This month, I'm going with a reader's suggestion. As I've said many times
before, we hardly get any email, here at the Collector Times. When we do get
mail, it's greatly appreciated and (in my case, anyway) sometimes leads to a
column.
I come at my subject from a little different angle, than most of them, this
time around. As a Green Lantern reader and fan, I've been familiar with Guy
Gardner for years. Even before they started banging his head, every few
months to reboot his personality, Guy was different. He was a refreshing
change, from the cookie-cutter heroes of the Silver Age. Think of it this
way, he was the guy who was picked second. Obviously, with the high
standards set by the Guardians of the Universe (we'll forgive them that
little error in allowing Sinestro to keep his ring and position, for so
long) Guy must have been up to the challenge, fearless, heroic, etc. But
even in his earliest appearances, Guy didn't come across as
middle-of-the-road as other heroes of the period. He had a low-profile job
(gym coach, if memory serves) and was a lot more stable in his civilian life
than Hal Jordan, who could never decide what job he wanted.
Later, after a head injury that sidelined him for months, Guy came back
with a more abrasive, forceful personality. He would challenge Hal, on a
regular basis. Partly, this is explained as the result of a closed-head
trauma, which often has the effect of altering pesonality. Guy was always a
bit....high strung, you might say. Then, during the events of the Crisis on
Infinite Earths, the Guardians were attacked and most were killed, although
my memory is a bit fuzzy on the details, I think they weren't really dead.
The one Guardian who could get to his feet, in any case, charged Guy with a
mission and this is where Guy really started to shine.
Among the Green Lantern Corps, there was a uniform look. Even non-humanoid
aliens wore an approximation of the standard GL uniform, but during the
Crisis, Guy received his own, highly individualized outfit. No one else ever
wore this costume, which, as I recall, was designed by Howard Chaykin. The
folks at DC gave Chaykin the job of designing a new look for Guy, because
they wanted him to have a costume that (remember, I'm working from memory
here, if anyone knows different, let me know!) had a "fascist" style to it.
Something out of the ordinary. The answer was to give him the costume he
would go on to make famous in the Justice League series, the black bodysuit,
with the green-and-white jacket/vest, knee-high green boots (later artists
drew them larger and larger, until they were like giant snow boots, I chose
to go with the costume as it appeared in Crisis, drawn by George Perez). The
only bits I object to on this costume are the white belt and gloves. There's
something odd-looking about white gloves on a guy, unless he's in a band or
honor guard of some kind. I realize that, at the time, white gloves were
standard GL uniform, but this was supposed to break away from that look. At
any rate, the costume stands out, finally showing Guy as what he always was,
an individual.
Next to the costume he received in Crisis, no other costume he ever wore,
had more appearances in comics. Even outside of comics, it shows up in
costume contests and I even saw Lenny Henry wearing it in an episode of The
Lenny Henry Show, from the late 80s or early 90s. (An aside, for those of
you who don't know who Lenny Henry is, he is one of the funniest men on the
planet, starring in several British TV series, my favorite being CHEF!,
where he is a rude, obnoxious, abusive and hilarous master chef. I also saw
him in an American movie, called True Identity, where, to avoid a mob hit,
he has a makeup-artist friend disguise him as a white man, it's a bad movie,
but funny in places.) The costume also shows up in the bootleg video of the
JLA TV pilot, though for some unknown reason, they have the guy wearing a
mask like Kyle Rayner's (the current GL). It's a good design.
The Green Lantern Corps was all but destroyed in the 80s, with most of the
rings rendered inactive, but Guy's was one of those that survived. Later,
Guy would battle Hal Jordan over the title of Green Lantern of Earth (they
completely ignored Alan Scott, who both has a prior claim and would whip
both their asses and send them to their rooms without any dinner...)and lose
his power ring.
Guy still had some fight left in him, however, and he was able to re-enter
the hero biz by finagling a ride to Oa, the home of the Guardians of the
Universe and the site of the villain Sinestro's tomb. Guy fought Sinestro's
ghost for his power ring, the yellow ring created by the Weaponers of Qward.
With the yellow ring, Guy would start over, with a little different look.
This time, he had a leather motorcylce jacket, jeans and cowboy boots. He
still wore white gloves, for some reason, maybe they just didn't think how
goofy white gloves look on a guy wearing a motorcycle jacket. He managed to
make a name for himself, then, with the yellow power ring, occasionally
coming to blows with Hal Jordan, but otherwise, being generally heroic. This
ended when Hal went mad and destroyed the Main Power battery on Oa and
killed the Guardians (except for Ganthet). The yellow ring drew it's power
from the green energy of the Guardians, in a similar fashion to the GL's
rings, so when the battery was destroyed, the yellow ring soon exhausted
it's power.
I don't know where this suit falls int he sequence, but at some point Guy
procured a suit of powered armor (always a fallback position, in comics).
The suit is the usual hodge-podge of armor plates and pseudo "tech"
musculature. It's also got one major flaw it the design. Can you spot it?
Yes, that's right, his whole face and the top of his head are unarmored!
Now, some critics would say that Guy's head was harder than neutronium
armor, but we know from the stories that he has a history of traumatic head
injuries! Head shots are difficult, but they are far from impossible, how is
it Deadshot never took up this challenge?
I don't like the suit for a number of reasons, primarily, visually, it just
doesn't work for me. Bending and moving the suit would be painful, at best
and impossible, at worst. Also, this suit doesn't say "Guy" to me. If they
didn't show his face, you couldn't tell him from half a dozen other armored
guys in comics. Lastly, it's blue and gold, Boy Scout colors and Guy is
anything but a "Boy Scout."
Guy's last costume was his "Warrior" look. Leggings and body paint. His
powers, the result of a previoulsy unknown genetic legacy, gave Guy the
ability to morph his body into an arsenal of lethal weapons. Guy discovered
that he was the "last" of the Vuldarian warriors, aliens with amazing powers
to become "living weapons." I don't particularly like this version of Guy,
because, visually, these powers are absolutely grotesque.
When it came to remaking Guy for my column, I had to bring him back to
life, as well as remake his powers and costume. With the powers he had, at
the end, allowing his body to change both in form and function, I figure his
body can recover from greater damage than any normal human. Add to that the
energy that powered some of his weapon forms and you have a pretty potent
force for survival. Superman recovered from being beaten to death and
emerged relatively unchanged. For Guy, his death triggers a metamorphosis.
After his ressurection, his powers are changed. No more can he morph his
body into various weapon forms, in healing his wounds, his body has lost the
ability to transform. The underlying enrgy power, however, remains. Guy is
now able to channel and release the energy in various ways, increasing his
resistance to injury, his strength, his speed and enabling him to fire
blasts of energy.
In designing a costume, I went more with the "yellow ring" period, because
I think that look suits him best. In place of the white inspection gloves,
he has black, fingerless workout gloves. The motorcycle jacket is traded for
a vest-style jacket, similar to his "rogue" GL costume jacket. Blue jeans
and leather boots round out the costume.
So, that's my version of Guy Gardner. Thanks, to Kurt Fritjofson for the
suggestion and for background information and reference material found on
his Ultimate Guy Gardner Page.
Take a look around and drop him a line.
