Nerd Vibes
This is a Podcast dedicated to the culture surrounding Anime and Comics from the perspective of a life long fan.
Nerd Vibes
Lanterns Episode 2 + Show updates
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In this episode, we take a deep dive into Lanterns Episode 2! We break down key plot points, character arcs, and all the hidden Green Lantern lore drops and DC Easter eggs you might have missed.
Before diving into Lanterns, stick around for a quick television update: I’m sharing my thoughts on what I’ve been watching this season, plus the best animated series and anime highlights dominating this summer.
Welcome to Nerd Vibes. I'm your host, Armdark Mamba. And on today's episode, first, we're going to talk about the shows I'm watching, give some updates. Last episode, we did a full episode on lanterns. So this episode, we're going to do some show updates. And then on the back side of the of the episode, we are going to talk about lanterns episode two. And episode two was very lore heavy, so we're going to be getting into that. It's going to be a little bit different format than it was last week for the lanterns review. But uh after this break, we are going to talk about the shows I'm watching, shows that are ending, and one show that actually surprised me in a really, really great way. See you guys on the other side of this break. Welcome back. We are going to be starting with the show updates. So I think it was two episodes ago. I mentioned all the shows that I was watching, up to 10 shows at this time. But I want to talk about a couple of them because we're coming to the end of the summer anime content season. And with that, some shows are ending. And uh I wanted to talk about one of them in particular that like really, really surprised me, made me very happy, and also very sad that it ended. And that was my adventures with Superman. And I know I've said it before, I'm not a huge Superman fan. So watching this show, I believe it's in the third season, which is crazy to me that I've watched three seasons of this show and I'm not really a fan of Superman. But this show got me. It's got me hooked. I'm all the way locked in on it. I was hoping that there was going to be more episodes, but it ended on a great, great ending with uh this season being centered around Superman losing his powers and basically all the rest of the people that are around him having to pick him up and bolster the team while he was out of commission. And he also had to deal with being Clark Kent and not being able to be Superman. And I thought that there was just a great dynamic between the characters. Lois having to deal with only being with Clark and not being with Clark and Superman or just being with Superman. So she was kind of dealing with her own little crisis within their relationship because part of the man that she fell in love with was now gone. And Clark was dealing with his own things, being that a whole part of his identity was gone this whole season for the most part. So I thought that was great. We also have the relationship between Jimmy Flame Bird and Kara, the will they, won't they, the friend zoning, the Jimmy dating other people because he wants to let Kara be her own person. Kara, you know, being mad at Jimmy because she wants to date him, but Jimmy giving her mixed signals. So I thought that was very, very interesting as well, as like a little sub-side plot kind of thing going on. And then the main part of the season was the time travel, which I thought that this show actually handled the time travel aspect very well. Nothing was overcomplicated with the time travel. It wasn't convoluted or anything like that. The first part we got Jonathan Kent coming to coming from the future to the past to kind of save his future. We get that whole storyline, you know, Clark and Lois finding out that they actually have kids, kid, a kid in the future at this point, and Jonathan having to do what he has to do in the present at this time to save his future, which initially was to kill Lex Luthor, I believe. He didn't end up doing that. They they did something else to save the future, sent him back to the future, and then the second time he comes back, he comes back with his sister, Laura Kent, which is the you know the daughter, and then they have all of that situation. We have a new villain in The Eradicator, which was similar to me to the Superman villain Doomsday, because it seemed like this Eradicator could learn and adapt and continuously evolve to beat his current threat because Supergirl Kara was no match for them, Jonathan Kent wasn't any match, and Laura Kent wasn't any match as well. So I just thought it was amazing how they handled it. And while all this is going on with the Eradicators, you have Clark on his own journey to go back and get his powers, which I made a TikTok video about it, but I didn't really understand the lore behind Superman getting his powers back in that instance. But it worked for the show. I thought it was great, I thought it was awesome. And the animation in season one was really like off-putting because some of the background buildings and stuff were not filled in, were not colored. They had some really like crazy jagged lines and stuff, and it was very like noticeable. But going into season two and season three, it the animation kind of grew on me, and I you start to not notice those things as much once you like actually accept the story and fall into the story. So I thought it was really, really good. I especially just the way all the characters play Lex being Lex Luthor, you know, Slade. We got Slade, aka Death Stroke being in there. We got an Amanda Waller in this season as well. I love Amanda Waller as a as a as a character. All of that, you put it in La Pot and you just come out with a great season. And that really, really surprised me because I did first off, I didn't think this would go longer than two seasons. So I thought at some point, in terms of my interest, in terms of my interest, I would say. I thought after season two, our season three was gonna come out, and I'd be like, ah, okay, yeah, like I'll watch it, like it's cool. But I was actually really, really interested. I was looking forward to it coming out and watching each episode with like baited breath because it was just that much fun, that much interesting. And and the other thing too is like it's made for a younger audience, I would say. Superman's on the younger side, Lois is on the younger side, Jimmy, Cara, all the characters are on the younger side. They're not full-fledged adults yet. I would say