Another day goes by, another Green Lantern writer cranking out another interview. Green Lantern: New Guardians writer Justin Jordan spoke with ComicVine a bit about the series. He speaks on meeting fan expectations, his view of Kyle Rayner, and more. Check below for highlights.

 

 

Justin Jordan on meeting Green Lantern fans expectations and limitations while starting his run:

I wouldn’t say it limits my options a whole lot. I mean, it’s kind of the nature of work-for-hire business. You can’t have, generally speaking, Batman chuck Joker into a blender and set it to puree. You’re always working within restrictions so this isn’t real different. I was actually given relatively free rein to do what I wanted with the books, working it out with editorial and all that kind of stuff. The most daunting prospect is probably just coming onto a popular property in general. I mean, Green Lantern titles tend to have fans who are really, really into the books and that’s a little daunting because you don’t want to screw it up.

Jordan on what Kyle Rayner brings to the series:

He’s bringing a different kind of perspective to Green Lantern – that’s kind of been true from the beginning. They tried to go with someone who has an artistic background, who looked at things from a different point of view. You know, a fairly different mindset than someone like Hal Jordan who comes from a kind of military background. And that’s still the case and we want to emphasize the idea that Kyle, just because of his role as a White Lantern and stuff, is sort of outside of the GL key structure. This means he can look at what the core as a whole is doing from a different perspective that somebody inside it just can’t do. I think that’s an interesting way to contrast and explore the other books.

How difficult is it for Jordan to write White Lantern Kyle Rayner:

(laughs) Tricky. That’s one of the things that kind of interests me about it and I kind of talked about this before when I was talking about Superboy because it kind of applies to superheroes across the board. That kind of power doesn’t give you the ability to just fix things. My go to example is yeah, you can go to a world that’s ruled by this cruel dictator and you take out the dictator… that doesn’t change the world fundamentally. All the structures that are in place to allow that are still there. If you went to Apokolips and eliminated Darkseid, you’ve still got the Hunger Dogs and all those problems are still there – you haven’t magically turned it into a paradise. That’s just not how things work and that’s the same thing with raw power. Raw power isn’t enough to necessarily make the changes you want to make. The trick with working with somebody like Kyle who has a lot of powers at his fingertips is presenting him with problems that that power just isn’t enough for. Problems that make him have to think. That present ethical and moral kind of quandaries for him.

Will Arkillo (and the Yellow Lantern Corps) return to the series?

Maybe. I’m not against it. I don’t have any concrete plans for it in the issues I have sketched out right now. But I like those characters, so if I have an opportunity for those characters to come back and it actually makes sense then I am absolutely not against it.

What about Green Lantern Soranik Natu?

Nope, not right now.

Four words that sum up Jordan’s plans for New Guardians:

Bad-ass cosmic exploration.

Jordan would like to add Lobo to the cast:

Well, first of all I love Lobo and I’d love a chance to write Lobo. And I think anyone that’s read LUTHER STRODE knows I’m clearly the guy for the job! Beyond that… kind of down and dirty visceral character contrasted with Kyle and contrasted with people in the core and the supporting cast. I don’t know that he would work as a continuing cast member but at least for a few issues until somebody got sick of him or he got sick of Kyle. I think it would be interesting to bounce them off each other.