Monday, April 21, 2014
Sunday, April 20, 2014
WONDERCON : GREEN LANTERN: FACES A UNIVERSE AT WAR
The DC Comics-Green Lantern: A Universe At War! panel at Anaheim’s WonderCon 2014 began as moderator Larry Ganem entered the second-floor convention room and told the gathered cheering fans, “Let’s get this started!”
He then introduced the afternoon's two panelists, “Green Lantern” writer Robert Venditti and “Green Lantern Corps” artist Bernard Chang. Taking a moment to plug Batman’s seventy-fifth anniversary Ganem quickly spoke about “Batman Day,” happening on July 23, where various comic stores will be throwing Batman-themed parties and giving away Batman prizes.
Turning back to the Green Lantern universe, Venditti told the room that when he took over the flagship book he wanted to give Hal more challenges, the biggest one being saddling him with the leadership of the Corps.
“What we’ve seen him do in the early issues is try to lead the Corps the way he would in a single fist-fight,” Venditti said, adding that this approach has “tarnished” the reputation of the Green Lanterns further.
“Much like with actually police officers...a lot of places they go, people aren’t happy to see ‘em,” Venditti continued, explaining that the rest of the DC Universe is mistrustful of Hal and the Corps to the extent that many of them no longer want the Corps policing their sectors.
Recapping the events in the “Lights Out” event, Venditti stated that Oa was lost and the new Green Lantern headquarters is on the mobile sentient planet Mogo. “It was a way to bring Mogo in to be a permanent cast member in ‘Green Lantern’ and ‘Green Lantern Corps’ as well,” Venditti said.
Chang pointed out that the white and green logo on the planet was actually foliage and that the planet had to physically re-terraform to accommodate the new headquarters.
“They’re at their weakest...in terms of their infrastructure and all those things,” Venditti said. Chang added that there is even a faction of Green Lanterns who no longer use their Rings due to worry that they will fail again.
Starting with “Green Lantern” #31, the two stated that alien race the Durlans will rise to fight the Corps as part of the “Uprising” arc. Venditti also stated that a character who has been on the bench thus far will be coming into the fray.
“You are a mean person!” Ganem joked, pointing to the Corps current state as Venditti chuckled. Displaying a panel of Hal getting punched in the face from issue #30, Venditti said that the test-pilot was finally using “strategy” and critical thinking with the Corps, and he will continue to grow as a leader through the “Uprising” arc.
Touching on issue #29 of “Green Lantern Corps,” Chang laughed and called it the “Ultimate team book!”
“There are all these intergalactic villains who are now -- the Green Lanterns used to be the police force and now they’re the bad guys in the eyes of the universe,” Chang said, explaining that the Durlans, the shape-shifting alien race that will be fighting the Corps, will be involved in his title as well.
Venditti also revealed that the Corps will deputize a lot of their old science-cell prisoners from Oa as, when it came to a choice between the moral Corps and the chaotic Durlans, many of the antagonists preferred to side with the Lanterns.
“I can’t overstate how important Kyle Rayner is,” Venditti said, speaking next about “Green Lantern: New Guardians'” place in the Lantern corner of the DC Universe. “He’s off with the Templar Guardians...everybody else thinks he’s dead.”
“How [his return] comes around and what that leads to will lead to a story in the back half of this year,” the writer added.
Looking at the cover of “Red Lanterns” #30, which depicted the Lanterns facing off against Dex-Starr, Venditti quickly brought fans up to speed on events in that book, stating that the Red Lanterns are now in charge of sector 2814, the sector Earth resides in, and only one Green Lantern is allowed on Earth, Simon Baz.
“They do have Supergirl now, so that helps,” Venditti joked as they displayed an interior page of Supergirl in her Red Lantern costume from issue #30.
Speaking more about Supergirl as a Red Lantern, Venditti said that her Kryptonian heritage will be problematic for current Red leader Guy Gardner, who did not realize she was Superman’s cousin until she already received the Red Ring and, “Doesn’t want to get punched out by Superman!” Venditti laughed.
Looking at the “Red Lanterns” line-up, Chang and the audience laughed again as Venditti labeled Dex-Starr” a, “kitty with rage issues!” He also explained that deposed-Red leader Atrocitus and Dex-Starr were in the midst of trying to create their own, new Red Lantern Corps.
Venditti then teased that many of the plot lines across the book will be resolved by August, including “Uprising,” which will see the Lanterns not only fighting the Durlans but the alien races duped by the Durlans into thinking the Corps is evil.
“‘Uprising’ is the first long-form story I came in...and it’s going to spin-off into another long-form story,” Venditti said, adding that there were big changes for Hal and Jon Stewart ahead.
