GREEN LANTERN #78 JULY 1970
"He's the only 'FAMILY' I've got!" screams Black Canary as Green Arrow restrains her forcefully. In the foreground Green Lantern is socking a long-haired man in a fringed jacket. "Let him go, you maniacs.." continues Black Canary, "or I'll KILL YOU BOTH!"
I cannot conceive the impact this cover must have had on its readership in the Spring of 1970 when it appeared on spinner racks throughout the US. Was it seen as distasteful? As inappropriate? As vengeful maybe? Triumphantly defiant? Surely its relevance to recent shocking events could not have been more obvious? The previous summer had seen the shocking murders of Sharon Tate and a number of others at the hands of cult leader Charles Manson and his 'Family' of followers.
On the comic's cover, the word "Family" is enlarged and placed in inverted commas to further emphasise it and make sure we are in no doubt of its link to the Manson killers. Black Canary, threatens to kill her friends, clearly revealing that she has been brainwashed and is now a potential murderer just like Manson's acolytes. And Green Lantern's target could only be seen as Manson himself, as evidenced by his 'Hippie' hair and clothing, his face being hidden from us.
By the time Denny O'Neil came to write this story, A KIND OF LOVING, A WAY OF DEATH, the Hippie movement having enjoyed its 'kind of loving' as epitomised by the 'Summer of Love' a couple of years earlier was now experiencing its own way of death. As 1969 drew to a close, the Manson family were in custody awaiting trial and around America the harsh realities of what was happening in Vietnam was having its own impact. The year ended with the Rolling Stones' infamous Altamont concert, at which German-helmeted, leather-clad bikers were recruited to keep the audience in line, a bizarre decision which resulted in the fatal stabbing of a black audience member, Meredith Hunter, at the hands of a Hells' Angel.
Paralleling this seeming end of innocence is Green Lantern's own awakening-- in #77 he had mused that "the world isn't the black and white place I thought it to be" as he'd been confronted with the truth that "maybe authority isn't always right".
For #78 O'Neil produces a script, illustrated again by Neal Adams, which shifts focus away from recognised authority figures and onto the recent real world failings of the counter-culture movement and its flawed attempts to assert authority. The next set of challenges for GL's journey of discovery across contemporary America involve both a violent set of bikers and a dangerous cult leader. The story begins, however with Black Canary, straying into the title following her recent assimilation in the Justice League, who 'finds herself facing four greasy beasts'.
The gang calls themselves the Demons and are led by the German helmet wearing Snake-Eyes. His assertion that the gang must be loyal to each other since they are fundamentally outcasts is of course a common sentiment amongst those who feel society has no understanding or place for them. But the gang operates by stealing from those they feel are vulnerable and hurting or killing those who fight back.
O'Neil presents these bikers as would-be authority figures-- For Snake-Eyes what seems to be important is his local standing. As much as Slapper Soames in #77, he is driven by the need to keep the local community under his heel.
"We get to live our lives 'cause people respect us... Respect an' fear!" he thinks when Black Canary stands up to him, a challenge to his authority. And he realises how important the gang's reputation for violence is in maintaining that authority, realising that if he does not kill her and take her motorcycle then that reputation will be completely undermined.
Then a couple of weeks later when Green Lantern and Green Arrow encounter the biker gang, again Snake-Eyes uses the word "respect" as they push around a Native American. "He ain't learned his place!" one of the gang retorts, underlining the fact that their aggression is wholly tied up with a sense of authority and status.
The duo give the gang a good pasting before recognising Black Canary's stolen motorcycle. Learning that the bikers left BC "layin' in the road", Green Arrow lashes out uncontrollably at Snake-Eyes and has to be restrained by Green Lantern. It's a single moment which unleashes the frustrations so many must have been feeling with the way their world was changing in this new decade-- that solitary hay-making punch must have seemed a moment of catharsis to many who felt incensed at the way one counter-culture element had turned on another at Altamont-- at how the idealistic dream of love and peace and harmony had died when one element was awarded a spurious authority over another.
As Green Lantern holds Green Arrow back he is forced to concede that his anger may be justified, but that the country has its own system of law and order which must be adhered to if they are not to become as lawless as the biker gang themselves. It seems an unusual interjection in some ways, but it is likely that at this point O'Neil already knew he would be parodying the US legal system a few issues later.
On the following page, however, the writer lets his personal feelings about another aspect of the American establishment be made known. When Green Arrow apologises to the Native American for the "fracas" at his eaterie, O'Neil takes the opportunity for the young man to respond with bitterness about the treatment of his people. He points at the theft of land and breaking of treaties, feeling that Native Americans were "herded... like animals onto reservations" and that they continue to be mistreated over issues such as fishing rights. This time Green Lantern attempts no defence of these actions, instead admitting shame on behalf of his race.
And so we move to the story's other main subject, manifest in the character of the wild-eyed Joshua.
Having discovered Black Canary's unconscious body left on the roadside by the biker gang, Joshua has patched her up and indoctrinated her in the ways of his "Family" of followers.
Traumatised by recent events, most notably the death of her husband, Black Canary is vulnerable and susceptible to coercion. Joshua has capitalised on this and by this point she views him as her 'savior', being completely controlled by him. To his followers he is a "prophet of universal tranquility". To Green Arrow he's a "bargain-basement messiah".
Like Manson, Joshua preaches quasi-religious ideas, describing his 'Family' as "a band of the enlightened" whose "mission" is to "bring truth to these troubled times". Recognising that Green Arrow is someone who questions such notions before making a decision on them, Joshua identifies him as a threat and encourages him to leave.
And like Manson, Joshua's "mission" is murder. Black Canary and his other followers are being trained to shoot and kill, having been turned into brainwashed zombies by his hypnotic gaze.
It turns out that Joshua is in fact that most loathsome of insects, the white supremacist. He spouts the usual twisted rhetoric of hatred, with its malformed notions of "ancestry" and "land", an impotent man raging at others to assuage his own inadequacies.
His desire is to "be strong" and "conquer"-- just like Snake-Eyes and his biker gang he wishes to assert authority through violence and fear. And just like him he is felled by a single punch, this time by Green Lantern.
O'Neil takes care not to blame the "family" of followers themselves-- Green Lantern describes them as "innocent kids" who have been transformed into a "bloodthirsty mob" once Joshua has "gotten control of their minds". Similarly, Green Lantern sees them as "a bunch of lost souls" who have been "turned into a pack of wolves" through hypnosis.
But they are not let off completely-- at the story's conclusion Green Lantern suggests that "decent people" can indeed be filled with the "poison" of hate that is bigotry since there is some "part" inside them that is susceptible to such ideas which men like Joshua can unleash. Again, it's a challenging notion for a kids' comic-- that many of us possess the capacity for cruelty, for prejudice, for murder. That it lies latent in us and risks being brought to the surface by those devious enough to manipulate us.
And then in especially bleak closing comment, Green Lantern repsonds to his friend's hope that this "part" of the human condition might be overcome "forever", by pointing out that Joshua isn't the "first of his kind... and he probably won't be the last!" It's another downbeat ending, another conclusion in which there is no hint of triumph at the defeat of the bad guys.
My thoughts on other GREEN LANTERN issues can be found by clicking on the images below--
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