"There’s a black Green Lantern now."
A fellow on a UFO message board laments the preponderance of conspiracy-minded and just plain loopy folks in the flying saucer biz, and in a less than serious response, another poster leaves his parody of a typical paranoiac rant:
“Do you remember Green Lantern, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, AquaMan, Hawkman, the Atom, Martian Manhunter, The Flash, The Green Arrow, Snapper Carr, the original Justice League? If you remember they used to fly in outerspace in their undergarments in the 60’s with no visible means of support. Suddenly one day they came back with breasts and sex organs and there uniforms got all bulgy and supergirl suddenly became a babe although lately they have her looking anorexic with her belly button showing. They have taken away her muscles and made her look a lot like a waif model.But even Super Girl has breasts now although she has moved to the Amazon island to be with Wonder Woman and get away from men. You see just about that same time they came back from space and got bulges some superheroes suddenly became black or Asian. There’s a black Green Lantern now.”
You can see the second half of the “rant” at the above link.
Hey, pal Dorian has started a “meme.” By accident. Honest.
Speaking of pal Dorian…at the shop Thursday night, we were discussing this message board exchange where the person’s request for a non-superhero comic recommendation was met with the immediate suggestion of X-Men. In Dorian’s words:
“The answer to any comics recommendation request is never X-Men.”
And yeah, that’s usually true enough. With very, very rare exceptions, the X-books are not the best example of the comics medium as an artistic means of expression, particularly for someone new to the comics world. It’s comics specifically for comics fans, insular and self-referential. If someone new does come in expressing a specific interest in X-Men books, I explain that they’re essentially soap operas, with very few clean starting points…just jump in and hang on, and hopefully anything you don’t get will get covered eventually.
But that got me to thinking…is there a single issue (or short-run storyline) from the X-books that shows these comics in their best light? Something that you could show a new comics reader and have them not throw the book down in disgust…a single X-book that might make them think, if only briefly, “say, these colorful pamphlets of mutant adventures may actually be not half bad!” Yes, I know everyone wants to say the stuff from 94 to 144 (or whatever those issues of Uncanny were)…what would you say aside from that particular run?