As I stated earlier, I went to three different message board with Thirteen Questions about Green Lantern and asked for a general response. On Comic-Bloc the thread was entitled “Women in Green Lantern.” On YABS, it was simply called “Survey.” On Girl-Wonder.org it was called “The Green Lantern Thread.” I’m sure these things affected the respondents. As I was putting all of the questions together in one palce so I can organize my thoughts anyway. I figured I may as well publish them for the rest of you:

I counted noncommittal answers, such as “Yes and No” as ‘Abstain’ for most questions. I counted “It’s reputation is why I avoided it” as a “would drop the book over it” for Q4. I also counted “Friends told me” as countable answers because it reflects your viewpoint, even if it is based on someone else’s and this wasn’t to definitively say whether or not GL has these problems, this was purely about perception.

I’d been worried about Green Lantern since Rebirth. In Rebirth and Recharge we saw the return of every major male character in the franchise. And we saw the return of Brik, the leaving of Carol, and the creation of Soranik. The numbers were off. But I kept reading. I like the male characters, and Geoff Johns dropped teases that more old female characters would return, and while Patrick Gleason was skimpy on how many background women he drew, Ivan Reis was very generous in throwing in obviously female Lanterns in the background. I kept reading, and there was a payoff in Green Lantern #12. I’d expected only the return of Boodika and Laira. I got a grand surprise and the promise of more. It was fun and exciting and I joined all the fans at Comic-Bloc at heaping praise on Geoff. And I saw, among other things in the thread, that I hadn’t been the only female fan annoyed by the pattern at this point.

Meanwhile, everytime I was at Girl-Wonder.org, I glanced around for a thread on Green Lantern #12. I was tempted to create one, but I figured I’d see if there were any other Fanterns besides me and Soyoerika (who hadn’t seen the issue yet when I tried to gush over chat) hanging around. A while passed, and there wasn’t one.

In meantime, I heard another female Fantern express that it was getting hard to be a GL fan and a woman because all the female lanterns keep dying in such horrible ways.

So, I started to post a thread about the issue on the Girl-Wonder.org boards. And it slowly turned into a list of questions, designed to feel out the community for how Fantern-Friendly it was, and see if anyone else had seen the last issue as a step in the right direction. Halfway through, I decided to copy it and post it at Comic-Bloc Green Lantern Forum. It was up for maybe half a night when I realized I needed a “control” group and posted it at You’ll All Be Sorry (Gail Simone’s board).