they're like college age, maybe college age plus, so like 24, 25. But Lois is already a reporter, Jimmy's a reporter, Clark is a reporter at this point, and they all got they're all doing their thing, but the the way the show is made, it's not super violent, it's not anything crazy like that. So I think it is more so tailored towards a younger audience, which I don't mind. I just enjoy comic book stories. So this one was a really good one for me, and I just am very surprised at how much I enjoyed my adventures with Superman. The season is now over, and that's why we're talking about it now because today would have been the day, today or tomorrow would have been the day that I would have watched the newest episode. Uh, I'm recording this on Monday, August 24th. So I would have watched the episode either today or tomorrow, and I'm actually missing it right now because I want to watch the new episode, I want to watch a new episode of it, and I can't because there's no more episodes. So that one really, really surprised me. The other show I wanted to talk about is Bleach, Thousand Year Blood War, the latest episode. Absolutely fantastic. At the time when it initially debuted, it was a 10 out of 10 on IMDB, the highest-rated anime episode of all time. When I recorded a video yesterday, it was at 9.9. So a little bit down, you know, a little bit down. But the episode itself was absolutely fantastic, amazing. I can't have any more superlatives for it. The episode title for the fifth episode, I believe, was called Defend Me. I gotta look here because I want to get it right, because this is this is the episode that that kind of turned it for me. I don't, I wasn't talking about Bleach that much because I love Bleach. I do, but I don't really talk about it as much because I'm not as well versed in Bleach as some of the other anime that I talk about. But this episode right here was absolutely fantastic, amazing, and what can you say? You know, so the episode is called Defend You, and it's the description on IMDb, it's at 9.8 right now, so it did go down slightly, but still one of the higher-rated episodes on here, which is crazy. Each episode in season four of Thousand Year Blood War has been the lowest rating for any episode so far, five episodes in is 9.3. So this anime has just been on absolute demon time for how good it's been. Ichigo and Orohime struggle to gain the upper hand on Yuha Baha. However, the battle looks brighter with Ichigo's new form. We're gonna talk about that in a second. Uh to settle the score with Yuha, as well as continuing the battle between Uryu and Jugrum. I don't really care about Uryu and Huram. I mean, or Jugrum, I don't know how to say that. They have um German names, German derivative names, the uh Quincy's. So sometimes it's a little hard for me to pronounce. But this episode, absolutely fantastic. I want to start with the animation. The animation for this season has been absolutely like movie quality, movie quality animation throughout every single episode so far. I believe the first three or four episodes actually released in theaters, and so you would expect that from those episodes to be movie quality since they were in the movies. But all of them have continued the trend of just great animation, amazing fight choreography. The only thing I would say about this episode that kind of irked me a little bit was it was a little dark, like when you're watching it, it's just it's just a little dark, and that's fine because that's just like the setting of the where where the fights are taking place, and uh Yuha Baha's power is just basically like a black curtain, it's called the Almighty, and so it it lends itself to be just like a darker palette on the screen. Um, and then Ichigo's power generally he has black as his aura color, I would say. Um, so it lends itself to just being on a darker color palette, like I said. But, you know, last week, episode four, we got the horn of salvation, which is something that manga readers have been anticipating for a long time. I don't read the bleach manga, haven't read the bleach manga, but the horn of salvation I've heard about for a long time. And that's basically Ichigo's half-halified form, and he gets one horn from his hollow, his holification, but he's still human. So it's it's really cool. But he activated his bonkai while he was in his half hollow state, which then caused his bonkai to turn into blood chain Ichigo, which apparently, like I said, is from is a form he took in a movie that wasn't canon, and apparently is now been canonized based on this transformation. All I want to say is the way this transformation looked was absolutely amazing. Black robe, two horns coming out of his head, red, you know, plasma-looking chains around his neck, his wrists, and his ankles. And my man was moving like an absolute demon. Absolute demon fighting Yuha Baha for a minute before he got overwhelmed. And all that's cool, you know. Like I said, I I expect Ichigo to get a new form every time he's fighting a new enemy, a new opponent. He always gets a power-up, he always gets something, whether it's full bring or his you know, original Shikai and Bonkai that wasn't real, or his Vasto Lorde form in Wacomundo, whatever it is, Ichigo's gonna get a power-up. So I wasn't too surprised when I saw him get this blood chain Ichigo Bankai form because that's just what Ichigo does. He gets new forms, he gets power-ups, he's he's the main character, that's just what's gonna happen. The part about this episode that made this episode a 9.8 at this point, initially a 10 on IMDB, was Orohime Inoue. And if you don't know who that is, she is kind of like Ichigo's Ichigo's friend, she has the power of rejection. Okay, and what that means is she has the power to reject all phenomena. I'm gonna say that again. She has the power to reject all phenomena, and to this point, she has only used her powers to heal Ichigo and his friends, and in the way that she uses it, she's allowed to she she rejects, and it basically just whatever damage or anything that they have taken, it rejects that phenomenon. So they just in turn are healed completely. So in this episode, though, she's using her powers. Ichigo's getting injured, stabbed, whatever. She's constantly healing him, blocking Yuha Baja's almighty power, and doing it in which is normal to what Otahime has done in the episodes prior. Nothing too special. But Yuha Baha sees that her power is hindering his fight against Ichigo because Ichigo keeps getting up because she keeps healing him. So instead of him attacking Ichigo, he decides