Green Lantern Week, Day Two: Time for a look at the second-coolest GL in the Corps. This dude is the essence of cool, ya poozers.

3/20/07

79. Kilowog

I love Kilowog. He's the tough, hulking head trainer of all new Green Lantern recruits. While he seems strong and gruff then, he's really a big softie with a noble spirit and usually hilarious attitude. He should be getting all the ladies.

Apparently, it's obligatory for a GL to end up with a tragic life, so all of Kilowog's race has been wiped out. His people were very big on community, so the Corps and the Justice League were there to take care of the lonely and depressed Kilowog. This characteristic of his race could've also been a reason for his joining the Communist Party at one point:

(Best Green Lantern cover ever.)

While in Russia, he created the Rocket Red Brigade. This is because Kilowog, while seeming a bit dim, is actually a technological and mechanical genius. During a downtime from GL duties, he donned overalls and served as the Justice League International's resident repairman, fixing the communication and teleporter tech, and constantly rebuilding the embassies after they blew up.

As usual in comics, all good things must come to a stupid end, and so the lovable Kilowog was killed by Hal Jordan--one of his old trainees, for cripes' sake!-- in Emerald Twilight. Years later, he'd return as "Dark Lantern" before reverting to his regular ol' self:

Current artistic stylings from guys like Ethan Van Sciver and Patrick Gleason give Kilowog a more monstrous look, as opposed to the kinder, gentler, softer Kilowog of old, who looked like a cross between a giant, hairless teddy bear and the Vigo-possessed Ray from Ghostbusters II. Now he looks like an old, burnt potato gone horribly wrong. That, or ET really let himself go:

The big lug is really a great character who rarely gets the chance to take over the spotlight but always supports the group just right. He's a great GL and one of my favorite JLI characters.

You can read his new adventures every month in the pages of Green Lantern Corps.

In the GL movie, he should be played by Brad Garrett. Who's with me? (Speaking of Brad Garrett, Kilowog should team up with Bibbo one of these days. Their speech patterns are quite similar and I think it'd be pretty damn funny.)

Gesundheit.

For a massively detailed history of Kilowog (well, again, up until the late 90's or so), check out this link.