The friendship between Guy Gardner and John Stewart always intrigued me. I mean, the guy who doesn't follow the rules being buddies with the guy who (Alpha Lanterns aside) is all about the rules.
Wait...Guy wasn't always a jerk?!? A lot of people: Wait, there was a green lantern named Guy? Still more people: Wait...there is a green lantern other than Hal Jordan? Me: Kyle needs more respect.
I've found Guy Gardner an appealing character ever since his appearance in Legends, where he humiliated a pathetic would-be world-beater based on former Marvel editor in chief Jim Shooter (you should totally address that in the future Sasha). The reason Guy is my favorite earthborn Green Lantern boils down to this: if the Green Lantern ring is powered by will, then it stands to reason that an extremely willful person who is both honest and fearless (thus an effective Green Lantern) might also be a raging asshole. And even though Guy is a favorite, I admit he works best as a supporting cast member, there to serve as a contrast to another character, such as another Green Lantern or Justice Leaguer.
I've watched every appearance of Guy Gardner in media, and known about his decade plus long stint as a alien monster mash, but "Nice guy"?, that's something new!
It's a great read. If you can find the entire Justice League international run, it's probably my favorite comic of all time and well worth whatever it costs on eBay. It has so much heart, more than any other series I've read, with the exception of maybe longshot.
Let’s be honest... the cast of the 80’s JLI is far more fun than the traditional Justice League with their perfect hair. Guy is the best hero with a bowl cut.
I can't list all because there's too many but top 10 is: 10. Mogo 9. Sodam Yat 8. Soranik Natu 7. John Stewart 6. Jessica Cruiz 5. Kilowag 4. Alan Scott 3. Guy Gardner 2. Kyle Rayner 1. Hal Jordan
I never liked Guy Gardner I haven't read any comics he's in unless it's a small appearance but in other media he is always too obnoxious and he gets on my nerves, I'd say Top 5 GLs in my opinion are #1 John Stewart #2 Kyle Rayner #3 Jessica Cruz (don't hate me I mostly just like her depressing backstory, and origin) #4 Hal Jordan #5 Kilowog.
During his reformation arc (where he was retconned into having alien blood and non GL related powers) he was actually much better written. Before giving up the ring there was an issue where he and Hal went out together on a case and Guy was by far the better lantern. To be fair, this was during Hal's vilification arc but it showed the contrast between them really well.
The only Green Lantern comic I've ever read features a squirrel-alien Green Lantern getting hit and killed by a car. I think that makes the squirrel guy my favorite GL.
Aw, I wanted you to talk about the time Batman flattened him with one punch and Black Canary complained because she missed it. Seriously, though, this is why I love your channel. I didn't know anything about Gardner's back story until now.
That was the same time as his Post-Crisis nice transformation. His ring (which he took off to prove that he didn't need cosmic power to beat up Batman) fell behind a desk and he bumped his head trying to retrieve it.
My personal favorite lantern is Kyle, but I love Guy as well. However, whenever I think of Guy I also think of him being a Red Lantern briefly. I love it when any of the main Green Lanterns swap/change rings.
I honestly wish they kept it that way, because it really made their personalities shine and made them unique and different that way. It was great when Kyle was a White Lantern, Guy was a Red Lantern and I still wish they built up John Stewart becoming both a Pink/Violet Lantern and Green Lantern. But they never expanded upon it. It was wiped away once the new writer came in. It could have been a interesting concept.
Esteban Lora Guy being the Christmas Lantern made a whole lot of sense to me. It was cool seeing him wield Red and Green Also, why is Kyle always the GL getting cosmic power ups? He becomes GL to stop Parallax, then powers up to Ion with that space face, eventually becomes the White Lantern. Still disappointed Kyle couldn’t keep the white lantern gig, that whole thing being Space Jesus was really cool.
I've been reading comics since the early 90s and I thought I knew it all but this channel always teaches me something new. And that's why I love it. Keep it casual.
@@markwalker3484 Hal wasn't flawed originally, but one writer after another decided to "add depth" to him by heaping flaws on him. Worst offender: Marv Wolfman, who had Hal refuse to help a world in crisis (Abin Sur's home of Ungara) because he wanted a little me-time.
Why do people always feel the need to tear down certain characters to prop their favorites. Guy is a great character in his own right, why the need to compare him to Hal to make a point that you like Guy better. I like them both, the first GL I was exposed to was Kyle and I never felt the need to compare him to the others. It's like someone saying "Kyle is my favorite and I like him more than Alan Scott". WTF
nu52 Guy Gardner is an ex-cop who was thrown off the force when they needed to blame someone for a failed attempt at stopping a bomber. Charles Soule wrote him with a lot of depth, balance, and dignity, even while he was a Red Lantern. Was just noticing the other day that Hal, John, and Guy all started out as pure civilian non-combatant types, but have since had an armed forces / police backstory retconned into them.
The thing I like about Guy is he is a jerk, but if you gain his loyalty and friendship he is ride or die. He is there for the people he cares for and will not break. Guy is the exact kinda character you want in a team series like the Corps. I liked him less solo. His best attributes come out when he's with people he cares about.
I always loved Guy Gardner as the Green Lantern, he's really up there with Kyle Rayner and John Stewart and other Green Lanterns. Hal Jordan is at the bottom of barrel because he's usually a jerk and he's never aware of it or simply doesn't care or people rarely call him out on it, it's no wonder he became a villain, lol. I kind of wish you talked about Guy Gardner during the Geoff Johns era and in the New 52, where he was a former cop and he became a leader of the Green Lantern Corps and even became a Red Lantern. His nice guy attitude really shined at those moments and made me really love his character and those times his jerk moments where actually sarcasm moments to make humor out of the story. He was a great character threw out some time periods.
