The Rough But Rewarding Journey of John Stewart, Green Lantern

Mike (0:30)

We are covering the history of John Stewart, the Green Lantern. Let's get all our dumb Daily Show jokes out of the way.

Jake (0:39)

It was a very tough week with Marie being like, wait, you're doing an episode on John Stewart? Be like, no, not that John Stewart. He was like, oh, I was excited to watch some old Daily Show. He was like, no, we're watching Justice League.

Mike (0:53)

He was trained by Craig Killiborne.

Jake (0:58)

Really felt like a pooser having to disappoint her this week.

Mike (1:02)

So the show Lanterns is still on as we're talking about this. Episode 5 just came out the Sunday before we recorded this. And a lot of people are talking about it. This is a character that I think many people are familiar with. But the history of him, I think, is a bit of a blind spot to the point where just about every time you see him, it does feel like the first time. There's a lot of reconstruction and we're going to go through the history. This will be the first comic book episode where Mike doesn't get to talk about the 60s.

Because our first...

Holden (1:44)

Because black people didn't exist until the 1970s.

Mike (1:47)

Yes. But this is a 1971 and yes, I will just also say we're going to try our best. There are a lot of great black content creators that cover this stuff as well. If you're like, why are three white guys talking about this? But it's also, the problem becomes, then the white guys don't even learn it.

Holden (2:11)

Yeah. No, we got- I was going to say, but then you'll be like, if we didn't do it, you'd be like, why are the white guys only talking about other white guys?

Jake (2:16)

Because we have our, you know, we got a Hal Jordan, we got a Kyle Raynor, and we got our Guy Gardner here. So of course we can talk about it.

Mike (2:24)

Unbelievable.

Jake (2:26)

Look at your heart, you know it to be true. All that's missing is the bowl cut.

Mike (2:32)

Yeah.

Holden (2:33)

I had one at one point.

Mike (2:34)

Did you?

Holden (2:35)

Yeah, as a child, as a boy.

Mike (2:36)

But what are your, you know, I walked into this knowing, this was my biggest blind spot of all the comic book episodes we've done.

And part of that is I'm more of a Marvel guy than a DC guy. And also some of it is, you know, this is what it has been a side character a lot of times. And we'll get into why that is in moments.

Holden (3:05)

You know, I know- Most of the issues start with, who the fuck are you?

Mike (3:09)

Yeah, over and over again.

Holden (3:11)

I asked for Green Lantern, who the hell are you, man?

Mike (3:15)

But I think, you know, what's going to be amazing is, I think by the end of this, you know, all of the different stories, all of the different origins, all the different interpretations meld to create a really awesome character that I'm glad exists.

Jake (3:30)

That is genuinely kind of, genuinely kind of, what am I talking about? No, this was the end of this week of research, reading through all these stories. They kind of did an amazing job kind of consolidating what was this like cipher avatar that was always kind of being reinvented by each writer in each generation. And now in Lanterns, he is one of the most captivating superhero characters I've seen in the modern era, especially in like a live action setting. And all of that characterization has been taken piecemeal from these stories and the team at Lanterns should be incredibly proud of what they've done by this character.

Mike (4:10)

This is a character that I think was created with the best of intentions and that wasn't always followed through.

Jake (4:16)

Oh, you mean literally everything Denny O'Neil has ever done?

Holden (4:21)

Yeah, for me, this was also, this was maybe the most interesting one of these we've done so far, these kind of Mike comic book lists, retrospectives, you can get the list, by the way, it would be in the description. Mike's posted on Facebook page, Nerd of Mouth Facebook page, all that stuff. But anyways, I would definitely recommend reading through it. I love these episodes, getting to read all of this in this retrospective-y way. But again, probably the most interesting because also I have the biggest blind spot, not just on John Stewart, but Green Lantern in general, honestly, is just, you know, and I do find him to be the most interesting guy in the room more and more as I'm like getting it.