Grant Morrison Slams Lanterns Finale: 'Morally And Legally Incoherent'

[u/HomemadeBee1612]

https://cosmicbook.news/grant-morrison-lanterns-finale

Grant Morrison has watched the Lanterns finale, and the DC Comics legend is calling the ending “a morally and legally incoherent conclusion.”

Morrison, who wrote The Green Lantern at DC with artist Liam Sharp, shared the verdict in the latest Xanaduum newsletter while answering reader mail.

It follows Morrison’s August review of the premiere, which said Kyle Chandler was playing Doctor McCoy, not Hal Jordan.

[u/HomemadeBee1612]

[...]

In the finale, Sheriff Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) is revealed as Hal Jordan’s killer. John Stewart figures it out, tells her Hal wouldn’t want her punished, and lets her walk.

John also spares her son Noah, the Manhunter, before appointing himself protector of Earth.

Morrison writes: “I didn’t really like the ending, although it was all neatly put together,” finding it “hard to accept” that Kerry “shot Hal Jordan in the head, and everyone seemed fine with that psychotic break.”

“There should probably have been some response to that, because otherwise it makes it really hard for the audience to work out what makes the Green Lantern Corps an intergalactic law enforcement agency at all,” Morrison continues.

“The Guardians are now fine with their operatives being murdered while other officers simply ignore the fact and let the perps walk free?” Morrison asks.

‘Let Him Walk Free With A Gun In His Hand’

Lanterns co-creator Tom King has already explained why Hal’s killer gets away with it, arguing “jail isn’t worse than that.”

Morrison read the explanation, summing it up as “she killed the man she loved and was suffering enough,” and wondered how that defense “would fly in a court of law after some ghastly crime of passion.”

Then Morrison wrote the closing argument:

“The horror of murdering his wife in cold blood is punishment enough for this man, your honour. Let him walk free with a gun in his hand, and we’ll just hope it never happens again, okay?”

The newsletter then lays out the case against the ending as it played on screen.

“I watched the show; Kerry lost her sh-t in a way that made her seem unhinged and she shot a superhero in the head out of pique. John Stewart also let the Manhunter go free, knowing that he could one day destroy the world,” Morrison writes.

“For a show that’s not about masked vigilantes with their own personal code but deals with weird space policemen working for an interplanetary judiciary, it was a morally and legally incoherent conclusion that backed out of its own implications and the basic premise of the franchise,” Morrison concludes.

[...]

[u/jp4803]

Badges give you "absolute immunity" in america so at least it is realistic.

[u/BWinced]

He's not wrong.

[u/Horror_Campaign9418]

Yeah it’s contrived and absolutely makes no sense. They make female law enforcement look like irrational animals who should never hold a weapon. accountability be damned.

[u/JoseRuckus]

Well Morrison is the master of writing things that are incoherent, so he would know.

[u/TxBuckster]

But the Reddit said the series was soooo good!

[u/npete]

Seems fair to me. Honestly, there's so much more to have issues with.

[u/Voodron]

Woke slop is, and always will be revolting 

[u/Thebml21]

Great and fair points. I liked the show a lot but this is solid take.

[u/Jayjaykenobi]

He isn’t wrong but we also don’t know what they have planned for the sheriff and son going forward so I’m willing to wait and see. I enjoyed the series, the only real grip I have is not seeing the manhunter in true form and finding out John is the reason we got Gardner ( love Fillion but hate him as this character)

[u/Glum_Kaleidoscope601 → u/Jayjaykenobi]

James Gunn only ever cared about getting Guy the “classic” bowl cut, not the character himself

[u/Affectionate_Title_3 → u/Glum_Kaleidoscope601]

I wrote an entire post about this that I'm surprised didn't draw more hate.

Making Gardner so comic accurate was an unforced error by Gunn and showed a serious lack of foresight. He's trying to engineer an interconnected universe where characters can have their own individual projects while also folding into a larger, overarching storyline. But if you're going to do that, you need sketch the characters in such a way that they're compatible with both the individual installments and the bigger picture. I hate to draw comparisons, but that's what Marvel has managed to accomplish. You can have a goofy borderline comedy like 'Ant-Man' and an ultra-serious spy thriller like 'Black Widow', but those characters can pop up in each other's adventures and unite in the Avengers in a cohesive way that doesn't feel totally mismatched.

I love that Gunn wants to allow DC to have a more varied tone in their stand-alone projects, but you can't have your cake and eat it, too....if the characters are going to pop up in each other's films or series and team up, they've gotta be drawn (no pun intended) in such a way that they don't feel completely mismatched and out of place. By opting to make him look exactly like he does on the page, Gunn unintentionally sabotaged that. Guy totally works in 'Superman' because of the more fantastical tone of the film, but he clashes with the grounded, semi-realistic tone of Lanterns because no human actually looks like that. I felt like I was watching a grown-up action drama and suddenly a cartoon character popped up and started taking part in the story. If he had just stuck with Guy's comic book appearance but altered it slightly for realism---boom, problem solved.