to attack Orohime. And this part of the episode for me was really hard to watch because Otahime is essentially a non-combatant. She's basically a support character who has this incredible power to reject all phenomena, but doesn't use it offensively. She only uses it for defense and for healing. And so to see her be attacked in the way that she was attacked multiple times, she was getting stabbed, basically killed for a good solid maybe two minutes in this episode straight of just her getting stabbed, healing herself, stabbed, healing herself, stabbed, healing herself. It was really hard to watch because Odahime is just this kind, caring, uh almost pacifist character. And in other arcs, she has been, she's been attacked, she's been ridiculed, she's been verbally and physically abused, but she never did anything to hurt those people. She actually did the opposite, and would she would heal her enemies and she would take pity on them and empathize with them and help them in that way, no matter what happened to her. So seeing her in this state was again really hard to watch. And there's some pictures online of her in the beginning of the episode where she's like nice, she has this smile, she's very happy, bubbly kind of character to where she was in this episode, where she's on the ground, her eyes are red, they look crazy, her hair is like all types of inner face and messed up. She's bleeding from a multitude of places, and she just has such resolve in her eyes. She looks like a completely different character. And so we get to the end of the episode, which is the part that, like I said, as a non-monga reader, I had no idea what was going to happen. I don't even know if this happened in the manga, but she during the episode constantly curses her power in terms of why aren't I stronger? Why can't I stand next to Ichigo the way I want to? Why can't I fight by his side the way I want to? Why am I so weak? Why can't I be stronger? Why can't I be stronger? She keeps repeating this throughout the episode. And the thing that puts it over the top for her is Rukia, who has joined the fight at this point, uses her bankai. They think that they got you like cornered. She uses her bankai power to absolute freeze him, and Ichigo slices him, and we're like, boom, got him. He's done. Right? Only to see once the smoke clears, Rukia's got a sword through her chest. Ichigo's been stabbed. He's down for the count at this point. And Orohime is again cursing, why am I so weak? Why can't I help my friends? And if you haven't seen the episode, I I implore you, go watch the episode because the way she gets up and her power manifests in these, like kind of like bird type uh, I don't want to say monsters, but kind of like they're kind of like fairies, but they manifest in like a bird type of way, and they're flying around her, leaving this kind of almost blood trail aura around her as she's just walking up to you, Ha Baja, very slowly and calmly. And this is when she decides to use her power offensively for you know one of one of the first times in this way. She has used it offensively before, but it's more so just kind of like kind of like a like a mosquito bite kind of thing. This time she absolutely uses her power offensively, the power of rejection, she rejects Yuha Baja's entire existence. And what that means is she erased him from existence because she rejected his existence at all, which is crazy. It's a crazy power-up. But while she did this, she turns, she looks at Ichigo with a smile and sacrifices herself to eliminate this threat. And man, when I say I got emotional, I legitimately was on my way home, and I shed a tear because I never thought A, that Olihime would be pushed to do something like that, and B, that she would actually die. It was especially after seeing what she went through in the episode. I absolutely loved it. Absolutely loved it. I don't really talk about beliefs that much. Again, like I said, I'm not super well versed on the lore, but this episode right here, it warranted a conversation just because how good it was. It is probably this is probably the best episode of anime I have seen this year. And that's saying a lot because a lot of good anime has come out this year. But this episode right here had everything, had everything you wanted. You you have emotional moments, you have character development, you have great animation, all these things. And for the main character, Ichigo, to be kind of put on the back burner in his own show for this secondary character, so to speak, was absolutely fantastic and amazing. Otihime was the GOAT, and there hasn't been another anime, in my opinion, that handles the writing of female characters better than Bleach. Because you have Soy Fong, you have uh Orihime, you have a bunch of other squad captains, you have the previous uh Kimpachi. Like, why am I forgetting the uh I'm forgetting right now. Why am I forgetting her name? Everybody knows who I'm talking about. I gotta look this up right now. All right. So you got Yoroichi, Unaha, which is the previous Kimpachi. Rongiku, which is Toshiro's uh lieutenant, Orihime, which we already mentioned. And then we also have Halibel, who was a Ronkar, who was really, really cool. You have Lynette, who was a Ronkar who was really good. All these people are written very well. And like, yes, there is some fan service that goes along with these characters, and that's anime for you. But these characters actually have character development, actually have purpose, they do things. Rukia, I can't even how did I forget Rukia? Rukia was literally just fighting and had her bankai and had a moment with Ichigo there. All these things. And I just think that the way that Otahime was ultimately handled is just a testament to the show, a testament to the characters themselves, and making me feel something in that moment for a character that I had not necessarily given that much thought to outside of her being a support for Ichigo and being kind of a love interest, kind of a friend, all of that. I thought this episode was amazing, and I just wanted to talk about it on the pod. So that's gonna be it for the updates for our anime on the other side of this break. We are gonna get into lanterns episode two. And right now, I'm gonna give you a spoiler warning. I'm gonna give you a spoiler warning on the other side of this break. But we will be spoiling everything that happened in lanterns episode two. So be ready for that. If you don't want to hear it, go watch the episode and then come back and listen. But if you do, I'll see you on the other side of