Ring Capacity/Kirby Krackle

Through Sunday, Classics Rock! is featuring songs based on comic books in honor of Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), taking place April 16-18. 

Kirby Krackle (who will be entertaining C2E2 attendees tonight at 8:00pm at Reggie's Rock Club, just blocks from the convention center) is a self-described nerd rock band from Seattle: "We're a band that writes about and from the perspective of comic books characters/nerd culture."  Even their name derives from comics--it refers to a technique practiced by legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby that utilizes fields of dots in the depiction of energy bursts, explosions and so on. The song Ring Capacity, from the album E For Everyone, released last month, is about the superhero Green Lantern, created by Bill Finger and Martin Nodell in 1940, and published by DC Comics.  The Green Lantern refers to not one but several superheroes, all members of an interplanetary police force known as the Green Lantern Corps, which is administered by the extraterrestrial Guardians of the Universe.  So which Green Lantern is the song about?  The allusion to Guarding Twenty Eight Fourteen in the lyrics narrows the field to either Hal Jordan or John Stewart, the two Green Lanterns assigned to patrol Sector 2814 (the region of the universe where earth is located).  Another reference points to Jordan as the figure in the song: the lines I see the man who's made me bleed/The one who taught me everything/A purple man obsessed with me/Soul lost to the dark and it's now extinct refer to Sinestro, once a teacher and mentor to Jordan who later turned to evil and became the mortal enemy of the Green Lanterns.  The band confirms this interpretation on their blog: "The song chronicles a moment in time from the perspective of Green Lantern Hal Jordan after he is attacked in space by Sinestro."  The title "Ring Capacity" refers to a special ring all Green Lanterns possess that grants them certain super powers and must be periodically recharged.  The lyrics even incorporate the entire Green Lantern Oath, spoken by each Green Lantern since the 1940s:   In brightest day, in blackest night/No evil shall escape my sight/Let those who worship evil's might/Beware my power, Green Lantern's light. [For another musical take on the Green Lantern Oath, see our earlier post about Camberwell Now's song Green Lantern.]

Green Lantern/Camberwell Now

This week Classics Rock! is featuring songs based on comic books in honor of Comic-Con 2009, taking place in San Diego July 23-26.

Originally created by Bill Finger and Martin Nodell in 1940, and published by DC Comics, the Green Lantern refers to not one but several superheroes, all members of an interplanetary police force known as the Green Lantern Corps, which is administered by the extraterrestrial Guardians of the Universe. Each Green Lantern has a special ring that grants him certain super powers. He often works alone, but at others times has various partners, including, occasionally, another Green Lantern. All are associated with either the Justice League of America or the Justice Society of America. At least five different individuals have served as the Green Lantern, including one named John Stewart; another had a daughter who exhibited Green Lantern-like powers, who became the superhero Jade. . . If all this seems complicated, the song Green Lantern by Camberwell Now, from their 1986 album The Ghost Trade and currently available on the compilation CD All's Well, is a surprisingly simple musical recitation of the Green Lantern's Oath, spoken by every Green Lantern since the 1940s: In brightest day, in blackest night/No evil shall escape my sight/Let those who worship evil's might/Beware my strength, Green Lantern's light. The world premiere of the new Warner Brothers animated film Green Lantern: First Flight will take place at Comic-Con tonight.