Superhero Media: Green Lantern Emerald Knights

Released to tie in with the live-action Green Lantern film, Green Lantern Emerald Knights is an anthology of shorter stories involving the Green Lantern Corps, framed with a new recruit Arisia learning the history of the great Lanterns before her. Adapted from many comics over the history of both the character and the Corps, Emerald Knights changes much in the adaptation, losing quite a lot of the nuance that made the originals great. After watching Emerald Knights, I found I had to pull out my copy of The DC Universe by Alan Moore and thumb through some of the stories again. I've long felt that the Green Lantern Corps offer a great wide spectrum (pardon the pun) for telling interesting stories, which may be why Moore was drawn to the characters as well, with a literal universe of tales waiting to be told. I find it a real shame that it always seems to be the same few stories told over and over, the text diminishing with auxiliary performance. 

To me, what makes "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" or "Tygers" great is that they are isolated narratives that form part of the larger setting without directly informing everything that comes after. The initial twist that Mogo is a planet, rather than a human-sized alien, is fun, it makes the story memorable; but as Mogo turns up again and again, it becomes part of the background and the unique nature of the character is lost. The Lovecraftian, Faustian story of "Tygers" is so great because it drifts far from the Silver Age Science Fantasy typical of the comics, being a story unlike any other. Emerald Knights disposes of the demonic visions, replacing the fantastic antagonists with a pre-Red Lantern Corps Atrocitus, for much more mundane results. And there lies the rub, Emerald Knights especially, but also the broader Platinum Age Green Lantern storytelling, wants to tie every part of lore that the fans enjoy into the next event comic. 

Again, the apocalyptic ramblings of a monster predicting the final end of the Green Lantern Corps in "Tygers" is so great because it is sweeping, mythical and will never be here; once "War of Light" tries to tie it all together, the magic is lost. For all that Emerald Knights tries to be a great introduction to the broader lore of the Corps, the neutering of the classic stories means that any potential fan is better off just chasing down the comics and reading those stories. As mentioned above, The DC Universe by Alan Moore is a good buy, especially if you have the version without the post-2000s stories, but there are also collections of the stories that deal with the Corps rather than specific members. I really hope I never have to sit through a live-action adaptation of "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" that has been stretched from a four-page filler story into a feature film, because I could see that happening.