I just love that this exists… Green Lantern Toys!

Not long ago, while hanging with the great Kenny “The Fan Guy” Fanguy, I happened upon the local Toys R Us. While there, I took this picture of their shelves.  It made me ridiculously happy to see it then, and I’m still happy about it now.

Green Lantern toys. An entire line of them, right there in the store.

I have to explain myself a bit, I suppose. If you’re not a comic book fan, you may not understand the loyalty we nerds often have to the characters we first fell in love with. Not long after I started reading, my Uncle Todd gave me a bunch of old Green Lantern and Legion of Super-Heroes comics he didn’t want anymore. Not coincidentally, I’m still a fervent fan of both those venerable franchises. But for the longest time, they remained pretty niche. Sure, everyone knew who Superman and the Hulk were, but when I was a kid, Green Lantern may as well have been Brother Voodoo in terms of superhero obscurity. It got a little better a few years ago when the Justice League cartoon hit big, because there was a Green Lantern in that book. Not Hal Jordan, or Kyle Rayner, but John Stewart — a worthy member of the corps, indeed, and he helped to spread the awareness of the property.

Now though, thanks to the movie hitting next week, it’s everywhere. There are Green Lantern toys in the store, Hal Jordan (as portrayed by Ryan Reynolds) is appearing in Subway ads, on packs of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, in “Got Milk” ads. There are two direct-to-DVD Green Lantern movies and a cartoon on the way, not to mention a video game available on several platforms. And if that wasn’t enough, there is a Krispie Kreme doughnut. A Green Lantern Doughnut. And based just on the picture, it is the doughnut all other doughnuts want to grow up to be.

I know a few people — friends of mine, even — who treat the mainstream exposure of something like Green Lantern as a bad thing. They seem to think there’s merit in being into something that the bulk of popular culture hasn’t discovered. Honestly, I don’t get that attitude at all. For me, this is validation. This is something I’ve been into forever, and the rest of the universe is finally starting to see how awesome it is.

So yes, I’m very excited for the movie next week. I feel good about it, and I’ve got high hopes that it will spawn a franchise. And as far as I’m concerned, the more people realize how incredible a story that of the Green Lantern Corps is, the better.