I'm a fan of the more iconic Gardner of Justice League. I lot of people just remember those comics for being humorous, but there is some nuance in those stories. I'm fond of that era and "bar owner on Oa" Gardner. I think I could do a whole "Cheers" style series where Guy runs an intergalactic watering hole. That role really fit him and I felt it was something they could have stayed with. It was a nice spot for him to exist while other characters in the echelon took the spotlight. I mean, we don't see Kilowog all the time, but you don't love him any less or forget his role as a trainer. All that to say...yeah. Love Guy. Probably my favorite Lantern.
The most interesting thing I know about Guy Gardner is for awhile he lost his Green Lantern ring and had to use Sinestro's evil ring (back before Yellow Lantern energy was a thing), and also for awhile Guy was a Red Lantern as well.
My main memory of Guy Gardner was one of the stories in "Greatest JLA Stories Ever Told" which had him trying to be leader of the league (Batman isn't having it). He talks about admiring Sylvester Stallone and one of the female members compares him (negatively) to Rambo. All that issue did was convince me that the writer had never actually seen a Rambo movie or anything Stallone was in.
Kyle was Green Lantern when I first got into comics and I liked John from the Justice League cartoon. I haven't read enough of Jessica and Simon to really get an opinion.
I always liked them both. One is the lovable jerk, the other is the hotshot rule breaker. Never felt the need to tear down one of them to prop the other.
@@KalvinEllis I am starting to rethink my stance on Hal after reading the Geoff Johns issues, even if he is pushing the idea that Hal is the Greatest Lantern Ever a bit too much. Of course, the true Greatest Lantern Ever is Dex-Starr.
Opinion: the Arisia situation tells us a lot about how we were still working out the details after the Sexual Revolution. Before the SR, the standard ethics on sex were pretty cut-and-dried: you wait until marriage, and anything prior to that is just wrong. The SR brought the notion in that whatever consenting people want to do, is fine. That's a really solid idea! But then you tug on the notion of "consent" and you start noticing that not everyone is equally capable of giving consent: people need to have more or less common levels of understanding, emotional maturity, and power for consent to actually manifest. It took a while for people to really get a handle on that, though, and the Arisia situation seems to indicate that Englehart and DC's editorial weren't quite there. That's why they weren't skeeved out by, "well she aged her body to an adult condition, therefore Hal can bang her in good conscience". (Geoff Johns retconned it as, while Arisia was only a teenager, those years were measured in her own planet's years, and a year on her world is lots longer than on ours, so she was really older than Hal.)
I think Guy really benefited from the GL retcon that made the ring's power based on willpower. Because while he's brash and rude, more than anything I'd say he's stubborn.
Comics and royalties can be strange. Did Rob Leifeld create Deadpool? The Deadpool we see today isn't the one he created. It's arguably a different character, just with the same look and name. So was it a co-creator? If so can someone 'steal' a character away from the creator by reimagining it? How do reimagines work if they become more popular than the original? Very interesting questions here.
Guy Gardner’s a complicated character with an equally complicated history. But, for me, his defining moment is his knock em’ down, drag em’ out scrap with Batman. That is Guy got knocked down and dragged out with one friggin’ punch. Turns out Bruce does not do well with man-children-even when they’re packing power rings.
I loved Guy Gardner. I started reading during Crisis and then Justice League 1. I loved his battle with Lobo so much I bought the original art splash page of Justice League International 18. It shows Guy saying "IM BACK!!!!!!" after getting hit on the head by Lobo and reverting back to his nasty side
Its so frustrating when a person gets the ownership of a character just for coming up with a name and basic look. But a different person will end up creating everything else about who the character is and what they are about and they don't get jack. Its kinda like the whole finger v Kane batman situation
The most heart breaking thing is the guy who fixed guy and made him the character we all love or hate today and didn’t get any of the credit he deserves guy is up there as one of my favourite characters I love the fact he moons Batman
Great find on the Englehart quote. He's not wrong either. Tho if he's that mad about not getting any credit for Guy Gardner, I can only imagine how pissed off he must be about Mantis starring in three Marvel films and not getting anything more than a "created by" credit out of it. Yikes. Great work as always!
I didn't like the half alien period of Warrior that much powerwise, but character wise that period was great. I would love to have seen Beau Smith get a chance to write the proper Green Lantern version of Guy. No writer ever seemed to "get" Guy as a character better than Beau. Only ever got to write "Warrior" Guy.
Guy is one of my favorite GLs. I wrote a paper on him in college. It was for abnormal psych class to be fair. He is just fun. I even have some of the Warrior comics still.
I have to be honest my favorite Green Lantern has been Kyle Rayner because he was the first one I started reading about when I was young. But, now after reading Jeff Johns's Rebirth era until Robert Venditti's run, Guy has really grown on me. It really is his imperfections that fuel is will and that's what makes him such an important member of the Corps.
Guy is a lot of fun. I don't necessarily love him as a protagonist (Hal and Kyle are my favorites in that regard), but whenever he shows up in another character's story I always get a chuckle. He's just such a lovable asshole sometimes.
He was a perfect antagonist for all the traditional heroes on that classic early 90s run of JLI. He was just so damn infuriating and amusing at the same time.
