31st July 2013
John Stewart now available for Injustice: Gods Among Us.
The John Stewart Green Lantern skin is now available on X-box live and Playstation Network He’s free with purchase of the Martian Manhunter Downloadable Content. Here is a video of his clash quotes with other characters.
As I said a few updates ago, it’s great hearing Phil Lamarr voice Green Lantern again! Sadly, there aren’t any special quotes with Hawkgirl (unless something is missing here). Fans were hoping there would be some “Justice League” and “Justice League Unlimited” references thrown in. Perhaps the creators felt it wasn’t worth bringing Hawkgirl’s voice actress, Jennifer Hale, back in the studio. Oh well.
If you have Injustice, be sure to pick up John and J’onn!
I didn’t mention anything about this on the site when the news broke, because it doesn’t directly have to do with Green Lantern John Stewart, but there will be a new female Green Lantern coming soon. Most evidence points to it being Jessica Cruz, a character who was mentioned in Green Lantern #20, written by Geoff Johns.
There are a couple points I’d like to sound off about regarding this. First of all, I’m wondering why it’s being done. Everyone knows the Green Lantern franchise is way too crowded with human Green Lanterns as it is, yet Geoff Johns keeps creating new ones. First, there was Simon Baz, the car thief, gun-toting, Arab-American Green Lantern, and now there is Jessica Cruz, who is a female and justly speculated to be of Hispanic decent.
No one is asking for new human Green Lanterns. I believe it is a very foolish move to divide the focus even further.
The second thing I want to mention is that some fans were hoping that the character above would turn out to be Katma Tui, the long dead wife of John Stewart. That would certainly be interesting, but it is extremely unlikely. However, it got me thinking of how I would feel if Katma was resurrected. It seems like something I would easily be ecstatic about, but then I stopped and ruminated on it a bit more.
I believe bringing her back might shackle John Stewart’s character. I’ve mentioned on this site before that one of the things I greatly like about John Stewart is he’s not the type of character to be restrained by tradition. Historically, we’ve seen Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris break up and get back together time and time again. By this point, it’s boring. I groaned when I saw their drama in June’s Green Lantern #21, because it’s nothing I haven’t seen before, ten billion times over. But no matter what happens, they’ll wind up getting back together, which will likely make me groan again. It’s tired, old, and uninteresting.
Ever since “Green Lantern: Rebirth,” Kyle Rayner has been struggling to find his place in the grand scheme of things. That’s because his character isn’t very flexible. He was created to fill a distinct role, a distinct way, in a distinct circumstance, and when all of that is over… what do you do with him? It takes serious brainstorming just to get him to “fit.”
John suffers from none of that. Some may say it is a weakness, implying that he’s underdeveloped. What it is, really, is that John isn’t beholden to the same old stale superhero tropes that many others are. No, he doesn’t work a day job, have a social life on Earth, live in a city (well, he lives in Oa’s city, but that’s not the same), have a secret identity, have some set of villains he fights over and over, or a life long love. And why should he? So he can be just like all the other guys?
What some people perceive as a weakness of the character is actually his greatest strength. You can do whatever you want with John Stewart! You can put him in just about any situation, with love interests of many different sorts, and he can rock the hell out of it. You will never find him running into the problems that Peter Parker, Kyle Rayner, or even Superman do when their stories progress too much.
Seriously, his most famous love interest (and it is a very famous one) is Hawkman’s eternal love! Just stop and think about how daring that is, and how phenomenally it worked. Could you have done that with Hal Jordan? No. Could you have done that with Superman? Of course not.
John is potentially greatly limited if Katma Tui is brought back. I’m not saying it can’t spawn really interesting and fresh stories, because with John Stewart the sky’s the limit. But it would take quite a bit of ingenuity to keep him the constantly evolving and always available character he is now.
Would they still be married? Does death nullify that? Would they still want to be in a relationship? According to “Green Lantern: Mosaic,” yes, no, and yes. John had no trouble casting aside Rose Hardin when Katma returned.
If Katma never died, would there have even been a “Green Lantern: Mosaic?” Not likely. If Katma never died and John had been married to her all that time, would there have ever been the romance between him and Hawkgirl on “Justice League?” We can’t say for sure, but I’m leaning toward no. Those are some of the best aspects of John Stewart’s character.
John Stewart fans should ask themselves, as much as we might love Katma Tui, and as great a character as she is on her own, and as disrespectful as her death was… would we really even want her to come back? It’s food for thought.
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