The Comics Professor

Green Lantern Annual #1: Of Free Will, Tolkien, and the Wonder Twins

All in all, Green Lantern Annual #1, written by Geoff Johns and pencilled by Ethan Van Sciver and Pete Woods, is one of the most exciting books to come out of the DC New 52 so far. Faint praise, perhaps, but this felt like the build-up to Johns' previous GL events like "Sinestro Corps War" and "Blackest Night," and that feeling has been sorely missed over the last year.

I don't think there will be any major plot spoilers in this post aside from what already appeared in the online preview (the first six pages on the comic). I will show a couple images from later in the comic, but nothing really revealing--but be warned in any case. SPOILERS!!!

As you may have seen from the preview, the Smurfs Gone Wild have decided that the threat to the universe lies not in emotion in general, nor in individual emotions, but in the very willpower that powers the Green Lantern rings--or, as they put it, free will.

We need to be clear on they mean by "free will." He does not mean it as the term is used in metaphysical debates over free will vs. determinism. That sense of free will describes any being's ability to be the "uncaused cause" and "first mover," to be able insert his, her, or its decision-making power or agency onto a world of physical cause-and-effect. It is not up to the Guardians or anyone else to eliminate free will if it exists--it either does or does not. And if there is no free will, no one has it--including our Guardians.

No, what they mean by "free will" is true choice, agency, or autonomy, the ability to make choices independently of external (and possibly internal) authority or undue influence. Free will in this sense can exist regardless of whether metaphysical free will exists, since this variety of free will operates on a psychological level, not the level of elementary particle physics. Even if we are not truly "in control" of our thoughts and actions in a deterministic universe, we will still "make" choices independently of others' choices--in the end, they simply are not our choices at all. (For more on the various meaning of free will, see this article at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)

Basically, the Guardians don't like that their Lanterns think for themselves, for then you end up with rebels like Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner. (In fact, the middle Guardian above sounds a lot like the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg--he probably thinks the Lanterns drink too much soda too.) They want mindless creatures that will do their bidding--hence, the Third Army. And they're purty, too:

(I would have thought the word "assimilate" had been trademarked by the Star Trek people by now, but I guess not.) These soliders (for lack of a better term) have no mind, no identity, no free will. They will not make their own choices, they will not question the orders of the Guardians--they will be tools, pure and simple.

This story seems like a natural progression for Johns' broader Green Lantern arc, and I'm interested to see how it plays out. I do hope the Guardians eventually return to being good guys, if imperfect ones. Jordan and Guy Gardner disagreed with them often, of course, but at bottom they all sought the good, only disagreeing on how to pursue it. I hope Johns redeems them, or some of them, at the end of this storyline--but if the rest of New 52 universe is any guide, I'm not holding my breath.

I can't end this post without a couple panels from this comic that I found hilarious. First, we have the long-lost Guardians of Middle-Earth:

I guess they're the Lords of the... nah, too easy.

In the scene below, Hal and Sinestro have to combine the last flickers of energy in their rings to summon Sinestro's power battery. I guess Hal was a fan of the old Superfriends show, but Sinestro is none too happy with it.

Green Lantern powers, activate! Priceless.

The Alpha Lanterns and the rendering of justice (from Green Lantern Corps #8)

Last week's Green Lantern Corps #8, written Pete Tomasi and illustrated by Fernando Pasarin and Scott Hanna, featured an interesting discussion among the Alpha Lanterns regarding what to do about John Stewart in light of his killings of a fellow Green Lantern who seemed close to revealing Corps secrets under torture by the Keepers.

This exchange raises terrific questions about the nature of criminal justice as well as the role of the Alpha Lanterns in particular. From Boodikka's comment that "our duty is to be impartial and render justice," it sounds like the Alphas are more than just police. As usually understood, police do not "render justice" but merely play a role in it by investigating and apprehending suspects--an important role, of course, but not quite "rendering justice." So let's assume Boodikka was getting ahead of herself, and continue to understand the Alphas as the internal affairs division of the Corps.

The more interesting issue here is about the proper role of incidental consequences to the execution of justice, even at the level of arrest and arraignment. There seems to be no question among the Alphas regarding what Stewart did; the only question is whether to arrest him for it (and presumably transmit him to the Guardians for "trial," as they did with Laira before the relaunch). Boodikka and Relok Hag take the position that they must arrest Stewart no matter what the consequences, especially those due to "emotion," in order to serve justice. Green Man and Varix, on the other hand, urge consideration of the broader consequences, particularly those that impact their ability to enforce justice in the future.

