In all my years of reading comics, I’ve never grown tired of Green Lantern, and the reason is the nearly infinite potential inherent to that franchise. There’s no such thing as a story you can’t tell using Green Lantern, and that comes from the fact that the Green Lantern Corps is made up of a massively diverse cast of thousands of different members from every background you can imagine. And if you can think of a culture or perspective that isn’t represented already, it’s easy enough to create another character…because when you have a Corps of 7200 members, what’s one more? This allows a great deal of creative freedom, since a writer with very specific, personal story to tell doesn’t have to figure out a way to make it fit into the life of one standard protagonist. A new character can be introduced, a Green Lantern who’s specifically built to tell that particular story like no other could.
That’s where writer Minh Le comes in. He comes from a family of immigrants and refugees, and had an incredibly strong grandmother who weathered untold hardships to give her grandchildren a better life. And she always wore a jade ring. From there, everything just sort of fell into place, with Green Lantern becoming the perfect template to tell a story that honors and celebrates his grandmother, while exploring what that legacy means when the very existence of your culture seems to invite harassment from ignorant people. What does that do to your relationship to your heritage? How do you cope with fears that seem to be so intrinsically tied to who you are?
A Green Lantern ring works by taking something that lives within you…a thought, a feeling, a memory, anything about you that matters…and brings it out into the world, for everyone to see, in a way that makes it impossible for you to deny the power and impact this piece of you has. It’s pure, unfiltered personal expression that requires you to overcome your fears in order to become your best self, forcing you to learn the truth of who you really are, and what really matters to you. The true power of Green Lantern is the power to change. The ring is the most powerful tool in the universe, and its most impressive feat is to light a path for those who wear it as they navigate their own hearts and minds. And that goes for both the characters wearing the rings, and the creators telling their stories.
The protagonist of Minh Le’s story is a thirteen year old boy named Tai Pham, and the biggest influence on his life has always been his grandmother. She was the one who immigrated to America all those years ago, she was the one who taught Tai about the culture of a homeland he never knew, and she was a superhero. A Green Lantern ring was the last thing Tai inherited from his grandmother, and with it came all the chaos of a young man trying to embrace a bright new future without letting go of the past. After reading Tai’s story, and coming to understand why Minh Le wanted to tell it, the simple truth is that you couldn’t have told this story without Tai. While there are things about it that everyone should be able to relate to, it’s by no means a one-size-fits-all story where you can swap in your favorite protagonist. It matters that Tai is Vietnamese, it matters that he comes from a family of immigrants, and it matters that he’s thirteen years old.
Tai Pham is a really cool character that a lot of people have latched onto, and I have to believe it’s because Tai’s story is based on the author’s actual lived experiences that many find relatable, as told through the emotional exploration and cosmic wonder inherent to Green Lantern. If you haven’t experienced this character for yourself, and you’re interested, read “Green Lantern Legacy” by Minh Le and Andie Tong.
As long as Minh Le still has stories to tell about Tai, I welcome it with open arms. What he’s been doing with this character speaks to everything that makes Green Lantern great, and reminds us that below the surface level of cool space battles and flashy super heroics, there’s a foundation of shared Humanity that connects us all, and invites us to understand each other better. Tai Pham may not be your favorite Green Lantern, but as long as his unique stories are being told, he’s a reminder of why the Corps is so powerful.
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