Justice League How would you feel about John Stewart amd Wally West instead of Hal and Barry?

[TheWatcher]

Hal being better is just your opinion. Don't try to pass it off as fact. Telling the best story is the goal. While it's great if you can be fully faithful to the source material and still get it done, in situations where you can't it's best not to be shackled by the source material. The Nolan Batfilms are a good example. They mostly kept the important parts of the source material and left out the unnecessary parts. JLU did the same. Hal is an unnecessary part. They didn't feel the need to talk about him so John's backstory is obviously not dependent on him. Did you like Hal's film?

Ironic considering Hal has a much better story.

I'm not saying John shouldn't be in a JL sequel, but he doesn't deserve his own movie.

It wasn't as bad as everyone says it is, but it's not a good movie.

 

[DaveMoral]

It wasn't Hal that was the problem with the movie. This is what you keep failing to understand, brainchild. It was the lack of faith in the property. The writing was weakened by condensation, late changes to conform with the Johns comic work.. which should have been there from the start since it was well umderway in comics before the script was greenlit. They tried to play it safe by hiring a proven director, not a hungry ambitious director, and attempting to ape Iron Man.

 

[cleverusername8]

It wasn't Hal that was the problem with the movie. This is what you keep failing to understand, brainchild. It was the lack of faith in the property. The writing was weakened by condensation, late changes to conform with the Johns comic work.. which should have been there from the start since it was well umderway in comics before the script was greenlit. They tried to play it safe by hiring a proven director, not a hungry ambitious director, and attempting to ape Iron Man.

Lol speaking of which, if Hal is used in Justice League, 10 bucks says they'll attempt to make his character the 'Tony Stark' of the team. I guess it'd be only natural but I doubt it'll go over well.

 

[DaveMoral]

Hal can be a smarmy jackass, but he's no Tony Stark. I'd prefer a more seasoned Hal in JL than the cocky Hal of New 52 JL.

 

[mace1]

Dwayne McDuffie on Green Lantern: “We’ve explained [John Stewart’s background] in bits and pieces: John was a Green Lantern long before Kyle, but not in this sector (he was with the Honor Guard). When Abin Sur got into trouble, his ring found another worthy Earthman, Kyle Rayner. When Kyle was reassigned for training, John came back to cover Earth’s sector, as it was an opportunity to serve near his home planet.

"John’s been a Green Lantern for as long as fifteen years, near as I can figure out. His eyes are green because he’s absorbed so much ring energy. […] Green Lantern’s identity is publicly-known. He never had a secret identity. He doesn’t think of himself as a superhero; more of a beat cop (courtesy of DwayneMcDuffie.com).”

Bruce Timm on Green Lantern #1 (circa 2002): “I really love the John Stewart Green Lantern. People wonder why we didn’t go with Kyle Rayner or Guy Gardner, but when they see what we’ve done with him, I honestly think they’ll agree he’s the most interesting Green Lantern they’ve ever seen…I had Samuel L. Jackson in mind for this Green Lantern…[Phil LaMarr used] this gruff military voice and it was dead-on (courtesy of Starlog Magazine).”

Bruce Timm on Green Lantern #2 (circa 2003): “The interesting thing about Green Lantern is [that], in the DC comics, there have been a number of Green Lanterns over the years, so we had a lot of them to choose from, [but] for variety’s sake and for diversity, we really wanted to use the John Stewart Green Lantern character.

“He was actually introduced back in [1971] and he was initially brought in as a part-time replacement for [the] Hal Jordan Green Lantern, who was the main Green Lantern at the time. And what was interesting was that, in 1970 terms, the John Stewart character was a kind of angry, young black man…real ‘power to the people’ kind of guy. That was something that we thought would be kind of…interesting…to add to the dynamic of our Justice League.
“We could have gone with Hal Jordan—and he was a great character in the comics—but, in terms of personalities, we wanted to make sure that we had a really good mix of some characters who were a little bit more jokey and some characters who were a little more, y’know, whatever. And so, we felt that having a Green Lantern with a real good, solid edge to him would be interesting for drama (courtesy of the Justice League: Justice on Trial DVD).”

Bruce Timm on Green Lantern (circa 2004): “The only things that really needed to be settled on were which version of the Green Lantern we were going to use, because there’s so many. We could have used Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner or Guy Gardner, but for a number of reasons, including ethnic diversity, we chose to go with John Stewart—which has turned out to be probably the single most controversial aspect of the show amongst die-hard comic book fans. John Stewart never really got a whole lot of face time in the comics. There was a small period of time back in the ‘80s when Steve Englehart was writing the comic, when John was the main Green Lantern. […] I’ve always kind of liked him too and, again, aside from the ethnic diversity thing, we were looking at what the group dynamic was going to be.

