Hey, That’s My Cape! GREEN LANTERN Soars in EMERALD KNIGHTS
It’s hard when the comics you take great joy and entertainment from seem to be dragging you down. It’s kind of been that way the last two weeks for me so I felt like I needed to write about something with little to no baggage. That’s why I popped my copy of Green Lantern: Emerald Knights in and sat back to enjoy the ride. And boy am I glad I did.
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is the latest offering from Warner Home Video. It’s follows the same type of story plotting as Batman: Gotham Knight where there are five separate tales being told along with another that ties them all together. While I like it when the DC animated films are one story, I almost prefer this kind of direction because a lot more gets to be told.
Find out if it passed my discriminating Green Lantern appreciation test in this week’s Hey, That’s My Cape! at Newsarama.
I thought Knights was pretty solid, overall – nice call having Arisia as the focal point. The only little bit of weirdness wasn't that Hal was narrating the stories, but that Fillion was scripted to read them seemingly almost verbatim from the book. He did a good job of it, don't get me wrong, but it took a little while to adjust from Hal's usual informal tone.
if i might be so bold… i just discovered your blog, and have some opinions that i hope offer a new perspective on the oracle situation. i have CP, and am 33 years old. i'm still a walker, so i will openly admit that you and i may have a very different view on what being handicapped means. but that said, i'm far from uninformed on the topic too.
i read your piece, on oracle, and then the corresponding interview w/ gail simone. they were great reads, light but with a definite voice and opinion, you're a most capable writer… but i felt like you're missing some insight on all this.
people, all of humanity, tell the hero's tale over and over again because we like to be inspired. it's psychologically comforting to know that good wins over evil, and good people rise to the top. but the truth, the deeper truth of the hero's tale, is that it divines our personality: we as humans fall into two categories, the kind who listen to the hero's tale as "just a story" and those who realize that the lesson is to be internalized. we take the lesson taught to the hero, and we make it our own, we learn and grow from the hero's virtue and vigor, and we become that hero… and eventually, surpass that hero.
you're real. you live in a wheelchair, but that chair doesn't define you. neither does a flight of stairs. you get up in the morning, brush your teeth, put your clothes on, and write your articles and go about your day… oracle can inspire that, but you exceed her by actually doing those things. you're the hero jill, not some two dimensional drawing on a page. she inspires you, but you have yet to learn the potency within yourself.
let's put it this way: i had an affection for chris reeve as an actor way before he was paralyzed. when that accident happened, he became one of us, he wasn't the handsome dashing leading man any more… but his strength, the strength he lent to the characters he played, including superman, showed through. it was HIS strength, not superman's, that made him unique. as time passed, he had many chances to showcase his drive, and his class, and over and over again, he surpassed challenges, and became a spokesman for the disabled community… i didn't resent him, because at one point he could walk. i embraced him, because he was chris no matter what the hell else life threw at him. conversely, if your hero can fly on a zipline and you can't, don't turn your back on her, or be hurt, instead realize that you, and the community you are a part of, are stronger than the character anyway. i'm a firm believer that the lord made us handicapped to give the straights a fighting chance. we are given the exceptional tasks in life because our strength is too great to be challenged by mundane activities. i submit to you, with all the challenges you face living in the city, you see daily how the straights don't really "get" our way of life, or the way we handle things… but we had a cripple in the white house well before we had a black man, didn't we? we're RELENTLESS jill.
if oracle isn't the hero you want to read anymore, write your own hero. and name her jill. just my 2 cents. but trust you have a new reader from now on. :)