(Photo Credit: HBO Max / HBO)
A troubling trend in the Green Lantern comics presents a problem the Lanterns streaming series needs to avoid. Ironically, one of the chief complaints regarding the upcoming DCU show is how it barely seems to reference its source material. However, there is one aspect of the recent comics most fans of the franchise hope the show won’t replicate.
The latest emergence of this problem came in Green Lantern #36, by Jeremy Adams, Ig Guara, and Montos. The action of the comic centers around Kyle Rayner, who is resettling into his hometown of Los Angeles while playing bodyguard to time-bandit-turned-actress Odyssey. It is the middle of this that Kyle runs into his ex; fellow superhero and current JSA team leader Jade.
(Image Source: DC Comics)
To say that things are complicated between Kyle and Jade would be an understatement. However, Green Lantern #36 ignores their history and that their on-again/off-again relationship ended on bad terms multiple times. Indeed, the issue ends with the two suddenly making out after joining forces to save an out-of-control food truck.
Why recent Green Lantern romances have frustrated longtime fans
(Image Source: DC Comics)
The Jade/Kyle relationship is only the latest in a series of Green Lantern romances that have been rekindled for no apparent reason beyond nostalgia. This began at the start of the current volume, with Hal Jordan inspiring longtime love interest Carol Ferris (aka Star Sapphire) to leave her fiancée at the altar to get back together with him. This ignored that Carol had concluded she had become toxically codependent on Hal and had moved on years earlier.
A similar storyline unfolded in Green Lantern Corps. It was here that John Stewart began dating a multiversal variant of his deceased wife, Katma Tui. Ignoring whether this is healthy for John, the alternate Katma became fed up with John treating her like the love he lost rather than her own person.
(Image Source: DC)
This raises the question of why she attempted a relationship with John, knowing he was trying to replace his dead wife. There is no logical in-character reason. However, it makes perfect sense from the perspective of a writer trying to appeal to a nostalgic fanbase. The irony is that most Green Lantern readers don’t want to rehash the same old romances. They want something new, like the will-they/won’t-they relationship that had been blooming between Kyle Rayner and Odyssey.
Thankfully, it appears this is one aspect of the Green Lantern comics that the DCU Lantern series will not replicate. There has been nothing to indicate a romantic subplot in any of previews or story summaries so far. This is for the best, given the show is putting a new spin on the classic space cop concept. The comics, by contrast, are seemingly stuck in the past.