this break. Alright, we are back. And again, I'm gonna issue a spoiler warning for lanterns because we are about to get into lanterns episode two. And spoiler warning again. So the way we're gonna break this down, I'm gonna give you the overall description of what happened in the episode, and then we're just gonna talk about it because this episode was lore heavy. We got a bunch of mentions of a bunch of different characters, and I just want to talk about them. I got my notes ready. So let's just give the overall of what happened in the in the episode. Episode two is called Trust Fall. And uh this episode begins with how Jordan realizing he needs his power battery to recharge his heavily depleted ring after a quick abrasive flight lesson with rookie Jon Stewart. Subconsciously manifests a green bird contract instead of flying. Hal commands John to keep the construct alive and orders him to fly commercial to Coast City to retrieve the battery from Hal's mansion. And then while John is doing that, Hal continues his investigation of the aliens in Rushville. So he goes through a bunch of stuff. That's kind of what he's doing. We'll talk about all that. John, while he's retrieving, after he retrieves the power battery, he gets kidnapped by a group of aliens who gives them a bunch of lore. And then he returns to John returns to Rushville to give John Hal the battery so he can recharge. Talks to him about what the abducted aliens talk to him about. And then during the conversation, John still has his bird, which is amazing. They have a little tete tete. Hal flies off in his Green Lantern suit, which we will talk about, and he goes to meet Sinestro, and that's where the episode ends. So, a couple things I want to talk about here. I'm gonna pull up my notes, and we're just gonna go, you know, in chronological order of what happened in the episode. So we start off, Hal wakes up John, and this is like the flight scene and all that kind of stuff. John asks a very important question of Hal Jordan. He asks him, Have you told the Guardians about this whole situation? And Hal just is like, nah, I'm not telling them nothing. I didn't tell them anything, don't plan on telling them anything. They can sugget, whatever. So Hal then tells him, hey man, like, lighten up. I'm gonna teach you some stuff, and I'm gonna teach you how to fly. Only instruction that Hal gives John is fly. And John's like, I, you know, come on, dude. Like, I'm gonna I'm gonna need more than that. And Hal's like, it's just easy for me. I was a pilot. I think fly, I fly. So he tells John, just think about flying, gives him the ring, and John tries to fly. And instead of flying, he manifests this bird construct through the ring initially, and doesn't fly. So John is kind of perplexed about what happened and why this bird is here, as is Hal. So Hal is like, hey man, you couldn't fly. Here's a played ticket. Go to Coast City, get my lantern so I can recharge my ring. And as an added bonus for your training, you're gonna keep this construct. You have to keep this construct alive the whole time. If it if it fades away, you fail. We'll talk more about this bird construct in a minute. John goes to Coast City to get the lamp or to get the lantern, and this is where we get our first lore drop right here. Hal or Hal has a mansion in Coast City that he has not moved into. He has very little furniture, hasn't put any personal effects in the mansion, but it's just like Hal's character. He's big and grandiose and very loud on the outside, but on the inside, he's very lonely and very to himself kind of person. So his mansion is kind of representation of him as a character, which I thought was a great touch. So as John is going through the house, he gets to the closet, sees the lantern suits, grabs one, puts one up to himself, you know, and is kind of imagining himself in the suit because he's it's something that he's wanted for so long. And while he's doing that, Hal's telling him, hey, get my lantern. It's in this box that's in the closet. It's voice activated. So Hal uses his voice on speakerphone and says the phrase, Mogo doesn't socialize. Now, the reason this is so important is because Mogo in the comics is a Green Lantern that is an actual planet. Like the planet itself is a Green Lantern. Absolutely fantastic that they drop this lore inside the episode. And so, like, if you're not a Green Lantern fan, you don't really know how important that is because Mogo it it's a planet. It's just a planet that's a Green Lantern, and it's like one of the wildest things that happens in Green Lantern lore. Also, in Green Lantern lore, Mogo has done a multitude of things. He, you know, can move freely as a planet, you know, to get to different places. At one point, he has housed the Green Lanterns when Oa was destroyed in another, in another way. He was instrumental in helping the lantern stop the Blackest Night event. And in other stories, Mogo has been an absolute godsend for the lanterns in a multitude of different ways. So getting that lore drop was crazy. I immediately said to my wife, like, I cannot believe that they dropped Mogo into this episode. My mind was immediately blown. And that was just the start of the of the lore being dropped in this episode. So he opens the opens the box. It turns out to be a pocket dimension where the lantern is. John grabs the lantern, all that kind of stuff, leaves. As he's leaving, he gets abducted. We'll get back to John in a minute. So while Hal's doing or while John is doing all this, Hal's in Rushville investigating. He goes back to the football field. And this is like the part of Hal Jordan that I want to see a little bit more, which is him being a competent character and not necessarily just like quippy and arrogant and all that kind of stuff. Him actually do it the job. So he goes to the football field, he's checking out the field. There's still blood on the field, which I don't understand that. They said in the in the show that it's been a month. Like you've been there a month and you couldn't clean the blood off the football field. But, you know, whatever. But it just shows Hal is more like in like his investigative skills, him knowing what to look for and how to go about getting the results that he's looking for. So as he's walking in and out of the football field, he walks through these metal detectors that do not go off. And so he does a little test to check and see if they're actually metal detectors because he has a belt on. He has other metal items and the alarm doesn't go off. So he grabs a crowbar and takes the grill