Green Lantern’s Superpower: Microaggressions

Jim Treacher Substack ^ | 30 Sep 2026 | Jim Treacher

[Rummyfan]

Okay, I’m going to talk about Green Lantern again. The silly superhero, and what DC Studios is doing with that character, that franchise. It’s going to be one of those days, so be warned.

About a month ago, I talked about The Green Lantern Show, a.k.a. Lanterns on HBO. Which is part of this new DC Universe they’re trying to establish, which launched with Superman last year. That reboot.

(Technically, it launched with something called Creature Commandos, an HBO cartoon based on some obscure DC characters. Basically, monsters who fight for the United States. But nobody watched that.)

Anyway, they’re trying to establish this superhero universe to compete with Marvel. They tried a decade ago with Zack Snyder, and a few of those movies made some money. But it wasn’t Marvel money, so they’re trying again.

I thought the Superman reboot was really strange, but I kind of liked it. To me, it was like that feeling as a kid, where you would pick up a comic book off the spinner rack at the drugstore, and you’re flipping through it, and you’re already in the middle of a story that’s been going on for who knows how long.

All this crazy stuff is happening, all these weirdos and goofy costumes, and you just gotta keep up. I kind of liked that energy of the movie. It wasn’t boring, that’s for sure.

Then there was Supergirl earlier this year. That one tanked. I’m not sure why they decided to go with Superman’s cousin right after Superman, but it didn’t work.

[Rummyfan]

Lanterns - A Superhero Show That Hates Superheroes

[yuleeyahoo]

Personally, I believe that DC does better with stand alone movies than it does when trying to create a shared universe.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I watched it last night on movies4us.co. I like Kyle Chandler, and found it reasonably entertaining. I did catch the unmistakable whiff of angry black victimhood. Probably won’t bother watching it again.

[alternatives?]

Disparu evaluates each episode on YouTube. He is hilarious.

[Rockingham]

I had the same reaction but watched the later episodes. The greatest defect is the absurdity of the entire premise of comic book superheroes.

[Dr. Sivana]

From the beginning, Warner treated DC as a property to be licensed, with no respect for decades of history and stories and the fans. In the original Superman movie with Christopher Reeve, they violated the cardinal rule (since violated in the comics as well) that the past cannot be changed. Once you do away with that, no one stays dead, nothing can be undone. Paradoxes abound, and there is no meaningful or coherent story.

Hal Jordan Green Lantern started out as "WILL POWER". Because he is started out by those weird little blue guys on Oa, he's going to have a lot more off-planet action than Batman or Black Canary (not counting Justice League stories).

When teamed up with bronze age Green Arrow, GL stood for law and order and common sense, and rich heir limousine liberal Oliver Queen stood for blaming society and being a lefty turd (despite being self-trained with his archery, and overcoming being stranded on an island.

Green Lantern can be fun. He is BUILT for CGI, that can generate giant green fists and make Sinestro really threatening easily.

The solution is simple: Go back to the Silver Age comics, find some stories with classic villains like Sinestro or Solomon Grundy. Best of all, introduce Carol Ferris, his girlfriend, and have her turn into Star Sapphire in the sequel.

Green Lantern can work, but go to the Silver/Bronze Age source material, when comics were written for ten year old boys, not 40 year old men who never bothered to get married.

If they want something non-serious (in terms of super hero comics) and silly, they can make an Inferior Five movie. (some guys will catch that just to see "Dumb Bunny".

[Dr. Sivana]

The greatest defect is the absurdity of the entire premise of comic book superheroes.

Of course comic book superheroes are absurd. So is Norse Mythology, Ali Baba, Star Trek, James Bond and Grimms' Fairy Tales. The best ones are understood at different levels by people of different ages and sensibilities.

The problem some had with the Odyssey movie was NOT that it was absurd, but that they messed with the source material. If you do not have the soul of one who can enjoy an absurd story about an absurd hero overcoming an absurd challenge, you can watch a Jane Austen movie or some 1960s French Cinema Verite. Leave superheroes and Jules Verne and Charles Dickens for the rest of us.

[cld51860]

We’re not allowed to just have fun anymore. Enjoy our popcorn, forget our troubles, and just have some damned fun.

[Rockingham]

My preference was and is for stories of real heroes, usually men in combat.

[Sirius Lee]

The greatest defect is the absurdity of the entire premise of comic book superheroes.

I refer my action movies to have some small degree of plausibility. Bourne, Equalizer...

The guys running and flying around in their pajamas and capes is just silly.

[maddog55]

I can’t watch any of the comic book crap movies... they’re all horrible so any series I’d expect nothing else.

There’s pretty much shxt on TV anywhere. All they do is redo older series because they can’t come up with any new ideas.

[Rockingham]

True enough. Yet even the best of the superhero genre requires much in the way of the over the top theatrics and superpowers. In contrast, depictions of combat nowadays are usually told in a matter of fact manner.

Band of Brothers, for example, is not just true but is scrupulously realistic. Similarly, Kenneth Branagh's Henry V shows the battle of Agincourt in a historically accurate manner. And so on.

I have known enough combat veterans over the years to get a glimpse of what they did during war. They downplayed their heroism as they saw it as just doing what was necessary to survive.

When I was a teen, over lunch on a Saturday afternoon, I heard a mild-mannered former dive bomber pilot describe how he consistently managed to outwit Japanese Zeros. Flying in an obsolete aircraft, he saw almost all his friends get shot down because they did not have his flying skills.

I heard a dozen or so accounts from real heroes. I cannot help it but I prefer real heroes to fictional superheroes.

[x]

If Green Lantern was played by Ryan Reynolds, his superpower must have been sarcasm.

[Dr. Sivana]

My preference was and is for stories of real heroes, usually men in combat.

Of course, those are great, and needed too. Despite embellishments (especially Steve McQueen), I enjoyed "The Great Escape" greatly. The "Scarlet and the Black" was an excellent movie about true heroes.

Even stories about implausible and fictitious heroes can still describe a greater Truth, so they have a place, too. And folks are allowed to have different tastes.

[Rockingham]

I get your point. For what its worth, I like Lanterns, especially Kyle Chandler's old, jaded, weather beaten portrayal of the original Green Lantern character. Age, personality, and experiences in life make that resonate with me.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I had the same reaction but watched the later episodes.

I just watched a couple more.

The mother's saying that black people live in fear because of white people (I'm paraphrasing here) pissed me off.

And don't get me started on the mishandling of firearms. That REALLY pissed me off.

Now that I know the writer is a big, fat, dumb, angry, black woman, it all makes sense.

[Rockingham]

An acquaintance told of the racial sensitivity class required for her teaching certificate in Maryland a few years ago.

When the liberal white woman instructor tried peddling the "black people fear whites and discrimination" line, her black students objected. They described white people as nice and helpful, with black people as vexed by criminals, cheats, and lazy people among them.

The instructor was visibly taken aback by the heart felt questions from black students. Why aren't black criminals locked up? Why is welfare given to lazy and cheating black people who do not work? We (ordinary black people) work hard, so why are we made to look like fools?

As the line goes, we do not hate Leftists enough.

[DiogenesLamp]

If Green Lantern was played by Ryan Reynolds, his superpower must have been sarcasm.

That must be your super power too, because Green Lantern was indeed played by Ryan Reynolds.

Or did you not know?