I first met *Guy Gardner* in the issue of *_'Justice League International'_* where got decked by *BATMAN.* Knew absolutely nothing about him before that. I was in the process of leaving comics alone at the time. Rather peeved by the money making scheme of Annual Event Comics like _'Secret Wars'_ and _'Crisis on Infinite Earths'_ which seemed designed to either destroy comics or _'shake things up for a bit'_ to do stupid things for stupid reasons. It all seemed meaningless, without purpose, kind of dumb. I was also kind of poor and not buying comics regularly anymore as I began young adulthood. I remember when comics were as little as $0.25, $0.35, $0.50, $0.65, and $0.75... As money became tight, and stories became dumber, and comics climbed over a buck each and further toward two bucks each, I had to tap out as a _'starving college student'_ and beyond. Thanks for this history, I would not have learned any of this otherwise, I'm sure.
I wouldn't mind seeing Guy deal with flipping between old nice guy .um Guy and the modern edition, who is comic avatar of the DudeBro. I'm most amused when Guy's getting his butt kicked or struggling. Honestly, if the only non-villain (technically) character that makes you look like less of jerk is Lobo, you're a massive git.
I always ran ether hot or cold with Green Lantern in general. I always liked John Stewart cause of the Justice League animated series. My favorite Green Lantern was Alan Scott of the Earth 2 run of comics.
Alan’s great, but he’s such a prude. The way he treats Liberty Bell after her losing her powers is heaps inappropriate and he didn’t have a right to say what he did. Not to mention he’s not the best father out there. Drove his son to kill a lot of people, that was a whole thing.
I enjoyed it when he was powerless and going off on John Woo/Indiana Jones style adventures. For all of a few issues. Beau Smith was great there, and had even given Guy an awesome supporting cast. It was also great that Mitch Byrd had hit the big time in comics, as he had been drawing Dinosaurs For Hire for Malibu a few years before.
I loved the Mitch Bird art and the run for Warrior. I wish they would have him retain his Warrior powers in addition to the GL ring and a Regenerated Sinestro ring. That would rock...
As a separate note, I like nice characters but could see why nobody would trust an overly nice gym teacher. Sounds like more fuel for Seduction of the Innocent.
There's an issue of Swamp Thing (a crossover with the Alien Invasion event, I believe) where macho jerk Guy was responsible for the death of an alien who had come to Earth looking for its long-lost mate (who had appeared in an issue of the original ST series). I never have forgiven Guy for that.
Thanks for the background info! I never knew any of that. Guy Gardner was a jerk when I was reading comics - so I never really followed his character. Good to know the whole story.
I was introduced to guy after the warrior thing tried to kill him. Then I found the Formerly Known as Justice League run, and that is some of the best if not The Best comedy run for DC. I think DC gets too much of a bad wrap for being the "serious" comics and runs/characters like this get swept under the rug like nobody wants to read it, but shows like Doom Patrol have shown that to be wrong. I honestly think GG would be the perfect modern GL to show up in the Arrowverse, I think his personality would perfectly describe why nobody has seen a GL there yet. He would especially fit in on a show like Legends, but we need a proper Booster Gold revamp at the same time.
As a die hard Green Lantern fan, I'm very proud to say that I detest, despise, and loathe literally everything about this character and that it would be a joy to see him retconned completely out of the DC universe and never mentioned again. He's a bigger stain on the Corps than anything ever done by anybody just by virtue of his ignorance and his temper.
I first came across Guy with the JLI and instantly loved the character because he was refreshing. This was just when I was getting into comics as an adult and I found a lot of the heroes a bit preachy and too similar in their motivations and general moral standpoints. I liked Guy as a character for similar reasons to why I liked Booster Gold. I thought they were both dickheads and would have had no time for either if they were real people but I liked the way they created a different atmosphere. (Atmosphere isn't the word I want to use here but I can't put my finger on the right one and it's close enough.) The JLI was a great team book. The adventures were the usual fare but the interpersonal relationships and group dynamics were different- they seemed less formulaic and so more realistic. It also helped that they were really funny. I can't say enough about the beauty that was the Blue & the Gold so I'll just say Kooey Kooey Kooey and leave it at that. Like with Booster I didn't enjoy Guy's solo comics anywhere near as much as their JLI appearances. The whole Vuldarian thing was a bit silly. While Booster went on to develop a more fully rounded personality through the series where he became a time traveller I didn't find I enjoyed Guy as much until the Green Lantern stuff got revamped with all the other colour lanterns.The character seems to me to be more of a team character (if not always a team player!) than a solo star. When he's part of a team I enjoy seeing the way he interacts with teammates, on his own I find it harder to like someone I'd despise in the real world. That said, he does seem to have grown as a person in the last decade or so. But not too much though. And I hope he never does. I like having someone among the good guys who irritates the shit out of the sometimes prissy heroes. Just don't give the twat his own book.
I mainly know Guy from the Batman: Brave and the Bold cartoon. That series had a fun relationship with legacy characters. There would be a "main" version that would appear if we just needed "a Green Lantern" or "a Flash" or "a Blue Beetle" but sometimes another version would appear.
Nice guy Guy is played with in the Green Lantern animated series. He gets recruited when Hal us away for months, and becomes the favorite of everyone. Hal is not pleased.
Guy Gardner is actually my favorite Green Lantern...I've always considered him, to paraphrase John Amos in DIE HARD II, 'an asshole, just your kind of asshole'....someone with no filter who is crash and speaks before he thinks, but will do the right thing for you if you're his friend 100% of the time.
General Hospital, the soap opera, did something similar. They took Jason Quartermaine, nice guy and future doctor, gave him a dramatic brain injury, and ever since has been Jason Morgan, bad ass and expert gunman! At least he was never a jerk, hahaha!
I really liked Guy as he was in Crisis on Infinite Earths; "...the one true Green Lantern!" His uniform really differentiated him from the other GLs of that time. It sort of symbolized his rebelliousness.