“One of the things we really wanted to avoid was having a group of characters who were all pretty much interchangeable. Going back and rereading a lot of the Silver Age Justice League comics, they really are all the same character—Batman [had] no different a voice than Superman or Flash. They’re all kind of the same character; the only thing that differentiates them is what colors they’re wearing and what powers they have. So we really wanted to make sure they had a much more interesting group dynamic than that and that they all had different personalities. Going back to the original version of John Stewart from Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ day, the thing that made him interesting to us was that he was quite a bit more of a badass. If you go back and read those, he comes across as a stereotypical, angry, young black man. We knew we didn’t want to do that exactly, but we still wanted to keep a little bit of that edge to him so that he would be one of the more strident of the characters. We hit upon the idea of the Green Lanterns being kind of a paramilitary force, so we said, ‘Ah, marine. Okay, Louis Gossett Jr., Samuel Jackson.’ So that became our take on him (courtesy of Modern Masters: Bruce Timm).”

Phil LaMarr on Green Lantern (circa 2004): “I wasn’t a huge Green Lantern reader. I think I got into Green Lantern via Justice League, and Justice League via Batman. Batman was my core hero. I think I discovered John Stewart in the ‘80s, when they brought him back and sort of revamped the character. Then the reprints of the classic Green Lantern / Green Arrow series came out and I started looking at those because I had a huge affinity for Denny [O’Neil] and Neal [Adams’] work on Batman. Once I was able to get a hold of reprints of Green Lantern / Green Arrow, that’s when I went straight to John Stewart.
“I had been working for Warner Bros. on another show, Static Shock, and I was brought in to audition for Justice League. As a comics reader, it was definitely interesting to see what characters had been picked. We didn’t know if these were the only characters [they were using on the show], but the fact that they had John Stewart as the Green Lantern was very interesting. Once I started working on the show, I asked Bruce [Timm] about that. I don’t think [race] was the only reason [Stewart was chosen for Justice League], but the first thing he mentioned was, ‘Well, I just didn’t want it to be a bunch of white guys going around saving the universe.’




“It is interesting because [the creative team] rewrote the character in many ways. At first I thought John was just going to be Hal Jordan in brown skin. I figured, ‘Okay, he’s the Green Lantern, he’s the hero who’s always been Green Lantern,’ but they gave him a different background and a different personality. Hal is more of a guy’s guy than John Stewart is. This John Stewart [originally didn’t] have any buddies in the League. [His relationship with the Flash] is interesting, because Barry Allen and Hal Jordan were two guys who were the same age and they seemed to be from relatively the same background, and they sensed they would be buddies. But this is Wally West as the Flash, who’s younger, and John Stewart as Green Lantern, so they have a grudging buddy relationship. It’s like [John is] thinking, ‘This guy I work with is so annoying, but he’s kind of fun.’



“As a voice actor, your contribution [to the character] is very subtle. You come into the process long after the scripts are done, so what really happens is it becomes a cumulative effect. The way you perform the words in one episode gives the writers a voice that helps them write the next episode. I chose to give John Stewart a very deep, powerful voice. For me that couldn’t be avoided, given the way Bruce designs characters. You have this gigantic chest and that says to me this guy has a huge resonating chamber [and] his voice has to boom.


“[The creative team] told me about the military background and, in my experience, most of the black guys that age who went into the army did so to get out of bad circumstances. They didn’t have a ton of opportunities and [the military] was one of the best ones. Also, my dad is from Detroit, and I modeled a lot of [Stewart’s] voice on him. He’s a very intelligent guy, but not excessively educated. He’s someone who can think, but you can still hear the old neighborhood in the voice.


“[The creative team] went back to his hometown in the ‘In Blackest Night’ episode very early on, and you got to see a little of where John was from. […] There is always a question of can you go back. If you move to a white neighborhood and get a big house, are you still truly black? If you have the most powerful weapon in the universe and you can travel throughout the galaxy without the aid of a ship, are you still a human being?

