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.

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.

Two-Face shows us both sides of the virtue ethics/situationism debate

In the back-up feature to last week's Detective Comics #8, written by Tony S. Daniel and illsutrated by Szymon Kudranski, Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, appropriately adopts both sides of the recent philosophical and psychological debate over character traits.

First, Harvey shows us the situationist position:

Situationists such as John M. Doris, author of Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior, argue that people do not have general character traits like honesty and courage, but rather that their moral behavior depends very strongly on the circumstances of any particular situaiton. This work is based on psychological research showing that, for instance, people are much more likely to help a stranger after finding a coin in a phone booth (or other seemingly irrelevant and trivial cues).

This is widely seen as a criticism of virtue ethics, which claims that people do have robust character traits or dispositions that correspond to the virtues. Luckily for us, Two-Face also represents this position:

Virtue ethicists respond to the situationist critique in a number of ways. For instance, they argue that they never claimed that character traits and action were correlated precisely, so there is no problem with observing some situational variation in behavior. Also, they argue that the experiments don't show that circumstances change any particular person's behavior; they simply separate those with robust character traits from those without. (Showing his own professional virtue, Doris lists much of his critics' work here; Gopal Sreenivasan's "Errors about Errors: Virtue Theory and Trait Attribution" is particularly good.)

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.

Psychologist Robin Rosenberg reviews X-Men: First Class

Just a heads up - my friend Dr. Robin Rosenberg gives her unique perspective on X-Men: First Class on her blog at Psychology Today - check it out. (Can't comment myself--saw Kung Fu Panda 2 with my daughter instead--closest thing to an Immortal Iron Fist movie we'll see for a while, and a really good one at that!)

Dr. Robin Rosenberg on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Superheroes, and Supervillains

Newsarama has a feature article on a session at the Comics Arts Conference which took place "within" WonderCon this year. Titled "Life After Trauma: To Be A Superhero Or Supervillain," the session featured my good friend Dr. Robin Rosenberg (editor of The Psychology of Superheroes), as well as Dr. Travis Langely and Andrea Letamendi. From the article:

So what kind of trauma do superheroes typically experience? War and large-scale events are among the top says Rosenberg, though they also often experience life threatening illnesses. One example she gave was Superman’s regular exposure to the several types of Kryptonite, another was Iron Man’s heart condition. But one of the prime examples was Bruce Wayne witnessing his parents being gunned down.

“Turns out, intended personal violence is the type of trauma that’s most likely to have a large psychological after effect that leaves a wake,” said Rosenberg. “The other types tend not to lead to PTSD and in fact only a minority of people who experience a trauma develop PTSD.” Rosenberg suggested about 20% of cases lead to the disorder.

Be sure, too, to check out Dr. Rosenberg blogs, Psychablog and The Superheroes (at Psychology Today).

Matt Murdock's self-loathing in Daredevil: Reborn #3

This post, which I had intended to write since Daredevil: Reborn #3 came out last Wednesday, was inspired by recent comments on one of my posts on self-loathing at Psychology Today, and also serves as a companion piece to my post on Green Arrow from earlier this year.

I really doubt revelations of tortured self-loathing on the part of Matt Murdock will come as a surprise to anyone who's familiar with the character, whether or not they've read Daredevil: Reborn #3, but nonetheless, spoilery discussion below the fold...

Superhuman Ethics Class is in session in Avengers Academy #10!

Wow, I thought Christos Gage was just kidding when he had Hank Pym mention Superhuman Ethics Class in Avengers Academy #8 (noted here), but he was serious: in this week's Avengers Academy #10--pencilled by the incomprable Sean Chen, by the way--class is in session! And how do our students (and teachers) do? Let's see...

--- SPOILERS BELOW THE FOLD ---

Reaffirming willpower in Detective Comics #874

Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla offer up another fantastic issue of Detective Comics with today's issue 874, continuing the re-introduction of James Gordon Jr. in a tantalizing discussion with his father, while also exploring the aftermath of Dick's exposure to the Dealer's hallucinogenic gas in the previous story arc.

There are many intriguing elements to this comic, in terms of both writing and art--breathtakingly simple but expressive art from Mr. Francavilla--but I will hold myself to discussing the theme of willpower that Snyder emphasizes throughout the issue, one that psychologists and philosophers have discussed.

SPOILERS BELOW THE FOLD...

Oliver Queen's Self-Loathing in Green Arrow #7

That was strange--I just read Green Arrow #7 last night, one day after I wrote this Psychology Today blog post on self-loathing, and what do I find Ollie and the mysterious Lady of the Forest discussing?

No big spoilers here, particularly concering the Lady's identity, which is tangentially relevant but not essential to exploring Ollie's attitude toward himself. After some discussion between them, the Lady says to Ollie, "Even you have some faith. In people if nothing else," to which Ollie replies, "People can  fail. Disappoint." The Lady responds, insightfully, "And yet, you only seem to hold that view of yourself." Ollie reasons, "Maybe I'm just beating them to the punch," to which the Lady says, "Or maybe you feel you don't deserve such people in your life."

The last two lines especially point to self-loathing on Ollie's part, feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness which he projects onto other people; if he doesn't think he's good enough, he assumes other people feel the same way about him ("maybe I'm just beating them to the punch"). Check out the Psychology Today blog post for more on this...

Of course, it is easy to understand why Ollie feels this way, having lost so much since Cry for Justice: Lian, Dinah, Roy, and a huge star-shaped chuck of Star City, not to mention a certain degree of respect among his colleagues for executing Prometheus (an act which, by the way, is discussed in several chapters in Green Lantern and Philosophy, in the context of discussing the difference between Ollie's and Hal's moral reasoning as well as retributivist justice). I hope that part of Ollie's current stay in the Brightest Day-Enchanted Forest will involve dealing with his recent lapses (as well as his older ones) and reflecting on his character.