r/BlackPeopleTwitter • u/marccoogs ☑️ • 1d ago

Green Lantern, John Stewart aka Space Michael Jackson.

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1.8k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

91 comments sorted by

475

u/Young_KingKush ☑️ 1d ago

So many layers to the episode man, they did a stellar job with John's origin story. John's parents were dead wrong in many ways but whether or not they loved John is never in question. 

One of my favorite small things is how they showed that John felt disconnected from the culture a bit in comparison to his brothers with the car scene rappin ATLiens, they even hit him with the "You talk white." But despite that John did in fact know all the words, showing that he definitely had genuine interest in Black music (my boy was listening through the walls lol). 

So many things like that throughout the episode, I could talk about it for like well over an hour lol

287

u/marccoogs ☑️ 1d ago

John was never given a full origin story in the comics, so it was cool to see such a distinct origin story for a superhero. He wasn't your typical orphaned hero who out of tragedy, became a hero. Dude was raised from birth by both parents in a nice house, who just so happened to have a fanatical belief in his greatness. They took the overbearing black athlete parent trope and magnified it x10. Brilliant

179

u/Young_KingKush ☑️ 1d ago

When John was like, "When did you ever care whether or not I was happy?" brother, my heart broke. He was deadass but his mom played it off, it's hard to have them real conversations with your parents once you get older.

I really love his character so much man, he feels like a real person

63

u/come-on-now-please 1d ago

My girlfriend has a theory that the whole "go be happy at art school" was just another manipulation to make him a better green lantern candidate, since he only get interviewed AFTER art school. 

His parents both know they've reached the limit of what they and the narines can instill in him, and after 20 some years they roughly know how Hal jordan has to make constructs with his mind and that art school can give him those technical abilities. 

32

u/villain75 ☑️ 1d ago

Its like the one thing he truly loved he had to put to the side. And then he found that this love of art was actually going to make him a great Lantern.

The fear part was where his father failed, and it ended up being the entire focus. John's ability to visualize and replicate anything he thinks about is the true skill he needed most.

-10

u/Tyster20 1d ago

Green Lanterns don't need to be good artists they just imagine the thing and the ring makes it.

22

u/titdirt ☑️ 23h ago

Big dog have you heard about the things master artists can create with their imagination?

5

u/come-on-now-please 22h ago

It kinda raises a philosophical question though doesnt it, are artist more imaginative? Or do they just have the technical skill to create what they see in their minds eye.

-3

u/Tyster20 22h ago edited 22h ago

What I am saying is that being a good artist has never been necessary to be a Green Lantern. So I doubt that the guardians were waiting for him to go to art school especially since the guy they pick instead Guy Gardner (the best Green Lantern) is certainly not an artist.

1

u/titdirt ☑️ 22h ago

Not you just over here spoiling the show for me for no reason.

8

u/Tyster20 22h ago

That isn't a spoiler, we know John doesn't get the ring because of the flash forward in the first episode and we know that Guy does get the ring in-between 2016 and 2026 because of his apperence in the Superman movie.

2

u/AbrahamNR 17h ago

Sure but the earth lanterns with the best construcs (John and Kyle) have an art/design background.

34

u/TheAlmightyBuddha 1d ago

Bro I'm still mad about not being able to pet goats at George Washingtons property when I was like 10, so that "oh you still mad about the crayons" line hit hard 😂

15

u/LIONLDN 1d ago

Harder in the uncomfortable sense or? 💭

My parents are very forthcoming now that I'm older ⚡

Things they used to beat around the bush about when I was younger, they just say as it is now & I'm shocked 😮 lol

48

u/OklahomaTiddy 1d ago

Mine just act very surprised that I still remember anything from childhood and proceed to laugh it off and say it was a long time ago.

My mom every time:

31

u/OklahomaTiddy 1d ago

Meanwhile, moms holding half a tree branch in '98 glaring at me menacingly:

1

u/osiriscauac 1d ago

Literally THIS

83

u/NK1337 1d ago

Fucking thank you! The black athlete trope was turned up to 11: father passed up for his chance at glory, years later his son has a shot so parents go all in trying to make sure he doesn’t make the same mistakes. It’s born out of love but manifests in the most toxic way possible, all to ensure the child can succeed in a world that’s going to be against him from day one.

Man it’s so refreshing seeing people actually looking at it through this lens. I made the mistake of hopping over to the episode discussion threads already expecting the reaction based on the episodes themes and sure enough 🫩. Couldnt make it three comments without seeing people complaining about “woke” and “agendas”.