Chang and Venditti then praised their fellow artist and writers on the other Lantern books, Chang stating, “There’s a great camaraderie with the whole team.”
“There’s a lot of good stuff in this head,” Chang added, patting Venditti’s head as the audience laughed.
“In #31 we’re starting a new thing where I’m going to do a role-call at the beginning of every issue,” Chang continued, explaining that he draws so many characters he felt it would be clearer.
The panel then threw the floor open to the audience for questions, laughing as the first came from a fan who asked what they thought of the “Green Lantern” movie. Venditti confessed he never saw it while Chang stated he enjoyed it, and the design sense that was put into the movie when it came to showing Oa and the myriad Lanterns.
“Even though it’s sci-f and an alien planet I want it to be realistic, I wan authenticity,” Chang continued, speaking of his own art style and telling the audience that he began in architecture, and worked as a Disney Imagineer, and the idea of “function follows form” is one he adheres to in his artwork.
“When [‘Red Lanterns’ writer] Charles [Soule] and I came down and worked out 2814 changing hands...the idea to put Red Lanterns in charge of Earth’s sector was to crash them into the rest of the DCU as they had been on the fringe,” Venditti said to a fan who wanted to know more about the thought process behind giving Earth to the Reds.
“I’m considering adding four new characters every issue so Bernard has to draw fourteen hundred and forty [characters], I haven’t decided,” Venditti added as the room cracked up.
The next audience member asked Venditti what work he had done before DC. Venditti cited his work on “X-O Manowar” for Valiant and mentioned his work on DC’s “Demon Knight.”
A Green Lantern cosplayer asked if they had any plans for Ion, the entity.
“Ion was one of the entities that went through the source wall...so the giant fish-looking thing, there’s a place for that but not here,” Venditti said. This led to a follow-up from another fan asking if Parallax refusing to go through the source wall at the end of “Lights Out” meant that that entity would return.
“It’s no accident that you picked up on that and now there’s a Sinestro series,” Venditti said, confirming that eventually readers will see what happens to Parallax.
A Saint Walker fan asked if there plans for a Blue Lanterns spinoff, especially in light of their disappearance at the end of “Lights Out.”
“It’s a crisis of faith right now...what Walker’s journey will be and his relationship with Mogo...will be part of the story I mentioned in the end of this year,” Venditti said.
A young boy asked Chang who his favorite Corps member was.
“My favorite is Jon Stewart,” Chang said. “I think over the last ten issues I’ve gotten a good sense of who he is, his mannerisms...he also happens to be one of the only African-American lead heroes over all of the comic book industry.”
Ganem asked Chang to describe the craziest alien he had to draw. “There was one with a long snout and an eyeball at the end,” Chang said.
“There’s a Lantern named B’ox, and he’s just a box,” Venditti said as Chang laughed. “His doesn’t even have hands, he’s making hand-related constructs with no hands!”
“That’s the beauty with Green Lantern; the limit is your imagination,” Chang said.
The last question came from a “Flash” fan who wanted to know if Barry Allen and Hal Jordan will meet in the comics any time soon.
“Man, that’s the question I get asked a lot!” Venditti laughed. “We don’t want to ram the characters together to just see the characters together...it’s not something that is going to happen in the immediate future, but is something we’ve talked about.”
Ganem then thanked everyone for coming out, ending the panel amidst a round of audience applause as Green Lantern fans rushed the stage to shake Chang and Venditti’s hands.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Friday, April 18, 2014
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Cullen Bunn On Sinestro, Fear, And His Favorite Yellow Lanterns
The new SINESTRO series digs deeper into Sinestro's fears
There's a new Sinestro series out featuring the writing of Cullen Bunn and the art of Dale Eaglesham. The book follows the once leader of the Sinestro Corps and is the first time, in quite some while, that a villain has had his own on-going series at DC. Cullen Bunn took the time to answer some questions about this series.
COMIC VINE: What will the focus of this series be about?
CULLEN BUNN: As this series begins, Sinestro has gone into a self-imposed exile. He’s abandoned his quest for control over the universe. But he soon learns that he can’t go into retirement just yet. He believed that his people—the Korugarians—had been lost when his home planet of Korugar was destroyed. But he discovers that many Korugarians are still alive. They fled Korugar in secret while it was under Sinestro’s rule. They now live as refugees cast throughout the galaxy, and they are persecuted and mistreated, in part because of their connection to Sinestro. That’s enough to bring him out of exile. He has a new mission—save his people —but he needs help to accomplish this. For that assistance, he turns to the Sinestro Corps. The Corps, however, has fallen far from what Sinestro had envisioned for it.
