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I started reading comics regularly after 'Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns'. Since then, I've become a co-host on 'The LanternCast' (a podcast dedicated to Green Lantern that's been on the air since 2008), started a new podcast covering the late 1980's DC series Action Comics Weekly (appropriately titled The Action Comics Weekly Podcast), and have been the curator of THE blog on the internet dedicated to the character of Ragman, created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert published by DC Comics starting in 1976 and currently appearing on The CW show 'Arrow' as portrayed by actor Joe Dinicol. I'm an avid fan of comics, classic rock, and speaking my mind. Welcome!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

The Will to Power Themselves without the...


The holiday season is over and, having passed me by largely uneventful, I'm back for some more Lantern related theories. I promised you a doozy of a theory this time around and I hope I can deliver, for this particular theory could very well come to fruition within the next few months.

If you've been paying attention to the Green Lantern Corps series, you've noticed a new foe (known as the Keepers) who possess the capability to harness (and absorb) willpower. An effect which makes the Green Lantern Corps battle strategies largely ineffective. These 'Keepers' possess no batteries and no rings and yet wield and aspect of willpower just as effectively and the Green Lanterns themselves. My idea is that, while the nature of willpower is supposed to be neutral, it seems the Green Lanterns use willpower in a mostly positive way. Why not harness this same 'neutral' power in an opposing 'mostly negative' way? Thus canceling each other out (for the most part) like we see in the pages of 'Green Lantern Corps'.

However that's just the precursor to my newest theory. Think back to the history of the Green Lantern Corps. The Guardians of the Universe erected their central power battery which collects the raw willpower of every being throughout the universe and charges each individual Lantern's power battery which, in turn, charges their respective rings. Fast forward to the 'War of the Green Lanterns' storyline which reached an epic conclusion when Hal Jordan killed Krona (a guardian) with his power ring. An action which is SUPPOSEDLY not possible as the Guardians programed the ring to be unable to kill a Guardian.



And suddenly my theory takes shape.

It's not that Hal Jordans ring (being fueled by Guardian tech) killed Krona. I believe that Hal overrided his ring and used his OWN inherant willpower to kill Krona, using his ring simply as a funnel for accompishing his goal. This scared the Guardians, causing them to IMMEDIATELY strip Hal of his ring and ban him from the Corps because, as we all know, the Guardians do indeed feel emotion none more evident than fear. Especially when it comes to their survival instinct.

Now, suddenly, the Corps is faced with a formidable enemy who is capable of harnessing will WITHOUT the Guardians influence. Suddenly we see not only a single human capable of harnessing his own will, we are faced with an ARMY able to do the same thing. But that's not all.

When the Sinestro Corps War began, the very first opening pages showcased a VERY interesting concept. Sinestro....igniting his power ring with his OWN fear.



Then Geoff Johns took it a step further when we got our 'Tales of the Sinestro Corps' issues. Not only was Sinestro capable of doing this, each recruit into his self named Corps had to possess the ability to do the same thing...



Could you read that? If you couldn't,

Lyssa Drak: "You will be placed within a fear lodge and put into absolute darkness. Your ring will be drained of it's power and it will be up to YOU to charge it."

Amon Sur: "With a power battery?"

Lyssa Drak: "Without one this time. This is the secret of the rings Amon. The power batteries do not MAKE the yellow energy of fear, the COLLECT it from all sentient emotion. You are not capable of creating more than a spark."

So there you have it. Amon may not have been capable of creating more than a spark, but a spark is all the evidence you need. It IS possible to harness the 'emotion' for yourself. Not only that but later in the series we bear witness to another aspect of harnessing the emotions, this time by the Blue Lanterns.



Yep. The Blue Lanterns not only charge Green Lanterns, they can tap into the hope of the populace of the planet and COLLECT it, using it to fuel the change of the collapsing sun into a young blue star. So now we have witnessed MULTIPLE examples of individuals harnessing emotion for their own purposes, both their OWN emotion and the emotion of those nearby.

But with the numerous failures of both the Green Lanterns and the Guardians, why would the Guardians restrict the Corps from learning more effective ways to go about their tasks?



Yeah, Geoff Johns brings it back full circle. Take note, every storyline I've referenced, every panel I've posted has been written by Geoff Johns. A man who sets up future storylines MONTHS in advance. So I believe there is NO WAY these multiple examples are in this series out of coincidence.

