Letters to Green Lantern Corps #52

I always loved working with Joey because he had a very effective style and new how to convey what I was going for in the issue. The colouring as well is so top notch that I felt lucky to have him onboard for the 'relaunch' of the title after the unofficial hiatus following #51. It'd be great to work with him again, but I think he's too busy now! Plus, propositioning someone for art nowadays is so tricky-- people deserve to be paid for their work, and I just think that we were so lucky to go so long with artists who were as passionate for the site as the writers were. Can you imagine if I asked Ramon for covers now? He's doing art for Marvel comics! Craig is collaborating with Garth Ennis! We had a good run, and Roy (and Jamie) is still carrying the torch for the DC2 loyal, but we'll never get back to the varied artistic heights of our mid-run.


I was struggling to figure out where to go after #51. The epilogues in #50 and then the quiet of #51 pretty much cleared the board for the future, and I didn't know how I wanted to continue, but I know where my talents lie and that's in horror. Black Mercy/Starro-hybrids were one of those mash-ups that made sense in my head and I thought would be a cool visual (as witnessed on the cover) so I ran with it. Thing is, I was really struggling to write long form, but I knew I wanted the issue to be a really uneasy experience and I thought writing as long as I could then simply snapping into the next uneasy experience would be perfect-- get some momentum going with my prose and follow it to the natural endpoint.

I think it definitely helped in that moment, but then Don and I tripped up over ourselves for our intended direction for the following issues-- Don was going to write Katma and Arisia and I was going to write Hank and Guy-- but we wrote one issue I think particularly well but then we couldn't get our heads together for the follow up. That's why there's a two issue gap in the run. We have the cover to the second unwritten part, and then there's another gap for the conclusion, so we may come back to it, but after yet another unintended hiatus, I came back with a mission statement-- three issue stories building toward the inevitable war between the Green Lantern Corps and the horrors of the universe-- and was able to maintain that until #75, which I'm still working on.

Now, I agree with you completely about Carol. It's meant to be horrible, and if it came across as exploitative without nuance then that's poor execution. The idea behind the Predator was something Don helped me with, and as soon as he proposed it everything made sense. Star Sapphires utilise the power of love. But love takes many forms. Obsession, isolation, predatory behaviours, and then it can escalate and twist into something horrible which we unfortunately see in our day to day lives. The Predator is every twisted form of love you can imagine given sentience. It doesn't understand why it's love isn't as understood as other's. Hank Henshaw had a seed of love for Carol Ferris and then died. He was brought back and infected with this parasite that twisted his love for Carol up. In the "Love Lost" arc we saw what he did to her... gaslit her into thinking she was going mad, isolated her from those who might help (e.g. Guy)... and eventually gave her the catalyst for her transformation into something terrible-- the corrupted Star Sapphire ring.

Quick aside: Visually, that ring was meant to introduce the more crystalline version of the Star Sapphires we saw in the Johns' era. You know how they had that weird armoured swimwear they'd fly around in space with? The Predator Star Sapphire ring was meant to turn Carol's version of the character into that, while the rest of the Star Sapphire / Love Corps were meant to have the more uniform costumes that Jamie introduced in the cover to next issue.

Now, the Predator objectified Carol, yes. She's sexualised because that's what this stalker entity wants her to be. She's also hyper-sexual because he's a creep and that's how he wants her to be. Yes, it takes away her agency, but that's the idea, and it's meant to be horrible. Imagine if the Star Sapphires were infected by this version of love? Instead of the compassionate, healing version of it they have now, that leads to them being a force for good... imagine if they became perverted by the Predator? To be continued...

Sorry if I seem rant-y about this, but I wanted to try and get my thoughts out for the character. We can revisit it later on in the run when she inevitably returns!


Hank's fall is the throughline for the character throughout this run. We see others react to it, and some react positively and some negatively. I just hope I didn't make him a 'Mary Sue' and instead gave him the nuance to be a character on his own merit. We really veered away from the mainstream version of the character, and I think that's due to the great job Daniel did when he introduced him during the teens of the title, and I'm happy that this brave, broken man is still trying to fight the good fight, no matter how difficult he finds his existence.

oof, I need to go write more Justice League... but then again, I keep having ideas of how to wrap up Green Lantern Corps #75... I'll be back!