I remember seeing panels online of a almost mentally challenged Guy trying to ask Ice out. Kind of like a Forest Gump character. But I mostly know of asshole Guy. I didn't know he had been around that long. I thought he had been created in the 80s.
In the Armageddon 2001 annual of Justice League Guy builds a sort of church around his bad attitude. Then he gets hit in the head, because nice Guy again, and is pummeled by his former followers. Ice runs out to comfort him. I'm not sure if we're better off without that alternate future or not.
My favorite Justice League team, second only to the Detroit team, was the JLI/Super Buddies, of which Guy was not an official member in the reboots, but felt he needed to tag along to protect them (usually having something to do with Ice). Odd how he kept saying he didn't need these losers, but was still always there.
They have done Guy so dirty. He and Kyle were my faves. Kyle got a lot of character development. But tbh, Guy only gets to be a stereotype for most writers.
My favorite Guy fight was not when he got one-punched by Batman, but when he took on President Clark Kent in one of the Superman annuals for Armageddon 2000. Clark was so awesome that he willed Guy's ring to form around his own finger.
Like many, I did not see the appeal of Guy. It was not until reading him in RED LANTERNS that I finally got him and liked him. Kyle Rayner used to be my second favorite Green Lantern after Hal Jordan. Now is Guy.
I was a fan of the Vuldarian -stuff actually, as he then fit into a niche DC hadnt ever really had before, and and was pretty pissed when they killed him off-panel in _Worlds At War_; thought it was kinda kool making him into a mini-antagonist when he got resurrected afterward, tho.....
Guy is my favorite Lantern. The hothead with a heart. Funnily enough that storyline in Green Lantern Corps where he moons Batman was where I first got introduced and became a fan.
Fist time i remember redning about Guy was in a story where he got his green ring stolen so he took a violet ring and wielded it shouting i love the core when told he needed to focus on what he loved the most.
I feel that in the same manner that Wolfman and Perez get credited for creating Nightwing, even though they didn't create Dick Grayson, Englehart and the artist (Dick Giordano?) responsible for Guy's new persona should be credited with his creation. They are definitely different enough characters to warrant the change. At the very least, he should be credited with the Green Lantern Corps.
After I learned to read, Green Lantern replaced Wonder Woman as my favorite comic character, because I would skim comic books in the grocery store while mom did the shopping; and Green Lantern really appealed to my 6 year-old brain, although I couldn't tell you any details of the stories I read. When I started reading comics more fully/openly in the early 90's Green Lantern was the book of choice for me, and so I remember Guy more as a mentor figure along with John for Kyle. So I have a soft spot in my heart for Guy (plus I never liked Batman, so....).
![TEEDEE TADA - DIAMOND NARAKORN X LEGO LYKN [Special Dance Performance]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QgtZedFeumA/mqdefault.jpg)
The friendship between Guy Gardner and John Stewart always intrigued me. I mean, the guy who doesn't follow the rules being buddies with the guy who (Alpha Lanterns aside) is all about the rules.
Its the classic busy cop duo.
It’s literally the OG buddy cop combo. The Straight-laced Good cop And the Wild Card!!
@@ignika84 What are they busy with?
@@GabePuratekutaeach other
Wait...Guy wasn't always a jerk?!?
A lot of people: Wait, there was a green lantern named Guy?
Still more people: Wait...there is a green lantern other than Hal Jordan?
Me: Kyle needs more respect.
Me: Agreed & same for Jessica Drew, Simon Baz... (just so many great lanterns out there to choose from :)
Kyle is my favorite too
@@amandak.5967 Alan Scott is my personal favorite. It’s the costume that does it. Love that high collared cape
Me: there’s a green LANTERN!? (If I ignore them they will just leave, a test of wills)
I’m “A lot of people” and “Still more people”
I've found Guy Gardner an appealing character ever since his appearance in Legends, where he humiliated a pathetic would-be world-beater based on former Marvel editor in chief Jim Shooter (you should totally address that in the future Sasha).
The reason Guy is my favorite earthborn Green Lantern boils down to this: if the Green Lantern ring is powered by will, then it stands to reason that an extremely willful person who is both honest and fearless (thus an effective Green Lantern) might also be a raging asshole.
And even though Guy is a favorite, I admit he works best as a supporting cast member, there to serve as a contrast to another character, such as another Green Lantern or Justice Leaguer.
I've watched every appearance of Guy Gardner in media, and known about his decade plus long stint as a alien monster mash, but "Nice guy"?, that's something new!
It's a great read. If you can find the entire Justice League international run, it's probably my favorite comic of all time and well worth whatever it costs on eBay. It has so much heart, more than any other series I've read, with the exception of maybe longshot.
Let’s be honest... the cast of the 80’s JLI is far more fun than the traditional Justice League with their perfect hair. Guy is the best hero with a bowl cut.
3rd Favourite Green Lantern, I agree with the writers that Macho Guy is better than nice Guy. Same way I feel about Jason Todd.
What’s your order for all green lanterns?
I can't list all because there's too many but top 10 is:
10. Mogo
9. Sodam Yat
8. Soranik Natu
7. John Stewart
6. Jessica Cruiz
5. Kilowag
4. Alan Scott
3. Guy Gardner
2. Kyle Rayner
1. Hal Jordan
I never liked Guy Gardner I haven't read any comics he's in unless it's a small appearance but in other media he is always too obnoxious and he gets on my nerves, I'd say Top 5 GLs in my opinion are #1 John Stewart #2 Kyle Rayner #3 Jessica Cruz (don't hate me I mostly just like her depressing backstory, and origin) #4 Hal Jordan #5 Kilowog.
