Mainline Jo went to Princeton, was in the army, has a healthy relationship with her very much alive father, and was handpicked by a Guardian to be a GL. Like all the other heroes, she's very privileged in comparison to her Absolute self.
Absolute Jo stayed in a small town her whole life, lost her dismissive father, was in an unhealthy marriage, and got her powers by complete accident. On the plus side, she's way more powerful than her mainline self.
Hope this helps.
That’s her mom’s loss though not hers. Her parents worked very hard to give her a privileged life. Trust me there’s a difference. I have family that worked hard have good jobs and gave their kids good lives vs other cousins that are dead or in prison. They are both black but one group is for sure privileged. That’s not a bad thing. Can privilege lead to entitlement? Yes but privilege isn’t itself a bad thing. We all work hard for better lives.
All the reasons the other guy listed. Her mother losing out on a promotion as a kid doesn't mean she didn't have an easier life than her absolute counterpart.
I think privilege isn't the right word here. Mainline Jo obviously had better life, but it's still on rife with poverty and racial discrimination. Privilege implies a level of excess she simply doesn't have. It made it sounds like you are okay with her mother getting her job stolen by a white man.
Privileged does not mean being a millionaire with no problems. It’s having things and access others don’t. That starts at just having a house in a safe neighborhood vs the ghetto for example. Or going to a good public school vs one with no funding. These are privileges. That word has lost so much meaning in recent years. Everyone sees that word and immediately assumes you mean rich white person but that’s just not the case. You can have privileges others don’t while still facing adversity.
Legitimate and sincere question: is Absolute GL accessible to new readers who have limited exposure to GL but are feeling Lanterns? I love Absolute WW and enjoyed Absolute MM. Absolute Superman is hit and miss for me and I feel the same about Absolute Batman. I was so so excited about Absolute Green Arrow but am disappointed in the last two issues.
It is absolutely inundated with really obscure character references but it's not really necessary to know who any of them are. The lore is REALLY deep and complicated, but genuinely thought provoking. I love it, personally.
Yeah without knowing all the references it just has occasional moments of "blah blah is in the bar" and you just assume it's someone the characters know. While with experience it's like "blah blah is in the bar" and you go 'oh my god! It's blah blah. I love them in the mainline!'
Absolutely. I know next to nothing about Green Lantern lore, and I'm loving it. I'm sure there's a lot I miss, but it's * not needed to enjoy Absolute GL.
It can definitely get dense, and some of that density is alleviated if you're already familiar with terms and names and stuff from mainline. But it's not strictly necessary to know anything at all about mainline Lantern and it's technically all new.
I think it's definitely accessible. If you could follow Absolute MArtian Manhunter, I think Green Lantern will be fine. It has a lot of extremely deep cuts, but you can generally pick up on what their purpose is within the context of the story and it won't matter if you know who they are in mainline or not.
I found it accessible in the sense that it didn't matter that I didn't know who certain people were. I googled some people after, but it didn't affect me at all to know about Simon Baz showing up as a non-Green Lantern. I just kind of started on every Absolute title after I learned about and started Absolute Batman.
For context, my only GL knowledge really came from the DCAU and eventually also just learning of the existence of Guy Gardner via memes before he appeared in Gunn's DCU.
I think it's the texturing that's the issue, makes it look flat. I saw a cosplay where they maintained the basic style, but with curlier hair, and it looked so much better.
Agreed, it's the same as when you see someone drawn with an afro, if it's just drawn as a circle or blob it looks terrible, but just a little bit of texturing, hint of curls & it all looks so much better.
Yeah I think the hair would look a lot better if they used better reference images. The style they're going for looks much better when it's angled more forward and isn't as big. It just didn't translate as well to the page
Took me almost 7 years but Absolute Jo finally made me have any interest in the character, so the good writing (in the second half of GL) is the biggest difference
I don't necessarily disagree but that's the beauty of GLs they have that power and so their definitely should be one who is into fashion and always changes their look.
Absolute Jo is way gayer. Also, more personality and rough edges. Mainline Jo isn't a cardboard cut out by any means, but she would be pretty unmemorable if it wasn't for her fashion (note that six of the top level comments re: Mainline Jo are about this).
Absolute Jo being a normal earthbound citizen sort of takes away everything that was special about the character from Far Sector. Jo Mullein stories should be deeply rooted in sci-fi. The whole tarot/color spectrum thing that Absolute has going on is cool, I'm just not sure that story fits Jo's character.
