Nowadays, many comic book collectors complain that modern comics are too woke. Some people like them, but most do not. But did you know that even before 2015, there were woke comic books. And today, we are going to be talking about the original woke comic book series that was around in the 1970s. Stay tuned. Hello, two all of my members of the Green Lantern Core, Dante D here and welcome to the channel where we talk about comic books and other geek stuff. Yes, it is true. There is a comic book series that was woke before the influx of woke comics that we saw starting in 2015. Actually, this series debuted in the 1970s and that is none other than Green Lantern, Green Arrow, by Neil Adams and Denny O'Neill. And you're probably looking at me right now and you're thinking Dante, you're crazy. How could a classic classic run that is revered by many comic book collectors be considered woke? Well, yes, my friends, it is true. Green Lantern, Green Arrow, this run here, discussed many social issues and many topics that people at the time were ignoring. Some topics that people even today are uncomfortable talking about. So let's dive right into this. By 1970, Green Lantern was kind of getting stale and Green Arrow, who was essentially Batman with a bow, no one really cared about. So Julius Schwartz, the publisher of DC at the time, entrusted young talent, Denny O'Neill and Neil Adams with reviving and bringing these characters back to prominence. In fact, they put these two characters together, Green Lantern and Green Arrow, into a single comic book, even though this technically was still a Green Lantern comic book. And people working at DC at the time were thinking, wow, this is going to take like Green Lantern, Green Arrow, what the heck kind of title is that? That's just a whole lot of green. And I technically would agree with them, it is kind of a lame title. But the influence this comic book had on 1970s culture cannot be underscored. So everybody knows Green Lantern, Green Arrow, number 76. And that is the first issue in which Denny O'Neill and Neil Adams took over. And this is the issue in which fans who were reading this comic book at the time saw that things were going in a different direction. And weren't like the earlier Green Lantern stories that we were seeing. Green Lantern, Green Arrow, number 76 is a highly collectible comic, very, very expensive and is revered by collectors. But this is the very first really woke comic book in my opinion, the original woke comic book. Now you can make arguments for comic books like The X-Men, which were essentially an allegory for racism in the 1960s. But the anti-racist message in The X-Men was very, very subtle, with Green Lantern and Green Arrow, you were starting to see many social issues in your face. Number 76 essentially talks about there being a moral cancer in America and Green Lantern and Green Arrow go on this huge road trip to see what this is and to see if they can do anything about it. This comic also features probably one of the most famous panels in comic book history and probably one of the most reprinted panels in comic book history. And that is the one of this black man who is just gone through hell. And he basically asks the Green Lantern, you know, you've done so much to help the orange skins and the purple skins. But what have you done for the black skins, Mr. Green Lantern? And at this point, the Green Lantern pretty much says like, I can't even, I don't even know what to say to you man, like you're totally right. And it's really interesting because the Green Lantern kind of represents the establishment here and Oliver Queen, the green arrow, he's kind of anti-establishment, which is kind of you would expect the opposite because Oliver Queen is essentially rich and, you know, how Jordan is not. But nevertheless, how Jordan is the establishment and all he queen is the anti-establishment figure in this book and the dynamic is really interesting. But I digress. As interesting as this comic book was, there were many social issues that it covered. So racism was definitely one of them. It also covered air pollution, one particular issue overpopulation, which was really starting to become front and center during the 1970s. Religion, like take a look at this cover here, it's like, whoa, what kind of statement are they trying to make about religion here? And that's really just the tip of the iceberg. Each issue pretty much tackled one social issue and put it front and center and tried to get the people reading the comic book at the time to really think about that issue and the effect that it has on society as a whole. This comic book even got national attention in the United States with these two issues right here that tackled the issue of drugs. Now, this was a response to an issue of amazing Spider-Man, this one here, that talks about drugs and has many characters in the book, Harry Osmoor included, who are on drugs, and Stanley does well to illustrate the dangers of drugs. Even though it wasn't really said what kind of drugs these people were on. And then months later, Denny O'Neill and Neil Adams respond with a much darker drug story. I mean, the art was very provocative. It was very compelling as well, but speedy, who is Oliver Queen's ward is on heroin. There are many panels that depict people shooting up and taking drugs. This actually even got the attention of the mayor of New York at the time and he published a letter and an address in the comic book. Now, this was great for comic books in general because with all the national attention, people were beginning to see that comic books cannot be just dismissed as children's stuff. They actually do deal with some things that are very adult-oriented. But not only that, because of these issues and especially this issue of amazing Spider-Man, the rules of the comics code authority were relaxed. Despite the national attention that it got and the attention from politicians that it got, fans did not really care about this comic book. I mean, for a while it was doing really well, but this series was very short-lived and was actually canceled after a while due to poor sales. And that's really interesting because today people are very vocal about preachy comic books that are woke and that really address many social issues. At the time, I'm sure there were people that were speaking out against this, but because of the lack of the internet and social media, the anger among the fans was not known. It's really sad that this comic book series was eventually canceled because the art by Neil Adams was beautiful and Denny O'Neill and Neil Adams really believed in what they were doing. They really felt that they were making a difference. In many interviews that Denny O'Neill did, he said that he wanted to influence the youth of America and make them better through his writing. Now, Denny O'Neill himself was very liberal with his political views and he said many times before that at the time he was a hippie. Now, Neil Adams was apolitical. He really didn't care. He was just depicting everything that Denny was writing, but the team worked really well together, not only in Green Lantern Green Arrow, but also the Batman series. They had a lot of success with Batman and success with Green Lantern Green Arrow initially, but as people kept getting preached to every single month, I think they got sick of it and the sales tapered off. Neil Adams actually has said in interviews that one day he went up to Julius Schwartz, the editor of DC at the time and said, hey, Julie, how's social relevance? That's what they talked about. Green Lantern Green Arrow was a comic that was socially relevant and Julius Schwartz responded, social relevance is dead. Essentially saying, no one cares, we're going to be canceling this book soon. Now, I've read Green Lantern in Green Arrow and I have to say overall I liked this run by Denny O'Neill and Neil Adams. And it's kind of hard for me to kind of look at this objectively just because I know how legendary this run is and how revered it is by many collectors, but I have to say overall I really enjoyed the art. The writing was pretty good. Denny O'Neill is actually one of my favorite comic book writers, but overall it is very preachy. And I think readers in general do not like being lectured to. They just feel like their intelligence is being insulted. So I'd really like to hear what you all think about this. Did you read Green Lantern Green Arrow? Did you like it? Why or why not? And also I really would like to discuss in the comments the issue of if people at the time were as enraged and as angry about the subject matter of the Green Lantern Green Arrow comics as they are today with a lot of the quote unquote woke preachy comics that we are seeing in this day and age. Personally, I think people are more angry today because everywhere you look in comic books, there is this liberal social type agenda and people are just upset with it. Compared to in the 1970s when Green Lantern Green Arrow was being published, that was really at least to my knowledge that was really the only I guess woke comic that was being published. So you know, if people didn't like it, they can kind of toss it aside and just go on to something else. But nowadays you really can't escape it. But I'd really love to hear from you all. Tell me what you all think on this topic. Was Green Lantern Green Arrow a woke comic or was there something different about it that really differentiates it from the woke comics that we are seeing today. So that's about this is for a video today. Really, really hope you enjoyed it. Once again, I would love to hear from you all in the comments and this is Dante D signing off. I will see you all in the next episode.