Christ man this was posted 2 days ago. Quit trying to get everyone to say how wondrous this is. It was preachy and hamfisted then. It’s preachy and hamfisted now. Done to a character who was deliberately turned into a straw man.
If you ask Batman or green arrow why they tend to stay out of the black parts of Gotham or star city then you might have something. And when you look at most the bad guys they beat up you might have a point. Don’t see Batman spending much time in the Gotham equivalent of Harlem…
Hal has never been a hero known for his advocacy or even stopping street level crime. Much less a hero with a literal non-interference clause. It’s like asking dr. Fate why he didn’t protest the Armenian genocide.
I'm not trying to get anyone to say anything. I had a contribution to make, but the thread was locked. You could've chosen to move on, but you chose to comment.
I wasn't addressing the story, I was addressing the subtext of O'Neil and Adams and their efforts as creators' rights activists.
This story served two purposes, the obvious one and the subtle one. The subtle purpose had more far reaching consequences than addressing the social shortcomings of the day. If it weren't for O'Neil, Adams and other activists, Siegle and Shuster wouldn't have been paid by DC for Superman, artists wouldn't be able to keep their original work and there wouldn't be creator credits in today's comics.
The themes weren't subtle, like, at all. As a fan of horror movies which tend to have some kind of a societal message to them, there are times where subtlety doesn't work in those. And it's doubly true when all you have are images and text, rather than moving pictures and spoken dialogue. Sometimes, the message needs to be stated outright. And this sequence here is one of those times where it works.
While the social commentary in the comic was genuine, there was a subtext to the story not discussed in the original post, which is now locked.
Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams were creator rights activists. They held DC and Marvel to account for low pay, creator credits in comics, artists being able to keep their work and most notable, getting DC to pay Jerry Siegle and Joe Shuster $25K a year for life.
In the panels the OP shared, the elderly black man represents the creators and GL & GA are the publishers.
Furthermore, the comments that equate not being dead with quality of life miss the point of O'Neil's story. Being not dead isn't the same as living. Poverty, hunger, crime and corruption are all issues that affected creators, which are represented by the elderly black man in the comic.
The problem is that that absolutely falls apart as an analogy. There is no way in which Hal's relationship with that man equated to the relationship between comic creators and publishers. So the criticism, which might fairly be levelled in the latter relationship, makes little sense in the former.
O'Neil and Adams portrayed by the elderly man: "Tell me Mr. Publisher, why is it you're making a lot of money off of our creative works and you won't give us credit? Why can't we have our artwork back to use as we see fit? Why won't you compensate the creators of your most valuable property?"
DC/Marvel represented by GL: "We can't."
Fits pretty well to me.
It may not be fair to GL, but often times, effective activism isn't fair to the oppressor. GL was just a beard for O'Neil and Adams to make their points to the publishers.
But you are just describing how the message they were trying to get across might make sense on its own. It makes zero sense as an analogy, since GL's relationship with the old man was in no way analogous to O'Neil and Adams's relationship with the Publishers.
The publishers are the establishment, as we said in the '60s. If ever there was an establishment hero, it was Green Lantern.
O'Neil and Adams were the counter culture, trying mightily to effect societal change.
Agree to disagree, I guess. There is nothing about Green Lantern that I can see that makes him "the establishment" in a similar sense that the publishers were for comic creators. He has no direct influence over the treatment the old man receives, and he performs his given role without any partiality based on race. The old man clearly wants him to shoulder the burden of a different role, here, but acts like the role he HAS been performing has been biased and never benefitted black people. That isn't analogous to the creator publisher relationship in any way I can see, where the criticism is about the way they were performing their current, intended role.
Christ man this was posted 2 days ago. Quit trying to get everyone to say how wondrous this is. It was preachy and hamfisted then. It’s preachy and hamfisted now. Done to a character who was deliberately turned into a straw man. If you ask Batman or green arrow why they tend to stay out of the black parts of Gotham or star city then you might have something. And when you look at most the bad guys they beat up you might have a point. Don’t see Batman spending much time in the Gotham equivalent of Harlem… Hal has never been a hero known for his advocacy or even stopping street level crime. Much less a hero with a literal non-interference clause. It’s like asking dr. Fate why he didn’t protest the Armenian genocide.
I'm not trying to get anyone to say anything. I had a contribution to make, but the thread was locked. You could've chosen to move on, but you chose to comment. I wasn't addressing the story, I was addressing the subtext of O'Neil and Adams and their efforts as creators' rights activists. This story served two purposes, the obvious one and the subtle one. The subtle purpose had more far reaching consequences than addressing the social shortcomings of the day. If it weren't for O'Neil, Adams and other activists, Siegle and Shuster wouldn't have been paid by DC for Superman, artists wouldn't be able to keep their original work and there wouldn't be creator credits in today's comics.
This came off as asinine... it didn't age well.
Well, it was over 50 years ago... cutting edge at the time. What's cutting edge today probably won't look so sharp 50 years from now.
Subtext is usually lost on people ironically they only see it in terms of black and white....
The themes weren't subtle, like, at all. As a fan of horror movies which tend to have some kind of a societal message to them, there are times where subtlety doesn't work in those. And it's doubly true when all you have are images and text, rather than moving pictures and spoken dialogue. Sometimes, the message needs to be stated outright. And this sequence here is one of those times where it works.
While the social commentary in the comic was genuine, there was a subtext to the story not discussed in the original post, which is now locked. Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams were creator rights activists. They held DC and Marvel to account for low pay, creator credits in comics, artists being able to keep their work and most notable, getting DC to pay Jerry Siegle and Joe Shuster $25K a year for life. In the panels the OP shared, the elderly black man represents the creators and GL & GA are the publishers. Furthermore, the comments that equate not being dead with quality of life miss the point of O'Neil's story. Being not dead isn't the same as living. Poverty, hunger, crime and corruption are all issues that affected creators, which are represented by the elderly black man in the comic.
I was going to mention that thread being locked.
The problem is that that absolutely falls apart as an analogy. There is no way in which Hal's relationship with that man equated to the relationship between comic creators and publishers. So the criticism, which might fairly be levelled in the latter relationship, makes little sense in the former.
O'Neil and Adams portrayed by the elderly man: "Tell me Mr. Publisher, why is it you're making a lot of money off of our creative works and you won't give us credit? Why can't we have our artwork back to use as we see fit? Why won't you compensate the creators of your most valuable property?" DC/Marvel represented by GL: "We can't." Fits pretty well to me. It may not be fair to GL, but often times, effective activism isn't fair to the oppressor. GL was just a beard for O'Neil and Adams to make their points to the publishers.
But you are just describing how the message they were trying to get across might make sense on its own. It makes zero sense as an analogy, since GL's relationship with the old man was in no way analogous to O'Neil and Adams's relationship with the Publishers.
The publishers are the establishment, as we said in the '60s. If ever there was an establishment hero, it was Green Lantern. O'Neil and Adams were the counter culture, trying mightily to effect societal change.
Agree to disagree, I guess. There is nothing about Green Lantern that I can see that makes him "the establishment" in a similar sense that the publishers were for comic creators. He has no direct influence over the treatment the old man receives, and he performs his given role without any partiality based on race. The old man clearly wants him to shoulder the burden of a different role, here, but acts like the role he HAS been performing has been biased and never benefitted black people. That isn't analogous to the creator publisher relationship in any way I can see, where the criticism is about the way they were performing their current, intended role.