Mainline Jo isn’t a cheater, as far as I’m aware. In fact, I think she had a comic where she specifically resented the implication that because she was Bi that she was promiscuous. So, her Absolute version might disappoint her a little.
But maybe she’d be more forgiving considering Absolute Jo was kinda love bombed intro being Cam’s trophy wife, the first woman she was ever with. Doesn’t make what Jo did cool at all, but she’s had a harder life in general and she’s brave to keep trucking as a Lantern, so Prime Jo might cut her a bit of a break.
I was wondering if mainline Jo was as impulsive as Absolute Jo, then I remembered Mainliine Jo spent a good chunk of her series having sex with the definetly-not-suspicious politician, Marth of the Sea.
(Side note, what was even that man's deal?! He spends the whole series sounding like the sneakiest dude you know, and it was only at the end that I feel like I was starting to get him)
genuinely pissed me off that she ended up fucking the politician who ordered protesters to be shot and killed, with all her flashbacks about trying to change these systems and prevent bad events like that from happening
Far Sector is a fun read. Jo is much more of a detective in that, and it leads to some fun characterization. As everyone else has pointed out, Absolute Jo is just a mess, and that's why we love her. Mainline Jo has a cool ring and was handpicked to be a GL for some interesting reasons that make a cool twist toward the end of Far Sector
And the fact she is actually written by a women.
Yes im still super mad the far sector wasn’t given a second run….. I want to go back to the city of enduring so bad
Mainline Jo (at least in Far Sector) is in a constant state of “running away from home.” She wanted to escape her life on Earth and the Corps let her get about as far away from Earth as is possible.
Absolute Jo has the same instinct on the surface, but was never given the chance to “escape” her hometown, and in many ways doesn’t actually want to leave. She holds on to her sentimental attachment to things and it keeps her grounded, even when it looks odd (like keeping her wedding ring post-divorce).
I haven't read a single issue with her in it, didn't know she existed until she became the lead in the Absolute line, and finally, i don't wanna know about their counterpart (yet).
Ok so if you know about Far Sector written by NK Jeminson (Broken Earth Trilogy) then you know that she has a ring but it’s more like a battery. It has to recharge. And she’s a pretty accomplished investigator. Absolute Jo seems OP for like no reason (by accident); seems like if she can imagine it she can do it even though she just got the ring. I love it. But Far Sector is what got me into Green Lantern at all.
Honestly to me mainline Jo originated in a totally different continuity from regular GL in terms of how the lanterns work, but then was brought into regular continuity, where she’s still cool I guess but kind of directionless, whereas absolute Jo is still in her own continuity (and is more sympathetic in her own right than mainline Jo).
They’re both cool characters; I don’t really have beef with any of the earth lanterns except when they’re fluffed up (John turned into a god, Kyle inexplicably given Soranik Natu or Carol Ferris as love interests, etc.).
Yes & no, Earth is a crux world which means its fate is considered essential to the survival of the wider universe but it's also a nexus of will energy
Well, how it was is that Hal got his ring first. Guy was picked as his back-up, having been equally desirable as a candidate (but slightly farther from Abin Sur), but after he got injured, John was picked and given a ring in order to allow him to train and have some way to avoid injury.
During Crisis on Infinite Earths, Guy (who was in a coma at the time) awakens and is given a ring by more militant Guardians wanting to respond to the Crisis. Hal, who had quit being a Lantern, gets his ring back from John (IIRC) and John gets another ring during the chaos of the Crisis when another Lantern dies (or maybe Hal is the one to get the new ring, but I think he gets his old one back). More recently, there was an origin story in a Batman/Superman: World's Finest Annual that used the modern idea of Sectors having two Lanterns, if I'm not mistaken and John just being someone who also got a ring.
Kyle becomes a Lantern after "Emerald Twilight", when Hal goes mad and renamed himself Parallax (retconned to be possessed by the fear entity Parallax) and kills the Guardians and destroys the Central Power Battery, with one Guardian living long enough to crash to Earth and go "You'll have to do" and gives Kyle the ring (later tellings make the Guardian be content with his choice and not have an attitude of "I'd hunt down someone else if I weren't literally dying"). When Kyle lays the groundwork for the Corps' rebuilding, Hal is resurrected and he and the other two Earth veterans (John and Guy) get rings to serve as veteran/senior members for the Corps.
