"I like the Green Lantern Corps but I think you should add Zatanna."
I wonder if that person’s posting on message boards now. But dude, honestly, he ripped a page out of a Green Lantern comic, wrote his missive on it, and mailed it in. That’s…that’s something else, really, but I bet that sort of thing wasn’t all that uncommon. At least it wasn’t, you know, part of a dead animal or anything sticky.
That letter was from Green Lantern #167 (Aug ’83), and at that point, editor Ernie Colon was doing his best to, if not run, at least mention every letter that came in to the Green Lantern office. Which meant dealing with the occasional person whose power ring wasn’t fully charged, of course, but that also meant running nice, simple, and sincere letters from children:
Even a jaded old grumpypants like myself can appreciate the enthusiastic innocence present here, as well as Colon’s friendly and amusing response (that Zatanna is “too busy” — sorry, kid, she’s all booked up at the moment). It also seems that young Mr. “K. S., Age 11” was at just the right age to begin realizing that there ain’t no comic that can’t be improved by an appearance by Zatanna:
Though looking at the letter again…at the time, the Green Lantern Corps comprised the back-up stories in the book, so I assumed that K.S. meant that he wanted to have Zatanna stories as back-ups instead.
But…what if…what if…he actually meant that he wanted Zatanna to join the Green Lantern Corps? To borrow a Chris Sims-ism: great idea, or greatest idea?