Guy Gardner sucks and he is overrated
During his reformation arc (where he was retconned into having alien blood and non GL related powers) he was actually much better written. Before giving up the ring there was an issue where he and Hal went out together on a case and Guy was by far the better lantern. To be fair, this was during Hal's vilification arc but it showed the contrast between them really well.
Ah, Beau Smith goodness
The only Green Lantern comic I've ever read features a squirrel-alien Green Lantern getting hit and killed by a car. I think that makes the squirrel guy my favorite GL.
That was at the end of the Mosaic world story, which starred John Stewart
@@pwlpc I do recall John Stewart being there. He seemed okay, but not as funny as I remember him being on TV.
@@Raatcharch Yeah. The squirrel Green Lantern is btw Ch'p and I put here the link to his DC fandom site: dc.fandom.com/wiki/Ch%27p_(New_Earth)
@@Raatcharch John is not as interesting in the comics as he was in the show
@@Isaacisaperson4677. You're sure? Thought more interesting than the though military man!
I have a soft spot for Guy, especially when “he goes too far”. Give me bad Guy anytime. I also quite like Hal.
Manuel not only yes but hell yes. I have a soft spot in my heart for 90's comics and Guy a big reason.
At least Guy didn't commit mass genocide unlike a certain green lantern.
Poor ol' Guy suffering PTSD related personality disorders and everyone else is just laughing at his struggle.
I like Guy as a DC hero who wants to do the right thing, but sometimes his ego and overall personality gets in the way.
Aw, I wanted you to talk about the time Batman flattened him with one punch and Black Canary complained because she missed it. Seriously, though, this is why I love your channel. I didn't know anything about Gardner's back story until now.
That was the same time as his Post-Crisis nice transformation. His ring (which he took off to prove that he didn't need cosmic power to beat up Batman) fell behind a desk and he bumped his head trying to retrieve it.
One punch!!! One punch!!!!!!
static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091007192051/marvel_dc/images/c/cd/Guy_Gardner_KTFO.jpg
My personal favorite lantern is Kyle, but I love Guy as well. However, whenever I think of Guy I also think of him being a Red Lantern briefly. I love it when any of the main Green Lanterns swap/change rings.
I honestly wish they kept it that way, because it really made their personalities shine and made them unique and different that way. It was great when Kyle was a White Lantern, Guy was a Red Lantern and I still wish they built up John Stewart becoming both a Pink/Violet Lantern and Green Lantern. But they never expanded upon it. It was wiped away once the new writer came in. It could have been a interesting concept.
Esteban Lora Guy being the Christmas Lantern made a whole lot of sense to me. It was cool seeing him wield Red and Green
Also, why is Kyle always the GL getting cosmic power ups? He becomes GL to stop Parallax, then powers up to Ion with that space face, eventually becomes the White Lantern. Still disappointed Kyle couldn’t keep the white lantern gig, that whole thing being Space Jesus was really cool.
So Guys existence is nothing but misfortune for everyone involved in his conception and subsequent revival? Jeez
A typical human green lantern
I've been reading comics since the early 90s and I thought I knew it all but this channel always teaches me something new. And that's why I love it.
Keep it casual.
Honestly, I like Guy Gardner more than Hal Jordan. A character as flawed as Guy is much more interesting IMO.
Agreed!
Yep me too
Hal is also pretty flawed
@@markwalker3484 Hal wasn't flawed originally, but one writer after another decided to "add depth" to him by heaping flaws on him. Worst offender: Marv Wolfman, who had Hal refuse to help a world in crisis (Abin Sur's home of Ungara) because he wanted a little me-time.
Why do people always feel the need to tear down certain characters to prop their favorites. Guy is a great character in his own right, why the need to compare him to Hal to make a point that you like Guy better. I like them both, the first GL I was exposed to was Kyle and I never felt the need to compare him to the others. It's like someone saying "Kyle is my favorite and I like him more than Alan Scott". WTF
nu52 Guy Gardner is an ex-cop who was thrown off the force when they needed to blame someone for a failed attempt at stopping a bomber. Charles Soule wrote him with a lot of depth, balance, and dignity, even while he was a Red Lantern.
Was just noticing the other day that Hal, John, and Guy all started out as pure civilian non-combatant types, but have since had an armed forces / police backstory retconned into them.
Lol. You brought up Hal's desire to be known for his aviation again. What a terrible line. 😂
Batman brave and the bold was my first introduction to Guy, and I loved his personality and thought the bowl cut was a plus.
They should have just created John Smith or whomever he said. Steve Engelhart did a lot of work and got nothing out of it. That's messed up.
The thing I like about Guy is he is a jerk, but if you gain his loyalty and friendship he is ride or die. He is there for the people he cares for and will not break. Guy is the exact kinda character you want in a team series like the Corps. I liked him less solo. His best attributes come out when he's with people he cares about.
I always loved Guy Gardner as the Green Lantern, he's really up there with Kyle Rayner and John Stewart and other Green Lanterns. Hal Jordan is at the bottom of barrel because he's usually a jerk and he's never aware of it or simply doesn't care or people rarely call him out on it, it's no wonder he became a villain, lol. I kind of wish you talked about Guy Gardner during the Geoff Johns era and in the New 52, where he was a former cop and he became a leader of the Green Lantern Corps and even became a Red Lantern. His nice guy attitude really shined at those moments and made me really love his character and those times his jerk moments where actually sarcasm moments to make humor out of the story. He was a great character threw out some time periods.
0:21 LOL! Wow, Batman really has a history with Green Lanterns disrespecting him, doesn't he?