So, the focus for Sinestro (and for the book) is saving the Korugarians and returning the Sinestro Corps to its former glory. Of course, those are just the first steps for Sinestro. As he sees his plans coming together, greater plans begin to take shape.
Sinestro’s own pride and ambition will be both his greatest assets and his greatest enemies.
CV: Why is it time for a Sinestro on-going series?
CB: I think it’s past time! Sinestro has been one of the most popular villains (and most popular characters in general) for several years. He’s not a character who is suited to long periods of obscurity. He’s made a mark on the DC Universe, and readers want to know what’s next for him.
CV: For some of the newer readers out there, what's changed about this character, since the New 52 began?
CB: Sinestro has gone through a number of significant changes in recent years, but the events that have rattled him to the core have been the destruction of his homeworld of Korugar, his abandonment of the Sinestro Corps, and the estrangement of his daughter, Soranik Natu. These things will all play a major role in his new adventures, because he’s really setting out to “make things right” with his people, his daughter, and his army.
CV:In Sinestro's past, mainly pre-52, there's been a power play for leader ship of the Corps. Is Sinestro going to be leading again, and if so, will there be those in the corps that don't want him in power?
CB: Sinestro doesn’t necessarily see leading the Corps as something he wants. He sees it as a necessity. In his mind, he’s the only person who is good enough to control the Yellow Lanterns. So, yes, he’s going to make a move to take control again. And, yes, there will be those who do not want anything to do with Sinestro. He’ll spot some of these dissenters right away, but there will be those who are a little more secretive and cunning. Some of Sinestro’s greatest detractors will be in positions of great power within the Corps.
CB: Most certainly! Arkillo will be a regular supporting character in the series, along with many of the Yellow Lanterns. You’ll see most of your favorite Yellow Lanterns in this book, but there will be a core group of focal characters. Sinestro, Arkillo, Lyssa Drak, and a couple of new characters and surprise characters.
CV: What tone are you going for on this series?
CB: There are a couple of moods playing against each other in this series. Because the Yellow Lanterns are fear-based, there will always be an undercurrent of horror and darkness in the book. At the same time, the series will depict epic cosmic adventures—other worlds, other cultures, aliens—and I’m hoping to get the idea across that the universe has a deep history of its own that we’ve only seen glimpses of. Exploration and discovery will be important story elements. Finally, there will be a lot of intrigue and politics at play here, a lot of double-dealing and backstabbing as Sinestro tries to control the Yellow Lanterns. All of those elements should come together to give the book its own distinct flavor.
CV: Aside from Sinestro, what are some of the other aspects, within his life you wanted to focus on?
CB: Sinestro’s relationship with Soranik Natu is of great interest to me. Here we have a terrible villain who wants to be a father to a great hero. How he deals with his daughter is something that will inform readers as to the type of character he really is.
CV: Will this series be new-reader friendly? How much of the recent GL-events will need to be known?
CB: I’ve tried to keep this book as new-reader friendly as possible. There’s obviously a very rich history with Sinestro, but I’ve tried to summarize it pretty quickly in just a couple of pages. Those are elements that I’ll layer on as the series progresses. In the meantime, as long as you can buy into the idea that he was once a great (if somewhat misguided) man and lost everything because of his actions, you’ll be able to follow the book pretty easily.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Green Lantern Corps Writer Van Jensen Talks Uprising
Green Lantern Corps #30 saw John Stewart and the GLC round up the Durlans infiltrating Oa and lock them away. It was all a bit too easy, if you ask us. We also got a fascinating look at the history of the Durlans, but it was told by Durlan Green Lantern Daggle, so we're not sure how genuine it was. You can never trust a Durlan!
This issue is the last before the Uprising Green Lantern/Green Lantern Corps crossover begins in Green Lantern #31. Uprising will continue through to issues #32 and #33 of both comics, ending in Green Lantern Corps #33. Both titles have been showing the growing distrust of the Green Lanterns across the universe, and now an uprising against them is fast approaching.
We spoke with Green Lantern Corps writer Van Jensen about the events of this issue, how he is setting the stage for Uprising, and how his former job as a crime reporter has influenced his writing.
Check out what Jensen had to say and then take to the comments to let us know what you think about this issue of Green Lantern Corps! Will you be reading Uprising?
IGN Comics: My first question is about Star Sapphire Yarra. She's been a great part of the book, and I wanted you to talk about where her and John's relationships was when you started and how you see it now, just before Uprising.
