Green With Envy: A Conversation with Giancarlo Volpe

A new spin on Green Lantern and step forward in storytelling

This Veteran's Day a different type of veteran finally gets his time to shine. Hal Jordan of Earth, Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814 is finally getting his own TV show. Green Lantern: The Animated Series premieres tonight on Cartoon Network (7/6c) and we sat down with one of the show's producers, Giancarlo Volpe, to talk about the show, the characters and the Red Lanterns.

GeekChicDaily: How early in the process did you choose CGI over the beloved Bruce Timm style?

Giancarlo Volpe: It was one of those things that was decided at the very top of the food chain. Our executive producer Sam Register was really excited about doing a Green Lantern show, especially because the feature was coming out, but he wanted a different take on it. A different spin. And he said, "What if we did a Bruce Timm show in CG?" Bruce, as some of the fans have said online, was reluctant. It's been fun to see Bruce and Sam get really excited when they see these characters in a 3D space. It does really look like Bruce's style. One of the things we did, very early on, I took photos of the Justice League 12" vinyl toys and turned them in space as a guide for the cg modelers to see how Bruce draws in a 3D space. We've taken great pains to make it feel like a Bruce Timm show in a different medium.

GeekChicDaily: How did your team come up with the idea of "Frontier Lanterns?"

Giancarlo Volpe: I guess we kinda wanted to do a twist on the already established Green Lantern Corps. Even in the comics, they've recently started to explore this territory beyond Oan space. The irony being that we've set it up that Red Lanterns are out there, but in the comics Red Lanterns are actually within Guardian Space. It's kind of the same, but different. The concept of it was that you'd have these wild west sheriffs that don't have contact with the big city and they're forced to have to make these police decisions on their own. It's a little bit more reckless and not necessarily so structured and ordered out there. That was the concept, a little bit more of a western kind of thing.

GCD: With the introduction of the Frontier Lanterns, will we get to see a wider range of species from the comics?

GV: There's a little bit of that; we've also taken some liberties. The fact that we've planted Red Lanterns in Frontier Space: we've also taken a few Green Lanterns that actually exist in the comics and assigned them as Frontier Space characters. That may cause a little controversy that we've bent the rules that way, but there are definitely going to be Green Lanterns that you know and love if you're a fan. There may be a slight twist on their origin. There's also going to be new people we've never seen before.

GCD: The Red Lanterns are recognizably more organized in the cartoon than in the comic. Did you recognize right away you wanted to make those changes?

GV: It was about a five-minute argument. I pointed out that they weren't like that in the comics, but we all decided it makes it harder to tell a drama with a bunch of raving animals. I suppose we could have done something more along the lines of like The Walking Dead where they're just zombies or something. We realized that what makes a good revenge story is hearing the backstory of these Red Lanterns and learning what tragedy happened in their life that turned them to this great rage that they want to unleash back onto the world. That would be easier if they could speak and sort of talk about their past. The fact that they vomit blood, we can't exactly do that in a kids show. We reinterpreted their energy as kind of fiery. As you'll see in the opening scene Zilius Dox actually uses that vomit almost as a breath weapon. It gives us a sort of different attack power as opposed to the Green Lanterns, and a nod to the comics while keeping it kid friendly at the same time.

GCD: You've given the bad guys in the show a definitive moral code, skewed as it is. How did that decision come into play?

GV: My favorite villains aren't completely black, I guess. Usually, if you write a villain intelligently, in their minds they are doing the right thing. But for some reason they have the facts wrong, they may have a neurosis, a chemical imbalance or something that makes them do these horrible things in the name of what they feel is justice. I think that's much cooler than just making characters who are evil for evil's sake. I think that's kind of cartoonish and one dimensional. 

GCD: Are you aware of the potential for the Red Lanterns to develop a fanbase?

GV: (Laughs) I don't know that we were trying to make people root for the bad guys, but one of the things that has been drilled into my brain from years in the industry is that a hero is only as strong as his villain. We wanted to make the villains very competent and very scary so that it's not easy. Hal isn't chuckling and laughing as he's fighting these guys, "Oh, this is a breeze, I do this all the time." He's actually desperate and he's sweating and he's getting hurt. There's a consequence if he can't pull it off. There was an intent to make them really badass. In the same way Darth Vader is beloved, we wanted you to admire how wicked they are.

GCD: You've introduced an interesting Red Lantern named Razor that is fairly conflicted. How much of a focal point will he be to the show?

GV: He's fairly important to the show. I'm glad that you feel that way about him. He clearly ends up in an interesting dilemma by the end of the first episodes. He is a big part of the show for sure.

GCD: We know the big bads are the Red Lanterns, will we see any of the other Lantern Corps or the Manhunters?

GV: In our early test of the show, an early CG test prior to getting the show greenlit [we assume no pun intended], it was Green Lantern fighting Manhunters. They definitely have a history with the Red Lanterns, being the cause of all the Red Lanterns' pain, so it's definitely in there. The other spectrums, if we're talking about the bad one, we were told to stay away from Sinestro. We haven't gotten Sinestro Corps in but I do like the rogues gallery that the color spectrum offers. We've tried to weave that in when possible.

GCD: When can we expect to see Dex Starr?

GV: Dex Starr is a tricky one. Anything is possible. The tone of the show can go very dark and also be very funny. I think a lot of people responded to Kilowog teasing Hal about wearing a mask. Somehow that scene was a standout. Something as silly as a little evil cat as a Red Lantern, I can see it happening in the show. 

GCD: There seem to be very real stakes in this series. In preview clips we already see a Green Lantern losing to the Red Lanterns. 

GV: God bless Bruce Timm and Sam Register, our executive producers, for letting us do that. I think that's also Bruce's taste anyway. We wanted to do something really wild and crazy. I think that's some of the more successful TV nowadays, in terms of cliffhangers and upping the stakes. I've always believed animation should be able to do that. We don't have to dumb it down. That was really important, we wanted people to be able to say, "Oh my gosh, where is this story going?" And obviously we throw in little jokes and stuff to keep it not too scary. There's no gratuitous gore or anything like that. My feeling is that good suspense and good drama resonates with kids and adults and everyone. That's what we were going for.

GCD: You seem to be pulling viewers' emotional strings in that opening hour.

GV: Me and Bruce got a little teary-eyed with that ending. We were kind of embarrassed because we came up with this stuff; why would it affect us? Even the music has been knocked out of the park. 

GCD: What is the tone you set out to give the show?

GV: I worked on Avatar: The Last Airbender. I can't take any credit for creating the show, but it was such a joy to work on that show. It had everything: it had comedy it had romance, it had stakes, it had extreme acts of heroism. It was a highlight in my working experience and I know Green Lantern can be just as good. We've read a lot of the comics, a lot of the Geoff Johns stuff. I think it would take decades if we were to deliver every single panel as it was written, but we've managed to be very faithful and reflect what the comics are and really take it to this huge epic scope. And also just be really charming at the same time. We want people to fall in love with these characters and be sad when something happens to them.

Green Lantern: The Animated Series premieres tonight on Cartoon Network (7/6c).

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