefully he can convey that into the script for the pilot and get it onto the small screen. He also once acknowledged that there is no other superhero team out there that is a married couple, that that IS Green Arrow’s story. Right on!
Here are some unsolicited recommendations for Kreisberg, Berlanti and Guggenheim to make the series get off the ground right:
(1) You might view your TV show as an ensemble show like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. An ensemble genre work usually is better than a solo character-focused show (think about the failed series The Cape and why it didn’t work, for example) because although we all loved the title character of Buffy Summers, we loved supporting characters Willow and Xander even more. And like the best Batman stories, letting the lead hero take the back seat once in a while is a good thing. At the same time, I didn’t watch Smallville because Clark never donned the supersuit. Show Green Arrow in action with the bow once in a while, but just not in every scene.
(2) Take the best of the Green Arrow canon and it will easily translate to today. The “Hard Traveling Heroes” storyline that put both Green Arrow and Green Lantern on the map and made us want to know more about these characters was a road trip across America. Something like the Winchester boys moving across country with every new episode in Supernatural. You might laugh, but On the Road with Charles Kuralt, the CBS segment where he took an off-the-beaten path tour of America, lasted decades for a reason. Viewers liked to see where he would go next. You’ll have an unlimited number of settings for your story, too, if you keep the team moving, assuming they let you work with all three characters.
The Kid, Etta, and Butch--archetype for Ollie, Dinah, and Hal
(3) Everyone likes a good “buddy picture.” I have mentioned before how the “Hard Traveling Heroes” storyline reflected the 1969 world view, and 1969 entertainment. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid came out in 1969 and was still in theaters when Denny O’Neil wrote the classic Green Arrow and Green Lantern crossover. Did some of the hit movie rub off on O’Neil? Who knows. If you pay attention, you’ll see that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a buddy picture with three buddies, almost a “love triangle,” including some brotherly love between Butch and Ross’s character Etta Place. That’s right, Katherine Ross’s role as the Kid’s girlfriend, and Butch’s pal, was as important to the film as each of the title characters. Black Canary/Dinah Lance could have that same crucial role in a TV series about Ollie and Hal.
(4) Even if Warner Brothers wants to keep Hal Jordan/Green Lantern out of the series, you must include Black Canary/Dinah Lance. Don’t botch this by pulling ideas from the Dinah Lance of the short-lived Birds of Prey series. It was good for what it was. But you want dark-haired Dinah that sports the blonde wig used to go incognito, not the stilted friend of Oracle. Green Arrow/Oliver Queen can go solo from time to time, but only when he can return to Dinah is he at his best.
(5) Stay away from the DC 52 Green Arrow storyline and the obvious idea of having Oliver participate in some form of anti-big business Occupy Wall Street movement. Sure, in real life, Ollie would be leading up the OWS marches, but I think most viewers don’t want a show about superheroes in current politics and as much as everyone hates greedy corporate America, more personal storylines will appeal to modern viewers. The current series Leverage does this very well. Think local. Don’t have Ollie take on all of the world’s problems, have him take on each human problem bit by bit, maybe town by town. It worked brilliantly for Adams and O’Neil.
Original Mike Norton art from a story under Kreisberg's turn as writer for Green Arrow/Black Canary
(6) Oliver Queen is not Bruce Wayne. He’s much more layered. Queen is not a billionaire. He lost all his money, and that allowed him to get interesting. Don’t even waste time on his backstory as billionaire as it will only emphasize his role as a one-time obvious Batman knockoff.
(7) Read up on your Mike Grell era of Green Arrow stories. Grell was an ex-government intelligence guy who ended up writing spy novels and comic books. He took the Neal Adams/Denny O’Neil Green Arrow and Black Canary and brought them into downtown Seattle and injected the backwoods survival skills and mixed it with street smarts. He made Ollie the Urban Warrior. This itself harkened back to the iconic Green Lantern Issue #76’s story whereby Green Arrow first takes on a greedy slumlord that Hal Jordan was unintentionally actually helping.
Personal sketch of Ollie and Dinah by Mike Grell
(8) We know from past interviews that Andrew Kreisberg likes the role of Green Arrow and Black Canary as Oliver and Dinah–husband and wife. Consider building on Mike Grell’s series, where they run the Sherwood Florist in Seattle by day. And what the heck, work in Mia and Connor if you can. And if you must update costumes, you gotta bring back Ollie’s goatee. As Mikel Janin proved with his excellent recent update to similarly costumed Zatanna, Dinah’s fishnets can be optional.
(9) The Flash TV series had a lot going for it. One was the age of the actor in the lead roll, John Wesley Shipp, former soap actor. He wasn’t 20-something. He was 35 and looked like he could be a superhero in real life. If you’re staying away from Smallville (a great move) then give us heroes who have had time to gain some wisdom, not some newbies who have no way of practically knowing all they would need to know in real life to get through their trials on the show (the TV series Bones is a big example of this glaring absurdity with its only-young cast that has knowledge you could only gain by being twice the age of the cast members). Look for actors in their 30s or or even early 40s.
(10) Suggested title? If you take any of the ideas above, how about Hard Traveling, Hard Traveling Hero, or Hard Traveling Heroes? Of course there are always other former storyline titles like Quiver.
I have no idea what limitations will be placed on Kreisberg & Co. as they work out the script for the TV series pilot. Maybe they have no intention of including Hal and Dinah, but if they can, it could be something new and different and very fun.
is a deluxe hardcover edition of the entire Green Lantern/Green Arrow story by Dennis O’Neill and Neal Adams. It’s a great full-color reading copy and reference.
reprinted Issues 1-6, and now 
reprints Issues 7-12, both volumes including variant covers and cover sketch art by the popular artist Jim Lee.
(or the first six pages of the trade paperback, which tends to be what I collect these days) you would see that basic scenario laid out in graphic detail as the Plutonian faces the Hornet. (You can see a free digital preview of these six pages now at
that C.J. Bunce and Art Schmidt mentioned in their 
” storyline that put both Green Arrow and Green Lantern on the map and made us want to know more about these characters was a road trip across America. Something like the Winchester boys moving across country with every new episode in Supernatural. You might laugh, but On the Road with Charles Kuralt, the CBS segment where he took an off-the-beaten path tour of America, lasted decades for a reason. Viewers liked to see where he would go next. You’ll have an unlimited number of settings for your story, too, if you keep the team moving, assuming they let you work with all three characters.
, 
, and 
.