34

u/Shroomy_Salem 1d ago

The second the mom told the guardian even up there no one thinks of them I just knew the dumbass YouTube videos were going to mention woke etc. episode was so good from start to finish.

9

u/manateesaredelicious 19h ago

Yeah but making the guardian an older white lady who looked confused as fuck while a black woman was trying to explain reality was just a chefs kiss fuck you to flyover state Americans who think deep fried butter is food.

16

u/ARock_Urock 1d ago

This thread has some of the best break downs of the episode. I knew there was gonna be a bunch of bullshit online. But I'm glad to see the depth of this episode not get lost in the weeds of hate.

4

u/Senior_Ability_4001 1d ago

I think there’s like three DCU subreddits. I know one is more Snyder/chud focused.

7

u/CrossP 22h ago

Lines about black people being overlooked. Two sons feeling overlooked. Call their brother white in response. Circles in circles in circles.

2

u/DLottchula 👱🏿Black Guy™ who wants a Romphim 20h ago

And it's wild to see people online talking about they changed his origin story. When he never really had one. we just knew some stuff about his past.

23

u/DownvoteDaemon ☑️|Jay-Z IRL 1d ago

My mom was told she talks white growing up. Also my dad’s side of the family in Memphis said this. That’s why I have a Memphis/Florida black accent. We learn to code switch though in corporate environments.

14

u/girthyclock 1d ago

It was honestly fantastic television. I really enjoyed how they turned the masculinity and fear on its head. It was his father who was reluctant to push his boy in that direction and that the guardian recognized it was the mother’s fearlessness that would be what was imprinted on John and what would be tracked.

14

u/CrossP 22h ago

"I thought you guys were blue"

"We appear as humans to help you feel comfortable"

shows up as a 60 year old rich white woman

8

u/pkcjr 20h ago

Probably why she was comfortable inviting her in for coffee after she showed her true appearance. Tall blue woman being more comfortable to be around than the rich white lady form.

9

u/BeMyBrutus 1d ago

Yeah it broke my heart watching he doesn't have a relationship with his brothers

4

u/ThaPhantom07 ☑️ 1d ago

Ok the show wasnt on my radar but youve made it sound really interesting so I think imma have to check it out.

13

u/Young_KingKush ☑️ 1d ago

It's great trust. The two leads in particular, Kyle Chandler & Aaron Pierre, are both excellent in it. Also a mystery story if you like that

13

u/KageStar ☑️ 1d ago

True Detective: Green Latern Edition

1

u/BestPeachNA 18h ago

What really threw me was black kids (teens) cursing like that in the car with their parents. Like.. in front of GenX parents in the 90’s. Where were the ass whoopins?

2

u/dennismfrancisart ☑️ 4h ago

This was the backstory for a lot of "star" athletes growing up. They were given a mission from day one. All the siblings feel sidelined because this one kid was supposed to make up for the parent's personal failure. The inner turmoil of the parents was very well fleshed out. When they gave John the speech, they had to be 100% confident. When they walked away, and you saw the fear and uncertainty in their eyes, you knew that there was pain. This wasn't cut and dried.

When Mom proved her faith in John in that scene in front of the garage door, I think that sealed it for him. He was fearless because she was faithful.

90

u/di2tinguished 1d ago

I’m just glad to see some humility in his shape-up and taper. Nobody’s that crispy at all times, even if it took 9 months in a treehouse

13

u/titdirt ☑️ 22h ago

That shape-up got a full six-pack and punches slabs of beef in a meat packing facility. CRISPY.

64

u/DMking ☑️ 🧔🏾Engineer Daddy seeking sugarbaby™👧🏼 1d ago

Plot twist is that his mom is Joe Jackson here. John Sr. looked horrified by her suggestion to shoot an apple off of John Jr. even if he went along with it

55

u/illlojik ☑️ 1d ago

When he switched it up on her though. She’s like I’ll get your father. “Nah. I mean You! I’m shooting that shit off your dome mom! Oh what? Is YOU SCARED!?”

42

u/DMking ☑️ 🧔🏾Engineer Daddy seeking sugarbaby™👧🏼 1d ago

She was absolutely fucking terrified for that whole scene but so determined to make John into a Green Lantern that she fully committed. She's such an interesting character I hope we can see some more of her and she's also fine as hell.

10

u/osj777 ☑️ 23h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/j3ohJ2YLHMQyZMtJAs

7

u/illlojik ☑️ 23h ago

lol. Right. She kept volunteering everyone else for these potentially fatal tests. Might as well participate.