off of his car for whatever reason. Walks through the metal detector, doesn't go off. So his bright idea is to go to the morgue and take the bodies of the dead aliens, which he only needed one. I don't know why he took all three, but he only needed one. He goes back to this metal detector, takes the dead alien corpse through it, and it beeps. In which case he finds out that these are not actually metal detectors, but they're actually alien detectors. So that you know raises Hal's antennas because why does this small little town in Nebraska have such advanced tech to be able to detect aliens in this way? So that's what he's thinking after he confirms all of this, or before he goes to the morgue, I should say, he goes to this, you know, city town hall meeting where he gets a little bit more information about Macon and or he tries to get a little bit more information about Macon, what he's got going on, all those kinds of things. And it's after that he goes to the morgue, takes the bodies, and confirms his his own suspicions. After he does this, he gets pulled over by the sheriff, who obviously is concerned because there's four dead bodies in his car, or three dead bodies, excuse me. They have a conversation and he's like, yo, I know that Macon has these metal detectors. He has way too much advanced tech. I need to go back to the ranch and see what's going on. Sheriff is like, hey, it's not a great idea. You know, if we do go, let me do the talking. That immediately doesn't work. Hal and his arrogance get the better of him. And when he goes to the ranch, he ends up having a conversation with Macon in which Macon lets him know that my my benefactor, who is unknown at this point, is the one who provided the tech. Same person who is paying for the ranch that he lives on, and essentially the same person who's paying for this militia to be outfitted with weapons to be to defend against the alien invasion, supposedly. So after this interaction, Hal, in his arrogance, doesn't have any charge left in his ring, by the way. So he is very vulnerable, but he tries to bluff his way onto the ranch, and he ends up getting shot by a sniper in the shoulder. So after he gets shot, he goes to the hospital, and this is where we get the next lore drop, specifically from on Hal's side, because there is more lore coming. He wakes up from his anesthesia from you know getting his surgery or whatever happened. The sheriff is there and asks, who's Sinestro? Now, I thought this was very interesting because A, Hal in his sleep, kept talking about Sinestro, which I thought was kind of weird, but for the show, but not weird when you know the backstory between Hal Jordan and Sinestro, which is Sinestro is the one who trained Hal Jordan initially and wanted Hal to join with him in a coup against the Guardians because the Guardians didn't like humans. And this is all in the comics, okay? So this is nothing with the Lantern's lore right now. And what happened was Hal Jordan decided to side with the Guardians and he stopped Sinestro. And during this time, that's also when Sinestro acquired the yellow element or the yellow power ring, however you want to call it. And that's what he used to try to start the coup against the Guardians, who's ultimately stopped by Hal and imprisoned. In the show, that's essentially the same thing that they said. Sinestro attempted a coup and killed a guardian, and Hal stopped him. But when the sheriff brings this up, because apparently that's public information in this show, when the sheriff brings this up, it is a very sore spot for Hal, and Hal doesn't want to talk about it at all. Because I feel like he still has some mentor-mentee kind of feelings towards Sinestro, and it actually pained him to do what he had to do with Sinestro in that moment. So I thought that was very interesting. As we're leaving the hospital with Hal and the sheriff, you know, Hal has to sign out of the patient, and he realizes hey, this hospital's kind of weird. There's not any patients, or very few patients, if if any. And as he's walking out of the hospital, he notices that all the hospital equipment looks very new and it's barely been unpacked. So the hospital has something weird going on with it as well. So we're gonna get back and jump over to John, back to John. John's been abducted at this point, and we meet a character named Atton, who wants, who is the person who abducted him. And he gives John his backstory about how the four aliens that were killed in Rushville were actually part of his team that he sent in there to find the Manhunters. We're gonna get back to the Manhunters in a second. And throughout this whole time, John is being interrogated slash tortured. He has the bird still around. And Anton mentions or he asks him, how does Hal, how is Hal projecting this construct from so far away? And John answers, he's not, that's my construct. And Anton comments on how crazy of a feat that is, and it's only gonna get crazier, but he mentions that's actually very impressive, if not impossible, for you to do that without the power of the ring, because John doesn't have the ring at this time, but his construct is still around and pretty much reacting to his will at this point. So during this interaction, John is shown through some sort of neurodevice the history of what happened to Anton and his people at the hands of the Manhunters. So before we move on to the next part in John and House's actual story, I want to talk about the lore that was dropped here. So Anton, who's the leader who abducted John, has a backstory that is similar to a character in the comics named Atrocitous. Okay? Atrocitous in the comics is the leader of the Red Lantern Corps. And the Red Lantern Core uses the emotion of rage to power their rings. And the reason his backstory sounded so similar is because Anton said the manhunters who are synthetic race synthetic species assimilated into his planet's population or whatever the case may be and engineered a Holocaust in that situation. And so that's why Anton has such a disdain for the manhunters and is now looking for the one that was saved and is now residing in Rushville, Nebraska. Now, the reason this is important is because Atrocitous in the comics had a similar backstory. And so it hasn't been revealed that this character in Lanterns is Atrocitous, but the backstory sound eerily similar. Atrocitous in the comics had a manhunter or a manhunter squad come to his planet and completely wipe out everybody on his planet, where to the point where Atrocitous was the last person surviving his planet. And in his