'Nuff Said: American Graphic Media

The trailer for CW's Arrow is pretty good. The production team cut its teeth on Smallville, so that is not a surprise. Still, the meta-narrative of Arrow, based on DC Comics Green Arrow is a very interesting choice with a big election looming in 2012. As any (some? a few?) fan of comic books knows, the Silver Age story of Oliver Queen/Green Arrow started out as a Batman replica (instead of a Batcave, you have an Arrow cave...you get the idea). The character did not inspire a rabid following:-) All that changed in the 1970s when writer Denny O'Neil rebooted the character and paired him with Green Lantern. The legendary Green Arrow/Green Lantern run featured a Green Arrow re-imagined as a socially conscious activist who challenged Green Lantern's simplistic "law and order" worldview. Since that transformation, Green Arrow has kept a focus on challenging authority and fighting for the "have nots" in society. In an era of uncertainty a hero out to ta...

Green Lantern's opening weekend won the race, but not by the margin Warner Bros. executives had hoped. Some of my observations on the nature of race and identity within the context of Green Lantern made the news. For many, the consideration of a "deeper" symbolism in comic books is complex exercise. While critics have been lukewarm to Green Lantern, for fans I'm sure it is fulfilling. The place of comic books in contemporary discussion of race has been seen as space cultivating and perhaps, promoting stereotypes. The comic book genre, especially it most popular aspect, the superhero uses visual cues to reduce individual characters into representations of cultural ideas. From a historical standpoint, this makes perfect senses. The popular media that preceded the comic book, like the comic book themselves, held to the racial conventions that celebrated accepted values and attitudes related to white mainstream society. Like those media, comics have changed as shifts i...

'Green Lantern' is opening. Does it appeal only to white American males? Green Lantern is the second major cinematic superhero coming to audience. As my comments indicate, I think Green Lantern represents a problematic perspective. While other comic characters are born with powers (mutants in the X-Men) or are supernatural beings (Thor), Green Lantern differs from other characters because he is picked to serve as a representative of law and order. While many can be dismissive because it is a summer film, we should also examine the story we tell about ourselves.

Invasion of the Bodybuilders - Newsweek It is no surprise that the new crop of superhero movies feature strong male characters. Comics book have always offered an idealized version of white male power. While the physicality of these characters may shift, as authority figures, superheroes are always reflect our collective vision about ourselves. As this article points out, this summer's superhero crop plays up these idea. From Thor to Captain America, these characters represent the values and ideas the U.S. citizens wants to believe about themselves. The next big release, Green Lantern will continue this trend. Ryan Reynold's Green Lantern has already appeared shirtless in trailer, flown a fighter jet, and kissed the girl. In the comic, Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) is a test pilot given the job of galactic guardian. As a 1960s character, he embodies atomic age Cold War U.S. values. He is white, males, brave, and stalwart defender of traditional values. It makes sense to mak...

Paramount Making A Movie Out Of DC Comics Graphic Novel The Mighty - CinemaBlend.com Having just seen X-Men: First Class (it was great) and with Green Lantern and Captain America coming our way, it is a good moment to revisit the state of the comic book movie. The news that Paramount has optioned The Mighty , a creator owned titled from writers Peter Tomasi and Keith Champagne and artists Peter Snejbjerg and Chris Samnee means that movie producers are looking beyond established superhero characters for material. The reason for this is obvious, they don't have a choice. The comic book characters with "name recognition" are gone. For all the hype associated with Green Lantern, the vast majority of movie going public do not know the character. This fact haunts Warner Bros. executives like the ghost of Speed Racer . As I have mentioned before, the comic book movie offers benefits, but those benefits are not as simple as they seem. Comic book movie have the potential ...

If Ye Be Worthy: Thor and Identity and Idris Elba A recent essay for PopMatters.com allowed me the chance to explore race and identity through the comic lens. With Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men, the anthology on superheroes and the U.S. experience finally coming together, I can see how superheroes are linked to the American experience in complex ways demonstrated in every essay. This comes as the summer crop of superhero films continues to develop the cinematic framework for superheroes in interesting ways. With Thor behind us, we can look forward to Green Lantern in June and Captain America in July. Like Thor, both offer important windows into the symbolic power represented by superheroes, but they also raise questions about how our the symbolic power of these heroic narrative blind us to the reality our world.

Geoff Johns' favorite Green Lantern moment is Issue 188.... A Jon Stewart story!!!

The Rack Pack Comics Podcast continues its excellence panel sponsorship. I'm excited about the Green Lantern panel!!!

Green Lantern: Past, Present, Future Panel