The first position has clear appeal: the Alphas have good reason to believe John Stewart committed a crime against the Corps, and he should be brought in for future questioning. Arresting him should imply nothing about his guilt (though the Alphas have grounds for reasonable suspicion), and the Guardians will pronounce judgment at trial. But the second position is more inclusive: it doesn't deny the importance of arresting suspected wrongdoers, but it admits other factors relevant to the decision whether and how to do it. Stewart is a leader in the Corps, widely admired and respected by his fellow Lanterns as a pillor of honor. Bursting into a crowded room to arrest Stewart (as they do at the end of the issue) is an extremely bold show of force, especially toward someone like Stewart who would likely submit himself willingly for trial. John's popularity, the moral ambiguity of his actions, and the Alphas' brashness in response make it likely that the Green Man's prediction of divisiveness will come true, and as Varix said, "the ability to enforce justice will be severely put to" the test.

Green Man and Varix are not suggesting that they don't arrest John at all, but merely that they do so in a way that preserves the Alpha's authority and whatever respect the rest of the Corps has for them. By following Boodikka and Relok Hag's hardline position (especially in the way in which they did it), the Alphas will compromise their own standing and make the pursuit of justice more difficult in the future. In other words, justice viciously served is self-defeating. Once the arrest decision is made, the Alphas should consider how best to take John into custody to make sure that they are seen as fair and--yes, Boodikka--impartial in their "rendering" of justice. This is not a compromise in the pursuit of justice, but a way to make the pursuit of justice better. Arresting John the right way will serve justice in this particular case and ensure that they will enjoy the respect and authority necessary to continue to serve justice in the future.

But what if Green Man and Varix had been suggesting that they not arrest John at all (at least not until the Guardians ordered them to)? Do the Alphas have that kind of discretion? In a sense they must--as far as we know, there have only ever been five of them at any given time! Unless the 7200 rank-and-file Lanterns are extremely well-behaved (or the potential violations that would attract the Alphas' attention are very few), the Alphas can't possibly investigate and apprehend every wrongdoer among the Corps.

In the real world on Earth, police have tremendous discretion over which crimes to address, especially regarding misdemeanors like traffic violations and littering. Even in areas with a lot of officers per capita or square mile, they can't possibly go after every wrongdoer they see, and so they must use their judgment regarding which ones are most important to spend their time and resources investigating. Of course, people who double-park are one thing, but we wouldn't like to think of police letting murderers get away. Prosecutors, however, can certainly decide to drop a case against a suspected murderer if they think their limited resources can be better used somewhere else, either because of a weak case or even community pressure (though this is obviously a dangerous and inadvisable road to take). This is a tremendous amount of power, of course, and we trust our prosecutors to use it wisely and sparingly, but given the scarcity of their resources, they cannot possible prosecute every crime that comes across their desks, and must own judgment in choosing amongst them.

The idea that the Alpha Lanterns "embody the independent thought process of a Green Lantern along with the efficient logic of the Manhunters" is extremely intriguing one to a philosopher, especially one who has interests in rationality and judgment. This issue was the first of the "Alpha War" arc, so let's hope there is more to talk about in future installments.

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For more on justice and scarcity, see Michael Cahill paper's "Real World Retributivism" (Washington University Law Review 85, 2007, pp. 815-870), and my paper "Retributivism in a World of Scarcity" (from Theoretical Foundations of Law and Economics, edited by Mark D. White, Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 253-271). The Alpha Lanterns and the trial of Laira are discussed in two chapters in Green Lantern and Philosophy (edited by Jane Dryden and Mark D. White, Wiley, 2011): Andrew Terjesen's "Will They Let Just Anybody Join?: Testing for Moral Judgment in the Green Lantern Corps" (pp. 53-68) and my "Crying for Justice: Retributivism for Those Who Worship Evil's Might" (pp. 162-174).

What do chocolate and radishes have to do with Green Lantern?