grief for his planet, he developed such a rage to where he was able to forge and create the Red Lantern core based on rage. And so that being the case, I immediately clocked that backstory. And I thought it was crazy that they put this character in in this point. It's it's it was actually really weird. And that leads me to the next part of lore where the manhunters come in. But I want to I want to just expound a little bit more on the Red Lantern, Red Lantern core. They have rage-fueled rings, they have acidic vomit. So instead of your standard energy blast that, you know, green lanterns use or yellow lanterns lose, use, the red lanterns project a corrosive, plasma-like vomit that burns through other energy and construct and auras. Most members, once they get the red power ring, if they use it for long enough, they become feral. They lose their higher cognitive functions, functions, and completely give over to an animalistic type rage. So it's really crazy. They have the similar abilities to other lanterns in terms of flight, survival. They seem to be a little bit more durable than some of the other lanterns, and it's kind of crazy. But I do want to read the oath from the Red Lanterns because it is it is really cool. With Blood and Rage of Crimson Red, ripped from the corpse, so freshly dead, together with our hellish hate, will burn you all. This is your fate. Kind of sick, kind of sick. I'm not gonna lie. It's a little bit, it's a little bit dope, but it it ties into the next part of the lore, which is this character in lanterns, Anton, dropping the manhunter's name, is also amazing for Green Lantern lore. And I told you this is gonna be a lore-heavy episode. This episode too was very lore heavy with Green Lantern lore. And so the Manhunters were the space police before the Green Lanterns. So the Guardians in the comics created the Manhunters, and they're uh basically synthetic, like robots that didn't have any emotions, had no emotions at all. That was very important for the Guardians at that point, had no emotions, and they would go and patrol the galaxy, similar to the Green Lanterns, and look for places that were in chaos or anything like that, and they would bring justice. But since the Manhunters didn't have any emotion, they would sometimes get carried away. And and one of those times that they got carried away was the massacre of Sector 666, which was atrocitous sector, and that's kind of some one of the events that led to the Guardians trying to get rid of the Manhunters because they realized, hey, the we made a mistake, we need to get rid of these guys. They tried to do that. The Manhunters also in in the comics rebelled against the Guardians because they were trying to get rid of them. So that's when the Guardians had to call in the Green Lanterns, and you know, one of the major enemies in Green Lanterns is the Manhunters because of their relationship with the Guardians and everything like that. So in the rebellion, their internal programming was eventually corrupted by an Owen named Krona. Krona is another lore heavy person, but it doesn't matter, causing the cold machines to perceive all life as flawed. They massacred nearly everyone in space, Sester 666, which was atrocitous. And that's how the the coup happened, and then the Green Lanterns come a little bit later and basically have to clean up the Guardian's mess. And you will learn that the Guardians are such flawed beings in the comics. I'm waiting to see their depiction in the show. But in the comics, they make a ton of mistakes. A ton. There's so many times that they tried to create a peace force or a police force for the for the galaxy, and it just didn't work out so many different times, except for the Green Lanterns. But we're just talking about the Manhunters right now. But we get that piece of lore that, hey, there's a manhunter, they're they have super, super advanced technology, and they're shapeshifters. So they could be anybody in Rushville. And the reason Anton has to kidnap John is he gives him all this information, shows him what the manhunters did with the neuro device, and tells him we can't go. Get them because they can they know we're here, they know we're on to them, and if we go to Rushville, if we get too close, they'll they'll make us and they'll you know do whatever they have to do to not get caught. So we can't go there, but you can. So that's why he kidnaps John so that John can basically go back to Rushville and handle the situation. So these uh Anton and his his group of aliens give John 48 hours to find the Manhunter and take care of it, or they're basically gonna blow up all of Nebraska. Unfortunate turn of events, but it is what it is. So now we get John and Hal back together after John returns to Rushville and has a has a conversation, a very interesting conversation with uh Macon's wife, who he had sex with in episode one. And they what they talk about isn't really relevant to the episode. It might be relevant later, but it was a very interesting conversation about uh her relationship with Macon and how she's viewed, how she views the relationship, and kind of John's views on everything. So it doesn't really matter to the to the overall story of of this episode, but I think it might matter a little bit later. So when John gets back with Hal, he gives him the lantern, and with the lantern, he also gives him the Green Lantern suit. And Hal initially is upset that he brought the suit, but he he did it anyway. And now this is where we get the part that is actually crazy. At the end of the episode, we see everything that John went through being kidnapped, getting initially getting away from his kidnappers, only to be kidnapped again, and then kind of tortured with this neuro device, and then has to get back to Hal in Rushville, all the while this bird construct is with him. Now, the thing I want to talk about with this bird construct is how crazy of a feat this is, right? In the beginning of the episode, John makes the construct with the ring. Nothing, nothing too crazy about that. It's just a bird construct, it is what it is. Generally, he take when you take the ring off, your construct disappears. But for John, it didn't, which is which means one of two things. Either A, he's his willpower is really, really strong, and he was able to keep that that construct contained and alive, or B, something else weird is happening that we don't know about yet. I tend to believe that it is John's overwhelming willpower that kept that construct throughout the whole episode. And you have to remember, like I said, he got