Reason and emotion face off in Green Lantern #62 and "War of the Green Lanterns" preview

More about Krona's plan are revealed in this week's Green Lantern #62, as well as in the preview of "War of the Green Lanterns" included in all of this week's DC books.

Spoilers after the jump...

Ever since Green Lantern (vol. 1) #40, Krona has been depicted as the renegade Oan (or Malthusian) who dared investigate the beginnings of the universe, causing an explosion that created (depending on the particular continuity at the time) the multiverse, the anti-matter universe of Qward, evil, and Justin Bieber. (I know, that's redundant.)

But now we add one more wrinkle: it seems Krona was studying the "birth of the universe and therefore unlocking the secrets of the emotional spectrum," which the Guardians, in all of their reason-worship, opposed. In the "War" preview, we see Krona talking to Ganthet one billion years ago (give or take), arguing that "emotion is life," while Ganthet holds to the party line that "our hearts are full of chaos. We must use our minds and only our minds to bring order to this universe."

In GL #62 specifically, in the present day, Krona--looking a shade over his billion-plus years, if you ask me--tells Hal, "I dared to discover the source of life and celebrate the joy of it! But I only wished to understand emotion so that we could control it, not bury it away as the Guardians did!" Then, with a Jack-Nicholson-in-The-Shining look on his face, he proclaims, "No one can stop me from cleansing the universe of the emotionally unbalanced!" (He had up to that point, then he lost me... at least Hal notes the irony there!)

The scene then changes to the present day, showing several Guardians (and Salaak) debating the same topic, with one Guardian saying, "It is a universal truth: law and emotion cannot coexist without conflict." I thought the Guardians has loosened that "universal truth" a bit since revoking the law prohibiting relationships between Lanterns, but I guess it was just a momentary lapse brought on by a special episode of Army Wives--oh well...

Of course, the conflict--real or apparent--between reason and emotion is a timeless topic in philosophy, and yes, one that is discussed in Green Lantern and Philosophy: No Evil Shall Escape this Book, specifically in the chapters "Women Are from Zamaron, Men Are from Oa" by Sarah Donovan and Nick Richardson (in the context of the traditional connections of men to reason and women to emotion), and also briefly in "The Blackest Night for Aristotle’s Account of Emotions" by Jason Southworth. Traditionally, philosophers have held reason above emotion, but in recent years some scholars--especially feminist philosophers, as emphasized by Donovan and Richardson--have argued for the essential interrelationship between emotion and reason, such as the necessity of empathy for morally sensitive and caring action. (For an influential scholarly account of this new trend, see Martha Nussbaum's Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, and for a more popular account, see Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.)

This new motivation for Krona adds yet another layer to the emotional richness that Geoff Johns has added to the Green Lantern mythos since Rebirth--I can't wait to see where he takes this (with Peter Tomasi and Tony Bedard) in "War of the Green Lanterns"...

(I can't let it pass mention that in the long-time-ago, both in GL #62 and the "War" preview, the Oans are shown wearing robes with the symbol of the white light of life, not their standard GL symbol--very interesting.)