Category Archives: racism

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Hero’s Journey for the new Green Lantern?

I’m going to weigh in on the argle-bargle surrounding the image of a new Green Lantern character DC is introducing.

The fans are screaming that based on the image this character is a street thug, a gangsta and what does a Green Lantern need a gun for anyways? Predictably, the big deal appears to be that he is black, has a tattoo (it’s glowing with green power, get a clue, that means something), is wielding a gun and wearing a stylized uniform based on what appears to be a ski mask, possibly a reference to his occupation of a bodega stick up artist.

Forgetting everything else for a moment (even that the new GL may wear a mask in his civilian life as a neighborhood vigilante good-guy) let’s understand that one of the under lying themes of being a Green Lantern is redemption. It was for Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner and is certainly an on-going process for John Stewart. All of these characters are on the hero’s journey paying for their past sins of arrogance.

It appears from the cover solicit the new Green Lantern, if not John Stewart himself undercover for something, may be on a similar path. Assuming the new guy is a predatory street thug it makes sense that he would have the basic requirement to be a space cop, the ability to overcome great fear.  He actually could be the perfect representative at this time for the GL Corps. Guy Gardner is the past was appreciated by both fans and the GL cast as a Corps member who got things done, regardless of the fall out. He has recently been the morals of the Corps and is probably the most honorable Lantern there is, doing what he feels is right even if the Guardians disagree.

Gardner continually defies the Guardians and is currently on a campaign to stop their shenanigans. So the Guardians may search for someone they think may be easier to point at things and zap stuff without questioning their directives. The new Lantern member, chosen for toughness, poor-impulse control and lack of morality for whatever purpose the Guardians need him for, this character could learn to be the hero the Corp needs to set them back on the path of Order (if not Good). The stylized mask and the gun would be the transitional props from his old life, surely to be discarded as he grows beyond his origins.

So relax. See what happens. Don’t jump to conclusions.

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I’ve got an idea

You know how to fix the problem with those two Utah State employees who released 1,300 names of suspected illegal immigrants to the police and media?

Retroactively to when the data was accessed immediately make every single person who is named on that list who is in the United States illegally a Naturalized Citizen. No questions asked, no waiting period.

That would be an epic backfire.

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Wanted: Experienced Proof-Reader, Apply DC Offices

Was a racial slur inadvertently inserted in the recent DC Comics title Justice League – Generation Lost #4?

I am one long-time reader who is disappointed by DC Comics apparently turning back the clock on the diversity of their characters even though I kind of understand it. It is fear, perhaps, that any lasting change to the formula that basically carried the company over 60 years will meet with disaster. Fear, perhaps based in reality, that nostalgia is all they have going for them and the shrinking fan-base of continuity-addicts snubs with negative consequences financially to the company anything that resembles true progress.

From all the internet press it is clear that DC is very aware of the recent outcry that there is the perception they are relying on the tried, true, nearly antique and primarily Caucasian models of the Golden and Silver Age of comic books. While the retro models of the characters may represent their perceived and steady market-base they are are not truly representative of the diverse population of both the real and fictional worlds. That mentioned, the creative teams and editors of their books should be a little bit more aware of how their products published after the controversy could and would be examined for every perceived slight, hidden message or racial and political agenda. Every beaten woman, murdered Asian, gap-toothed Southerner or jailed Middle-Easterner in their books, movies and games will be picked apart and commented upon by the rational and irrational fans seeking a pattern, proof of a corporate policy of hostility to a diverse populace.

As example, read this scene in Justice League – Generation Lost #4 (July 2010) which hit the stands this week. Preview images have also been available for public perusal on various websites for a while.

The comic book industry has as one of its primary tropes word-play in the form of acronyms that are explored to sometimes ridiculous lengths. Indeed, major story arcs and even some titles have been pitched and launched merely by how cool or interesting an acronym can sound. It is a tactic of advertising and can pique the interest of a consumer and creates a brand identity that hopefully a buyer will return to again and again. So it is interesting that an industry that enjoys and even exults in word games can depict an African-American (or decidedly non-Caucasian) scientist involved in a super-powers project designated as Nanobyte Genetic Enhancement Research.

If you want to put together and sound out the acronym, go ahead, but I suggest you only do it in your head.

I personally am not the most sensitive or observant person and I noticed and made a connection to a word that sounds like a racial slur that denigrates African-Americans and the character, however tenuous, right away. Unless DC states otherwise I have little doubt that the acronym as it appears was merely careless and unfortunate. It would be career suicide and fiscally irresponsible for anyone to try and sneak an intentional slur into any of the popular entertainment media designed for a wide and diverse audience in this era. Of course it is not beyond the realm of possibility as there are a lot of confused, angry and backwards people out in the world.

There is no proof that someone at DC intentionally included a racial epithet into one of their comic books nor am I claiming that they did. However once something is seen you can not un-see it. It does not matter how unintentional or coincidental the word or how it sounds may be. It is there, however inadvertently and the perception of the individual reader is what will likely hold sway. There are websites that just leap on things like this and run with it. That is important because no one can really conclusively say that the acronym was not intentional and that cavalierly killing off the ethnic and obviously brilliant character in the next page was a mere innocent plot device. Take into consideration in the story it was a secret project and some could infer that killing an African-American who was creating a process that could give the disenfranchised super abilities just looks bad even if it is much-ado about nothing.

Helping create a quality product is one of the jobs of an editor and one could expect that the staff of DC, already under scrutiny by some of their customers and critics, would have paid a little bit more attention to the proof-reading. Some will undoubtedly assert the slur was intentional as a clever flip of the finger to those who complained about the back-stepping of diversity in DC comic books. Some will maintain the incident was just an unfortunate and innocent coincidence. Others will claim there is nothing to be found at all.

Regardless, I expect that in the future trade edition of Justice League – Generation Lost that particular phrase will probably be re-arranged to provide a different result. Given the scene I would submit that an initiative that is all giving super-powers to average people would read better if it was labeled “Project: E.N.R.G.”. It would be a lot more fitting if the acronym sounds like “Energy” when spelled out, instead of that other word.