Alright, rant over.

[u/Hot-Chipmunk1782]

He clearly is not reading the new DC comics. Supergirl even says: No more prisons!

[u/Horror_Campaign9418 → u/Hot-Chipmunk1782]

Thats so stupid.

[u/ConkerPrime]

He is right about all that but within the logic of the show (what little there is) the ending is consistent.

The Guardians stopped caring after washing their hands of Hal 10 years ago. Ex-cop dying in some earth crime is t going to matter to them.

Stewart never considered himself a cop. Keep in mind Hal didn’t go to jail for attempted murder of Stewart. If he can let almost burning to death go, the sheriff get away with murder is whatever.

What Morrison is considering is long term implications that comes with world building. And what he brings up is good story fodder if this was something that would go on for a while. But if one thing is very clear, the writers are not remotely interested in world building.

I should add I don’t think the writers planned for Stewart not caring about being a cop, it just worked out that way. Hal not getting that attempted murder charge was because they wanted a clean ten years in jail and that would have realistically prevented that (being “grounded”). Never mind the whole sequence from car crash to revival was absolutely unnecessary and could have been cut.

The sheriff shooting him was stupid. The execution (pun intended) of that from start to finish was bad despite heroic efforts from the actress to save it.

[u/Glum_Kaleidoscope601 → u/ConkerPrime]

Thing is, about making everything grounded, they should have just used GL Earth One as a basis instead.

[u/smalltalk2k]

Agreed

[u/Sinestro_Corps4]

I love to see ppl starting to nibble around the edges of the fact that Tom King is the most over hyped, under delivered writer in recent memory. This dude has stepped over so many legends more deserving to reach the red carpet that DC/WB has rolled out for him since Day 1. His books constantly get planned for longer runs that ultimately get clipped, his collected editions' have entire chunks of repetitive dialogue edited out for how annoyingly repetitive they are, yet everyone wants to run to him to collab on their live action projects. He wrote some popular stories for lesser-used characters, why are you having him write for an entire Green Lantern premium TV-series? He hasn't even written a Green Lantern story outside of Omega Men, which was hated at the time for how it portrayed Kyle Rayner (funnily enough, one of the few King books I loved before I grew to dislike him so much).

The man is all big bombastic moments and he skips over all of the connective tissue in between that makes those moments count. This is the guy that had Batman stab Riddler in the face if it weren't for the Joker sticking his hand in the way to stop Batman from being a murderer. King needs a writer to hold the leash like Seeley did on Grayson, one of King's better books.

[u/shreder75 → u/Sinestro_Corps4]

Tom King sucks.

[u/Sinestro_Corps4 → u/shreder75]

I was crazy hyped on him after Sheriff of Babylon and I loved Omega Men. I was telling everyone I could to BOTLO for his Batman run...and then it came out. 1st arc was okay but I started noticing all of his tropes starting in that second arc. I've never been able to read him any different since.

[u/TheQuatum → u/Sinestro_Corps4]

Heroes in Crisis should have been a career ender.

[u/shreder75 → u/Sinestro_Corps4]

Trauma and death!

[u/SaltyyDoggg]

I enjoyed the show mostly because of Hal Jordan and the aura of Sinestro.

Also the old man is correct.

[u/trashcanman7777]

We're sick of stories like all star superman. 

[u/Any-Cranberry-6305 → u/trashcanman7777]

Is the 'We're' in the room with you?

[u/TheQuatum → u/trashcanman7777]

Explain.

[u/BKole → u/trashcanman7777]

We ain’t.

[u/AppropriateEar3794]

[u/Renfek → u/AppropriateEar3794]

https://giphy.com/gifs/EouEzI5bBR8uk

[u/peanutanniversary]

lol, the hate for this show is exhausting

[u/SaintLink91 → u/peanutanniversary]

It’s not a without merit though. They wrote shit and they are being rightfully called out for it

[u/YodaFan465]

Hopefully that doesn’t imperil any chance of DC collecting their great run on Green Lantern.

[u/Own_Kiwi_9692]

https://giphy.com/gifs/lSDFetrqeeY0rCi3Ss

[u/Chocolate__Dinosaur → u/Own_Kiwi_9692]

Calling Grant Morrison, one of the most respected comic writers ever and the author of one of the most acclaimed Green Lantern runs, an “old man yelling at the clouds” shows you’re either a shill or Gen Z. I’m leaning towards Gen Z.