Everyone has a certain look. As much as first impressions shouldn’t really matter too much, they inevitably do. Over the last year or so, I have (more through laziness than any conscious effort) grown my hair and a little goatee beard.
Various people have tried to come up with explanations for how I’ve come to look in recent months. Some have suggested I’m trying to turn myself into Hans Joachim Höh. Others have pointed out that I am slowly but surely getting to look more like Vivisector. The one that intrigues me the most (which comes from my non-gamer friends) is that I apparently now look like a cartoonist. I can’t really tell if any of these are efforts by people to mock me or just astute observations about my latest look.
The artists at DC comics clearly decided that they didn’t want to put up with any schtick from anyone. It was they that first took a humble comic book artist and turned him into a superhero of the highest order. Kyle Rayner became the final Green Lantern, and (conveniently as an artist) a thumping good one, at that. If you are going to create big bad monsters through willpower and imagination alone, then being an artist seems pretty appropriate.
Of course, once the artists got hold of the idea that they could have their own champion in a nice green spandex suit, it was inevitable that they would do something to up his power level just a bit further. Early on in his career, Kyle laid his hands on the ring of Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott. There was always the potential for him to go a little bit crazygonuts with the amount of power it offered, but it appears that the DC artists union was still being kept in check at that point in time. It wasn’t until after the Parallax saga, where Hal Jordan had gone a bit loopy and absorbed the vast majority of the power of the Green Lanterns, extinguished the core, and attempted to remake the universe to his own liking, that the artists saw their opportunity for Kyle. Eventually, Parallax burnt himself out re-igniting the Sun, which had been (somewhat unfortunately) eaten by an intergalactic beasty. When Kyle found himself in a bit of a spot in the time that followed, he took a jaunt up near the sun to absorb this energy, which pushed his power to quite absurd levels.
As Ion (which is literally the name of a charged atom or collection of atoms), Kyle didn’t need to eat or sleep and could be just about wherever he wanted whenever he wanted. He got up to some pretty nutty stuff in this rather short period, none of which included going nuts and blowing up the universe . . . which is probably just as well. Once Kyle realized that the power he was using ultimately came from the Guardians themselves, he gave it up to recreate the Guardians (and ultimately the Green Lantern Corps).
So, how does one capture such a huge story arc in one piece of cardboard? Feast your eyes.
As a 6-drop, Kyle is a perfectly acceptable inclusion for any Green Lantern deck. He has the willpower, flight, range, and stats to go toe to toe with the vast majority of his 6-drop peers. Where things get really interesting, though, is when he gets boosted as an 8-drop. That extra “charge” for the final 2 resource points is enough to remove Kyle from the game (preventing naughty tricks with Avalon Space Station), but he leaves a pretty powerful effect in his wake. Without any attacks for a turn, there is ample opportunity to set up for a frankly absurd turn 9. If you don’t have the initiative on turn 8, then Kyle will functionally be stealing the initiative for you. Could the evil Hal Jordan return to redeem himself within the ranks of the Green Lanterns (as appears to be happening in the comics right now)? Do you want to be able to protect your clever win condition that doesn’t need attacks (a burn strategy perhaps)?
Kyle Rayner, Ion isn’t just the guardian of sector 2814 on turn 8. He is the guardian of absolutely everywhere.
Have fun at the Sneak Peek tournament!
Tim “Looks like an Artist, Draws like a Child” Willoughby
timwilloughby (at) hotmail (dot) com
This weekend:
