Big Blue Arndt: June 2006 Archives

It's a two-issue Prestige Format series that will be out in November. It's called "Guy Gardner: Collateral Damage". As R.B. Probst said, "Let all prepare themselves."

What does it look like?

For those who may have not been following Gardner's character arc lately, he's fully shed any vestiges of the "Bwhaha-ha" he had left over from the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League days, and currently, is a competent, level-headed, if not opinionated, and occasionally obstinate member of the Green Lantern Corps.

And that portrayal fits perfect with Chaykin. "I never thought Guy was an idiot or a goofball," he said. "I always thought he was a guy with a lot of street-level smarts, who is plain spoken and hard boiled. I realized - and I'm not doing a likeness or anything like that, as the character is a blend of different sensibilities, in terms of a character, he's a lot like Dennis Leary - a smart guy, who's still a street guy. That's how I'm playing Guy."

That doesn't deviate far from the portrayal set by the last writer to actively, consistently handle the character, Beau Smith. Some have been annoyed, concerned, and put off that DC and Geoff Johns have somewhat ignored or even written out the evolutions of the character that occured in the Guy Gardner: Warrior series and some aspects have been dumped and/or disrespected. There are fans of Guy Gardner who aren't fans of the Warrior series or those developments. In response to the news and the talk Beau Smith had this to say:

I've been sent a ton of emails on the Guy Gardner posts here at Newsarama. Seems that With announcement of the new Guy Gardner mini-series there have been a bunch of questions sent to me about my run on GGW (#20 through #44 with two annuals)

I thought that it would save time to post up here instead of answering all the emails with the same answer. I hope this helps:

I came on to Guy Gardner when Chuck Dixon left the series. If memory serves me right Chuck left because Joe Staton was fired and working with Joe was why Chuck signed on in the first place.

I had done a story for editor Kevin Dooley in Green Lantern Quarterly about one of the first Green Lanterns.His name was Probert The Bad One. I had fun and got to create a Green Lantern. Kevin liked what I did with Probert and asked me if I would like to jump on as the new writer on Guy Gardner. He wanted the same tough guy flavor that I had done with Probert. He and then assistant editor, Eddie Berganza also told me that I would get to work with artist Mitch Byrd....."Say no more, sign me up" was my reply. I had always wanted to work with Mitch since I first saw his stuff on Cat & Mouse.

Kevin told me that DC was deconstructing the Green Lantern Corps. and Hall Jordan.They were either gonna kill off or cast out every Green Lantern. They wanted me to wrap up the story lines that Chuck had set up and then create a new version of Guy Gardner. They made it very clear that DC was doing away with the whole current Green Lantern past. This lasted almost ten years. As you know, The Green Lantern Corps., Hal Jordan and others have just come back in the last couple of years.

I have to admit, I enjoyed the Giffen/McGuire GG as much as anyone. I loved the humor and art. The only thing I wanted to file off my version of Guy was the one note character that he had become. It seemed that there was a small faction that just wanted to repeat the "Batman One Punch On Guy" over and over like bad porn. I always felt that Guy as a character had the heart of a hero/warrior.I wanted to bring his level of respect back.

My original idea was not to give Guy and super powers at all. Surround him with an interesting cast of supporting characters for global adventures and bar room brawls in every port and place of adventure. I wanted Guy and his cast to be the modern Doc Savage type team. That's what I created Buck Wargo and The Monster Hunters.

Mitch Bryd was of the same mind as me. We were both pretty excited and I think that shows in issues #22 and #23 of GGW. THAT is the way we wanted to do the new GGW series. But......

Kevin/Eddie/DC believed that Guy needed super powers or the readers wouldn't buy it. My stance was that I would add layers to Guy's personality without losing his rough edge, smart-ass ways and tough guy stance among other super heroes.Even then I always said that Denis Leary would be the perfect Guy Gardner. I still think that way.

I kept my heels dug in the ground on Guy as a person. To me he was a character that always wanted respectand I was gonna make sure he got it. I wanted to make Guy a character that every reader could have an emotional investment in because that is what makes readers come back month after month. Powers come and go are repeated and redone, but the character is what brings readers back.

So Mitch and I went about giving Guy powers by orders of DC. I was also told to explain to the readers why Guy has gone through so many changes through his long history. If you remember, at one time Guy was a teacher,a counsler and worked in a prison helping bad guys turn good......hard to beleive, eh?

Mitch had done some very cool drawings of Guy changing his body into weapons. Primative weapons.No egg beaters or chainsaws. I liked that. But I always knew if Guy got hot and caught on that every other writer and editor that borrowed him for their book would soon have him morphing those stinkin' egg beaters and chainsaws....I was right.

At one point DC told me that "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" are hot....can you make Guy like that? Vomit still comes up my throat when I think of that.

I fought that. I won. But with that came having to try and "shoe horn"in every loose end ever left from every writer that had ever left one in Guy's history. That was a job and I did the best I could. May not have been perfect, but I tried.

Please remember, my plan for Guy was a simple one. Surround him with a great cast, interesting stories, make him a likeable character and please the readers. I think I did my main goal which was making sure Guy Gardner was respected and no long a one note character, a joke, and the butt end of every Batman joke and frat boy's wet dream.