At The Atlantic today, Hans Villarica interviews Dr. Roy Baumeister, one of the psychologists chiefly responsible for the ego-depletion or "muscle" theory of willpower. Under this conception, people have a limited amount of willpower at any given time; as they use it, it is depleted in the short term but strengthened in the long term (just like a muscle used in work or resistance training). In the interview, Baumeister describes one of his early experiments in which he tempted people with chocolate while asking them to eat radishes instead; this used some of their reserves of willpower, leaving less for other tasks, compared to the control group who got to eat the chocolate.

In addition to informing my academic work on willpower and character, Baumeister's work was the basis for one of my chapters in Green Lantern and Philosophy: No Evil Shall Escape this Book. In chapter 2, "Flexing the Mental Muscle: Green Lanterns and the Nature of Willpower," I draw from years of stories to show that Lanterns' willpower has long been portrayed as a scarce resource. Below, I list some of the quotes I used in the chapter, showing that the version of willpower used in the Green Lantern stories corresponds with Baumeister's work--some even decades before Baumeister and his colleagues published it!

On willpower as a muscle:

"Your mind is like a muscle unused for years. You forgot how to use the power ring." (Sinestro to Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Rebirth #5, April 2005)

"...the will is very like a muscle. In Abin Sur, that muscle was once extraordinarily strong—so strong that the Guardians of the Universe made him custodian of a battery of power, an amplifier of the will... and of a power ring, a device to focus that amplified will." (Action Comics Weekly #642, June 1989)

On willpower as a scarce resource (which can be replenished):

"[That] took lots of willpower. That—and escaping from the energy net—has left me exhausted. I need to regain my strength." (Action Comics Weekly #625, December 1988)

"I know my ring’s got limitless power—but it is powered by my willpower. Have I got the strength necessary to make this work?" (Green Lantern, vol. 2, #149, February 1982)

"Willpower’s like a muscle, and I’ve gotten better with it year after year!" (Green Lantern, vol. 2, #200, May 1986)

On willpower, focus, and distraction:

"Can’t take much more of this. I’ve been up all night trying to find the alien... . I’m exhausted... keeping this building together is taking all my concentration... all my will!" (Action Comics Weekly #628, January 1989)

"Finding it hard to concentrate, aren’t you? With me hitting you, I mean! And unless you can focus your willpower, your ring can’t work!" (Hal to Sinestro, Green Lantern, vol. 2, #124, January 1980)

For more on Baumeister's work, pick up his latest book (cowritten with John Tierney), cunningly titled Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.

So heroes in the DCU can kill when they "need to" or "have to"?

Hmm. Here's Geoff Johns, discussing the future of the Green Lantern book with Vaneta Rogers at Newsarama:

Nrama: Going back and looking at the relaunch, I know everyone talked about it being a "soft" reboot and pointed quite often to Green Lantern and Batman as the places where not a lot of changes took place, but it's obvious this Hal Jordan is a little different. You're playing him a lot younger and a little more brash, especially in the Justice League title. But I think a lot of readers were surprised that Hal Jordan killed a Sinestro Corps member in a way that appeared light-hearted, as he made a funny comment. Did you want to show that he was a little different now?

Johns: Yeah, because Dan [DiDio] and Jim [Lee] wanted the timeline rolled back to five years, there are differences with Green Lantern. He's a little bit younger, but also, all the stuff he's been through, I think he's a lot more sure of himself. I think he's a little less patient with the stuff he goes up against.

...

With that Sinestro Corps member he killed, when Hal goes up against one of those guys, he's going to take him out if lives are at stake.

There are certain heroes that kill. Among those are Green Lantern, who definitely has to, although he doesn't do it very often. But he does it when he has to. Aquaman sure does. And we've seen Wonder Woman do it too.

So there are heroes that, when they need to cross that line, they do it.

Does this herald a mjaor shift toward "heroic killing" in the DCU? The rest of the Marvel community tolerates the Punisher--and welcomes Wolverine onto every team--with little controversy (usually from Captain America), but I've always thought the DC heroes were more firmly against killing (hence the reaction to every iteration of the Vigilante that pops up). Of course, there have been exceptions, but they were always treated as such, like Superman's killing of the Kryptonian criminals that led to his "Exile," Wonder Woman's breaking Max Lord's neck during "Sacrifice," and most recently the Guardians' enabling the Green Lantern rings to kill members of Sinestro Corps during "The Sinestro Corps War."

