Kyle Rayner: Adult.

It's all fiction, right?

In my four years of writing "Seven Hells!" I came to appreciate the absurdity of the comics medium. No... I came to love it. One of the things that made comes fun was re-reading old comics with a "supposedly" adult's eyes.

One of my favorite things to do was the taking of comics panels, decades in circulation, and re-purposing them, mining them for every ounce of subtext and innuendo contained within the gutters of the comics page.

And it was fun. We were able to make them ours.

And then, one day, I can't explain why, not so much.

And then it was on to something else; and that's when he came along.

That kid. The one who took the other guy's place, the usurper. The one who wasn't on The Superfriends so he's not the real one. The pretender. The one who got the ring because he happened to be in the right place (alley) at the wrong time.

Kyle. Rayner. The Lantern of the '90's. The "grunge" Lantern.

Kyle Rayner, for nearly one full decade, the only Green Lantern.

Last week, his time as a character was brought to an end and I must say, I am not unhappy for one reason and one reason only:

He went out the way he came in; simply doing what comes right. Simply doing whatever it takes to keep The Corps going.

He did it, initially, by taking the ring and the responsible of being the sole Green Lantern. With Green Lantern Corps #42, it was sacrificing himself to keep the central power battery intact, an act ensuring that the Lanterns would be able to fight on.

Once again, he did what was right.

Four years ago, I started making fun of Kyle on a weekly basis in a little thing called "Kyle Rayner: ADULT." It started out as an exercise in writers subliminal or overt (mis)understanding of who he was as a character. What we got mainly was a Kyle who would be portrayed as "green" in ever sense of the word.

At the time, it was comedy gold. Every week, as I worked hard to make fun of Kyle, without knowing, I came ever closer to understanding the character of Kyle Rayner. Rash. Selfish. Unsure. Oblivious. Cocky. Imaginative.

Kyle Rayner was YOU as if you'd been handed the last, most powerful weapon in the Corps lineage and use it to the best of your human ability.

In his first outing, he experienced horror as his his then girlfriend was killed while he wore the Green Lantern ring.

There was no Corps, no Guardians of The Universe to guide him through this. Still, he went on.

When The League needed a Green Lantern, he filled the role and the tradition of a Justice League Green Lantern. He did this on a team where he had to live up to and live down the legacy Hal Jordan had left behind.

In his time as Green Lantern, we saw him learn, grow, love, respect and ultimately, earn respect. Kyle, as a character, was allowed to become something many others never became: human. Kyle was a human character. He worked hard to simply be OK and sometimes shocked himself by doing more than he thought he could. He, not by circumstance but by deed, became THE Green Lantern. He became MY Green Lantern. In the eyes of many, he became OUR Green Lantern.

If this truly is the last we see of Kyle for a while, I'm OK with that and for two reasons; he died a hero's death. He got what deserved.

Second? It's all fiction. Right?

"Would I have killed Blue Beetle? No, I wouldn't have, but I'm not the guy writing it. It's not like they went out and took the guy out back and shot him. Any one of us could get a call a month from now saying, 'Bring him back' and you type 'Blue Beetle walks in the door' and everyone goes, "Oh, he got better!" - Keith Giffen

Seriously?

So last year, I decided to pick up the first few issues of a series called 'Kick-Ass'. It was an interesting idea, but it had the same problem most Mark Millar comics have, which is to say that it relied on over-the-top, shock and awe style narrative as substitute for, you know, actual story telling. I quickly stopped reading.

Well, I guess the powers that be and I don't see eye to eye on this one, because apparently 7 issues of young people getting beaten within an inch of their lives has 'blockbuster' written all over it. I'll assume many of you have already seen this:

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi525600025/

There's a chance this movie could end up being good, since it appears that Mark Millar didn't write the screenplay. But there's been a lot of talk among comic fans about how the print arm of the DC and Marvel entertainment empires is simply R&D for other mass market material. With 'Kick-Ass', we have a film that was probably developed at the same time as the comic, rather than having a comic inspire the film. Are we glimpsing the future of the industry here? Or is this just an example of people who think they have a clever idea trying to make as much money as possible? How the hell did this happen?

SPOILERS!!!!

R.I.P.
(More thoughts to come later.)