“I have to think that maybe I had some influence on [Stewart’s new Unlimited look]. He had the very ‘80s haircut when we started the show in 1999, and I didn’t want to complain, because I’m a hired hand. I did drop hints here and there so that now they’ve finally given him a more updated hairdo. The only think I can say about [Unlimited] is Hawkgirl will be back, in some respect, and because of that there will be more subtle adult relationship for John Stewart. [...The courtship between Green Lantern and Hawkgirl] was one of the most mature relationships on television. The characters didn’t fall into bed. They had a courtship that went over two or three story arcs. The one Christmas episode had just a really sweet, romantic dating scene between the two of them.


“In my mind, the John Stewart on Justice League [still] the [character created by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams]; he just has gone through a military life as well. I think he is a little older, but he still has that level of energy. He suffers no fools and he’s still very no-nonsense, but he’s also a little tempered. This is also a different time, too. The social wounds aren’t as raw, so the anger is not as present (courtesy of Back Issue Magazine).”


_______________
I Wonder why some you guys keep saying they put john only in the JL AND JLU ONLY for diversity.
They put him in because he was the most interesting and the best green lantern and for diversity.

 

[mace1]

Despite John Stewart’s evolution as a character, some fans still lament the absence of Hal Jordan—the Silver Age Green Lantern still considered by many to be the “true” Green Lantern (which, when considered carefully, is laughable considering that he was one member of an organization that bolstered 3,600 members, each with identical powers)—however, close examination of the animated series’ back-story reveals that, for all intents and purposes—the slots that Jordan previously filled in the comics are still vacant (save for Abin Sur granting his power ring to Kyle Rayner in the Superman episode "In Brightest Day"). For example, in the original Cartoon Network press materials, it was reported that John Stewart was chosen to be a Green Lantern by the Guardians; in the comics the same thing occurred, but it was because they wanted him to serve as a replacement for Jordan should he be incapacitated...and they also ordered Jordan to train him. Second, Sinestro and Star Sapphire, generally considered to be Hal Jordan's enemies, don't appear to hold a grudge against Stewart the same way they would have against Jordan (beyond him being a Green Lantern, of course). It could be argued that Justice League takes place during the time period where Hal Jordan was retired from the Corps and had handed his duties over to Stewart, but this is all, of course, pure speculation. However, the presence of an airplane in "In Brightest Day" bearing the name “Col. Hal Jordan” on its side speaks volumes.

Despite the misgivings of a vocal minority, John Stewart has successfully been established as both a well-rounded character and a competent Green Lantern.

 

[Hypestyle]

john stewart options= terrence howard; will smith; morris chestnut;

 

[Panthro]

john stewart options= terrence howard; will smith; morris chestnut;

Will Smith is probably too expensive. It'd be nice to see Howard given another shot at a superhero franchise after the fall out with the Marvel guys.

 

[brainchild81]

It wasn't Hal that was the problem with the movie. This is what you keep failing to understand, brainchild. It was the lack of faith in the property. The writing was weakened by condensation, late changes to conform with the Johns comic work.. which should have been there from the start since it was well umderway in comics before the script was greenlit. They tried to play it safe by hiring a proven director, not a hungry ambitious director, and attempting to ape Iron Man.

The film had a myriad of problems. Hal's fear and whining about daddy issues didn't help things. As those against John have said, he doesn't have these things. In a John film the bad guys would have been the ones afraid & whining about John beating them up all the time.

"John’s been a Green Lantern for as long as fifteen years, near as I can figure out. His eyes are green because he’s absorbed so much ring energy. […] Green Lantern’s identity is publicly-known. He never had a secret identity. He doesn’t think of himself as a superhero; more of a beat cop (courtesy of DwayneMcDuffie.com).”

Bruce Timm on Green Lantern #1 (circa 2002): “I really love the John Stewart Green Lantern. People wonder why we didn’t go with Kyle Rayner or Guy Gardner, but when they see what we’ve done with him, I honestly think they’ll agree he’s the most interesting Green Lantern they’ve ever seen…I had Samuel L. Jackson in mind for this Green Lantern…[Phil LaMarr used] this gruff military voice and it was dead-on (courtesy of Starlog Magazine).”

Bruce Timm on Green Lantern #2 (circa 2003): “The interesting thing about Green Lantern is [that], in the DC comics, there have been a number of Green Lanterns over the years, so we had a lot of them to choose from, [but] for variety’s sake and for diversity, we really wanted to use the John Stewart Green Lantern character.