I'm no absolutist when it comes to moral prohibitions, but Johns' attitude strikes me as disturbingly lacksadaisical. Green Lantern "definitely has to, although he doesn't do it very often. But he does it when he has to"? Why does he "definitely" have to and not other heroes? And what defines when he "has to"? One has to presume some consequentialist calculation (the one life taken versus the many saved or perhaps threshold deontology (where the hero refuses to kill unless the cost becomes "too" high), but why does this apply to some heroes and not others? Is it a difference in ethical codes, character traits, or situations?

These are interesting questions, to be sure, but Johns seems too glib about it all for my tastes, simply saying that "there are heroes that, when they need to cross that line, they do it." Let's just hope that when they consider crossing that line, we see them struggle with it--if they feel they "have to," at least let the readers know why, and let them judge if they agree or not.

(As for Johns' statement about "all the stuff he's been through"--in his short five years, of course--and how this supposedly informs his character, see my recent post on history and character.)

Mourning the death of character in the DC New 52

I hadn't planned to write any more about the DC relaunch--every month I drop a couple more titles, and I fear it won't be long before I'm buying little more than the Batman and Green Lantern families of books. (Even Earth 2 is sounding more like a new Tangent Earth: the names are the same but most else is different.) But then I read something from Marvel that I truly enjoyed, and part of the reason I enjoyed it is also the reason the DC relaunch has left me flat.

The book is Avengers: The Children's Crusade, a nine-issue bimonthy series by Allan Heinberg and Jim Chueng, the creators of the Young Avengers series. It was recently collected in hardcover (very soon after the last issue hit the stands), and I spent a leisurely afternoon and evening last week reading it--with pleasure. The series recounts the efforts of Young Avengers Wiccan and Speed to find Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, whom they believe to be their mother. They are aided in this by Magneto (Wanda's father), and along the way they have run-ins with the Avengers and the X-Men. (This series is a prelude to a certain event, Avengers vs. X-Men, that you may have heard of, despite Marvel's famous promotional subtlety.)

Besides being exceptionally well-written and superbly rendered, the series is steeped in Marvel history--much of which is succinctly recapped along the way for the benefit of the new reader. The rest is inessential to following the story, but adds immeasurably to the enjoyment of it. I don't think it's revealing too much to say the series touches on the relationship between Wanda, her brother Pietro (Quicksilver), and their father Magneto; Wanda's relationship with the Vision (which bore two sons, an epic tale in itself); the three mutants' relationships with the X-Men, the Avengers, and society in general; the Avengers Disassembled and House of M storylines, as well as more recent Avengers, X-Men, and Young Avengers stories. (And many of the Young Avengers' histories are wrapped up in Avengers lore as well, of course.)

Rather than weighing the series down, this tremendously rich and intertwined Marvel history provided essential background to the story, motivation and recognizability to all the characters involved, and emotional resonance to the events therein. These are all things that the DC Universe no longer has, since they erased most of their history, and have been evasive regarding which elements of it remain.

When I read the DC New 52 titles, even the more entertaining ones, I find myself numb to them. I don't know the characters anymore; I don't know what they've been through, how events affected them, and how it affects their behavior. The names are familiar, the costumes are similar (with a lot of redundant seams and armor-plating), and the powers are the same for the most part--but who are they? Without background and history, I have no context in which to understand their actions or care about them as characters. They're mere ciphers in familiar guises, frauds who play on our loyalties while betraying our treasured memories.

This problem is obvious in cases like Superman and Wonder Woman, who have been reinvented to a large degree. (Don't even get me started on Green Arrow.) Superman--perhaps the easiest DC superhero to define in terms of his character before the relaunch--now (ironically) seems completely alien to me. I can't say if any of his current behavior is out of character because I don't know what his character is anymore. Wonder Woman has always been harder to nail down in terms of her underlying character (an observation usually made to excuse low sales, but cause and effect are difficult to parse out), but now DC seems hellbent on upending everything we know about her origins, perhaps in the hopes that this will make her easier to define. (And that's being charitable.)

But the problem exists even for characters such as Batman and Green Lantern, who were left relatively untouched by Barry Allen's jog at the end of Flashpoint. (When I say Green Lantern I'm thinking primarily of Hal Jordan, but it applies to any of them.) We still don't know how much, or what parts, of their past history remains canon and still informs their personal character. DC dismisses these concerns, repeatedly saying that which stories remain in the New 52 continuity will be revealed as they become relevant. But they are relevant now: they are relevant to every character in every story, because they tell us who they are and what they've been through, and give us some basis to identify them as characters rather than simply talking heads in masks and capes.