Lady Cop: The Movie

In the words of Ghostface, "Her face glow like I was exposed to sunlight. She's happy, her hair, toes and nails is dumb right."

I spent the better part of two years blogging about a fictional comic book character with a particularly unnerving knowledge of VD.

Yes, you may know her as Liza. Or Chief Liza Warner to some. To those who love her, she will always be known as LADY COP.

DC Comics keeps focusing on dumb crap like Blackest Night and R.E.B.E.L.S., leaving our beloved Liza Warner to rest her sweet l'il concussed head, waiting for the chance to take her rightful place in history as the first newly elected surgeon ever to fight crime while wearing a McGruff The Crime Dog suit.

So, until DC Comics fans wake up and stop drinking their newest flavor, Blackest Night Kool-Aid, we will just make our own damn fun, won't we?!?

With The Batman movies having become a summer staple and Green Lantern soon to join it, the next character in line to receive the Hollywood treatment simply should be Lady Cop, bikini wearing ambassadors be damned.

While no actress could ever truly encompass the skill needed to portray a killer blonde devoid of a sense of self-awareness and overt sexuality, while carrying a HUGE nightstick, we'll give it a try.

WHO COULD POSSIBLY PORTRAY LADY COP?

Unsung Heroes Of Comics: Peter Tomasi

Before writing titles such as Nightwing, The Green Lantern Corps and The Outsiders, he edited some of my favorite titles. It's not every day an editor can make you take notice of his name.

He can when he's the editor who shepherds writer Geoff Johns onto JSA, pulls a pre-Identity Crisis Rags Morales onto Hawkman along with the previously mentioned author, cementing the JSA and its' related titles into the franchise it's become today.

He did it again with the Will Pfeifer-penned H-E-R-O, an adult take on the Silver Age "Dial "H" For Hero" concept producing one of my all-time favorite single issues, H-E-R-O #11, the story of the DC Universe's first "superhero."

Along the way he helped restore, along with Geoff Johns, Hal Jordan and The Green Lantern Corps to glory and beyond, giving it the momentum needed to become what it is today: the engine that is DC's "event" title, Blackest Night.

While JSA and Green Lantern are the titles that most would point out as the most important of his stint as a DC Comics editor, in my mind, his most lasting legacy is his choice to install writer Will Pfeifer and artist future Green Lantern Corps cohort Patrick Gleason as the creative team on Aquaman, as they produced a six-issue run on how Aquaman and more importantly, comics should be done.

To me, what stood out the most about Tomasi's editorial stint was this: you could tell he was helping create books that he'd want to read. This intelligence and consideration shown on every page just as it does today in his own comics writing.

Silver Linings: Strength - UPDATED

He can change the course of mighty rivers with his bare hands.

Pretty impressive. Once I saw him turn a lump of coal into a flawless diamond by squeezing it in the palms of his hand.

That is superstrength and all the argument needed to make Superman the strongest person in The DC Comics Universe.

To back it up, at the 3:45 mark, here's the logic I'd have used at seven years old...



I never noticed how rape-y Superman's utterance of, "Don't fight me, Mother Earth," truly sounded until just now...

Moving on...

So? Who's The Second Strongest Person In The DC Universe?



Vote early, vote often!

AND THE WINNER WITH 26% OF THE VOTE IS....

SHAZAM!

Silver Linings-UPDATED!!!

In the DC Universe, we all know who's the greatest of any one thing:

SHAZAM! is The World's Mightiest Mortal.

The Flash, The Fastest Man Alive.

Batman, The World's Greatest Detective.

So what happens when you're second to the best? Where's your recognition?

We here at Second Printing respect the technique needed to stand out in a universe full of "bestest" of any one thing. Yes, we celebrate it!

With Batman, undoubtedly, being the greatest martial artist of The DC Universe,... Wait for it....

So, in a rolling feature, much like DETECTIVE: COMICS, we'll ask you the loyal reader to decide the second best, starting with:

WHO IS THE SECOND GREATEST MARTIAL ARTIST IN THE DC UNIVERSE?



Feel free to explain why you came to your decision in the "COMMENTS" section.

UPDATED:

AND THE WINNAH WITH 30% OF THE VOTE:

LADY SHIVA