Today’s post is a guest post hosted by…wait for it…MR. RaunchyRyan!  That’s right, folks.  My husband is the bomb-shit-sha-bang and actually took time to chat about his love of all things Green Lantern.

RR: Welcome, baby! Thanks for doing this.

MRR: Do I have to make this all romantic and stuff?

RR: No. (shoots him an evil look)

MRR: *laughs to himself*

RR: So what’s the deal with Green Lantern?

MRR: Green Lantern has always been my favorite super hero, and I think I know why. In the end, here’s what the story of Green Lantern is all about: Human will and imagination are able to hold their own against the most powerful forces in the universe. If you can dream it up and have the will power to back it, everybody had better watch out.

RR: Let’s pretend I don’t know jack-crap about Green Lantern (MRR snorts at me). Can you give me a brief background?

MRR: Here’s what I consider the basics of Green Lantern. Hal Jordan is a hotshot test pilot for a private aeronautics corporation that builds fighter jets (like Boeing). Hal is full of himself and something of a jerk, which is why although I’m not a big fan of Ryan Reynolds I think he’s a great fit. One day an alien dude in a green outfit crash-lands on the test flight grounds and gets Hal Jordan’s attention. As he dies, the alien gives Hal a powerful green ring and names him the new Green Lantern and protector of Sector 2814. Hal has no idea what this means, but over time he comes to learn that the Green Lantern Corps is an intergalactic police force established by an ancient race known as the Guardians. They are small and blue, like menacing magical Smurfs. Long ago, they created a power battery out of what is called “the green element” (it’s a glowing green boulder). They choose individuals to become Green Lanterns. Each Lantern is given a ring, which allows them to create anything (made of green light) they can imagine and will into existence–green laser beams, green Winnebagos, green guns, green force fields, green safety nets, green x-ray scanners, whatever. (Once they stop imagining it, it disappears.) One downside is that every so often Green Lanterns have to return to the power battery to recharge their rings. The power battery is in the shape of a giant lantern, and is housed on the Guardian’s home world, Oa (“oh-uh”), at the center of the universe.

The Green Lanterns spend most of their time flying around the universe fighting crime and helping people, not unlike Batman. (Both Green Lantern and Batman are DC Comics characters.)

RR: Oo, I like Batman.

MRR: It’s not just about peace and justice, though. It’s about fighting evil head-on. Once in a while something huge goes down. For instance, the Parallax saga involves evil characters who focus on exploiting the Lanterns’ greatest weakness. If will and imagination are what give the Lanterns strength, it is fear that is that weakness, since it’s hard to maintain your resolve and to imagine good things when you’re crippled by fear. Just as will is symbolized by the color green, fear is symbolized by the color yellow, hence Parallax is yellow.

RR: Ok, so where does the new movie fall in the greater time line of Green Lantern?

MRR: The new movie tells the story of Hal Jordan becoming the first human Green Lantern, and how the Green Lantern Corps takes on Parallax. I’m excited to see how it all goes down.

RR: What draws you more to Green Lantern over any of the other DC guys?

MRR: The stories are the most sci-fi of all the major super heroes. (Superman comes from a far-away planet, but is there anyone more American than him?) In fact, in the Green Lantern world, the known universe is divided into 3,600 sectors, and each sector is assigned two Green Lanterns as protectors. So, there are many Green Lanterns, and almost all of them are non-human. Much of the action in the Green Lantern stories takes place in outer space.

RR: How does Green Lantern relate to other super heroes?

MRR: Earth’s Green Lantern (a role assumed not just by Hal Jordan but also by others later on) is part of the Justice League, the DC Comics equivalent of The Avengers. There have been various incarnations of the Justice League, but it almost always includes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, and Green Lantern. Flash and the Hal Jordan Green Lantern have similar personalities and are good friends, which led DC Comics to introduce John Stewart as a new Green Lantern to mix things up–he’s black and more bad-ass. Sometimes the Justice League includes a character named Green Arrow. The cool thing there is that although they share the whole green thing, there’s a lot of contract between Green Lantern and Green Arrow. Green Lantern is a law-and-order policeman, whereas Green Arrow is more of a live-and-let-live guy who stands up for the people instead of carrying out the will of any authority like the Guardians.

RR: What’s the coolest thing about Green Lantern?

MRR: His ring. The ring can literally make anything you can imagine. If I had one, I’d use it at the movies to send out a frequency that shut off all cell phones in the theater.  How would you use it?

RR: I have a vision of a super clean house, and all the chores being done without me having to get up off the couch or put down my book.  And mind you, I wouldn’t be holding my own book or turning my own pages.  Mah power would.  HA!

Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively and Peter Sarsgaard, opens today in theaters nationwide.