This week’s San Antonio Current is our annual LGBT Pride Issue, and the cover is inspired by the mainstream media attention gained by DC Comics’ recent “outing” of a Green Lantern (Alan Scott, not Hal Jordan). There have been LGBT characters in superhero comics before, but this is a first for a “big” character (read: one with a summer blockbuster attached to their name). The cover illustration itself is an homage to an iconic, recent cover of War of the Green Lanterns: Aftermath #2, illustrated by Dave Johnson (below.)

I really, really wanted to like the Green Lantern film. I’ve been a comic-book fan for most of my life, and while the Green Lantern books weren’t my all-time favorite, I’ve always appreciated the character. The central themes of courage vs. fear are universal — sure, Hal Jordan’s ring is a versatile, powerful weapon, but it’s driven by his own courage and willpower. Essentially, Green Lantern’s super-ability is his force of will, which is pretty cool. Plus, the silver-age GL uniform, designed by Gil Kane, is one of the all-time great costume designs, and — along with its iconic, minimalist logo — has never been improved on.

The Green Lantern film makes attempts to get it right, but throwing the surface elements on the screen without an exciting — or even functional — story cripples the movie when it should be doing green somersaults. Everybody’s playing it straight, but not a single beat goes by that carries anything remotely resembling tension or drama. Characters are barely introduced (I can’t even remember the name of Hal’s bespectacled friend), and motivations aren’t even really sketched out making it tough to care about who’s fighting who. The final showdown between GL and the evil, possessed Dr. Hector Hammond (played by Peter Sarsgaard) lacked sizzle, partly because Hammond and Jordan barely even had a scene together beforehand, and partly because Hammond reminded me way, way too much of Jeffrey Jones’s evil, possessed Dr. Walter Jenning from Howard the Duck.

Howard. The. Duck.

‘Nuff said. Check out the full review over at sacurrent.com.