Green Lantern and What I Learned From 'The Blackest Night'

Recently I just wrapped up reading the main story line of 'The Blackest Night' event in DC Comics. The story centers around the Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, which is one of my favorite superheroes.

The basic premise of the story is that the emotional light spectrum (based around the ROYGBIV framework) has split. Where there is usually just the green light, powered by will, there is now lanterns for all of the aforementioned colors. Yellow is powered by fear, red by rage, blue by hope, orange by greed, violet by love, and indigo by compassion. This creates an imbalance, more or less, that realizes the prophecy of the "blackest night" which would extinguish all the light in the universe and end the chaos this splintering of the emotional light spectrum caused.

Long story short, this plot involved a lot of discussion of emotions, their causes, and their validity. Certain lanterns are obvious opposites of each other and an emotion like greed, turned up to 11 (so to speak), is just chaos. In the end though, all of the different colors are able to come together to end the rampage of the undead husks of the "Black Lanterns" that are destroying life all over the universe. They come to an understanding of each other at times, or at least an acceptance that for some, the power of their ring is the one controlling them, making them a single-minded embodiment of greed for example.

This was my big takeaway and my favorite element of this story line. People feel what they feel, we shouldn't judge them or assume anything about what they're feeling. Sometimes rage is the appropriate response to injustice. Sometimes hope is the hardest thing to do for someone. Sometimes fear can make good people do misguided things. In the end though, it furthered my love of the Green Lantern to know that no matter what else is going on, you just need to have the will to carry on because there are people that care about you and it gets better.

I highly recommend all of the Blackest Night story. It's action-packed, involves the whole DC Universe, and has this great undercurrent of emotional stuff. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Thanks for stopping by!

Strong Female Characters in Movies & the "Trinity Syndrome"

I stumbled upon this article recently and found it to be another thoughtful and relevant look into the images media is portraying for audiences today, similar to the "Flawless Rescue Stud" phenomenon I wrote about earlier. I definitely agree with the author that Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow was a great character, and I wish more females in movies were like her. It is disappointing to hear of a lot of recent films with strong females who are given nothing to do to further the plot. It seems like such a waste!

I always enjoy reading things like this so I thought I'd share. Let me know what you think about it.

Romantic Comedies & The "Flawless Rescue Stud"

I just read this editorial article over at Nerdist.com about an unfortunate phenomenon in romantic comedies of late where their male characters, referred to as "Flawless Rescue Studs", are creating unrealistic and harmful portrayals of romantic relationships. The basic premise, which is elaborated on in the article, showcases the trend of male characters "saving" the women characters in these movies and rescuing the women who have basically been made incapable of solving anything themselves without a man around. It has a lot of important connections and connotations for feminism and masculinity and how they're represented in media so I recommend giving it a read. Lets support more original, creative, and realistic representations of people and their relationships. Check out my movie reviews for some great examples of this streaming now on Netflix.

What I Was Geeking Out About: May 2014

Hello fellow geeks and nerds! In an ongoing effort to better serve up my delicious content to you, here is a monthly wrap-up of all my recent geek outs! Enjoy!

• May 02, 2014
• May 09, 2014
• May 16, 2014
• May 23, 2014
• May 30, 2014

Have an awesome week!

Support for #YesAllWomen & The Real Issues Behind Elliot Rodger

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPFcspwbrq8] I felt the urge to share this video* because I feel it is important as a male feminist ally. Laci Green sums up the issues very well behind why someone would do the terrible things Elliot Rodger did and how misogyny is literally killing people.

* Warning: Footage of Elliot Rodger is shown in this video, albeit a brief clip. I know some people may not want to see him/hear him, so I am including this caveat to the above video.

Support #YesAllWomen on Twitter with a retweet, favorite, or even just taking some time to read all of the messages. There is some great learning and catharsis happening on there.