kidnapped, escaped, he got recaptured, tortured, and and had a conversation with a woman that he had sex with who he found out had a relationship to someone in the episode that he was directly dealing with. All of that happened to him in this episode, and not once did he lose concentration on the construct to where the construct went away. All of this without the ring, absolutely insane power level feat. And if you it like you kind of have to know Green Lantern Lord to like really understand how crazy it is that he did that, but it was actually amazing, absolutely amazing. So when he gets back to Hal, Hal, and he gets the battery and the and the suit. Other thing I wanted to mention is Hal says you have to say the oath with the ring touching the lantern to recharge it. But the way Hal said the oath was very rushed and in a very like weird, weird way, almost like he didn't want to say it, but he had to say it to get to what he needed to do. So he said the oath very fast, very quick, just so he could recharge his ring, not like he actually believed it, which I thought I I clocked it because I thought it was a little weird. And then also something I thought too was the bird being around John the whole time and him concentrating on it so hard and it not being not fading away at any point, especially when he's going through a lot of different stressors. That said to me that that bird represented something very, very important to him. He didn't want to say it when Hal asked him about it, but it definitely means something to him. And he is not in a point right now where he emotionally can open up to Hal and let him know about what that bird actually represents or means. But I thought I clocked that as well because at the end he says it's just a bird, and then he gets rid of the construct. But there was a look that John gave that was not necessarily with what he was saying. So we end the episode with Hal putting on the suit, and he flies to an unknown planet and he visits Sinestro in a jail cell. And Sinestro and John have a brief conversation where Hal asks him, what do you know about manhunters? And Sinestro in turn asks Hal about John. And he specifically, I clocked this too. Sinestro said, if there's manhunters, if there's one manhunter alive, it's only the second biggest threat to you. With the first, Sinestro insinuated was John. So that conversation is going to happen next episode. I'm absolutely excited about it. And the lore that we got in this episode with the manhunters with a potential atrocitous character, we got Sinestro, we got a mogo mention, we got the actual lantern that Hal uses to recharge. We got John with his construct and that whole thing. What does that mean for this overall situation about how the ring is actually used? Because this whole episode, John didn't have the ring, but he had a construct. So that's really weird. And I just thought this episode was fantastic in terms of the progression of the mystery, the lore that we got, like I said, and each character having some sort of progression or insight into them, with how it was going into his house and his mansion and seeing how big and grandiose it was on the outside, but then on the inside it's very empty, you know, kind of, and it's kind of a representation of Hal himself. And then John using his incredible willpower to keep that construct alive, and him deciding to tell Hal about the Manhunters when he was specifically told not to tell Hal, because at the end of the day, he is adherent to the chain of command and his he reports to Hal Jordan. So that information he decided to report to Hal, and we'll see where that goes. So that's gonna be the the episode, and I'm it's amazing. It was a great episode, but we're gonna end it here, and then on the other side, we're gonna talk about some theories that I have about this show and where it's going and where we're gonna be doing. So I'll see you guys on the other side of this break. All right, to wrap up the episode here, we're gonna end with theory corner. Okay, couple of things we want to have some theories about. So it looks like in the next episode from the preview, we are gonna get a lot of John's backstory. And by backstory, I mean like when he was a kid. We it looks like we're gonna get the first appearance of a guardian in the next episode, and we're gonna kind of understand how John was groomed from a very young age to become a Green Lantern, how that all came about, and things that think things like that. So I'm very excited for this because I think this backstory is gonna be for Jon Stewart, is gonna be a lot different than it is in the comics. So I'm excited to see what they do with that based on the episode preview. Also, I have my theories on who the manhunter is in this series, in this town. And I've I have three possible candidates. One, I think Macon's wife, who John had sex with in episode one, and in episode two had a conversation with. That'd be a tough beat for my guy if she turned out to be a manhunter. That would be absolutely crazy. My second candidate is gonna be the sheriff, because I think that this manhunter might have more peaceful leanings and maybe just wants to live like a normal life, which I could see the sheriff being that kind of character. And then the third is the lawyer. I don't know how he would get around the absolute crazy security that his father has in Macon, but I think that he definitely has a chance to be the manhunter. So those are my top three candidates for who this manhunter is, and we need to find out very quickly who this person is because again, we have just just put a clock on the mystery. We got 48 hours, figure out who the manhunter is, or Aton starts blowing stuff up. Now, speaking of Aton, I think I don't think he's atrocitous. I don't think he's atrocitous. I think that if he actually was atrocitous in this, he wouldn't have handled the situation the way he handled it. Because Atrocitous in the comics is very angry, obviously. He's the leader of the Red Lanterns, the rage. He's very angry, he's very, very quick to conflict, and he's been a Red Lantern for so long that his his instincts are pretty much like fight all the time, all the time. He's very vicious, he's very ready to go in those situations. So I don't think that Aeton would actually be atrocitous in this show, and I also think that the story of Atrocitus, even though it is similar and they did use it for this character, I think that Atrocitus, the character, would be a little bit too much for this show to take on at this point. Because I think they're doing a really