Fortunately, in my teaching career, I have been spared confrontations with comic book nerds.
I recognize that as the Green Lantern creation myth. I guess if we’re going to have to teach the controversy, I’ll have to address that in intro biology next year…
You cannot do so without introducing the watchers concept as taught by Dr Strange
So, just to be a super nerd – It would actually be the Guardians of the Universe, not the Galaxy(different comic book companies/universes). Love where they were going with it though.
Amino acid chains replicating? Thank you for pointing out this outdated strawman of science. Someone needs to get with the RNA World Theory.
To be fair, that origin hypothesis is documented in the literature.
I wish people would care to understand what a scientific theory means.
“The Entity”? Puh-leeze. Everyone knows the universe was sneezed into existence by the Great Green Arkleseizure.
Where can I find a green cracker?
Blackest Night was a great DC series!
If it wasn’t for the Anti-Monitor, the universe never would’ve come into being.
I hate it when people tell only half the story. Lies by omission are still lies!
Reginald Selkirk beat me to it, dammit. But seriously.RNA world.
I have to imagine one of two possible outcomes:
1. Charles Darwin would clearly be an Indigo Lantern.
2. Panel 1 – Darwin’s grave.
Panel 2 – “CHARLES DARWIN OF EARTH – RISE.”
Panel 3 – The Discovery Institute aflame with black light pouring out through the windows..
(Lifer, Blackest Night was everything Final Crisis *should* have been.)
This Would.Be Epic.
Oh, also, I’m trying to imagine PZ with a Sinestro-stache.
I don’t know that the controversy is. Everyone knows in the beginning there were mountains, trees and a midget. And in the end, there will be beer, strippers and pirates. There is no controversy here. Expect for, magnets…. and pet cats…. and those cellphone eating pelicans.
I’d like to second the last panel. I, too, would like to punch Geoff Johns in the face.
I’ve been frothing with rage about that since it popped up in Blackest Night. Clearly there was no life in the universe for 8 billion years while waiting for Earth, and everyone in the DC Universe has been lying about it, even in stories where they time traveled to points before Earth existed and hey look, life. Then they tied a bunch of the other entities to biblical myths (one came from Cain killing Abel, another from the serpent from the garden, etc.).
I should’ve known better than to give him a second chance after the ‘moving the center of the universe by shoving a few planets around’ crap in one of his previous crossover series. I’m pretty sure he’s been curb-stomped by the stupid fairy.
Well it looks like the Entity made it, after all.
The idea of evolution only exists to get around the fact that everything appears like it exists because of the Entity, which is, after all, the only real alternative to evolutionary theory.
And if you deny that everything looks like it was made by the Entity, that’s just a theological argument against the real science–because you don’t know how things would look if the Entity made them. We know that all things would look as they do if the Entity made them.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
I own a comic book store and I am highly offended that one would consider this a myth, in fact I may just have to call Fox News.
Heh, seriously, any time your out on the East Coast PZ I’ll make sure to try and make one of your famous meet ups, then you shall meet a comic book nerd.
BTW, I own Showcase Comics #22.
@finback: Don’t get me started on Final Crisis. What a festering pile of nonsensical gobbledygook that was. The only thing worse than FC was the Bible itself.
Since we’re on the subject of comic strips, here’s a recent “Dilbert” that will be of interest to Pharyngulites.
Click Here
Guardians of the Galaxy is a comic book that’s part of Marvel’s cosmic stories. And I thought Blackest Night was great, much better than Final Crisis. I think the origins of the Entities were only allusions, for example, rage came from the first murder, which was most likely not on Earth but somewhere far off in the universe.
The Guardians of the Galaxy refers to the short bald blue guys that created the Green Lantern Corps
What I mean to say is that the writer got his people mixed up, because the group he’s referring to is actually the Guardians of the Universe.
The Black Lantern origin would be a good meta origin….if that’s what they had built the world around. The DC universe doesn’t seem to mesh with it now, (although they could just tweak it and say that Entity only rested on earth after wandering the cosmos while all other life evolved in the universe) but yeah. Plus…you know it’s not a good idea to draw attention to the plot hole of “So why don’t they just give lantern rings to all of earth’s heroes?”
Also, ANOTHER cosmic crisis bitching around earth? My suspension of disbelief broke here. By all reason the population of DC Earth should be about five.
If you introduce Green Lantern, you’ll have to introduce FSM, too. And, “The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” must be required reading.
whoah. serious comic fandom around here.
Not that I mind. Why, some of my best friends are comic fans. No, Really . . .
Pay no attention to that stack of Detective Comics behind the curtain.
And then I remembered. Each of the Corps is represented at one point by an animalistic avatar..
Red/Rage gets a bull.
Orange/Avarice gets a snake.
Yellow/Fear gets.. well, I guess he’s an insect.
Green/Willpower gets whatever the hell Ion is meant to be.
Blue/Hope gets a bird.
Violet/Love gets.. a spider?
But the Indigo Corps? Born of compassion?
CEPHALOPOD.
*nods knowingly*
“Violet/Love gets.. a spider?”
Certain spiders let their offspring eat them for sustenance. Hence the justification.