Chris Ryan

Brothers and sisters, let us bow our heads for a once gifted comics writer’s honor…

Over the past decade or so, Tom King has arguably been one of comics’ best storytellers. He wrote outstanding tales including The Vision, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, among others,as well as superb runs on Batman, Wonder Woman, and more.

Of course Hollywood came calling, adapting many of the above mentioned works for television and film. Some worked spectacularly, others were maligned by the internet politics of the day.

Largely, though, King remained unscathed. Sure, some of his works were controversial. For example, I was not a fan of his Mister Miracle, thinking it a bit disrespectful of the source material. And I should have taken that as a sign that he was susceptible to twisting legends for the outrage.

Too late now.

Lanterns, episode 1 proves he has fallen into Hollywood’s self-aggrandizing sway.

I mourn King’s credibility because he allowed himself to get Mundified and Lindenoffed. And because he let himself be seduced into thinking it was a good idea to kill Hal Jordan.

Selling out one’s talent to manufacture a lame controversial cliffhanger at the end of its first episode is a damn shame.

Killing a significant character to prove there are “real stakes” is a played out and lame idea that should have been left to rot back in the Whedon era.

Tom King should have known better. Should have worked harder. Should have fought Hollywood for the show’s sake, for his credibility’s sake, for Hal Jordan’s sake.

Hal Jordan, wronged by Tom King.

Worse than all of this is Writer Tom also allowing himself to be convinced it was such a good idea he would join these lost Hollyweirded egos in promoting it. He actually said on the official Lanterns podcast that “there is no legacy without loss.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is pure Hollywood bullshit. Sure, once it was a credible device, like in the 1930’s through the 1970’s. But each cinematic death felt a little weaker, a touch cheaper. By the time Whedon was making it a staple of heroic shows and films, the trope had worn so thin we could see through it.

As a storytelling device, killing a character to show stakes are real is almost as boring as proclaiming the butler did it.

Sadly, that nonsense crept into comics around the time of TV’s Whedon era. Killing a significant character to prove stakes was horribly beaten to death in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, with the death and rebirth of just about every superhero on the big two’s rosters.

And on TV, from M*A*S*H* to Buffy to Angel to Firefly (technically, Whedon waited until the film Serenity to stoop to this, again), to Avengers: Age of Ultron (Whedon, again), to the season one shocker of Game of Thrones and on and on.

This tired trope became such a cliche that podcasters made money speculating who would die next season, next episode, next anything. A once shocking twist was reduced to tedium. And being boring is a cardinal sin for writers.

Tom knows this. And he should have fought harder against disrespecting a beloved character in this way. It was his responsibility as a writer with self-respect to reject such a shameful waste of an opportunity to tell a tale for the ages.

And Tom’s attempt to repackage this played out trope by claiming “there is no legacy without loss” is just, to quote Deadpool, “lazy writing.”

There is no legacy without building it, and in a new medium for Hal Jordan like, say, live action television, one episode isn’t enough to create his legacy for the television audience. An interview on 60 Minutes isn’t enough to claim legacy. Showing Hal being a wiseass to his trainee John Stewart, or flying off and sticking Stewart with the check, or successfully interrogating an alien and protecting an entire town from destruction isn’t enough to claim legacy.

Legacy takes time. It took sixty years of comics stories for Hal to be loved as he is. Tom can’t claim legacy from those stories as part of this show’s legacy, the TV audience didn’t all read them. We were given one episode, and then Tom killed a hero that other writers spent sixty years building into a legend. And then he claimed it was necessary because “there’s no legacy without loss.”

Trite.

Boring.

Old.

Tom was once better than this. His background in the spy industry should have prepared him to defend the honor of beloved entities, be they country or characters. His years of writing respectable stories should have built up his defenses.

But Hollywood lavishes praise on “new” talent, ego strokes the wide-eyed to ecstasy, shines its bright lights directly into the deer’s eyes, before asking for just one little favor…

And I do have empathy for the death of Tom’s credibility. Going Hollywood is dangerous. And the fans should have seen it coming. We should have cried out a warning. But no, we just watched our YouTube fanboy shows for updates while Tom were getting Mundied and Lindenoffed.

So, in a way, this is all our faults. We let it happen.

Hal Jordan may or may not stay dead (this is a comic book show, after all), But Tom King’s credibility? With each interview he does defending this cheap move, the fishnets get pulled a little higher, the make-up is slathered on a bit thicker, and his price? Well, it gets tough out there on the streets…