good job with the murder mystery kind of situation while also playing off of Hal and John's relationship. I think that's a that's a great sweet spot. And if you start introducing too many, too many things, you start to lose the plot of the whole show. You know what I mean? So I don't think Atrocitous is going to be a main factor in this in the show. And if he is, it has to be done right because Atrocitus is such a great character in in the comics, and I actually sympathize with him a lot because of everything that happened to him at the hands of the Manhunters. And so when I heard the backstory, I was like, ain't no way they're doing atrocities. There's no way, there's no way they do atrocities. So I don't think that that's gonna happen. It's another thing, and I think we're gonna get in the next episode the answer to what the bird meant, or what it represents, who it represents, a moment, something like that. I think with John's backstory, we have to kind of get the answer to why the bird was so important to him and why he held the concentration on that bird for so long through everything that he went through in this episode. So, like I said, being kidnapped, tortured, all those kinds of things, he still kept his focus to keep the construct alive, which I think in the next episode, considering it's John's backstory, we're gonna get the reason for that bird. Mogo, the mogo shout out, I don't think it's gonna go anywhere. I don't think that we're gonna get the a planet-sized Green Lantern showing up in this in this show, at least this season. That would be absolutely insane. But it was cool to get the mogo shout-out. So I just wanted to touch on that as well. And then the Manhunters, I think that the Manhunters having something to do with Abin Sir's death, as Hal stated in the episode, is plausible, but I would need to know more. And I think that if the manhunter is someone who just wants to be live a peaceful life and things like that, I think that it could lend itself to the theory that Hal put forward, where Abon Sir brought the manhunter to Earth to kind of hide him because this particular manhunter was different, and that manhunter killed him. I don't believe that part is true. If the manhunter is someone who just wants to live a peaceful life, I don't think the manhunter killed Ab and Sir, but I do think that they are related. So that's something that's very important. The I don't have a theory for Macon's benefactor, like who he's working for. It could be a rogue guardian. It could be, I see, I don't know, because I don't know why a rogue guardian would have a human militia that specifically looks out for aliens, unless they were looking for the manhunter in Rushville. But then why would you just not send a Green Lantern to do that? So I'm not really sure about his benefactor and how that factors into the overall story of the show because he does have a lot of very advanced tech. He likes the the alien detectors, which Hal said in the episode, I've been all over the galaxy and I haven't really seen tech like this anywhere. So where did you get your tech? I don't really have it, I don't really have any theory for that because we to this point have gotten no information at all on this benefactor in terms of whether it's male or female, whether it's alien or terrestrial, nothing. We've gotten no information. So I have nowhere to go on that on that theory. And the last thing I wanted to mention was if Macon's wife is not a manhunter, she's definitely an alien. Gotta be. Gotta be alien. Because there's no other character that we've met so far that I believe is an alien more than Macon's wife. Because she is the one character that is super duper out of place in this context of where they are in Nebraska. She's ethnic of some kind. I want to say she she's maybe, maybe uh Indian, like from India. Um that's what she kind of looks like to me, which is super out of place because we're in Rushville, Nebraska, and every other character that we've seen so far, besides John, is white. So she sticks out like a sore thumb in this in this town. And she also is always in the right place at the right time. Like episode one, she was sitting at the bar when Hal and John were there. She was listening to their whole conversation about everything that was going on. In this episode, she happens to be in the same diner that John shows up to. Granted, she was there first. I don't know. I just think it's a little weird that you're showing up in places where there's green lanterns, and particularly one Green Lantern. So I think she it on the good side, she could be a a guardian in disguise, which would be super weird if John had sex with a guardian and that was one thing. I don't think that's plausible. I think the most likely scenario is that she's the manhunter, with the second most likely scenario being that she's an alien. And that's what we got going on. But I'm super excited for this show. I'm excited for next episode to see John's backstory. Because, like I said, it looks like they're going to change it from what the comics was. Because in the comics, he was doing his thing, living his life. He was had no plans on being a Green Lantern, and the ring showed up to him. And similarly to how it happened to Hal Jordan, is how it happened to John in the comics. He got a ring, went to Oa, trained, all that kind of stuff, and became a Green Lantern. But in this, it seems like John has been trained since birth, or was chosen since birth, one of the two or both, to be a Green Lantern in the future. So I'm excited to see that. I'm excited for where this show is going. The mystery just keeps getting deeper, and the lore that they're dropping is absolutely crazy. I didn't even mention we got a Batman, not a direct Batman reference, but we learned that the sheriff is from Gotham. She moved from Gotham to Rushville. Why did she move from Gotham to specifically Rushville? There's something there. So we're gonna have a little bit more theories on that once we get a little bit more information. But man, this show is cooking. The show is cooking with gas right now. And I'm absolutely loving it. My wife loves it. I haven't had her on because the Green Lanterns is my thing. But she's been watching the show with me. She's also enjoying it. So maybe we'll have her on to talk about it for a second. Don't but don't don't hold your breath. But anyway, that's gonna be our episode today. I appreciate everybody for listening. Thank you so much. Continue to download, continue to subscribe, all that kind of stuff. Thank you. Appreciate it. Armed out.
