By Lisa Fary
It was a Match.com date with a guy named Greg. We arranged to meet at a coffee shop one night in Tucson. He was a good looking guy, but I could still go either way with him, so I let my geek out. My Star Wars geek. My Star Trek geek. My Spider-Man geek. I believe I referenced the Kobayashi Maru. That’s always been the defining factor with me: if a guy can’t handle my geek, he can hike. Greg got this big grin on his face and said, “Want to get a real drink at the Red Garter?” That was the bar across the street where we got proper adult beverages and where he first showed me his tattoo.
But first. . . comics reviews. . .
Wednesday Comics
John (my current boyfriend and sweet baby) swore reading Wednesday Comics would make me feel like a little kid because the pages were so big and there was so much to read.
“I didn’t read comics back then,” I said. “I read Little House on the Prairie books and the San Digo Union-Tribune.” (I was a very well informed 4th grader, well aware of who Gorbachev was and what a nuclear bomb would do. It was always my scary story at slumber parties. No, I didn’t get invited to many.)
So, I read Wednesday Comics without feeling like a little kid. I read it in the armchair with a cup of coffee (like a big girl) like it was the Sunday paper.
Every comic in this weekly collection wasn’t a winner, but as a whole, I liked Wednesday Comics.
There is a lot to like about it. I love that the pages are so big – they don’t have to be eight inches from my eyes to be legible. The artwork just seemed so much more open on a larger page. And it’s printed on newsprint, which some may have a problem with; however, I’m a fan of newsprint and would like to see more comics move in that direction with their printing. It seems like it would help keep the prices down.
Supergirl was my favorite strip, even though she’s only in it for three panels. Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner do a great job of using the format and giving us something that kicks off the long term story while standing on its own. Metamorpho: The Element Man, Batman, and Green Lantern were also faves.
Wednesday Comics could only have been better if there had been a Target sale paper tucked inside.
Justice League: Cry for Justice
Greg, the Match.com date, eventually became my ex-boyfriend. On that first date, after I’d let my geek flag fly at the coffee shop, we went to the Red Garter Bar and Grille across the street and he pulled up the sleeve of his polo, revealing a huge tattoo.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Green Lantern,” he said. “Hal Jordan. Not Kyle Rayner.” He practically spat the second name.
Greg had a total bromance with Hal Jordan. His living room was a shrine to the Green Lantern: posters, action figures, rings. And, of course, that Green Lantern tattoo.
With Cry for Justice, I’m starting to see why. Green Lantern is bad ass.
I initially started liking Green Lantern as a character with The New Frontier - I wasn’t really all that familiar with much more than what I’d seen on Justice League Unlimited, so The New Frontier was a good, proper intro. But, Cry for Justice hammered in some points that are driving me toward Green Lantern love.
“I am the law in Space Sector 2814. That includes Earth.”
Sometimes, Superman’s inherent goodness is a problem. I’ve known that the Green Lantern Corps was intergalactic law enforcement, but it never occurred to me that the law could trump Superman. There’s what’s right and what’s lawful, and they may not be the same thing. Sometimes, what’s right is too much for some, so it has to be clothed in lawfulness – I think that’s what Green Lantern is doing here.
“You want a league. I want justice.”
Holy crap. Green Lantern just separated justice from the Justice League. And what’s the point, really, if all they do is react to villains? I didn’t read the events leading up to the death of Bruce Wayne, but the trauma and pain of his hero survivors is palpable in Cry for Justice. I don’t even know what Starman is upset about, but I feel it when I look at him in this book.
John bought this book. I had no real intentions of reading Cry for Justice – it just sort of found its way into the pile the other morning. Now it has my attention for the foreseeable future.
Next time: Comics for English Majors!
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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
Hey, I've heard of that guy! Had some pretty geeky friends too. Dork!
Once met somebody who I thought was a fellow comic book nerd at a Halloween party – he was wearing a Green Lantern costume. I asked him, "Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner?"
He said, "Huh?"
I was kind of drunk at that point, so I told him that if anybody asked, just to say "Hal Jordan", to save face.
This is, of course, assuming that people at said halloween party, which included a pimp, a kissing booth, a dead Bo-Soxer, the E-Surance girl, a Viking, that Mystery guy from VH1's Pick-up artist show, and all manner of sexy pirate/hooker/sherlock holmes/bumblebee costumes, would know who the Green Lantern was, and that he was in dire social peril for not knowing at least one Lantern.
Aside from the time I shouted "THE SPICE MUST FLOW" at a guy wearing a "I am the Kwisatz Haderach" t-shirt in a bar, it was the nerdiest thing I have ever done in my life.