All this happened through many DC events, crossovers, more events and folks messing with the character when he was on loan to another book. If you take the time to read those issues of GGW and focus on Guy as a man, I think you'll see that I did what I set out to do.

It's true that sales on the book were terrible when I took it over. (#20) BUT, by around issue #25 sales were not up but climbing and continued to climb until Mitch Byrd left the book and we went through a string of different artists. As you well know, in comics if you do not have a steady look and creative team for a monthly book it gets hurt and sales drop. That's what happened to GGW. By the time we got a regular artist it was too late.

My original plan for Guy's bar was a very small, manly bar. One that heroes could hang out in and bad guys would be afraid of. DC liked that...BUT at the time Planet Hollywood was the rage and they thought that Guy's bar should be a theme bar like that. I was in their sandbox playing with their toys.....Warrior's became a theme bar. We did our best to make it fun.

Part of my personal fun was getting to bring back many DC Characters that I loved and always wanted to write. I started asking around for all these characters like Wildcat, Lady Blackhawk, Lead, and others. The other editors called Warrior's the "land of misfit heroes." I tried hard to get B 'Wana Beast and some of the DC Western characters too.

Issue #29 was the most fun I ever had.I got to put words into the mouths of every DCU character I could think of. I will always be in DC's debt for giving me that opportunity and listening to my crazy idea.

I will add that I got to go out of the series like I wanted.Mitch came back and wegave the readers a slobberknocker of a show down with Major Force. A blaze of glory.

I wish Howard Chaykin the very best with Guy Gardner. I know he is going to do a wonderful job and please many readers and fans of Guy Gardner. I have been a fan of Howard's since I was in high school. He is smart and a hell of an artist. He also has respect for characters. You can bet he will treat Guy with respect.

I will always be grateful to DC and the readers for my two year run on GGW. It was wonderful and I loved every minute of it. I still find it hard to believe that this comic book readin' little kid from West Virginia got to grow up and write some of the greatest comic book characters in the world.

Sorry this was so long. I have a great passion for comic books. I tend to run on when I talk about em'. I hope this answers some of your questions.

Thanks,

Beau Smith

I'm not a fan of Guy Gardner the character nor of Howard Chaykin as a writer, but I will give a good batch of entertainment a good chance if it's within my budget. I enjoyed Warrior. We'll see what happens next with the character. Just so long as the character isn't written as psychotic and incompetent I may enjoy the treatment. Then again I haven't been able to bring myself to like too much of what DC puts out nowadays.

Just a little. I won't go into much and I certainly won't personally delve into the many contradictory origin stories for the character throughout the Golden and Silver Ages. Suffice it to say, each individual piece of her arsenal, equipment, and costume had a purpose and an aspect of functionality so how she gained each one could be an interesting origin story; too bad the different origin stories don't fit together in a way that makes sense!

Earlier I mentioned the replacement of the eage on Wonder Woman's chest. It happened in 1981 when Roy Thomas and Gene Colan came on to the title. Purportedly it was to give Wonder Woman a marketable symbol equavalent to Superman's Big Red S. She got twin Ws stamped on her bodice, and those can be trademarked and have been trademarked. The old eagle symbol mad more sense in the context of the character history as well as the rest of the costume, but it could not be trademarked for marketing purposes exclusive to that character and DC.

Back in the July 2000 issue of Fanzing Michael Hutchison examined Wonder Woman's sexuality, as well as what the Amazons have done for 3000 years, especially because of the changes in canon. Pre-Crisis the Amazons were super-advanced with incredible super-science; Post-Crisis they were primitives with incredible understandings of beauty techniques.

A June 1998 Retconvention notes how DC had tried to adjust with Wonder Woman torn from the Golden Age.

There was a Wonder Family or there were Impossible Tales.

and an ancient article from Alan Kistler asks the unanswerable... who is Donna Troy? The answer only changes because Wonder Woman changes.

There are others. Go flip through the Fanzing Archives.

From Paul O'Brien's review of Wonder Woman #1:

The new Wonder Woman costume immediately gets on my good side by getting rid of all traces of the American flag. This isn't anti-Americanism, but simple consistency. The central idea of Wonder Woman is that she's come from the foreign culture of Paradise Island to teach us where we're going wrong. Not only is she not American, but she doesn't even stand for American values. For a character like that, any use of the American flag is garbled iconography which should be ruthlessly purged. I'm sure it won't stick, but the vaguely Greco-Roman style of this costume is a massive improvement, since at least that's the established look of Paradise Island itself.

First, I will confess that I cannot find an image of the new Wonder Woman ("Donna Troy, The Continuity Error That Walks Like A Woman") in her new costume and I haven't been trying very hard (it should not be too hard). The relevent cover shows the classic costume. Second, one has to admit that Mr. O'Brien has a point about visual consistency of the character with her concept and current background, but I think it all goes into the wrong direction.

Mark Hamill renews his role as Luke Skywalker just in time for Darth Vader to reveal...

Indeed this is from Robot Chicken.

I promised you a spoilerific review of X-Men 3 and even earlier I promised a spoilerific review of Mission: Impossible 3.

My computer broke before I could deliver. I apologize. Do not worry I shall return, even as my very relevence passes.