To know who Batman is now, we need to know whether Jason Todd died, whether Bane broke his back, whether Darkseid "killed" him, and so on. To know who Hal Jordan is now, we need to know if he ever became Parallax, died, and became the Spectre, as well as the status of the more recent events of the Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night, and Brightest Day. And then we have the various crises, deaths, and resurrections through the DCU, which inform the histories of all the characters in it.

If DC wants to leave all these details vague, or let them slip out little by little to tease the readers, that's their choice. But as long as we don't know what these characters have gone through, other than the broadest details, we don't know them as characters--we can't sympathize with them, we can't understand their behavior, and we have no connection to them. We will come to know them over time, as we do any new characters, and there's nothing wrong with that--unless we're supposed to retain our old loyalties and keep buying the books based on the "0ld" characters we used to know but who are now so much flotsam in the time stream.

Contrast this with Marvel, whose characters are more precisely defined than most of DC's (even before the relaunch). Captain America is noble, Iron Man is cocky and brilliant, Thor is chivalrous, Namor is regal and pompous, Daredevil is idealistic and compassionate, Spider-Man is naively pure, Hank Pym is insecure, and so on. We know who these people are, and when they say or do anything that seems "not like them," fan cry out--and justifiably so! Through decades of stories, even though crafted by a series of writers, these heroes' basic character traits have been defined so well (though not with perfect consistency) that any thing said or done out of the ordinary is immediately called out as out-of-character. Take Thor's calling the Hulk a "pain in the ass" in Fear Itself #5, for instance, which was widely derided by fans as something Thor simply would not say. The Thor they know, the Thor that has been written for so long even by so many, is so consistent in his speech, mannerisms, and behavior that this one phrase seemed horribly out of place. Could anyone justifiably call anything Superman says in the New DC Universe out of place? On what grounds could they say it?

Some may argue that Marvel's characters are too simplistic--especially compared to someone like Batman--but any such "simplicity" is based on well-established regularities of behavior that give them their stable, underlying character traits and that make them familiar to us. We know Spidey, we know Cap, we know Iron Man--and we know when they do something out of character. This is true of all serial fiction--ongoing TV series, movie franchises, book series--in which characters develop over time and establish clearly defined traits. New writers in these media have a responsibility to the fans to maintain the basic elements of the characters by writing them consistently with their past characterizations. And if they want the characters to change and grow--as they should, to an extent--they must do so organically and in a way that makes sense in the story, not present abrupt changes in character that make the fans doubt the writer knows about the character at all. (My chapter on "Brand New Day" in the forthcoming book Spider-Man and Philosophy presents this argument in the context of Peter Parker's deal with Mephisto, which was widely regarded as a bow to editorial fiat that flew in the face of Peter's basic goodness.)

I don't know the new Superman, the new Wonder Woman--or even the "new" Batman, even though he seems little changed from before the relaunch. There's no way I can know them. These "characters" have no definite history yet, and therefore no character to recognize. I suspect the powers-that-be at DC thought they could have their cake and eat it too, relying (as I said above) on longtime readers' loyalty to the characters they loved to keep them tethered to the books, while the creators crafted new characters beneath the surface to try to draw in the mythical "new reader." But speaking as a longtime fan, I don't think it's working on either front; and in the words of a fellow mourner, "I have no interest in the Emperor's new clothes when I can clearly see the Emperor's mucky behind."

My reflections on the post-Flashpoint DCU (and an unexpected walk down memory lane)

So here we are, in early October--New York Comic Con is several days away--and I realized I had written a lot about the new DCU before anybody had actually read the books, but I had yet to comment on it after reading September's big batch of #1's. Rather than give a book-by-book review, I'll just share some thoughts on the enterprise as a whole. I make no claims to originality, nor to any special insight--I just wanted to give at least one "postgame" wrap-up after I commented so much pregame.

Simply put, I hope some readers, new and old, embrace the new DCU as theirs, because it certainly isn't mine.