That's been really good for John, but then of course the tension that enters in with their relationship is that both, through her background and training as a warrior and through her role as a Star Sapphire, her standards for protocol are a little bit different from John's. She's someone who is willing to kill, to take another life, for what she sees as the greater good. That's very antithetical to where John is right now. So that friction is really going to continue to grow between them. It's pretty central to what happens throughout the Uprising crossover. But in a lot of ways, the Uprising story is about the next evolution in their relationship. All I can say is it's very key to the story that's happening.
IGN: For this issue, the big development was that the Green Lanterns have rounded up all the Durlans on Oa and imprisoned them. But what was interesting about that is -- and even John says this out loud -- that it was a little too easy for them to do that. Was that obviously supposed to be a false victory to make the Green Lanterns think they had won?
Jensen: Yeah, absolutely. This was not even the opening battle of the war. Really, this issue, mostly what we saw, was the extent of the scope of the Durlans' effort against the Green Lanterns. In a way, it's setting the stage of what's to come. I can guarantee you that what's to come is much, much worse. I think this issue in a lot of ways is about establishing the depth that Durlans will go to. There are actually even worse things that the Durlans have in store. But they're a really compelling race, and so to get the chance to establish and explore their background in such depth was a lot of fun.
GLCOR-30-2-9d3bbJensen: No, it's certainly open to interpretation, because the key thing about Durlans as a people is that everything that they are, their identity both in terms of their biology, but also their personality, it's all based on deception. They can take on any form and act like any other thing. So it is literally impossible to ever trust the Durlans. That's the very center point. So Daggle, that's what makes him so compelling as a character. He seems like someone who wants to do good, but you can never be absolutely sure that he is ultimately trying to do good, that that is his ultimate aim.
But even beyond that, the way that he achieves good results, the way that he helps the Corps is through doing things that are all based on deception. Deception at its core is a negative trait, right? If everything you do is based on lying, how can you possibly be good? I think it's not my place to provide some final resolution. It's not like we're trying to say Daggle is ultimately good or ultimately bad, more just portray the inner conflict that he faces in every waking moment.
IGN: Will Daggle be a big player in Uprising?
Jensen: Yeah, he is very key to Uprising. Daggle is going to continue to be faithless. There are really only two groups that have ever provided any sort of home or family to him, and that's the Green Lantern Corps and the Durlans. He can't sit this one out. He has to pick one or the other. The choices that he makes and the actions that he takes are going to have huge ramifications.
IGN: So everything you and Robert Venditti have been doing in your respective books has been leading up to Uprising, which starts this month, right?
Jensen: Green Lantern #31 is the first issue of Uprising, yeah. So it's both #31 issues, #32s and #33s [of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps].
Jensen: Yeah, so we're almost looking at this as the big finish of the first season of our run on Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, specifically. It's really all about the Corps being left in a bad place where they're being questioned by the universe and questioning themselves as to whether they're still heroes based on the actions taken by the Guardians in recent years and forced to deal with the fallout of that. It's really that the universe has turned against the Green Lanterns.
I think the question that's at the center of it is, how do you protect a universe that hates you? That becomes an overarching conflict. The Durlans were essentially waiting for the opportune time to exact their revenge upon the Corps and have been working towards it for a long, long time and in very insidious ways. This is a time when the Corps is perfectly set up to be destroyed, so the Durlans aren't going to let that opportunity pass them by.
IGN: As I'm hearing you talk about all this, I'm reminded that you come from a background as a crime reporter, so it sounds like there may be some crossover there, like when police protect people who hate the police. Could you talk to anything specifically that you've written in Green Lantern Corps that has been directly informed by your experience as a crime reporter?
Jensen: I guess the most direct thing is probably just knowing the nature of criminals and how they approach things. The Durlans are in many ways criminals, if on a huge scale. A lot of what you see as a crime reporter is kind of crimes of passion or basic, small-scale crimes, but there's also the occasional "long con," so to speak, some very elaborate schemes that take months or years to unfold. It's really interesting, having seen what motivates someone to do something like that and see what motivates someone to dedicate that much time and that much of their lives to either exacting revenge or stealing something or any of that. That's really who the Durlans are. They've been waiting and stewing and building up this anger. For years, they've dedicated themselves purely to enacting that, and that's kind of a terrifying thing.
IGN: What would you say to fans to get them excited for Uprising?
Jensen: The big thing is, with what the Durlans are doing, literally nothing is safe. No one can be trusted. There are a lot of huge, huge things in store that are going to radically change the book. They're going to radically change things for John and for Fatality and for all of our key characters. But the biggest thing is just, whatever you expect, there's going to be something even bigger and crazier and scarier in store.
Also check out another interview over at ComicBookResoures here.
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