Holly Buys the Comics So You Don't Have To

[cosmolinguist]

Yesterday when I was picking up Andrew’s comics and harrassing the guy who works in the comic shop, as is my wont, he suddenly asked me a very difficult question.

“Does Andrew like Green Lantern better, or Green Arrow?”

“Uh... ” I felt like I was on The Newlywed Game! “I have no idea! Green Lantern? Maybe?” He does talk about Green Lantern a lot more...

The guy, it turns out, was not asking me in preparation for a career as a lame quiz-show host. He said “Okay, then I’ll give him that cover...” and wandered over to exchange one of the comics in Andrew’s pile for one on the shelves. I was relieved, thinking that even if I was wrong the stakes wouldn’t be too high. Andrew’s not the kind of nerd who bothers about variant covers. I got to choose most of the Final Crisis ones myself (it’s a lot easier for me to be in the comics shop on Thursdays than it is for him, even when I’m working) though then it was easy: I usually went for the one with the less breastular cover.

I just remembered to ask him, though, and it turns out I did choose right; he likes Green Lantern more than Green Arrow, and he only seemed annoyed that I did not find this as obvious as he did. I protested that I didn’t know anything about them but then realized I know rather a lot: one is the liberal Democrat hippie of the comics world, that shoots people with arrows that aren’t always just real arrows but might have fire or little fists on them to punch people; the other’s something to do with the Guardians of the Universe (not Galaxy, as I first thought, that’s another comic... unless I have them backwards again) who gets his power from a ring when he says an oath that Andrew wanted to use as the vows in our wedding.

Not bad, for someone who thinks she doesn’t know anything! Or do I mean, not good?

Also, I couldn’t decide whether to be proud of myself or terrified when Dan was trying to think of the name of one of the Green Lanterns and while I nearly said the name of one of the Flashes I stopped in time and even managed to dredge up from my deepest subconscious a name that I thought might be that of a Green Lantern and hesitantly suggested it though I had no idea how many Green Lanterns there are or which this was:

“Is it Hal Jordan?” I asked.

“Yes!” he said excitedly.

I still can’t decide if I’m impressive or a total loser for knowing anything about Green Lantern though, but I think it’s pretty good for someone who doesn’t really read superhero comics, ever.

Edit: You can show your support for your Green of choice (these two, among many others) in drjon‘s poll here! Inspired by this entry, aww. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, also a bit terrified when I remember how many people are actually reading the nonsense I write...

Comments

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

One of the other Green Lanterns is Jon Stewart, but you'll have to come up with your own way to remember that. :)

[cosmolinguist]

Oh you're just confusing me now! Plus Jon Stewart isn't in syllopsium's list of Green Lanterns below (though that does look like it's based on what he remembers of them so it might not be complete...) and oh god why do I care about this at all? MY BRAIN IS GOING TO EXPLODE!

[borneaway.livejournal.com]

I didn't know there were more than one Green Lantern. I thought it was just a dumb barrel-scraping super hero, sort of:

Green Lantern: Stop! You're under arrest.
Super Villain: Get lost, I'm a super Villain.
Green Villain: Stop, damn you, or I'll make you stop!
Super Villain: With what?
Green Lantern: With... THIS!
[...]
Super Villain: What's that? A green light?
Green Lantern: It's a LANTERN!
Super Villain: ...sigh... You know, there was a time when they would send Batman after me. [he pulls out gun]

etc...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

If you're going to take the names that literally, bats aren't ever so threatening themselves!

[borneaway.livejournal.com]

good point! this sounds like the good basis for a comic fans argument: if in a fight the superheros only had whatever their name literally suggested they had, who would win?

bats could be annoying i suppose, and spiders would be gross, but i fancy the silver surfer. you could do some serious damage with a surfboard.

[matgb]

Iron Man's bar would break the daft surfboard.

Then again, Quicksilver would just give everyone mercury poisoning.

[borneaway.livejournal.com]

You're assuming that "Iron Man" suggests he has an iron bar. What if he really only does just have an iron?

Handy for getting the creases out of your cape, but not much else.

[matgb]

Depends--I'd rather not get touched by a heated iron, even if it's just a fire heated one instead of a modern electric one.

[borneaway.livejournal.com]

True, and you could throw it once it gets hot for added value.

But that leaves the door open to Iron Man's achilles heel, his Kryptonite if you will. You just keep away from power sockets.

Also, you could make him burn his ear by phoning him while he's ironing...

[cosmolinguist]

Also, you could make him burn his ear by phoning him while he's ironing...

Brilliant. You know I love you, right? Good.

[cosmolinguist]

What if he has a waffle iron?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

My money would be on Radioactive Man or The Human Bomb, though they'd both have fairly pyrrhic victories.

[syllopsium.livejournal.com]

The other green lanterns are :

Alan Scott : Golden Age green lantern, powers affected by wood instead of yellow. Powers originally said to be mystic in origin, but I understand that recently it's been retconned (past history changed) so that it was, in fact, the same source of other green lanterns.

Guy Gardner : annoying git who got things done, part of hideously bad 70s and eighties comics. Ego the size of a planet.

Kyle Raynor : Followed Hal Jordan and less sickeningly smug and institutionalized than him. Ring not affected by yellow due to the later explained bollocks that fear is a yellow creature called Parallax that infested Hal Jordan.

That's all for sector 2814 - Earth (oh god, I remember all this shit. Kill me now, please. I don't even *like* Green Lantern). There are other green lanterns of 3600 other sectors like Mogo and Killowog.

[cosmolinguist]

oh god, I remember all this shit. Kill me now, please. I don't even *like* Green Lantern

That's sort of how I feel.

Oh yeah, I remembered the bits about wood and yellow too, forgot to include that in my list here but that's one of the things I told Andrew to get him to stop talking after I made the mistake of grumbling "Oh, what's the difference anyway?" He told me all about them ages ago so I hope he's proud :)

[syllopsium.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not, because he was already mentioned above :)

[wildheartofire.livejournal.com]

My only contribution in response is - Green Arrow for the win!

[cosmolinguist]

Yes if he'd asked me which one you like better it would've been easier to answer!

[innerbrat]

Seconded.

Because you know what, Green Arrow has never tried to destroy the world. So there.

[innerbrat]

I imagine there's a room full or arrows in the Lance-Queen household that Ollie swears he'll use one of these days; including ones that would probably cause World Wars or Crisis level events. You might say it's only a matter of time. Ollie might think they're bound to be useful one of these days, but really, I know better.

[diffrentcolours]

I love this user icon.