8

u/FuggyGlasses 1d ago

Loved that part lol then the "i don't like cheeseburgers"  she wetfarted for real

30

u/NK1337 1d ago

It was really unexpected with how he was presented in the last episode. ESPECIALLY when you see the like of bullet holes reaching all the way down and you realize he’s been doing this since a depressingly young age.

23

u/M0J0__R1SING 1d ago

It's like a messed up version of the wall in a the house where you draw a line to mark how much your kid has grown every year.

8

u/CrossP 22h ago

It was genius that they only really showed John Sr until this episode and didn't show his mom in 2016. Because I was completely willing to believe shooting the apple off of mom's head went bad bad.

62

u/M0J0__R1SING 1d ago

I really liked how after a lifetime of being nurtured into this fearless robot man, going to art school and indulging his natural creativity and attention to detail is what ends up making the difference when it came to getting selected for the green latern job.

18

u/GrecoRomanGuy 1d ago

Almost as if fitting your child into a box as a means of living vicariously through them because you yourself didn't succeed isn't great parenting.

John Jr. never asked to be born. And he sure as hell never asked to be a Green lantern.

His parents, and especially his mom, felt they got cheated out of what could have been an incredible lottery ticket of a life. And the irony is that if John senior had passed the test, he might be just as miserable as Hal is.

4

u/CrossP 21h ago

I loved that the one time we see him open up a bit before this episode was feeding and talking to a plant. He's so lonely but can't fix it.

199

u/DickPillSoupKitchen 1d ago edited 1d ago

Making John Stewart’s mom Space Joe Jackson was a wild move

And if I can get all dorkus-malorcus for a second: I haaaate making John a Marine. Makes him taciturn, joyless, and not terribly interesting (gruff, humorless Black man is a cliche in its own right.) I miss the community activist, architect version.

But making the Marine bullshit part of a new backstory where he got Joe Jackson’d by unhinged parents? That’s interesting

110

u/Young_KingKush ☑️ 1d ago

Also I definitely think if you pay attention to John it's clear he never really gave a fuck about the military he was just good at it & viewed it as part of his Green Lantern training, in his heart he's an artist.

I think in the 10 year gap between 2016 & 2026 where he doesn't have the ring he will have become an architect.

34

u/illlojik ☑️ 1d ago

My only real complaint is during the Guardian pre interview test. John is one of the few Lanterns that builds his constructs from the inside out. Having the Guardian tell him what to do takes away from the architect of his character.

9

u/CrossP 20h ago

Would've been great if he simply said make the watch and then said it was interesting that he included internal components.

41

u/MookieV ☑️ 1d ago

I thought it was dope that it wasn't while he was a marine when the Guardians finally approached him, though. It was after he entered art school. I mean, his pre-interview was drawing a picture from memory.

21

u/DickPillSoupKitchen 1d ago edited 1d ago

Agreed! I’m with KingKush: They’re playing it like the Marine stuff was more out of family obligation than passion.

With luck, they’ll lean harder into Stewart’s original ”I build because I want to build a community” ethos and less the, “I can kill a man from a mile away.” That doesn’t read as terribly heroic to me, and much less so with his background established

11

u/JudgmentalOwl 1d ago

Having the "I can kill a man from a mile away" and "I will survive in the woods for 9 months just for a chance to get your ass" skillset floating around in the background definitely adds a bit of edge to him though.

4

u/CrossP 22h ago

I really hope they lean into how horrific it would be to kill someone with the ring. Like using your literal willpower and creativity to end a life with almost no distancing.

Since they're doing manhunters and the whole manhunter story is about the mistake of having emotionless beings being the arbiters of justice.

1

u/Mecha_G 21h ago

Isn't art Kyle Rayners thing? John was an architect.

6

u/CrossP 20h ago

Architect is more than 50% art. Kyle Rayner is specifically a comic book artist. It looks like they're having John do drafting and design art which is basically a precursor to architect stuff. The way he puts the watch together reminds me of doing draft work in something like AutoCAD which is taught in many art schools.

4

u/CrossP 20h ago

Did you watch the little interview bit at the end of episode 3 where some of the writers talked about John Stewart needing a true origin story? I loved it.

2

u/CrossP 22h ago

I'm hanging everything on the theory that he takes his art education to architect school between 2016 and 2026.

93

u/pasher5620 1d ago

What’s funny is I feel like the mom is way more like Joe than the dad. The dad at least shows some level of kindness and fondness for John when he performs well and is somewhat regretful of what he’s doing to his son. The mom is unrepentant, even bitter to a degree in her treatment of her son. It’s a miracle John didn’t become a damn serial killer.