I'm a fan of the more iconic Gardner of Justice League. I lot of people just remember those comics for being humorous, but there is some nuance in those stories. I'm fond of that era and "bar owner on Oa" Gardner. I think I could do a whole "Cheers" style series where Guy runs an intergalactic watering hole. That role really fit him and I felt it was something they could have stayed with. It was a nice spot for him to exist while other characters in the echelon took the spotlight. I mean, we don't see Kilowog all the time, but you don't love him any less or forget his role as a trainer. All that to say...yeah. Love Guy. Probably my favorite Lantern.
The most interesting thing I know about Guy Gardner is for awhile he lost his Green Lantern ring and had to use Sinestro's evil ring (back before Yellow Lantern energy was a thing), and also for awhile Guy was a Red Lantern as well.
“Did anyone like Guy? No. Does anyone care? No. Will they care if we change his personality? No” - Dan Didio
My main memory of Guy Gardner was one of the stories in "Greatest JLA Stories Ever Told" which had him trying to be leader of the league (Batman isn't having it). He talks about admiring Sylvester Stallone and one of the female members compares him (negatively) to Rambo.
All that issue did was convince me that the writer had never actually seen a Rambo movie or anything Stallone was in.
I like Guy. He certainly has more personality than Hal Jordan.
Kyle was Green Lantern when I first got into comics and I liked John from the Justice League cartoon. I haven't read enough of Jessica and Simon to really get an opinion.
I always liked them both. One is the lovable jerk, the other is the hotshot rule breaker. Never felt the need to tear down one of them to prop the other.
@@KalvinEllis I am starting to rethink my stance on Hal after reading the Geoff Johns issues, even if he is pushing the idea that Hal is the Greatest Lantern Ever a bit too much. Of course, the true Greatest Lantern Ever is Dex-Starr.
@@uncannyrman No no no, the greatest clearly is and always will be G'nort.
The revamped Guy came along at the right time. The eighties had a lot of movie stars that were similar to Guy Gardner so it worked out well.
And I agree you should tell us about the whole Arisia situation.
Opinion: the Arisia situation tells us a lot about how we were still working out the details after the Sexual Revolution. Before the SR, the standard ethics on sex were pretty cut-and-dried: you wait until marriage, and anything prior to that is just wrong. The SR brought the notion in that whatever consenting people want to do, is fine. That's a really solid idea! But then you tug on the notion of "consent" and you start noticing that not everyone is equally capable of giving consent: people need to have more or less common levels of understanding, emotional maturity, and power for consent to actually manifest. It took a while for people to really get a handle on that, though, and the Arisia situation seems to indicate that Englehart and DC's editorial weren't quite there. That's why they weren't skeeved out by, "well she aged her body to an adult condition, therefore Hal can bang her in good conscience". (Geoff Johns retconned it as, while Arisia was only a teenager, those years were measured in her own planet's years, and a year on her world is lots longer than on ours, so she was really older than Hal.)
really hope she does a vid on the arisia stuff its very weird
I think Guy really benefited from the GL retcon that made the ring's power based on willpower. Because while he's brash and rude, more than anything I'd say he's stubborn.
what was it powered by before?
Comics and royalties can be strange. Did Rob Leifeld create Deadpool? The Deadpool we see today isn't the one he created. It's arguably a different character, just with the same look and name. So was it a co-creator? If so can someone 'steal' a character away from the creator by reimagining it? How do reimagines work if they become more popular than the original? Very interesting questions here.
My favourite green lanterns are Jessica Cruz, John Stewart and Hal Jordan
Guy Gardner’s a complicated character with an equally complicated history. But, for me, his defining moment is his knock em’ down, drag em’ out scrap with Batman. That is Guy got knocked down and dragged out with one friggin’ punch. Turns out Bruce does not do well with man-children-even when they’re packing power rings.
I loved Guy Gardner. I started reading during Crisis and then Justice League 1. I loved his battle with Lobo so much I bought the original art splash page of Justice League International 18. It shows Guy saying "IM BACK!!!!!!" after getting hit on the head by Lobo and reverting back to his nasty side
Its so frustrating when a person gets the ownership of a character just for coming up with a name and basic look. But a different person will end up creating everything else about who the character is and what they are about and they don't get jack. Its kinda like the whole finger v Kane batman situation
Ah yes. The only Green Lantern (Pre New52) with any trace of personality.
You don’t deserve Kyle Rayner, the Tim Drake of all the GL.
The most heart breaking thing is the guy who fixed guy and made him the character we all love or hate today and didn’t get any of the credit he deserves guy is up there as one of my favourite characters I love the fact he moons Batman
Great find on the Englehart quote. He's not wrong either.
Tho if he's that mad about not getting any credit for Guy Gardner, I can only imagine how pissed off he must be about Mantis starring in three Marvel films and not getting anything more than a "created by" credit out of it. Yikes.
Great work as always!
I didn't like the half alien period of Warrior that much powerwise, but character wise that period was great. I would love to have seen Beau Smith get a chance to write the proper Green Lantern version of Guy. No writer ever seemed to "get" Guy as a character better than Beau. Only ever got to write "Warrior" Guy.
I once heard Guy described as him showing up to help is like your dad picking you up from jail.
My favorite is handlebar mustache Red Lantern Guy Gardner. The vest really pops in red.
The only Green Lantern I know little about. Excited to learn more!
Guy is one of my favorite GLs. I wrote a paper on him in college. It was for abnormal psych class to be fair. He is just fun. I even have some of the Warrior comics still.
My favorite version of guy is him leading the red lanterns. It was fun watching his rivalry with Atrocious.
I have never in my life encountered a mild-mannered gym teacher.
