The time John Stewart blew up Xanshi
Posted: 05/06/2014 Filed under: Characters, DC 9 CommentsSpider-Man’s error in saving Gwen Stacy from a fall will forever haunt him the rest of his natural (then dead, then resurrected, then dead again, then resurrected again) life. After all, he made a mistake and an innocent woman died because of it.
And then we have Green Lantern John Stewart. His error killed millions. Maybe billions. If Gwen Stacy is a ghost in Peter’s closet of skeletons, the exploded planet Xanshi is Aragon’s entire ghost army from Return of the King. We’ll witness the extremely well-done heartbreaking story today in Cosmic Odyssey #1-4, written by Jim Starlin and drawn by Mike Mignola.
Allow me to try to explain the basic premise of Cosmic Odyssey. A being made of a substance called Anti-Life let loose four “aspects” of itself into the universe, each landing on a separate planet (Earth, Rann, Thanagar, and Xanshi). If any two of these four aspects gets destroyed, the universe will collapse on itself and we all wave goodbye to the universe. Eight superheroes group in teams of two to defend these planets from total destruction. We pick our story up as Team Green Lantern & Martian Manhunter approach the Anti-Life aspect’s base.
Detect Stewart’s fatal personality flaw yet? It’s total mind-numbing arrogance. He wields a weapon that essentially acts as a permanent genie with infinite wishes. And when you can do anything, why bother taking along a Martian with Superman’s powers plus shapeshifting and intangibility. Stewart knows Martian Manhunter’s green with envy, and not just because that’s his natural skin color.
Back in the day, the Green Lantern ring still bore one glaring weakness. A flaw that dwarfed Superman’s Kryptonite and other superhero weaknesses, like Aquaman being out of water for too long or Captain Marvel trying to get into an R-rated movie. Watch this brilliant tirade by Stewart (“I’m the best and nothing will ever be able to stand in my way!”) and then his immediate fall into the deepest pits of horrified despair:
The planet’s death scene lasts for seven pages. It’s wildly melodramatic, fairly poetic, and I’m going to show it to you in its entirety uninterrupted. While Green Lantern’s no longer fear the color yellow (or in Alan Scott’s case, wood), this blow to the conscience’ll last for the rest of Stewart’s life. My goodness, get ready for some emotional brutality. Oh, and remember that scene in Justice League Unlimited where Lex Luthor — possessing Flash’s body — defeats Green Lantern with a well-placed throw of banana pudding? Some superhero weakness can be really silly.
So Stewart’s going to have some trouble sleeping for a few decades, but you can rest assured that his repertoire’ll now forever include healthy doses of modesty. It’s one thing to mess up physics like Spider-Man’s tragedy, but y’know, this is Green Lantern swinging around his magic jewelry with delusional confidence like he’s Justin Bieber at a middle school. The dude did this to himself, and Martian Manhunter — whose emotional range spans from calm to relaxed — uncharacteristically and deservedly digs his furious claws into Stewart’s already flayed back.
Martian Manhunter has probably forgiven him by now. Though it could just be one of those be-friendly-because-we-work-together things where he waves hello but then sends mean telepathic thoughts about Stewart to the rest of the Justice League whenever Stewart leaves the room. We sometimes forget that for all the immense power of the Green Lantern ring, the person wielding it is still just a normal man. He may be relentless in the presence of fear, but that doesn’t help Stewart’s very much human conscience.
The one who rescues Stewart from this overwhelming guilt? Martian Manhunter, of course, because even with boiling hatred for the man, superheroes still have to do the right thing. That includes not letting accidental genocide-ers die. It’s why they’re better than us — and also because they can punch through walls.
I grew up on the Justice League cartoon, and I consider John Stewart to be “my” Green Lantern. I’m glad to report that he currently continues rocking out as the baddest, toughest dude in the Green Lantern Corps. That and he only blows up one more planet after this.
Arousing Grammar 
Jesus – you let one planet blow up, and people never let you forget it. Maybe John can do what Jean Grey did and claim that a crazy flaming space bird made him do it. It worked for her since no one seems to remember that she blew up a planet of broccoli people back when she had the world’s worst case of PMS.
aw yes and she got a school named after her and john doesn’t even get a plaque or a company watch
[…] Arousing Grammar The time John Stewart blew up Xanshi […]
LOVE this mini! That moment where he arrives to find the Aspect standing there with that bucket of yellow paint and a big yellow world-destroyer behind him always gave me chills! Great team on that book too! -Starlin does space like no other, and I love when Mignola draws the capes and tights crowd.
I always wondered who the guy with the brush was supposed to be- in real life. It does not look like Starlin or Mignola himself… I’ve never seen an answer to this online anywhere. It’s gotta be a drawing of SOMEone in the industry. It’s probably staring me right in the face- but I can’t place it.
-Maybe it’s just Stanley Kubrick.
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DUH! Why the martian didn´t become yellow, crashed the bubble and become invisible following the Lantern? .He was a member of the League and knew the weakness of the ring.
Forgive any English errors, please.
This series made my jaw drop when Xanshi blew up. Starlin’s always been a fave writer, but the death of a planet for a standing member of the Green Lantern Corps seemed a beyond grievous (yes, fictitional) mark for ANY hero to wear. Hal killed almost every GL there is, but the Parallax “infection” absolves him.
Still haven’t run into a mainstream hero responsible for THAT MUCH death and not get a rewind, Xanshi is an odd but devastating blow that I really wish wasn’t on that guy’s record.
Your Manhunter imagining seems quite on point given the range of abilities J’onn possesses. Would definitely add his incredible psychic powers to your “solve” of the situation. Maybe in the New 52 continuity this horror doesn’t exist.
MAYBE.
The problem with this story is that John had never been portrayed as that arrogant before. Heck, even Hal was never that arrogant.
In my view, a single boneheaded coloring decision totally undermined the whole John Stewart story line.
Why couldn’t Stewart save Xanshi? Because the Anti-Life Aspect had painted the bomb yellow. This is the one weakness of the Green Lantern ring, and so central to the plot that Jim Starlin felt the need to explicitly state it even though the vast majority of his readers surely knew it already.
Green Lantern rings don’t work on anything colored yellow.
So what color is the gun that John Stewart uses his Green Lantern ring to pick up in order to kill himself? Yellow. That’s right – out of a nearly infinite number of colors, shades, and hues, colorist Steve Oliff picked the one color that Stewart’s ring wouldn’t work on. This might be forgivable in another context, but in Cosmic Odyssey the ring’s ineffectiveness against yellow is the crux of Stewart’s story.
Think about it: the fact that the ring can’t affect yellow objects is literally the reason that John Stewart is contemplating suicide. And then he uses that very ring to pick up a yellow object with which he intends to commit suicide.
Which shouldn’t have been possible, since Green Lantern rings don’t work on anything colored yellow.
That is pretty much the definition of poor communication among the creative team. And it leaves a sour taste in my mouth every time I think about what would otherwise have been a true masterpiece among graphic novels.