My love of DC superheroes started with Adam West's Batman and the Super Friends and soon spread to comics. The first comic book I remember reading was Green Lantern/Green Arrow #110 (November 1978), which introduced me not only to Hal and Ollie, but also to Alan Scott--and started my love for Earth-2. Soon I was plucking comics at random off the spinner rack at Betty Jay's soda shop in my small Ohio hometown, including Justice League of America #168 (July 1979), containing the pivotal mindwipe storyline that begat Identity Crisis (and featured a very buff Ralph Dibny on the cover), and an innocuous-looking DC Comics Presents #26 (October 1980), featuring Superman and Green Lantern, and also a special preview of New Teen Titans, which started a legendary run on comics that I was lucky to have read from the beginning (and now look forward to rereading in the beautiful Omnibus hardcovers).

Soon I was riding my bike up to City News, a newsstand/cigar shop in the same town, which carried the full DC and Marvel lines. (I didn't buy any Marvel books at the time, which was more an economic decision than an aesthetic one--I loved the idea of a shared universe and wanted to read the entire line from a company, and what can I say, I loved the DC heroes "first.") I lived for the annual JLA/JSA crossovers, and my favorite titles soon became All-Star Squadron and later, by subscription, Infinity Inc. The Earth-2 heroes were the "other" to me, and by implication cooler than the "normal" Earth-1 characters.

And then came Crisis on Infinite Earths, the first major reboot/relaunch of the DCU (unless you count the introduction of the Earth-1 Flash, Green Lantern, Atom, and Hawkman in the 1960s, which some do). I never regarded the idea of multiple Earths, with independent yet overlapping timelines and histories, to be complicated, but as the same time I thrilled at the idea--soon to be realized with the post-COIE Justice League--of having heroes from various Earths on the same team. (To me, Dr. Fate and Batman on the same team equalled awesome.)

The changes after COIE were just as selective as those following Flashpoint, although some of the former were dictated by the logic of merging the various Earths. Specifically, "duplicate" heroes, such as Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow and Speedy, and Aquaman, who existed in roughy identical forms on Earth-1 and Earth-2, had to be collapsed into one (always the younger, Earth-1 version). But the changes went even further: Superman and Wonder Woman were given hard reboots, while Batman and Green Lantern were left mostly unchanged. (Sound familiar?) And since Barry Allen died during COIE, Wally West stepped up as the new Flash, but the world somehow remembered Barry's death (but not Supergirl's).

For reasons that I do not recall (but probably having something to do with getting my first guitar in high school), I dropped out of comics around the time Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns wrapped up. (Maybe I wanted to leave at a high point!) I didn't walk into a comics shop again until 2004, just in time for Hal Jordan and Jason Todd to come back from the dead--and for Sue Dibny and Ted Kord to replace them--and also for the huge ramp-up to Infinite Crisis, the successor to Crisis on Infinite Earths. I missed everything in between, including the deaths of Superman and Jason Todd, Batman's back problems, Hal Jordan's breakdown possession, and all the events like Zero Hour, likely the most thorough line-wide retcon other than COIE and Flashpoint (and the one which most closely resembles the revised "five-year" timeline of the new DCU). But through the magic of trade paperbacks and online comic book shops, eventually I caught up with what I had missed.

Admittedly, I was much much younger when COIE happened, but I don't remember having the same sense of loss, abandonment, and betrayal as I do now. (Who, me, overdramatic? Never!) Most of the changes after COIE reconciled the five most significant Earths (1, 2, 4, S, and X), the key word here being "reconcile." Redundancies were eliminated, with some minor casualties (such as Helena Wayne and Lyta Trevor), but most of the histories of the two main Earths, 1 and 2, were retained--with the notable exception of those of Superman and Wonder Woman. But even those hard reboots didn't seem so drastic to me--Superman was slightly depowered, his supporting cast changed a bit, and he no longer had a past as Superboy, and Diana no longer had a past with the Justice League (or anybody, for that matter). But their underlying characters were unchanged, or at least so it seemed to me at the time. Most importantly, they were still recognizable as essentially the same characters that they were prior to COIE.

