#also it’s player* because I’ll technically be a recurring guest player

[barovia-buddies]

A Friend is dm-ing a pf2e conversion for Curse of Strahd and I’m gonna be joining as a player* but my boy has spoilers…wanna post some concept art of him but a lil nervous in case the other players follow this blog somehow….

[lilygrants]

How YJ and GLTAS Fit (Or Don’t Fit) Together

Because why do something productive with my time?  In general, the Green Lantern franchise is probably the least-utilized of DC’s major properties in YJ, for two very simple reasons: 1) No “young” characters, and 2) They’re OP as hell. Seriously, one of my first exposures to the Justice League was an episode of the Superfriends cartoon where the Legion of Doom went back in time to wipe out the Justice League’s three strongest heroes: Superman, Wonder Woman, and... GREEN LANTERN. Greg Weisman, one of YJ’s two executive producers, has been very upfront about the GLs being OP as hell, and cited this as a reason that they’re often written as being away from Earth (ref: Coldhearted, all of season 2). They wanted their Justice League to exude power, yes, but they also want the kids to be useful! Even with Weisman and Vietti writing around them as much as possible, their overpoweredness STILL got them into trouble with the “missing 16 hours” plot point. Even today, you can check the “Ask Greg” archives or the YJ TV Tropes page and find a bunch of fans whining about why John Stewart didn’t just ask his ring where he’d been for 16 hours. Green Lantern is the definition of “story breaker power.” You think Superman is boring with his 96 billion super strengths and super senses? Green Lanterns can create basically anything they can imagine-- and Earth has FOUR of them in YJ, as of season 4. (Though we don’t know who the fourth one is, technically. It is prooooobably Kyle Rayner, but it could just as easily be any of the other Earth-based lanterns. I’m currently pretending it’s Aya.)    First, let’s take a list of characters we know exist in both series. 

Hal Jordan (main character of GLTAS, occasional, mostly-silent cameos in YJ) John Stewart (YJ’s favorite GL with bit parts in a couple of episodes and the video game, namedropped in GLTAS’ final episode) Carol Ferris (recurring character in GLTAS and Hal’s love interest, bit parts in one episode of YJ: Invasion and tie-in comic)  Guy Gardner (recurring character in the 2nd half of GLTAS, bit player in YJ-- speaks more than Hal but only because him being a jackass is funny)  Kilowog (main character of GLTAS, currently guest starring in YJ) Razer (main character of GLTAS, hijacked one episode of YJ and proooobably won’t be back, since he didn’t even touch the actual current plotline)  Tomar Re (bit character in both shows so far)  Mogo (bit character in GLTAS, namedropped in YJ)  Aya (main character of GLTAS, namedropped in YJ) 

So, let’s start with Hal.  Hal has spoken two words in YJ. (Technically, he spoke one word twice-- “No,” in response to Guy Gardner joining the Justice League.) 

https://youtu.be/MvAgVSamZe8?t=15

This is for the best, as there’s very little to contradict his actions in GLTAS. “Four years ago” places it during season 2, and all we know about Hal’s actions that year is that he spent January - June away from Earth. Presumably, most of that time was on Rimbor, but there’s still plenty of room in the second half of the year for GLTAS to happen. His personality is also a blank slate in YJ. His character design was also updated for season three, giving him a slightly different uniform, distinguished Mr. Fantastic gray temples, and some lines to his face. The law of conservation of detail suggests they did this for a reason, but I’ll be damned if I can imagine what that reason is, given that Hal is basically a nonentity in YJ.  

John and Guy present the first real contradiction between the two-- ie, GLTAS depicts Hal as the only GL on Earth at start, while by the analogous time period in YJ, they’ve both been GLs and Justice Leaguers for years.  So “The New Guy” did not happen in YJverse (or if the plotty events did, it wasn’t Hal and Guy’s first meeting-- they’ve known each other for an absolute minimum of 5-6 years by this point, and likely longer). There’s also the fact that Guy was also tied up in the Rimbor stuff. 

Guy is also very different-looking between the two. GLTAS is almost a note-for-note translation of his usual comic character design, while YJ goes for a modernized update of a similar idea. He also has a different voice actor, owing to the fact that he was most likely cast before the decision was made to include the GLTAS-inspired events. I also suspect that he will keep his YJ voice if ever used in future episodes-- one of the ways Weisman and Vietti initially differentiated their shows from other DC properties was by avoiding reusing actors. They’ve since relaxed on that front (and reused Bruce Greenwood to start with, anyway), but I imagine they like their version of Guy well enough to keep him the way he is.  

John very politely spent that time period actually on trial on Rimbor, so he presents no real conflict of events, except Hal didn’t get to make a Daily Show joke about him, since they’d known each other for years by this point. 

Carol’s the one it actually gets interesting for. In YJ, Ferris Aircraft seems to be focused on spacecraft-- her two appearances show her at NASA. She looks very different between the two shows, and again, has a different voice actor. The main question about her is whether or not she has a power ring in the YJverse. YJ Carol is very aware of aliens (her big appearance shows her attempting to broaden communications with Mars). Carol’s appearances in GLTAS were few, but memorable. I suspect she’ll also retain her YJ voice actor, not least because Kari Wahlgren also voices both Saturn Girl and Phantom Girl. 

Kilowog and Razer were lifted from GLTAS pretty much exactly as they were, voices included-- Jason Spisak, the workhorse of DC Nation, was already voicing Forager, and Kevin Michael Richardson was already voicing Vykin and Martian Manhunter. 

My gut instinct is that they were left in GLTAS form primarily as fanservice. Razer peaces out the first chance he gets, and I personally doubt we’ll see him again any time soon, much as I’d love to be wrong. Kilowog is sticking around for the moment, but he doesn’t seem to be hugely involved in the plot just yet. Weisman and Vietti didn’t feel the need to really personalize their version of him, because he’s not a major player-- or at least that’s my theory.

It is interesting to me that Tomar Re was cast as Dee Bradley Baker. His GLTAS voice actor, Jeff Bennett, is another one of those versatile men-of-a-thousand-voices that huge casts like YJ rely on-- off the top of my head, he voices all of the male Reds, T. O. Morrow, Alfred, and Abra Kadabra. He was also in Gargoyles, so very dear to Weisman’s heart! They could have cast him-- if they wanted to. It isn’t like Guy and Carol, where they made their choice before deciding to incorporate GLTAS. But they chose Tarrlok instead. Obviously, Dee Bradley Baker is a good choice. I suspect that (unlike Kilowog and Razer) Tomar Re is going to be Involved from this point forward, and so Weisman and Vietti made him their own. I mean, he IS on the poster for this arc. He’s gotten some pathos regarding Krypton. Kilowog parented his spacekid and otherwise has not done anything worth mentioning.

Mogo’s only been mentioned as less than Guy Gardner’s ass, and Aya as the subject of Razer’s quest, but questions remain. Could any of the characters YJ actually follows have known or known of Aya? I rather doubt it, much as I would looooove to be wrong here. I remember back on the old YJ Anon fic meme, there was a prompt about Hal bringing Aya to the cave and having her join the team as his sidekick-- but her lack of representation in the grotto leads me to believe she wasn’t known to them.