I'm discovering one problem with the black and white Green Lantern reprints in SHOWCASE PRESENTS... He's a character who works with a green ring and has a problem with the color yellow. Those two colors don't tend to show up in black and white.

Fortunately, John Broome was forward thinking enough to describe everything in the dialogue. (I'm not sure what DC's going to do when they get to the post Silver-Age stories that aren't quite as helpful in that respect.)

See?! See?! I toldja there were problems with the black and white reprints!

Leo stepped right into that one!

"Ha haho"??

That's Sinestro. People from Korugar laugh a little differently than the rest of the universe.

Itsa combination "laugh-insult-your-mama" maneuver...

Dang! Where's Kyle Raynor when you need his not-affected-by-yellow green lantern ring?

At that time? Depending on how you view DC time he was either in diapers or in high school.

Kyle Rayner's ring did not have the yellow impurity. Fortunately, writers countered by making Kyle an idiot.

Impure thoughts...

What's the current take - It seems to me that if you are a Rookie, your ring has a problem with yellow but the problem fades with experience*



*(from reading Green Lantern: Recharge)

My take on the yellow impurity is as long as the Lanterns "remember fear" they can overcome the impurity. Meaning that they have to concentrate for that to work. If they're caught up in a battle and not able to take the time to think about it, then yellow is still a problem.

Kyle, still having fear, was always able to overcome the impurity.

I don't know. It's an excuse to bridge the gap between the traditional GLs and Kyle. As excuses go it's all right, but it's better left not discussed in the books too much.

I like the old Green Lantern's weakness better.

There's something just so arbitrary about the color yellow. Plus, it ends up making half of GL's villains colored in the stuff. Wood's lame and all, but at least it makes a certain amount of sense for someone to pick up a shovel or something and wail on him... instead of *just* happening to pick up a yellow brick and throwing it at him.

Then again, I always preferred the Golden Age versions to those new fangled Silver Age upstarts. Alan Scott and Jay Garrick, those are some real heroes... not Mr. Womanizer and Dr. Bland.

Yep; that was one of the things that made the early 90s JSA series by Parobeck and Strazewski so good!

I really miss Mike Parobeck's work. I loved that Justice Society series.

The bystander's flowery description of the combatants probably helps in the black & white reprints too:



(Grown-ups actually spoke that way when I was a kid.)

In my imagined update that would use Alan Scott as the renegade Lantern using the ring and lantern of the oppressive Sentinel Corps to fight crime on earth while keeping Earth free from the Sentinels and their Guardian masters Influence.....the weakness wouldn't be wood, or yellow....the but actual substance of Gold.