"Yeah, like a truck! I get it!"
So I’m currently in the process of rereading the current Green Lantern series from the beginning, just because, you know, I’m on bit of a GL kick and I’ve been meaning to reread the whole Sinestro Corps War thing and I figured, what the heck, let’s just start with the first issue. And, as I noted to someone who asked if I was going to blog about it when I mentioned I was doing this on the Twitter, I didn’t intend to write about it on the site. I just wanted to reread some comics from my collection without having the thought of “must use this to generate content for Progressive Ruin” hanging over me.
Well, the fact that you’re reading this means I haven’t been entirely successful, but I found that I wanted to note some continuity/backstory changes regarding one of the characters. Thus, it’s away from the reread of the current GL, and back to one of the previous series….
Now, I’ve gone on before about how Kilowog’s upper arms bother me a bit. When he first appeared, he had spindly upper arms and bulky forearms, sorta like Popeye:
In later appearances (perhaps starting with the character’s appearances in one of the Justice League books, I think), his arms started bulking up a bit, with his formerly pipecleaner-thin arms now bulging with muscle. And that’s how he’s been drawn ever since.
I know it’s a dumb thing to focus on, but every time I see Kilowog in a new comic with those bulky arms, I can’t help but think “they’re doing it wrong,” even though that’s how they’ve been doing it for 20+ years now.
Anyway, that’s my problem, not yours, and I’m sure they make some kind of medication for that. But here’s the other thing I wanted to point out: when Kilowog was first introduced (way back in Green Lantern Corps #201, June 1986), he was a figure of mystery and suspicion. None of the other characters knew who he was, and there was some speculation as to his true intentions:
In more recent times, starting with (I believe) the Emerald Dawn mini-series retelling Hal Jordan’s entry into the GL Corps, Kilowog was retconned into being a trainer of Green Lantern recruits, and thus was a Lantern that everyone supposedly knew. I thought that was an interesting repurposing of the character, and don’t get me wrong: I like that current status. But occasionally I miss the seemingly simple, straightforwardly innocent personality of the Green Lantern Corps-era Kilowog, versus the tough-as-nails, no-time-for-your-crap, will-kick-your-ass Kilowog that we have now.
While I was looking that up, I was reminded of this fellow from Green Lantern Corps #202:
Okay, that’s (SPOILER, I guess) another character in disguise, and brother, what a disguise. Poor Man’s Transformer is a great idea for a costume.
[…] of the GL Get-Along Gang to Earth. I hope they end up reprinting the entire run, because it’s awesomely bonkers (and the post at that link doesn’t even start to get into the crazy […]