Thought it said "Dice Guy" and it would be about some dude who's power is... He's real good at gambling or some shit
I have to be honest my favorite Green Lantern has been Kyle Rayner because he was the first one I started reading about when I was young. But, now after reading Jeff Johns's Rebirth era until Robert Venditti's run, Guy has really grown on me. It really is his imperfections that fuel is will and that's what makes him such an important member of the Corps.
Guy is a lot of fun. I don't necessarily love him as a protagonist (Hal and Kyle are my favorites in that regard), but whenever he shows up in another character's story I always get a chuckle. He's just such a lovable asshole sometimes.
I do love that with comics you can have characters start as one thing and be completely recreated
Guy’s creators regretting making him is so on brand
Writers: Revamps a character's personality so he is essentially a new person, and consequently gives their company success
Company: LOL get bent
He was a perfect antagonist for all the traditional heroes on that classic early 90s run of JLI. He was just so damn infuriating and amusing at the same time.
I first met *Guy Gardner* in the issue of *_'Justice League International'_* where got decked by *BATMAN.* Knew absolutely nothing about him before that. I was in the process of leaving comics alone at the time. Rather peeved by the money making scheme of Annual Event Comics like _'Secret Wars'_ and _'Crisis on Infinite Earths'_ which seemed designed to either destroy comics or _'shake things up for a bit'_ to do stupid things for stupid reasons. It all seemed meaningless, without purpose, kind of dumb. I was also kind of poor and not buying comics regularly anymore as I began young adulthood. I remember when comics were as little as $0.25, $0.35, $0.50, $0.65, and $0.75... As money became tight, and stories became dumber, and comics climbed over a buck each and further toward two bucks each, I had to tap out as a _'starving college student'_ and beyond. Thanks for this history, I would not have learned any of this otherwise, I'm sure.
I wouldn't mind seeing Guy deal with flipping between old nice guy .um Guy and the modern edition, who is comic avatar of the DudeBro.
I'm most amused when Guy's getting his butt kicked or struggling.
Honestly, if the only non-villain (technically) character that makes you look like less of jerk is Lobo, you're a massive git.
his arc in green lantern corps issue will always have a special place in my hearts
DC Legends showed him in his smarmy glory, the epic fail against Batman in fisticuffs is one of the best scenes in DC history.
Guy my favorite Lantern. I loved his Warrior book.
I swear that Guy has consistently become an even better character with every appearance since the start of the Geoff Johns run
I love these videos. Diving into histories and comic reviews, reading bitter quotes and admiring Sasha's fashion. 😁
Can we talk about the time Guy was the main character in Red Lanterns? That was a freaking great series.
I always ran ether hot or cold with Green Lantern in general. I always liked John Stewart cause of the Justice League animated series. My favorite Green Lantern was Alan Scott of the Earth 2 run of comics.
Alan’s great, but he’s such a prude. The way he treats Liberty Bell after her losing her powers is heaps inappropriate and he didn’t have a right to say what he did.
Not to mention he’s not the best father out there. Drove his son to kill a lot of people, that was a whole thing.
Josh O I meant the Alan Scott of the 2012-2017 Run of Earth 2 that ran with the whole New 52 run.
Horson Welles wait... for real?
Well, to each their own I suppose
I enjoyed it when he was powerless and going off on John Woo/Indiana Jones style adventures. For all of a few issues.
Beau Smith was great there, and had even given Guy an awesome supporting cast. It was also great that Mitch Byrd had hit the big time in comics, as he had been drawing Dinosaurs For Hire for Malibu a few years before.
I loved the Mitch Bird art and the run for Warrior. I wish they would have him retain his Warrior powers in addition to the GL ring and a Regenerated Sinestro ring. That would rock...
Gardner always felt like 3 distinct characters to me: nice Guy, arrogant douche, and now his brash but selfless modern take.
As a separate note, I like nice characters but could see why nobody would trust an overly nice gym teacher. Sounds like more fuel for Seduction of the Innocent.
There's an issue of Swamp Thing (a crossover with the Alien Invasion event, I believe) where macho jerk Guy was responsible for the death of an alien who had come to Earth looking for its long-lost mate (who had appeared in an issue of the original ST series). I never have forgiven Guy for that.
Dementor is the one who causes Guy to switch between personalities since de very first time
I hope you do a history on John Stewart as he's my second fav GL (after Kyle Rayner) and I loved him in the Justice League cartoon.
Thanks for the background info! I never knew any of that. Guy Gardner was a jerk when I was reading comics - so I never really followed his character. Good to know the whole story.
I was introduced to guy after the warrior thing tried to kill him. Then I found the Formerly Known as Justice League run, and that is some of the best if not The Best comedy run for DC.
I think DC gets too much of a bad wrap for being the "serious" comics and runs/characters like this get swept under the rug like nobody wants to read it, but shows like Doom Patrol have shown that to be wrong.
I honestly think GG would be the perfect modern GL to show up in the Arrowverse, I think his personality would perfectly describe why nobody has seen a GL there yet. He would especially fit in on a show like Legends, but we need a proper Booster Gold revamp at the same time.
As a die hard Green Lantern fan, I'm very proud to say that I detest, despise, and loathe literally everything about this character and that it would be a joy to see him retconned completely out of the DC universe and never mentioned again. He's a bigger stain on the Corps than anything ever done by anybody just by virtue of his ignorance and his temper.
I first came across Guy with the JLI and instantly loved the character because he was refreshing. This was just when I was getting into comics as an adult and I found a lot of the heroes a bit preachy and too similar in their motivations and general moral standpoints. I liked Guy as a character for similar reasons to why I liked Booster Gold. I thought they were both dickheads and would have had no time for either if they were real people but I liked the way they created a different atmosphere. (Atmosphere isn't the word I want to use here but I can't put my finger on the right one and it's close enough.) The JLI was a great team book. The adventures were the usual fare but the interpersonal relationships and group dynamics were different- they seemed less formulaic and so more realistic. It also helped that they were really funny. I can't say enough about the beauty that was the Blue & the Gold so I'll just say Kooey Kooey Kooey and leave it at that.
