Authorship

Friday, December 4, 2009

Guy Gardner: Bowl Cut

Guy Gardner is a unique case in the world of comic characters.
Not only did he sport a highly unfashionable bowl cut for decades, he is also one of the few arch-republican comic book characters. 


And perhaps it is fitting that as a republican he will turn into a rage-filled-blood-spewing-vomit-monster-Red-Ring-wearing monster in the next issue of the Green Lantern Corps. It's a little known fact that the Red Lantern Battery is actually fueled with the hatred spread by AM Conservative talk radio hosts, but that is a different story all together.





I am here to talk about on hell of a Guy. Consider this to be a bit of a requiem for Guy.





If anything, he has always been a victim of bad luck. He was supposed to be the Green Lantern of Earth. But because he was too far away, he didn't get the green ring.  But that didn't stop him from doing good. He became a social worker, worked with kids, dealt with an abusive father, blah blah blah. Got a bad hair cut he based on his favorite comic book character. 


Guy with all of his foibles had a level of dignity. All the fans hated him. They hated him as a replacement for Hal Jordan, even though history shows that Hal Jordan is just as much of a jerk if not more of one than Guy ever was. Guy Was the headstrong rebel, the John McCain (before the senator became a sell-out).







And of course he was completely nuts. He took a girl on a first date to a stag film. To a theater owned by Black Hand! Which is comedy in itself. He then kicked Black Hand's ass.



So whether Guy will return from being a Red Lantern or not, we won't know until the end of Blackest Night. But I kind of hope so. He is a great flawed character. Proof that good heroes can be Republicans. And that a bad haircut doesn't mean that you can't fight Doomsday or Sinestro or Superboy Prime and still be a badass.

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