Today marks an interesting day in comics: a new Green Lantern has been selected from Earth, which most long-time readers will know is a big deal. The bigger deal, unfortunately, is that he is a ‘Muslim’ character. The character made his pre-GL debut in Green Lantern #0, but today he graces the pages of the main title as the new (if temporary) protagonist, and he’s been making all the wrong waves (so far). Preview pages are after the jump.
DC Comic’s blog, The Source, has four preview pages for Green Lantern #13 (and which are posted at the bottom of this page), showing Muslim-born Baz being targeted by Amanda Waller of Checkmate fame, as well as Baz getting his first glimpse at the incredible problem he faces: he cannot trust anyone, except the other Earth Lanterns, as he has to wrestle with a cosmic conspiracy within the Lantern Corps itself.
Oh, and he can also trust the Sinestro Corps psychopath known as Arkillo, apparently!
Now, when Simon first appeared, there seemed to be an incredibly negative reaction to the character. Not because he’s Muslim. Rather, because as a Muslim, his first appearance was fleeing from police in a van with explosives in the back. Unsurprisingly, within a few pages Simon was in an interrogation room being dressed down by Homeland Security as a “terrorist”.
My first thought is: Why is this a bad thing? Hear me out.
Readers thought that a Muslim character should have been given a different starting point. I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case. Really, if you want to tackle the issue of how Muslims have been mistreated, at SOME point the character will be branded a terrorist.
The question, then, is how do you go about it? A case of mistaken identity? An actual terrorist? Someone who dances the line of illegal activity so finely that it’s easy to catch him and brand him as need be?
Geoff Johns goes for the last choice. Fans were in an uproar over the way a Muslim character was being represented, being that Green Lantern is now one of DC’s top selling books and arguably still a tent-pole franchise, but the chance to do something more positive was always going to bring a lot of pressure to the character and writer.
Let’s examine how Johns actually took the best path:
-On the one hand, he could have made Simon Baz an out and out terrorist, which would have just been terrible and in poor taste. We get that there are Muslims who are radical, but we don’t want to try and force them into a power ring and see a ham-fisted turn-around by the character. It’s cheap writing, especially for the sake of selling a story.
-On the other hand, he could have made Simon Baz a totally straight and narrow guy who just “happens” to be Muslim. This was the path most readers seemed to want the character to go…but isn’t this just as poor as having him be an out-and-out terrorist? Simon getting into trouble of any kind would be just as forced by the writer, and prevents having an overly preachy book about the treatment of Muslims.
In the end, Johns has actually gone with a pretty brave and sensible path by not shying away from an unpopular (though not unreasonable) portrayal. Simon Baz gets into trouble. He’s a car-jacker and a street racer — oh yea, and he happens to be Muslim. If this was a white character, I’m sure no one would have a problem with the portrayal.
Besides, we already have two lanterns who walk the straight and narrow path (my favorite Kyle Rayner and original Alan Scott) and a couple who are from the rough and tumble side of life (current leading man Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner). John Stewart is a pretty straight forward guy from a military background, someone who has made mistakes he didn’t want to (like, you know, blowing up a planet) and has had to deal with those consequences.
To me, Simon Baz is the perfect balance to John Stewart, and gives the Earth Lanterns a nice spectrum of wielders who come from all walks of life, and may not be so clean cut as we’d like our heroes to be. After all, that’s what the modern view is meant to be: our heroes aren’t white-bread, and they shouldn’t be token stereotypes, but rather should be a nice shade of grey.
Besides, we’ve had one issue with the guy. Give him a break and see where the story goes.
Oh. The gun he was holding on the cover of #0? Gone. So stop whining about it.
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