Kilowog

When Hal Jordan went mental and became Parallax, he killed or otherwise endangered thousands of his fellow Green Lanterns. But to be perfectly honest, nobody cared about any of those GLs - to really cement Hal's new villain status, he needed to do something that would make the fans angry. To that end, he faced off against his friend Kilowog. The alien Kilowog was recruited into the Green Lantern Corps as a protector of the planet Bolovax Vik and was later killed by his former friend and ally Hal Jordan. Kilowog met the rampaging Hal on the surface of Oa, but Jordan beat him easily, taking his power ring, willing to let his former friend live. As the man advanced on the central power battery, Kilowog tried using his huge size and mammoth power to block Jordan's progress, tried to appeal to his human decency. Hal, hero that he is, ignited his ring and incinerated the defenseless Kilowog, stepping over his smoldering skeleton on his way to destroy the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps. Kilowog was one of the most popular Green Lanterns, and is considered one of the classic members of the Corps. Unknown to many, though, he was actually a post-Crisis invention who was retconned into Hal's history. It was his time as a supporting character for the '80s Justice League books that put him in the hearts of fans, not some long-standing importance. The Green Lantern of Sector 674 is sculpted very well. Depending on who was drawing him, the big pink poozer could look either fat or fit, but the figure went for the muscular route - a much better choice. He looks less goofy and more threatening, befitting an interstellar warrior/drill instructor. Though the Green Lantern Corps is supposed to be a far-flung collection of species from every corner of the galaxy, they (with a few exceptions) all suffer from Star Trek syndrome: other than a few superficial details, they're all still identifiably human: two arms, two legs, one head, two eyes, a nose and a mouth. Give them some forehead ridges (or, in the GLC's case, different colored skin) and presto, instant alien! Though he's definitely humanoid, Kilowog is at least slightly more alien than a lot of the GLs - that is, he's got more than a crazy haircut and pointy ears. He looks like the skull of a hippo painted pink. The texture of his skin is great, covering his exposed bits with lots of tiny wrinkles. His little ears poke up from the top of his head, and his weird, distinctive mouth is captured perfectly. Kilowog's wearing his new Carlos Pacheco-designed costume rather than his old generic GL uniform, and it looks great. A truly vibrant green stands out against a black that's more doubleplusgrey, while his gloves are a pearly white. His eyes are a dark red, and a similar wash was used to givee his ears, nose and mouth detail. Kilowog stands 7 1/2" tall and moves at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles. That's a lot for DC Direct! He's sculpted in a bit of a twisting pose, which just helps him look more powerful - he's striding forward confidently, his three-fingered hand curled into a fist, ready to fire up his GL ring and put a new class of recruits through their paces. Kilowog comes with the same translucent green GL-logo base as the rest of the figures in this series, but he also gets an actual accessory, his power battery. Rather than create all-powerful agents, the Guardians of the Universe set limits on their Green Lantern Corps: their power rings had to be recharged every 24 hours. Kilowog's battery is a little over 2 1/4" tall, and breaks the 3" mark if you count the handle. The center is molded from translucent green plastic, giving it an appropriate glow. The lantern is weighted at the bottom, so that it always returns to its rightside-up position. Kilowog returned in the recent Green Lantern: Rebirth series, DC's latest attempt to make the petulant fanboys shut up. Even though writer Geoff Johns has been bending over backwards to try to explain away the whole Parallax thing, the yellow weakness and even Hal's haircut, how did he explain Kilowog? He didn't - the alien just showed up like everything was okay. Thanks, H.E.A.T. - this jumbled, half-assed mess is your fault. Oh well; at least we got a few good toys out of it. Best bet? Buy yourself a Kilowog and ignore the giant reset button of a book that spawned him. Geoff Johns is great on Flash, did wonders for Hawkman; why does his GL suck so hard? Tell us on our message board, The Loafing Lounge.

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