But despite what the now-ubiquitous Purple Glowy Woman said at the end of Flashpoint about reconciling the DCU with the Vertigo and Wildstorm universes, the post-Flashpoint DCU is more about selective reinvention than reconciliation. Once again, Batman and Green Lantern are relatively untouched, while Superman and Wonder Woman are rebooted--along with most of the rest of the DCU. The extent of the changes vary, of course: Barry Allen is in the same job he had before Flashpoint but is no longer married to Iris (and apparently no longer has other speedsters to run with), Carter Hall is a different sort of Hawkman altogether, Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch are now brand-new Firestorms, Jamie Reyes is the first Blue Beetle, and Ollie Queen is just a blonde--and bland--archer with a half-assed goatee and no personality to speak of. The full changes to Wonder Woman have yet to be seen (other than the recent revelation of her parentage), but the new Superman is a travesty, edginess replacing nobility and cynicism replacing hope. The histories of the Justice League and Teen Titans, traditionally bedrock institutions in the DCU, are completely up in the air; thankfully, the Legion is little changed from its reintroduction during Brad Meltzer's and Geoff John's JLA/JSA crossover. (I did mourn the JSA most of all, but its planned resurrection on a new Earth-2 is a bright light in an otherwise dim new universe.)

This is why it doesn't feel like my DCU anymore--because it isn't. It's completely new, and in a different way than the post-COIE universe was. Rather than reconciling and retaining most of several alternate histories, Flashpoint replaced a single history with another, with elements retained (seemingly) at random. Like "One Year Later" but on a grander scale, I enjoy being teased with which elements remain the same and which are changed or lost. But now that game is being played with nearly the entire DCU--and frankly, I'm tired of waiting, guessing, being pleasantly surprised and horribly disappointed within the same 20-page story. The treasured history of my DCU, which survived largely intact through several major upheavals since 1978, is gone. RIP.

Am I just being selfish? Do I want to keep my DCU and prevent others from having their new one? Is this like fans wanting to keep Kyle or Wally when Hal and Barry returned? The difference is that those characters all co-existed in some form. But unless the post-Flashpoint world is revealed at some point to be an alternate universe co-existing with the pre-Flashpoint one, the new DCU has replaced the old one, and my DCU is gone. I don't begrudge anyone else the new DCU, and I hope for the sake of the medium that fans continue to embrace it after the novelty of 52 new #1's fades. But I cannot maintain my enthusiasm--this is truly a new DCU, and I simply liked the old one better. And through trades and back issues, the old DCU will say alive for me, while I selectively follow the new one--for there is fantastic work being done. But it's not the same.

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Funny--I had always wanted to write a personal history of my life with comics, but I hadn't expected to write it in the context of a DCnU post. (And there is more to tell, to be sure--later.) But it is appropriate, I suppose, since most of my comics-reading life has been within the DCU. Only in 2006 did I start reading Marvel in earnest, having been enticed by Brubaker and Lark's Daredevil (having loved their collaboration on Gotham Central) and the moral and political complexities of Civil War. Now I count Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and of course Daredevil among my favorite characters in comics, alongside Batman, Nightwing, and Green Lantern (Hal Jordan).

Many have noted the similarity of the new DCU with Marvel's Heroes Reborn period, in which a group of heroes were shunted to a pocket universe and "modernized," only to be returned to the 616 universe a year later in their traditional forms. Other than that blip (and scattered others, such as "One More Day"), Marvel seems to understand the value of stability, choosing to tell new stories with their existing characters rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater and start their characters from scratch, alienating loyal readers (like me) in hopes of attracting new ones.

DC must recognize this to some extent; after all, they kept their most fascinating character, Batman/Bruce Wayne, largely untouched. Countless stories can be told if you build on the foundation of a great character. And Superman is another great character, embodying strength, hope, and heroism, and showing us that humanity in its highest form is more than just DNA. His superpowers amazed us, but his heart connected him to us. Without that, he is not Superman, but rather just another strongman in a cape (and kneepads).

Characters can change and they can grow, but ideally this happens organically and gradually--in the same way that people change and grow in the real world--not suddenly and discontinuously, by editorial fiat. If this is done well, you have a rich, storied character on which a legacy can be built. For the most part, Marvel seems to realize this. DC seems to have forgotten it, but I hope they will remember it soon, but the sake of new readers as well as old ones.

New chapters on Captain America and Thor exclusive to free "Superheroes" Kindle book

Wiley just released their free Kindle book, Superheroes: The Best of Philosophy and Pop Culture, featuring one chapter from each of the superhero-themed books in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, including the forthcoming titles on Superman and the Avengers, as well as two new and exclusive chapters, written by yours truly, on Captain America and Thor.