Like with Booster I didn't enjoy Guy's solo comics anywhere near as much as their JLI appearances. The whole Vuldarian thing was a bit silly. While Booster went on to develop a more fully rounded personality through the series where he became a time traveller I didn't find I enjoyed Guy as much until the Green Lantern stuff got revamped with all the other colour lanterns.The character seems to me to be more of a team character (if not always a team player!) than a solo star. When he's part of a team I enjoy seeing the way he interacts with teammates, on his own I find it harder to like someone I'd despise in the real world. That said, he does seem to have grown as a person in the last decade or so.
But not too much though. And I hope he never does. I like having someone among the good guys who irritates the shit out of the sometimes prissy heroes. Just don't give the twat his own book.
I will never forget John flashing Batman and saying “he needs to shave” LMFAO
I mainly know Guy from the Batman: Brave and the Bold cartoon. That series had a fun relationship with legacy characters. There would be a "main" version that would appear if we just needed "a Green Lantern" or "a Flash" or "a Blue Beetle" but sometimes another version would appear.
Nice guy Guy is played with in the Green Lantern animated series. He gets recruited when Hal us away for months, and becomes the favorite of everyone. Hal is not pleased.
The real reason guy disintegrated was from the chili earlier
Guy's defining moment can be summed up in two words: "One Punch."
Guy Gardner is actually my favorite Green Lantern...I've always considered him, to paraphrase John Amos in DIE HARD II, 'an asshole, just your kind of asshole'....someone with no filter who is crash and speaks before he thinks, but will do the right thing for you if you're his friend 100% of the time.
General Hospital, the soap opera, did something similar. They took Jason Quartermaine, nice guy and future doctor, gave him a dramatic brain injury, and ever since has been Jason Morgan, bad ass and expert gunman! At least he was never a jerk, hahaha!
What's interesting is that that cover of Guy's 1st issue looks like modern Guy
I really liked Guy as he was in Crisis on Infinite Earths; "...the one true Green Lantern!" His uniform really differentiated him from the other GLs of that time. It sort of symbolized his rebelliousness.
I remember seeing panels online of a almost mentally challenged Guy trying to ask Ice out. Kind of like a Forest Gump character. But I mostly know of asshole Guy. I didn't know he had been around that long. I thought he had been created in the 80s.
In the Armageddon 2001 annual of Justice League Guy builds a sort of church around his bad attitude. Then he gets hit in the head, because nice Guy again, and is pummeled by his former followers. Ice runs out to comfort him. I'm not sure if we're better off without that alternate future or not.
My favorite Justice League team, second only to the Detroit team, was the JLI/Super Buddies, of which Guy was not an official member in the reboots, but felt he needed to tag along to protect them (usually having something to do with Ice). Odd how he kept saying he didn't need these losers, but was still always there.
The best insult I ever heard was
"You think your a Clark Kent when your barely a guy gardener"
They have done Guy so dirty. He and Kyle were my faves. Kyle got a lot of character development. But tbh, Guy only gets to be a stereotype for most writers.
My favorite Guy fight was not when he got one-punched by Batman, but when he took on President Clark Kent in one of the Superman annuals for Armageddon 2000. Clark was so awesome that he willed Guy's ring to form around his own finger.
Like many, I did not see the appeal of Guy. It was not until reading him in RED LANTERNS that I finally got him and liked him. Kyle Rayner used to be my second favorite Green Lantern after Hal Jordan. Now is Guy.
I was a fan of the Vuldarian -stuff actually, as he then fit into a niche DC hadnt ever really had before, and and was pretty pissed when they killed him off-panel in _Worlds At War_; thought it was kinda kool making him into a mini-antagonist when he got resurrected afterward, tho.....
I’m so mad no one ever talks about that Swamp Thing issue where Guy murders an alien mother
Guy “I’m going to drop my ring, and challenge Batman! You know master of all martial arts to a fist fight cuz that’s a smart idea.” Gardiner
I always wondered what Ice saw in him and now I know. She got a nice guy before he became Guy Gardner again XD.
Taking a date to a Porno theater had to be a hat tip to Taxi Driver.
In Star Trek Green Lantern Guy thinks a Vulcan professor at Starfleet Acadadmy is in to him.
Guy is my favorite Lantern. The hothead with a heart. Funnily enough that storyline in Green Lantern Corps where he moons Batman was where I first got introduced and became a fan.
Fist time i remember redning about Guy was in a story where he got his green ring stolen so he took a violet ring and wielded it shouting i love the core when told he needed to focus on what he loved the most.
Ok so your channel keeps popping up and I keep loving it, I'm subscribed
I feel that in the same manner that Wolfman and Perez get credited for creating Nightwing, even though they didn't create Dick Grayson, Englehart and the artist (Dick Giordano?) responsible for Guy's new persona should be credited with his creation. They are definitely different enough characters to warrant the change.
At the very least, he should be credited with the Green Lantern Corps.
After I learned to read, Green Lantern replaced Wonder Woman as my favorite comic character, because I would skim comic books in the grocery store while mom did the shopping; and Green Lantern really appealed to my 6 year-old brain, although I couldn't tell you any details of the stories I read. When I started reading comics more fully/openly in the early 90's Green Lantern was the book of choice for me, and so I remember Guy more as a mentor figure along with John for Kyle. So I have a soft spot in my heart for Guy (plus I never liked Batman, so....).