so, i discovered last week that the superhero i’m most like is the green lantern. ok. problem is, i didn’t know anything about the green lantern. thanks to the comment suggestion of josh brown, i went to the wikipedia article on the green lantern, and read.
it’s fascinating to me how this connects, in some odd way, to the vision i had (was given?) recently, on our exec team retreat. this, about the green lantern…
All Green Lanterns wield a power ring that can generate a variety of effects and energy constructs, sustained purely by the ring wearer’s strength of will. The greater the user’s willpower, the more effective the ring. The limits of the power ring’s abilities are not clearly defined and it has been referred to as “the most powerful weapon in the universe” on more than one occasion. Across the years, the ring has been shown capable of accomplishing anything within the imagination of the ring bearer. Often the rings are used to form solid-light constructs, the power and size of which are limited only by the ring-bearer’s willpower.
here’s the green lantern oath:
In brightest day, in darkest night
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil’s might
Beware my power, Green Lantern’s light!
but then, this sentence jumped out at me:
He was the first DC superhero to use his powers selfishly
great. now the parallels seem even more obvious! needless to say, i have ordered the complete set of ‘golden era’ (which, reading the wikipedia article, seems to be the best era, in terms of the green lantern) comics. soon, i will learn more about my alter ego.
As a comic fanboy, I cannot express how happy I am that you’re going to read some comics. But, alas, I cannot take credit for this spiritual direction. I went to your post and clicked on the comment and it was a guy named Josh Brown. But, it wounds like something i would have done!
silly me, assuming you were the only josh in the world. apologies to josh brown!
no worries mate. like any good superhero, i revel in anonymity.
Hi Mark, turns out he’s my favorite super hero and i was also most like the green lantern. i love the oath but struggled with the whole “Parallax” thing. still great storyline, lol.
You should also know about the “limitations” of the orginal two Green Lanterns – one of them had a ring that couldn’t affect anything yellow while the other had one that couldn’t affect anything made of wood. In any event, this was the deal for the longest time.
Then one day these Green Lanterns realized that there weren’t any limitations at all. The one who thought wood was his limitation was because he got surprised by a crook who hit him on the head with a piece of wood, so he assumed he had no power over it. The same was true of the other GL who was surprised by a bad guy in yellow.
So they assumed they could never overcome those two weaknesses when all along it was simply a matter of claiming the Truth.
I’m sure there’s some comparison in there you could use in a book… or the mirror.
Meanwhile, I’m going to go snicker off in the corner as I read the latest edition of JLA #42622.8, keeping in mind it’s NOT a comic strip but a GRAPHIC NOVEL, doggone it!!!
geek alert, geek alert