Here are the contents:

PART ONE: Superheroes Exclusives

1: Lord Odin Have Mercy: Justice and Punishment in Asgard—Mark D. White

2: Captain America and the Virtue of Modesty—Mark D. White

PART TWO: DC Superheroes

3: Is Superman an American Icon?—Andrew Terjesen (from Superman and Philosophy—edited by Mark D. White)

4: The Blackest Night for Aristotle’s Account of Emotions—Jason Southworth (from Green Lantern and Philosophy— edited by Jane Dryden and Mark D. White)

5: Why Doesn’t Batman Kill the Joker? —Mark D. White (from Batman and Philosophy, edited by Mark D. White and Robert Arp)

6: Can We Steer This Rudderless World? Kant, Rorschach, Retributivism, and Honor—Jacob M. Held (from Watchmen and Philosophy, edited by Mark D. White)

PART THREE: Marvel Superheroes

7: Forgivers Assemble! —Daniel P. Malloy (from Avengers and Philosophy, edited by Mark D. White)

8: Does Peter Parker Have a Good Life? —Neil Mussett (from Spider-Man and Philosophy, edited by Jonathan J. Sanford)

9: The Stark Madness of Technology—George A. Dunn (from Iron Man and Philosophy, edited by Mark D. White)

10: Amnesia, Personal Identity, and the Many Lives of Wolverine—Jason Southworth (from X-Men and Philosophy, edited by Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski)

Moral disagreement and the Green Lantern Corps (UPDATED)

My Green Lantern and Philosophy co-editor Jane Dryden and I have a blog post at my Psychology Today blog about what the Green Lantern Corps can teach us about cooperation and tolerance, especially in light of conflicts over values. Check it out!

UPDATE: The Globe and the Mail also picked up the piece, under a different title.

Interview about Green Lantern and Philosophy at Hero Complex/L.A. Times

The interview I did with my co-editor Jane Dryden about Green Lantern and Philosophy: No Evil Shall Escape this Book just appeared at the Los Angeles Times' Hero Complex blog. (It also includes a shameless plug for another new book of mine, Kantian Ethics and Economics: Autonomy, Dignity, and Character.) Thanks to Jevon Phillips for the great questions, and be sure to let me know what you think!

Post-Flashpoint Green Lantern #1's: Little change (whew)

This morning we hear from DC's The Source about the four new #1's coming in the Green Lantern world, including two existing titles and two new ones (and no Emerald Warriors), shifting the creative teams slightly but with only one apparent and minor change in status quo (Kyle's new role):

GREEN LANTERN #1

Geoff Johns has been charting the adventures of Hal Jordan and the GREEN LANTERN Corps since GREEN LANTERN: Rebirth, collaborating with such major artists as Ethan Van Sciver, Darwyn Cooke, Prentis Rollins, Marlo Alquiza and Mick Gray.

This fall, Johns reunites with artists Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy, as the series begins anew with GREEN LANTERN #1 with cover by Ivan Reis and Joe Prado. Together they will continue to thrill readers and expand the Green Lantern mythos.

Change is coming. But set aside your fear. It’ll be worth the wait.

Additional titles include:

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1

When deadly conflicts emerge across the universe, it’s up to Guy Gardner, John Stewart and an elite Green Lantern strike force to keep the peace.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1 will be written by Peter J. Tomasi with art by Fernando Pasarin and Scott Hanna. The cover to #1 is by Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy.

GREEN LANTERN: THE NEW GUARDIANS #1

Who are The New Guardians?

The power of Rage, Avarice, Fear, Will, Hope, Compassion and Love combine to be the most powerful (and colorful) team in the corps under the leadership of Kyle Rayner. Beware their power . . . and their volatility!

GREEN LANTERN: THE NEW GUARDIANS #1 will be written by Tony Bedard and illustrated with cover by Tyler Kirkham and Batt.

RED LANTERNS #1

Going solo. Atrocitus and his Red Lantern Corps return in their own series, battling against injustice in the most bloody ways imaginable. This Lantern Corps takes no prisoners, they are judge, jury and executioners!

RED LANTERNS #1 will be written by Peter Milligan with art and cover by Ed Benes and Rob Hunter.