Green Lantern - Muslim hero?

Normally I try to keep this blog about things skinhead, or local to Toronto. However the past 2 weeks things have been sort of nuts what with right wing Christian nutters writing me death threats due to my not thinking protesting by walking your dog to a mosque is a Canadian Values thing or going to end radical Islam through the world (although it did amuse me that the death threats I got from the Christian nutters pretty much echoed  the tone of groups like the Taliban.. tisk tisk).

So one more post about Islam and then it is back to skinhead stuff for the next little while.

D.C. Comics has announced that the newest member of the Green Lantern Corps. to take the oath is an American born Muslim from Dearborn Michigan. You can read all the details here.

                                              

Congrats to D.C. for doing this. Normally Muslims are shown as the bad guys in pop culture, or at best as minor characters. This will be the first time a Muslim has taken the main stage in North America that I can remember ( Little Mosque On The Prairie being the only other thing coming to mind without the help of a Google search). Odds are for a lot of people this will also be their first introduction to Muslim culture aside from what they see on the news. Which kind of makes me sad.

There are people in comic book fandom who are complaining that "This is just a P.C. move by D.C., and what will they do next, make Superman Muslim too?"

I was never a big D.C. fan (except for their Vertigo line). I grew up in the Marvel camp (go Spider-Man!) but even I know that more than one man has worn the power ring of the Green Lanterns. The fact that this time the new GL happens to be a Muslim should not be a big deal. Muslim children in Canada and the U.S.A. have a hero they can relate to. What is so bad about that?