DC Is Killing Off Green Lantern John Stewart...

[The Toyroom]

...Wait! He's had a stay of execution!

In a bizarre series of events the last two days, apparently new incoming "Green Lantern Corps" and "Red Lanterns" writer Josh Hale Fialkov walked off both books
before any of his issue hit, citing the now infamous "editorial differences".

What happened is DC decided to change the already approved direction of his plots and was forcing him to kill John Stewart. Fialkov balked and walked off.
Once the news hit today, the internet was in a brief uproar before DC decided to do an about face (to save face) and gave John Stewart a reprieve.

So apparently, for now, his death is off the table...For now....

I swear as much as we all seem to like to bash the NEW 52 and long for the old days, I find it very sad that this once great comic book giant is constantly running around like a chicken with its head cut off, changing already approved editorial directions on a DIME.

We've seen it happen with a variety of creators...whether you like them or not, they've all been singing the same tune: George Perez on "Superman", Gail Simone on "Batgirl", Rob Liefeld on "Savage Hawkman" and "Deathstroke"...Heck, just announced writer for "Action Comics" Andy Diggle walked off the book pretty much the same way Fialkov did only a few days before. And his issues have yet to hit either.

UnBELIEVABLE!

[Earth 2 Chris]

Why can't anyone with some sense at WB see this and come clean house? It's ridiculous.

Killing off John Stewart would be really dumb as well. There is a whole generation of fans who consider him to be THE Green Lantern, thanks to Justice League. Plus, DC seems hot to have more than just white heroes these days (as they should). Why kill their first African-American hero?

I know they would have brought him back, but it's still just nuts.

Chris

[Nostalgiabuff]

the whole killing of the hero has become a joke. nobody believes they will stay dead. it's just a gimmick. even the major characters who were killed, and whose death actually meant something, have been brought back. Barry Allen, Jason Todd. it's a joke

[BlackKnight]

I said he was gonna Die over a Year Ago.
He's the Only Lantern that Hasn't.
... No Surprise. Good for Fiaklov .
I thought that this New 52 ..., was suppost to be "Lighter" ? .... lol.

[madmarva]

It would be interesting to find out who is hurling all the curve balls at the talent. Is it the individual editors of the books, Harras, Segura, Chase... Who? Is it coming from above or is it coming from all of them?

According to Bleeding Cool, where all these issues have been initially reported, Didio and Neilson gave the talent assurances this kind of stuff would halt at a recent creative conference in North Carolina. But since Diggle and Fialkov exited, as Anthony pointed out, after seeming very excited in interviews about the assignments.

It's hard to clean house when the books are actually selling better than before the reboot, but calling what's going on at DC chaos is being kind.

It sounds like the individual book editors either aren't trusted enough and higher ups are sending notes after looking over plans or they are trusted too much and want to be writers rather than editors themselves and not allowing the writers to chart the course.

There are some new 52 books I enjoy, although I would have preferred them stick with the old continuity, but it sucks to see creators exit books before their first issue hits the stands. I was interested in seeing what Diggle would do with Superman.

As for John Stewart, why not just let him retire or take a leave of absence. I guess a death is more dramatic, but not really, not anymore.

If Guy was going to become a Red Lantern, Kyle was going to be in New Guardians and Hal in GL, with Stewart dying who would have been the lead in GL Corps?

[MIB41]

Wait a minute. Didn't they reboot the ENTIRE DC Universe? And now they already need to kill a hero? Wow... That's what I call writing yourself into a hole fast. How pathetic. I would have walked off over that as well.

[MegoSteve]

Their focus is less on good storytelling and developing long term fans and more on getting their gimmicks picked up by the major news outlets in hopes of getting short terms casual interest. It's a shame, but fortunately for me, there are thousands of back issues to be bought and read and modern continuity can be ignored.

[jwyblejr]

I guess poor John Stewart hasn't been through enough over the years. Now they feel like they need to kill the guy off. I feel sorry for him.

[johnnystorm]

Well, I predicted that Johns leaving the GL universe would lead to chaos, and it's looking like I was right. Apparently I'll be saving $12 bucks more a month by dropping my last 4 DC titles. But hey, now I can spend the money on the remaining Silver Age issues I need! Thanks DC!

[bobws]

Isn't the new Muslim GL a Black man? Hate to say this , but because of his faith he makes more of an interesting GL then good ole John.
So they can just swap out those guys and maybe people won't be too upset.
Too bad some of us have liked John for almost 40 years. Oh wait! we aren' t who they are trying to sell books to.

[Earth 2 Chris]

The 20-somethings they ARE trying to grab grew up with John as GL. They should be pushing him forward, not under.

Chris

[The Toyroom]

Andy Diggle's replacement on "Action Comics" was supposed to be Tony Daniels, who is also the artist of the book. Now apparently Daniels will be done also as he finishes working on scripting/drawing just the 3 issues that Diggle had already plotted...

[ctc]

>I find it very sad that this once great comic book giant is constantly running around like a chicken with its head cut off

That’s not new. 60's DC was like that.... remember Wonder Woman and the Titans going powerless?

On the up-side, you could say that DC is FINALLY listening to the fans.

>There is a whole generation of fans who consider him to be THE Green Lantern, thanks to Justice League.

....who should be “coming of age” in a few years, so this’ll give THEM something to complain about.

“It’s the Cccciiiirrrrrrccclllleeeeee of lllliiifffffeeeeee!!!!”

>And now they already need to kill a hero?

It’s the daytime soap problem: you have a fairly limited repitoire of characters who are active within a limited number of stories within a perpetual setting; so there are only SO MANY permutations you can do of those stories. So yeah, EVERYBODY in a superhero setting gets to die at some point. Rebooting the universe kinda resets things, but you’re still subject to the same problems as before, meaning the same weird, unfortunate permutations are gonna work their way around again. The cycle has been speeding up since the late 80's with the increasingly narrow definition of what makes a proper superhero story. (AND contraction of the number of overall star players. If the same couple of characters show up in EVERY book.... I’m looking at you, Batman.... then you lose potential new recruits who could take up those storylines and provide a bit of a cognitive extension for the setting.)

‘Course, I think the speeding up is a HUGE detriment for DC (and Marvel) ‘cos the current generation of comic fans grew up without perpetual books. This kind of “He’s dead! He’s back! He’s Evil! He’s Dead! He’s back!....” thing is a big turnoff if you’re used to a linear story.

Don C.

[TomStrong]

I think they're turming off younger readers with this crap. It's becoming too much like daytime soaps. Killing off robin the green lantern. It's a stupid gimmick. And it makes me crazy. Even if they bring back the characters later in some resurrection 'hes back" kind of story, comic companies are going to be seen as the boy who cried wolf. Is it so hard to write good stories that they have to resort to this?. I don't subscribe to current comics because of this. I wait until they're in one volume and can scan for the stories I think I'll like. You know what, ill rant some more. The other day I handed a teenage boy I know the most recent copies of justice league of America comics and he looked at me and said, "what do you want me to do with these?" I responded " read them!". He looked at me like I was crazy and just got out his cellphone. Nuff said?

[PNGwynne]

‘Course, I think the speeding up is a HUGE detriment for DC (and Marvel) ‘cos the current generation of comic fans grew up without perpetual books. This kind of “He’s dead! He’s back! He’s Evil! He’s Dead! He’s back!....” thing is a big turnoff if you’re used to a linear story.

Don C.

Absolutely! Is it just me, or are superhero comics becoming designed for video-game attentuion spans/mentalities?