“He was actually introduced back in [1971] and he was initially brought in as a part-time replacement for [the] Hal Jordan Green Lantern, who was the main Green Lantern at the time. And what was interesting was that, in 1970 terms, the John Stewart character was a kind of angry, young black man…real ‘power to the people’ kind of guy. That was something that we thought would be kind of…interesting…to add to the dynamic of our Justice League.
“We could have gone with Hal Jordan—and he was a great character in the comics—but, in terms of personalities, we wanted to make sure that we had a really good mix of some characters who were a little bit more jokey and some characters who were a little more, y’know, whatever. And so, we felt that having a Green Lantern with a real good, solid edge to him would be interesting for drama (courtesy of the Justice League: Justice on Trial DVD).”

Bruce Timm on Green Lantern (circa 2004): “The only things that really needed to be settled on were which version of the Green Lantern we were going to use, because there’s so many. We could have used Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner or Guy Gardner, but for a number of reasons, including ethnic diversity, we chose to go with John Stewart—which has turned out to be probably the single most controversial aspect of the show amongst die-hard comic book fans. John Stewart never really got a whole lot of face time in the comics. There was a small period of time back in the ‘80s when Steve Englehart was writing the comic, when John was the main Green Lantern. […] I’ve always kind of liked him too and, again, aside from the ethnic diversity thing, we were looking at what the group dynamic was going to be.

“One of the things we really wanted to avoid was having a group of characters who were all pretty much interchangeable. Going back and rereading a lot of the Silver Age Justice League comics, they really are all the same character—Batman [had] no different a voice than Superman or Flash. They’re all kind of the same character; the only thing that differentiates them is what colors they’re wearing and what powers they have. So we really wanted to make sure they had a much more interesting group dynamic than that and that they all had different personalities. Going back to the original version of John Stewart from Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ day, the thing that made him interesting to us was that he was quite a bit more of a badass. If you go back and read those, he comes across as a stereotypical, angry, young black man. We knew we didn’t want to do that exactly, but we still wanted to keep a little bit of that edge to him so that he would be one of the more strident of the characters. We hit upon the idea of the Green Lanterns being kind of a paramilitary force, so we said, ‘Ah, marine. Okay, Louis Gossett Jr., Samuel Jackson.’ So that became our take on him (courtesy of Modern Masters: Bruce Timm).”

Phil LaMarr on Green Lantern (circa 2004): “I wasn’t a huge Green Lantern reader. I think I got into Green Lantern via Justice League, and Justice League via Batman. Batman was my core hero. I think I discovered John Stewart in the ‘80s, when they brought him back and sort of revamped the character. Then the reprints of the classic Green Lantern / Green Arrow series came out and I started looking at those because I had a huge affinity for Denny [O’Neil] and Neal [Adams’] work on Batman. Once I was able to get a hold of reprints of Green Lantern / Green Arrow, that’s when I went straight to John Stewart.
“I had been working for Warner Bros. on another show, Static Shock, and I was brought in to audition for Justice League. As a comics reader, it was definitely interesting to see what characters had been picked. We didn’t know if these were the only characters [they were using on the show], but the fact that they had John Stewart as the Green Lantern was very interesting. Once I started working on the show, I asked Bruce [Timm] about that. I don’t think [race] was the only reason [Stewart was chosen for Justice League], but the first thing he mentioned was, ‘Well, I just didn’t want it to be a bunch of white guys going around saving the universe.’




“It is interesting because [the creative team] rewrote the character in many ways. At first I thought John was just going to be Hal Jordan in brown skin. I figured, ‘Okay, he’s the Green Lantern, he’s the hero who’s always been Green Lantern,’ but they gave him a different background and a different personality.

_______________
I Wonder why some you guys keep saying they put john only in the JL AND JLU ONLY for diversity.
They put him in because he was the most interesting and the best green lantern and for diversity.

Ditto. Lol Good to see I was right about a lot of things. John was NOT based on Hal as some of his detractors have said. I guess they DIDN'T know what they were talking about. I also touched on them all having the same personality back in the day. Glad they made the right decisions for the show. John's just a better fit for many reasons. Diversity is just one of them. He IS the most interesting GL. Hard to argue w/success. Hal's best left in the comics.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

But diversify how!

Old Alan?

Or Gay Alan?

Gay.

The film had a myriad of problems. Hal's fear and whining about daddy issues didn't help things. As those against John have said, he doesn't have these things. In a John film the bad guys would have been the ones afraid & whining about John beating them up all the time.

Instead we'd have a film where John feels unworthy of the ring because he'd have let an entire planet full of people die,and the bad guys escape. Become depressed and try to commit suicide.

Much better.

No bad guys would be afraid of him.

 

[brainchild81]

Did that happen on the cartoon?