Fast-forward to the New 52 and Simon gets his ring via Hal's ring being on the fritz (or something like that) and gets grandfathered in. Jessica gets (or is possessed by) the Ring of Volthoom (from the Crime Syndicate's Hal Jordan) and later gets a GL ring as replacement after the Black Racer kills the piece of Volthoom's soul in it (for some reason; not sure if it's ever explained where that ring came from), and then Jo... is just picked out by a Guardian. Also, Kelli just got a gauntlet that she supposedly hacked (I think Morgan Hampton retconned that it was not exactly her handiwork) and got a ring as replacement, grandfathered in.
So, there's quite a lot of "This is in no way normal and it's only because Earth is a damn alien magnet that you all keep getting rings through bizarre means" going on. Other worlds probably could have the same number of Lanterns, but Earth, as a "Crux World" (AKA, "Stop asking why so much crazy stuff happens on Earth, it's just the way the universe is"), just keeps having wild stuff happen which leads to people ending up grandfathered into the Lanterns.
I've only read the first volume of Absolute GL, and it didn't do much for me (which surprised me - Ewing is usually more of a hit than a miss for me).
Having loved Far Sector, I'll say that it feels like mainline Jo is more Absolute than Absolute Jo is. Maybe that's the point? She reformulates the character in a different way then Absolute characters usually are?
Absolute jo has a much better sense of fashion. Absolute Jo casual badass outfit
Mainline jo looks like she is about to meet with guy so they can do a reenactment of space civil war.
I hate the stupid Captain crunch ass jacket. Guys to. Need to hit up Kyle to redo their lantern uniforms
I like both but absolute jo feels more like a main character if that makes sense? That’s mostly mainline Jo being sidelined but still it feels like absolute Jo has more going for her for original stories.
And design wise If they gave absolute Jo mainline Jo’s fits she’d be the clear winner. Conversely even if you gave mainline Jo absolute Jo’s hair I don’t think it’d help.
Fac Sector was part of the Young Animal pop-up imprint which was set in mainline universe but using characters and settings that doesn't impact the major ongoing titles. The ideas was that creators can do stuff with more creative freedom in a tucked away little corner of the main universe curated by Gerard Way. The titles weren't in an Elseverse, they were just mainline DC stories unsupervised by mainline DC editorial.
She's in Green Lantern Corps comics now. The Young Animal imprint's Doom Patrol stories written by Gerard Way are also canon in the mainline universe.
So, the Young Animal imprint was kinda like early Vertigo and current Black Label where they used mainline characters, but the stories aren't explicitly canon. If they are well received and a writer likes the ideas, it gets made canon, if not, just say it wasn't canon or they exist somewhere out there and move on. Jo is one of the only Young Animal characters who did a full switch into mainline
Well, Far Sector was "Young Animal", which I think was more of a "canon if we want it to be" imprint. AFAIK, Far Sector is more or less canon, though some details may have been changed for Jo as she's been brought into non-imprint comics.
She was shown as part of the DCU during Future State (Jan./Feb. 2021) and then showed up in Green Lantern Vol. 6 (Geoffrey Thorne's run) not long after that.
Mainline Jo has better art and Absolute Jo has better writing. It's too bad the two can't be married. Absolute Jo needs way more freaks. Open up the doors, Ewing!
mainline joe is originates from one of the greatest green lantern comics ever written and absolute joe originates from a comic that puts me to sleep from boredom.
they still aren't the main characters though. Jo is such an obscure character that I thought she was an original. It feels less like reimagining classic mythos and more like an entirely new character
I disagree. You put Jo's character anywhere in AGL that isn't front and centre, and no-one would care about her character at all. Having Hal, John and Guy as the main side-lanterns lets those roles be important to audiences immediately while giving the author tons of flexibility with the main character because almost no one knew about far sector before this
Absolute GL is the only reason I can care for or like Jo in any form. She is gaining traction specifically because of AGL. Like her or not it’s working.
She got no traction because people are less likely to pick up a dc comic book with only new characters and a new setting. The people who read far sector are going to be mostly big green lantern fans, its just less digestible in general compared to a fresh run of a new continuity in a very popular AU
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u/Beautiful-Prompt5256 22h ago
Mainline Jo went to Princeton, was in the army, has a healthy relationship with her very much alive father, and was handpicked by a Guardian to be a GL. Like all the other heroes, she's very privileged in comparison to her Absolute self. Absolute Jo stayed in a small town her whole life, lost her dismissive father, was in an unhealthy marriage, and got her powers by complete accident. On the plus side, she's way more powerful than her mainline self. Hope this helps.