If only we could see how the Green Lanterns exist in the future, so we can see if I'm right or not. Hold up, remember a little story called 'Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds'? You do? Remember who wrote that? Oh YEAH....Geoff Johns. So what do we learn there? Among other things we learn two things...




First we see that, on an Oa where Sodam Yat is the last 'Guardian' of the universe, the Lantern Corps sees Ganthet as a deity of sorts. Wether ancesteral respect of something more, Ganthet is the ONLY Guardian whom the Corps still holds in some high regard. When we see the Guardians rapidly losing respect among the Lanterns in current continuity, this revelation holds some weight.

Secondly we see the oath of Sodam Yat. CLEARLY a merging of the Green Lantern Corps oath and the Sinestro Corps oath. To me this suggests a point at which Sinestro re-joins the Corps. Remember, everything Sinestro has done up until this point was to force the Green Lanterns to become the police force he believed they should be. NOT to destory the Corps. He's always believed in the purpose of the Corps, just not how they went about it. Once the Guardians begin to push away the Green Lanterns, Sinestros distrust of them will have been proven right and who knows how Sinestro fits into the possible 'new' Green Lantern Corps that comes into being after the Guardians (save Ganthet) are out of the picture?

It's my theory that sometime VERY soon, everything will come to a head and the Guardians will push the last button when they attempt to create their "third army" and abandon their Corps. Somehow Sinesto or Hal or the Blue Lanterns or Ganthet himself will lead the abandoned corpsmen against the Guardians...by teaching them how to access their OWN will. Becoming non-reliant on the Guardians and their methods. This would explain why Geoff has planted these seeds and also explain why we've become INCREASINGLY frustrated and upset with how the Guardians are conducting themselves in recent years. To me, it's the only conceiveable option out there.

NOTE: During talks on the Lanterncast; Dan, Jim and I have discussed this possibility at length. I will not sit here and say that everything posted above is my own ideas 100% but I don't know what came from where. I DO know that I'm the one who made the connection between the 'Keepers' and the 'Legion of Three Worlds' storylines in order to further our theory. But I did want to make sure Dan and Jim got their credit.





4 comments:

  1. I think you need to be going deeper and more extravagant on your theories. This just seems like a simple retread of ideas they've been planting for a long time. When we discussed this on the show, I'm sure we weren't the first to come up with it. Because it's really just logical progression, not so much theorizing.

    Like perhaps with fear you can only produce a spark, but maybe with willpower since it's at the center and neutral, you are actually able to produce more than just a spark? Or like the blue lanterns, maybe they need to be near a world filled with living beings and willpower in order to harness enough energy to do stuff.

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  2. Actually the plan is to post the theories as they come into my head as fast as possible. If I were to go more extravagant on my first post, the posts would be spaced out much further AND the posts would be VERY long. So my idea (at least for now) is to get the ideas out in their basic form and elaborate on them later on in a different post and reference back to the original theory in that post. Alot of these ideas come to me fast and heavy and to flesh them out into more intricate forms takes time for me. So, get the rush out and then post the details later.

    But I appreciate the idea and I'll definately take the time out to weigh the pros and cons of both approaches.

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  4. Little late, but now that Sinestro is back in the GL Corps, my personal opinion is very similiar to yours. I believe that now since the Yellow Lantern Central Power Battery is on OA buried, down the line we will see the GL Corps completely turn against the Alphas and the Guardians. Sinestro and Hal will lead the GL Corps against the Guardians and the Alphas. Willpower itself won't be enough to stop the Guardians, even if the GL Corps can generate it for themselves as you spoke of. Sinestro will tap into the Yellow Central Power Battery and combine that power with the power of Will. Johns set it up in Legion of Three Worlds, I mean look at the color of the green Sodam is wielding, definitely looks like a combo of green and yellow to me and definitely different than current GL construct colors. With willpower and fear joined together the GL Corps will have access to both and use them to defeat the Guardians. Sodam Yat will come back from Daxam and play some part I'm sure. As far as the "no other corps shall spread it's light" part, well I'm sure future storylines will see the decimation of the other corps, years from now probably. As far as our good friend Arkillo, it would definitely be something to have Sinestro convince Arkillo to abandon the yellow light and join the reforged GL Corps, which again I believe once the Guardians and Alphas are defeated will be called the Green Lantern Corps in name only, as it will really be Fear and Willpower combined into one force wielded by all members. I dunno, that's my opinion and hope. Oh, and that would explain Yat's symbol in Legion. If you look closely the way it's rounded off definitely is reminiscent of the Sinestro Corps logo.

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