Yeah, there's spoilers here.
So I'm wondering... did the person who wrote the solicit for Green Lantern Corps #29 actually read the issue? Because what they wrote? Totally didn't happen.
As disappointed as I am with the outcome of the Guy/Tora thing, I have to admit that this issue did have some great points in its favor. For one... well, Guy and Tora. On the same page. Talking. Even if it degenerated into a fight, at least we got to see them interact, right? What disappoints me the most about the whole thing is that we waited ages to see their date, got the whole week/whatever she spent here condensed into few short pages, and then it appears we won't be seeing them do much together again for a while. (Unless something interesting happens to Tora on her way home next issue... hmm.)
Guy is very in-character here, and that's particularly important because it would have been easy to make their whole interaction all smarmy and syrupy sweet, and Guy's hurt and anger was completely realistic. He got his hopes up, came out and asked her an important question that was very hard for him to ask, and she shot him down. Gently, but of course that doesn't make it hurt any less.
And yet I can sympathize with Tora. Her whole life, she's let other people make decisions for her. She's never really been on her own before. And now that the life she knew has disappeared and all her friends and loved ones have moved on to other things (or died...), she has the chance to decide what to do with her life. She wants to make that decision on her own. Guy, of course, wants to be a part of that. He's talking togetherness. But I think Tora knows herself too well -- if she lets Guy or Bea or anyone else "help", she'll never be able to be completely certain that the decision was all her own, will she? Guy, of course, has had to suffer through not having her for all this time, so he doesn't want to waste any more time. His point of view is perfectly reasonable, as well, given that a lot of time has passed for him since her death.
Guy is reacting like a bit of a brat, but I'm sort of glad that Tomasi chose to go this route with him. We haven't seen that side of Guy in quite a while, but it's a side of him that definitely exists. And I mean "hurt-bratty" Guy, not "teasing-you-bratty" Guy. He was quite the jerk to Symon Terrynce, who seems like a perfectly nice fellow. He even snapped a bit at Arisia and Yat (who aren't even Sector Partners, are they? Are the Guardians themselves trying to hook these two up, or what?).
It's also nice to see Tora standing up for herself. She's always been perfectly capable of being nasty when the situation called for it, and she has fought quite bitterly with both Guy and Bea on occasion, but she's usually just so nice that it's easy to forget that she does have limits. The fact that Guy doesn't understand her needs probably hurts a lot.
I still want to know if Guy or Bea have bothered to tell her that they dated. I don't think Tora would be angry (she was dead, after all, and she wouldn't want them to be lonely), but I do think she would be a bit hurt that neither of them bothered to mention it to her. Particularly if they keep sniping at each other from a distance, as this seems to imply they've been doing or will be doing, at least. (Note to self: must write Guy and Bea's break-up scene, because DC will never give it to you. I'm almost certain now that it had to have been a bitter, ugly break-up.)
Here's what I think, though: Tora was expecting a proposal. Notice how she was all smiles and encouragement (and teasing him a bit, too) right up until he said "cohabitate"? Her expression immediately went all... funny. Maybe she took it as a cue that he's not really as ready to commit to her as he thinks he is. And maybe, it that same moment, she realized that she's not as ready to commit to him as she thought she was. This took me a couple of read-throughs to pick up, but now I'm almost sure that, if he had actually said "will you marry me?", she would have said "yes" -- to hell with all the finding herself stuff!
Anyway, other things I liked about this issue:
Miri and Kered. Oh, this hurt. It HURT! I'll likely have something else to say about this tomorrow.
Finally, we get to see a little more about Kryb the babystealer. Killer. Whatever. I was beginning to think they'd forgotten him.
Kyle focusing on those hands. Thinking about love, Kyle?
Tora freezing the table. This issue would be worth it for this alone. I have this thing for unconscious displays of power, and an even bigger thing for unconscious displays of power that involve Tora specifically. And the scene was perfect -- she was seriously pissed off. And then the way it all just hung there, frozen so prettily in the instant it all went up in the air.
And check out the panel where Tora is in the green chariot-thingy and Guy is telling Symon to get going. Is that Green Lantern in the background carrying a pink purse?
Overall, this was still a great issue. If we get to see continual developments with Guy and Tora, even if it involves fights like this one, I'll probably stop being disappointed in the outcome here. Taking it slow is fine! I'm just afraid that we won't get to see them interact for another six months to a year. Baby steps in a relationship only works if you actually write them taking the steps, you know?
I'm wondering now if she and Symon will ever make it back to Earth.
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3 comments:
This...was a very interesting book this week. I've been reading it for two days, and thinking about what it is that Tomasi wants to say, which I suppose is pretty ridiculous, considering they are fictional characters. Nevertheless, they are my FAVORITE fictional characters.
My first reaction was to slap Guy. Usually, that is the reaction that I have to Hal, so it surprised me.
But I think that you are absolutely right, in thinking that Tora was getting geared up for a proposal from Guy, you can see it in her face and her body language. And then of course, he muffs it. So my sympathies were with Tora.
But then I started thinking about it, and it is entirely possible that Guy has engineered this himself, possibly completely unbeknownst to himself. I'm still trying to work this all out in my head, and I'll post about it then.
But I'd love to read a story about Guy and Bea's breakup. I've always assumed that it was her idea, and that he took it badly, but I'd love to know your take on it.
I suspect that it was Bea's idea, too. Maybe not so much because she doesn't like him (because I think she really does) as because she's not as ready to settle down as he is. I can see her assuming that they have an open relationship when he thinks they're exclusive, or something like that. And that sort of situation is always messy.
Bea and Guy have always had an...odd relationship. I've always suspected that she's a lot more intrigued by him than she'd ever admit, but if you go back and read the early Giffen JLI's, she's always talking about him. There's even a scene when he was in his sweet little girl stage, and making googoo eyes at Tora, and Bea gets miffed and asks him what's wrong with liking HER! He turns pale and says that she scares him...which just cracks me up.
She's always trying to break he and Tora up, but whenever he got hurt, she sure seemed to be upset. So it's an interesting dynamic. I think that you're absolutely right in your take on it, when they were together, he thought they were TOGETHER, and she didn't. That could explain why he was so bitter during that whole Omac mini.
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