 

[TheWatcher]

Hal is the true Green Lantern. Everything in the Green Lantern universe revolves around him.

All of the earth lanterns are connected to him in some way(Alan doesn't count as he isn't a member of the Corps.)
Guy- Hals backup
John- Hals backup.
Kyle- Hals replacement.

 

[brainchild81]

They're all true GLs. Hal's just the one that his comic fans overrate

 

[Human Torch]

Look,I don't want to rain on the parade of this Stewart love-fest,but the fact remains Hal is the better character on every level.The only way John will get in a JL film before Hal is if they sacrifice Hal for the sake of diversity like they did in the animated series.

 

[brainchild81]

People should stop calling that a fact. It's an opinion. Look back a few posts. They chose John because he's the most interesting and made for the best team dynamic, not just diversity. There's multiple reasons to choose him over Hal &no reason to choose Hal over him, especially not after Hal's failure. I think if WB starts to wise up they'll realise that. Hal's comic fans seem to be the only ones clamoring for more of him & there's not enough of them to keep a film from flopping. They need to act like he doesn't exist

 

[Panthro]

Is it me or did new Earth 2 Alan steal Guy Gardner's costume and pimp it a bit?

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

People should stop calling that a fact. It's an opinion. Look back a few posts. They chose John because he's the most interesting and made for the best team dynamic, not just diversity. There's multiple reasons to choose him over Hal &no reason to choose Hal over him, especially not after Hal's failure. I think if WB starts to wise up they'll realise that. Hal's comic fans seem to be the only ones clamoring for more of him & there's not enough of them to keep a film from flopping. They need to act like he doesn't exist

Except for y'know, how John Stewart basically has watered down versions of a lot of Hal's characteristics, not many intrinsically just his, but he is a mopey whiney dick, whereas at least Hal could provide more of a lighter side as well.

Also, Hal is better.

Oh, and BTW, no one is clamouring for a Green Lantern film, Hal, Kyle, Alan, Simon, Guy or even John. Just like no one is clamouring for a Justice League film, or Ant-Man, or Guardians of the Galaxy. And how 18 months ago no cared about seeing a Superman film.

Audiences are fickle. They like what is popular. If you put anyone on a team with Batman, they'll become popular. Hence people stopped making gay jokes about Robin following a non-campy, non-homoerotic portrayal in The Dark Knight Rises.

 

[brainchild81]

Did the suicidal/depressed John thing happen on the cartoon?

 

[The Guard]

They chose John because he's the most interesting and made for the best team dynamic, not just diversity.

Whether a creator said that or not, that's utter nonsense based on his actual use. They chose John for diversity.

If they'd wanted the most interesting Green Lantern who made for the best team dynamic they would have picked Kyle Rayner.

Did the suicidal/depressed John thing happen on the cartoon?

Sort of.

 

[brainchild81]

The creators say something you don't agree with, so they must be lying. If they wanted a GL they knew nobody would ever care about, they'd have picked Kyle. Sort of doesn't help. Did it happen or not? What happened?

 

[TheWatcher]

People should stop calling that a fact. It's an opinion. Look back a few posts. They chose John because he's the most interesting and made for the best team dynamic, not just diversity. There's multiple reasons to choose him over Hal &no reason to choose Hal over him, especially not after Hal's failure. I think if WB starts to wise up they'll realise that. Hal's comic fans seem to be the only ones clamoring for more of him & there's not enough of them to keep a film from flopping. They need to act like he doesn't exist

You say that we should stop calling things facts when they're not, then you say something ludicrous like this and state it as if it is a fact.

They need to act like the most popular and important GL doesn't exist?

OK.

 

[brainchild81]

No. They need to act like the guy that had the movie that flopped and got bad reviews doesn't exist. No sense in making the same mistake twice

 

[The Guard]

The creators say something you don't agree with, so they must be lying. If they wanted a GL they knew nobody would ever care about, they'd have picked Kyle. Sort of doesn't help. Did it happen or not? What happened?

No...the creators say something that is patently untrue, and isn't borne out in their use of the character, so I think its nonsense.

Also...what?

 

[HighFivingMF]

No. They need to act like the guy that had the movie that flopped and got bad reviews doesn't exist. No sense in making the same mistake twice

I doubt they'll acknowledge Martin Campbell in the next Green Lantern movie. That would be weird anyway.

 

[brainchild81]

Also...what?

The suicidal/depressed thing. What was it? How did it sort of happen in the cartoon?