Review: Lanterns Season 1

 

I am of two views on this TV show. On the one hand I thought it was a decent buddy cop show. On the other hand, it kind of fell flat as a super hero show. I think the big problem with the show was the budget was probably very limited. With the failure of the Green Lantern movie back in 2011, and the generally mushy reception of DCU movies in general, has made Warner brothers gun shy about big budget TV shows and movies for characters other than Superman and Batman. Since Green Lantern did not have a good track record, the decision was made to go the CW route, and keep costs to a bare minimum. Just enough special effects to remind everyone it is a super hero show, but not enough to bankrupt the producers if things went poorly.

So, was it a good show? Yes it was, the casting was spot on, they got a solid set of actors who understood the characters they were playing, and did them well. The plot was solid, the story was good, although a bit predictable. I think it took most everyone about 2 episodes to figure out the alien Manhunter was Zoe, her grandson Noah was also a Manhunter, and that Kerry was the one who murdered Hal. Honestly though, that is usually the way most detective TV shows go, pretty much anyone with an IQ above a hundred will figure it out pretty quickly, so that was not really a downside for me.

On the subject of killing Hal Jordan, I think generally comic book creators do not like Hal Jordan as a character. I think they would prefer to write John Stewart, Guy Gardner or Kyle Rayner. The problem for them, is Hal Jordan is by far the most popular Green Lantern. So the Producers simply took him off the table, so they could write the characters they wanted to. I get it, this was supposed to be John Stewarts origin story, but I think it was a mistake to kill off the Hal Jordan character.

As a super hero movie, this was not so good. As a Green Lantern story, it was down right sub standard. Green Lantern is supposed to be a science fiction hero, this show was barely a science fiction story, in 8 hours of TV, there was maybe 10 minutes of science fiction anything. They could have removed every science fiction element from the show with no impact what so ever to the story. There was also 1 real action scene in the whole series that lasted maybe 10 minutes. The rest of it was basically people being kind of shitty to each other while working through the mystery.

Okay, so as I write this and think about it, maybe this was not as good as I thought it was. I am sitting here trying to think about what I did like about the show, what stood out as the capstone moment, and I really can't think of a single one. I came into this thinking I would give it a 3.5 out of 4, but now I an thinking more like 2.5. I think the saving grace of the show were the actors themselves, who did a really good job with what they had. I wanted to like this series, I really did.

My introduction to Tarot

This is page 19 of the comic book Doorway to Nightmare #2, published in 1978 and was my introduction to Tarot Cards.

I have been interested in Tarot cards off and on since then. Shortly after reading this, I bought a deck of my own, a Rider-Waite deck if you must know. Although that deck was lost long ago, I have replaced it and I even own a Crowley Thoth Deck now as well.

Recently DC Comic released all five issues of Doorway to Nightmare on Comixology and I purchased them, because I remembered reading and enjoying them as a kid. Reading though them again, I realize these were very adult comics even for a 15 year old. I also realize that comic books introduced me to a lot of things that I still find interesting today. It is very apparent to me now how influential comics were to my development as a person.

The Hacker Files

From August 1992 to July 1993 DC Comics published a comic book entitled The Hacker Files. The story was about a computer hacker named Jack Marshall who exists in the DC Universe. The 12 issue mini series contained 4 story arcs touching on different real world historical events of the time; the spread of computer virus's, FBI cracking down on computer crime, the Tiananmen Square protests and the rise of artificial intelligence. The series was not well received at the time and pretty much dropped off virtually everyone's radar even before the end of the series. The series has never been reprinted or even discussed much.

The reason I am bringing up this little known comic book from the early 90's, is DC is about to publish a new graphic novel The Oracle Code, a book about Barbra Gordon's (Batgirl) time as the computer hacker Oracle. For those of you not in the know, In the aftermath of Batman: The Killing Joke, Barbra Gordon was left paralyzed from the waist down when she was shot by the Joker. She would later regain her mobility, but while she was in a wheelchair, she acted as an intelligence collector and an operational overwatch for many heroes and was the leader of The Birds of Prey. Barbra Gordon was one of the hackers picked up by the FBI when they began cracking down on cybercrime, and appeared in The Hacker Files briefly and the two have encountered each other.

I realize The Oracle Code has already been written and the art is probably all but done at this point, however I think this would have been a great opportunity to revisit Jack Marshall in the modern post New 52 DC Universe. While he failed a lead in his own book, I think Jack would make a great backup character or perhaps as a replacement for Barbra as Oracle, though I have to admit, I am not terribly warm to that idea. I think he would be better suited as one of those normal people that superheroes goto to get things done. He is a middle aged, balding, overly serious and grumpy man, a great foil to the young, pretty and energetic Batgirl. I would love to see a scene where no one is taking him seriously, until he starts using everyone's first names, showing that none of their secret identities is safe from his skill.

DC Heroes RPG

Way back in 1985 Mayfair Games published DC Heroes, a Roleplaying Game based on the DC Comic Books. I absolutely loved this idea, unfortunately my game group was not really into the super hero genre so we never played it, although we did play the Marvel Superhero game once or twice. I still have a copy of this on my game shelf. Apparently Freddie Prinze Jr. did actually play the game back in the day and now he is producing and starring in a an unscripted streaming show where he and some others will be playing the game. The show will be streaming on DC Universes, which is fine, once Picard is over, I will cancel CBS All Access and sign up for DC Universes and catch this, Teen Titans and the Doom Patrol. Once I am finished with that, I can drop it and get Disney+ to watch the Mandalorian.

DC Universe All Star Games