My favorite thing about the kerfuffle surrounding the mystery GL being teased in Green Lantern #0 is how it’s begun to feed on itself. The first wave of responders criticized DC’s racial insensitivity in introducing a new Muslim character with a gun and what looks like a ski mask. And then the second wave of responders criticized the first wave’s racial insensitivity in immediately assuming any dark-skinned character with a gun is inherently a thug.

And we here at Comic Critics are never content to take a side when we can poke fun at both. I like how we seem to be unconsciously creating a continuity where Batman just doesn’t know how to react to black people.

I will say this, though. I haven’t given the image of the new GL a LOT of thought, but every thought I have given it centers on how ludicrously out of place the gun is. The people pointing out that other comic characters use guns are missing the point spectacularly, as those other characters generally do not have the “most powerful weapon in the universe” (direct quote from about 64% of all GL stories ever written) sitting snugly on their finger. War Machine has guns built into his armor, he’s not holding a gat.

(And if he ever was holding one, you can be damn sure he wouldn’t be holding it at an angle. Because, in the immortal words of the Punisher, “they put the sights on top for a reason.”)

Maybe it’ll turn out that there’s a great in-story reason for the gun, like it’s a badass space gun that shoots space bullets and fucks up space monsters. Or maybe it’s just got some connection to #0’s story and makes zero appearance afterward. I dunno. But that’s kind of irrelevant right now, since all we have to go on is this one image. Which is why you’ve gotta put a lot of thought into such images. Minus the gun, nobody’s having this conversation. Hell, even make the gun green and glowing, and we’re probably not having this conversation.

But hey, at least DC’s past the point where they’d rather scrap a story completely than publish one with a Muslim character in it.

Quotable quotes from @JoshCritic:

“I can’t wait for the issue where the Guardians have to update the Book of Oa with gun control laws.”

Man, GI Joe, World War Z, AND Ninja Turtles all getting pushed back? How’s that Paramount stock looking, guys?

(No, seriously, I’m asking. Google is being extremely unhelpful in the matter)

Like with GI Joe, there are several variations of the story floating around. Some report that the script isn’t up to snuff, others report that it just needs to be made less expensive to shoot, and some even say the thing’s been shelved indefinitely. And the only thing all those stories have in common is I don’t care about any of them. Or the movie. Or even Michael Bay making them aliens. Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s dumb (for the same reason as Josh), I just…don’t care.

And I like the Turtles, I guess I’m just…satisfied with the amount of Turtle material we’ve already gotten? It sounds weird, I know, but I think I am. I loved the first two movies, I loved the Fox cartoon, I loved the Archie comics, and I loved the original comics (well, mostly…they got weird after the creators left). I even liked that weirdly-plotted CGI movie from a few years ago. And while the 80s cartoon as a whole does not hold up well, the first season and a half was pretty good.

Maybe it’s just reboot fatigue. I’d be a lot less apathetic if I thought a movie might have the Turtles meeting guys like Leatherhead, Slash, Armaggon, Man-Ray, Metalhead, or Wingnut & Screwloose. Or fight in the Intergalactic Wrestling circuit. Or team up with Cerebus or Usagi Yojimbo…okay, now we’re entering pipe-dream territory. But for them to be meeting April O’Neil and the Shredder again? Hell, push it back to 2020, maybe then enough time will have passed to make me excited for it again.

Quotable quotes from @JoshCritic:

“Avengers vs X-Men #6: In which the fact that I’m not reading the Iron Fist tie-in stuff in New Avengers comes back to punish me.”