1) Green Lantern has a lot of cool powers through his power ring but his weakness is a little too darn common for me to consider him a Superhero. GL’s weakness is…YELLOW. No, seriously. It’s yellow. Anything yellow and Mr. Hero guy becomes useless. Seriously, Spongebob Squarepants could take over the world and there’s not a darn thing Green Lantern could do about it except ask his cable provider to take Nickelodeon off his television so he doesn’t have to watch.
2) Speaking of Nickelodeon, the star of Green Lantern, Ryan Reynolds, got his start guest starring on “Sabrina The Teenage Witch.” Not exactly a great origin story.
3) There’s simply way too many green heroes to keep track of. And they’re all pretty much cooler than Green Lantern. There’s the Incredible Hulk. There’s Green Arrow who has kind of an Errol Flynn thing going on. And you’ve got the Green Hornet whose sidekick was Bruce freakin’ Lee. Dude, if your sidekick is Bruce Lee you must be awesome.
4)) Green Lantern has to plug in his power. Seriously. He can run around and save the world but every night he’s gotta’ plug his ring into his little lantern. So his super ring is like some hybrid vehicle that has to be plugged in? That’s kinda’… unimpressive, isn’t it? Dude, if you want to be taken seriously, run the ring off some good ol’ fashioned fossil fuels or something as a backup. Batman doesn’t plug into anything but his inner rage.
5) Green Lantern’s sidekick is named…you ready for this? Doiby Dickles, a fat little taxi driver from Brooklyn. Sooo…Batman has Robin. Superman has Krypto the Superdog and Green Lantern has Doiby freakin’ Dickles?
6) Hal Jordan who becomes the Green Lantern in the movie, according to comic books, later turns into a supervillain Parallax who attempts a little thing sane people like to call cosmic genocide. What’s next? Are we going to watch “Little Adolf” movies about how wonderful little Hitler was.
7) CGI abs. Nuff said.
8) Poetry. Green Lantern has to recite a little poem to access his super powers. OK, superheroes shouldn’t have to recite poetry. And you’ve got this “man” in a skin tight green outfit with fake abs reciting poetry. I don’t know. It’s just kinda’ weirdand maybe it’s best if I don’t comment further. I’m sure it’ll bring in the “Glee” crowd but I’m not up for it.
June 23, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Wait a minute. You NEED a reason not to see Green Lantern?
June 23, 2011 at 2:23 pm
"Green Lantern's sidekick is named…you ready for this? Doiby Dickles, a fat little taxi driver from Brooklyn."
Wrong Green Lantern. Doiby Dickles was the sidekick of the Green Lantern of the Forties. As sidekicks for that era went he was a cut above, being highly amusing.
The Green Lantern of the Fifties sidekick was an Eskimo airplane mechanic nicknamed "Pieface" and usually described as a greasemonkey. This was obviously way before the days of political correctness "the Fifties", although "Pie" was portrayed as intelligent, courageous and resourceful.
The other "sidekick" of Green Lantern was Carrol Ferris, the rich heiress of the company that test pilot Hal Jordan worked for. Jordan was in love with her, although she only had eyes for his alter ego Green Lantern. She would occasionally, against her will, turn into the arch enemy of Green Lantern, Star Sapphire. Although this sailed by me as a kid, perhaps this was a biting commentary on some boyfriend-girlfriend relationships!
June 23, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Matt: Awesome!
Although I grew up with the Justice League on Saturday mornings, I was never a big DC Comics fan. Sure, Batman and Superman were cool (plus, I really liked the Flash), but the rest … not so much.
I remember my brother had some Aquaman Underoos. Why Aquaman? I don't know; they must have been on sale.
Anyway, I'm not interested in the Green Lantern movie either. Thanks to you, I've ammunition to explain why.
June 23, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Can't GL and Superman have a reciprocal arrangement? "Any time a yellow guy tries to take over I tag you in, and whenever a non-yellow bad guy pulls out kryptonite, you tag me in!"
Love the punchline to number four!
June 23, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Thanks for saving me the cash on this one and making me laugh repeatedly in the process. I want to see Cars 2, so hope you don't have 8 reasons to not go see that one.
June 23, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Oh, come on. There is a reason behind the yellow thing, and pretty sure that isn't even the case anymore. He has to live up to his name, so number 4 makes perfect sense. And I think Ryan Reynolds actually has abs, so…
Also, I am not going to see it because I don't want Ryan Reynolds destroying my comic books.
June 23, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Hilarious! This part is just outstanding:
"And you've got the Green Hornet whose sidekick was Bruce freakin' Lee. Dude, if your sidekick is Bruce Lee you must be awesome."
June 23, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Awesome, Archbolds. I've often wondered why Green Lantern had muscles. He doesn't need them. His power comes from a ring. John Candy (R.I.P.) could have played Green Lantern just as easily as Ryan Reynolds.
June 23, 2011 at 6:30 pm
It was an ok film, could have been better. Maybe next time, like batman. Still it was better than sex in the city, and ok for the family.
June 23, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Most of these reasons honestly have little to do with the Green Lantern as presented in the actual movie. That said, obviously I saw it, as I had kids that dragged me to it, and while it was engaging, it was also quite bland. The Dark Knight has the bar set pretty darned high these days…
June 23, 2011 at 7:37 pm
The reason for the color yellow weakness -at least in the comics – was because of an impurity in the green energy. Green is the color of willpower and yellow is the color of fear. The guardians had captured parallax inside the main battery. Parallax was the embodiment of fear thus explaining the impurity. Later on in the comics the main villian, Sinestro, was captured by Hal Jordan and imprisoned in the same battery. Sinestro freed Parallax who then possessed Hal Jordan. Hal Jordan went crazy and killed the entire Green Lantern Corps. Then he became the Spectre…yeah. It's pretty complicated. But Hal Jordan redeemed himself in the end.
June 23, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Don't know why, Archbold, but I don't like the character too. To tell the truth, I prefer the Marvel Comics; as for the DC comics, the only character I like is Batman.
June 24, 2011 at 4:22 am
My husband dragged me to the movie. I told him I only watch serious comic book movies like X-Men. 🙂