49

u/AlbionPCJ 1d ago

That really comes from the fact that she was the one to speak to the Guardian. Whereas, while he was the one who had the experience with the ring, John Sr. remembers it as basically a dream. So I think some doubt was always present for him but for her it was real (and she had the physical element of the diamond to back it up- which, excellent subtle detail that they went for that instead of straight cash since The Guardians don't care enough to learn anything important about society on a backwater like Earth)

22

u/schloopers 1d ago

The guardians doing research: “dude, you’re not going to believe it. I was trying to figure out how to barter for some currency, they got tons by the way, super disorganized down here, but I found a universally treasured commodity. Crystalized. Carbon.”

“Get out. There’s no way!”

“I’m telling ya man, they’re still dependent on digging this stuff out of the ground. Clarity matters to them!”

“Why the hell would clarity matter for an industrial product?!”

“Dude, they’re wearing it! Like some kind of flex. I’ve already gone to the nearest [Space Kinkos] and used their 3D printer. Man, this is gonna be the cheapest “bribe the savage natives” we’ve ever done.”

10

u/CrossP 22h ago

After the full reveal, it feels like "going to get a cheeseburger" was more about John Sr needing it than his son. Gotta get away from the house. Calm himself. Convince himself he loves his son. So John Jr came to hate it.

1

u/CrossP 20h ago

Marine sniper is pretty close. He did in fact kill a bunch of people in series.

1

u/NameTripping 19h ago

If John gets on tv like Hal did she definitely gonna be throwing out the "I told you so" and "That's my baby."

21

u/Homo-alono 1d ago

Definitely multiple counts of child endangerment lmao.

16

u/Buddhamom81 1d ago

Yeah that stuff would definitely be considered child abuse. The isolation, the car thing… I mean…. Just mixed feelings watching that.

10

u/Homo-alono 1d ago

Yeah just looked it up, shooting at a kid, even without trying to hurt them can get you 1 to 10, but let's be honest it'd probably be more.

1

u/CrossP 21h ago

John Sr could probably get even more if it fell into a military court room

20

u/furezasan ☑️ 1d ago

When he said not dad, YOU! 😱

24

u/jr_randolph 1d ago

It's funny because in the last year we have two black mothers in prominent shows...both with HBO interesting enough with Welcome To Derry and Lanterns.

They had Charlotte play more of the Dr. King role model where Bernadette is a little more violent revolutionary haha.

10

u/A_Narcissistic_Sloth 1d ago

"Just give me five minutes wit em" 😭😭😭

10

u/CuriousTsukihime ☑️ 1d ago

Lmfao this exactly how that mf was moving tho! 😂

7

u/ShadowForPresident ☑️ 1d ago

This meme is funny and sad all in one….god I love this damn show

1

u/Adventurous-Juice196 1d ago

What's the name of the show?

7

u/Commercial-Kiwi-4818 1d ago

Lanterns on HBO it's a DC project following john Stuewart and Hal Jordan as green lantern and trainee

5

u/donotgotoroom237 20h ago

In brightest day, in blackest night, hee hee!

No evil shall escape my sight, shamone!

5

u/Additional-Muffin317 1d ago

How yall gonna show Joe, when the mama kicked the daddy out and was the main 1 kick him out the car.

4

u/Kaligula785 1d ago

I'm predicting now that his brother is going to be a villain he is going to have to face at some point

4

u/z3n777 1d ago

this man really brought the moonwalk to outer space and he's still going

7

u/Ok_Brain_1114 1d ago

Show is SO good so far

3

u/Sachertortte 1d ago

I don’t know why I thought this was another condolences post. Last week was a trip D:

3

u/fuzzycuffs 1d ago

Isn't Space Michael Jackson Captain EO?

2

u/EmploymentOk4851 23h ago

This episode I was on the fence with the parents decisions,then at the end of the episode when that “Midwest Huxtables” comment was made suddenly I was on board with them😂

2

u/StrategyBusy9579 21h ago

Barry Gordon as a dad but for making a superhero

2

u/theecatalyst 13h ago

I feel that scout culture is definitely being talked about here. I know we’re talking about Joe Jack but man, the gotta make it by any means necessary is everyday life if your kid has innate abilities in something. Once we see that glimmer of talent and its recognized, its how and what do I get my kid to the top of the line. The amount of hell you go through, time and money and watching your kid wonder if they believe in destiny or fate. My kid plays soccer and I get a “guardian” coming round about boarding camps overseas, trainers, might have to homeschool. Its wild and real. Good episode.