UPDATE: Well, that didn't take long. Looks like John Stewart will live. Here's the update from Bleeding Cool:
Since that initial article there has been considerable hubbub in 1700 Broadway. And I’m now being told by sources that, as a result of the reaction – your reaction – that this particular plot has been nixed. Maybe it will now be a fake out, maybe it won’t happen at all. But John Stewart, DC’s most prominent black superhero, is not being killed off.
1700 Broadway is the home of DC Comics in NYC, by the way.
Below you'll find the original post....
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I expect a petition or two (or three) will be created, in response to this once the news spreads wide enough. Or maybe not.
From a piece on Bleed Cool's website, titled Fialkov Left DC Comics Over Plans To Kill Off John Stewart, DC’s Black Green Lantern:
Yesterday, Bleeding Cool ran the news that Joshua Hale Fialkov was walking off his two Green Lantern books before a single issue had been published. It was soon confirmed by Fialkov and DC Comics representatives. What wasn’t addressed is exactly why [...] I understand that the editorial input for both Fialkov’s books, and fellow walker-outer Andy Diggle‘s Action Comics, were in direct contradiction of the promises made at the DC Creative Summit by Dan DiDio, backed by Diane Nelson. That once an overview of an arc had been greenlit by editorial, it wouldn’t be changed by editorial. One creator told me that the promise lasted four days. But for Fialkov it seemed it wasn’t so much that there were editorial changes, but what they meant. I have been told by a number of high profile industry sources that Fialkov was asked to change his upcoming story to one that killed off Green Lantern John Stewart, DC Comics’ most prominent black character. And that is why he quit.
Why DC would want to kill of John Stewart is a mystery to me. This is where I turn it over to those of you who follow the comics closely (because I don't) to chime in with your thoughts on all this, what it could mean, how big of a deal it is to you, etc...
I do recall when the last Green Lantern movie was made - before it was officially cast, many seemed to assume that the film would be centered around the black Green Lantern, John Stewart, and were disappointed to learn that it would instead be Hal Jordan, and were even more disappointed when Ryan Reynolds was given the part.
I eventually did see the film on VOD, and thought it stunk as a movie - forget that I was new to the Green Lantern universe.
The black Green Lantern was created in 1971 and was THE Green Lantern for much of the 1980s, says Bleeding Cool, as well as the Green Lantern in the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited animated series, and was quite popular, contributing to the blow-back that followed after it was announced that the film would center on a white Green Lantern.
Again, why would DC want to kill off a character that, by all accounts, seems to be a high-profile fan favorite, as well as their most prominent black character? Help me out here guys...
Brave of the writer to walk away from the work though, which will apparently continue even in his absence... that is, unless someone, or some folks, take action.
But this obviously speaks to larger issues of diversity in representation within the comic book universe (both on the page, as well as amongst writers and creators at the most prominent publishers in the country - DC and Marvel.
This also translates to the movie theater screen, when neither Marvel nor DC seem all that motivated to launch film franchises around the black superheroes in their libraries, even though they continue to do so for their white superheroes.
Read the full Bleeding Cool piece here: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/03/21/fialkov-left-dc-comics-over-plans-to-kill-off-john-stewart-dcs-black-green-lantern/
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