Really, Truly Hear Me Out Before You Close Out Of This Blog: Thomas Edison is the Natural Enemy of The Green Lantern

 The world really hates on Thomas Edison nowadays. It used to be he was widely considered to be a shining example of a great inventor, who had a duet of very flattering movies made about him in the 1940's (one with Mickey Rooney as the titular Young Thomas Edison), but it seems like with the internet age that he has been subdued and is instead seen as a villain, somebody who while a decent inventor did not do things in a morally straight way and who abused the natural brilliance of minds like Nikola Tesla. This contrast with Tesla is quite fascinating. Tesla is seen as a natural genius, a man who shut himself away to work on his brilliant inventions, too divorced from the realities of economics to prevent being screwed over by Edison, who while also quite brilliant is known for a serious of quotes about hard work being superior compared to natural genius. This is a dichotomy that arguably appears quite frequently in superhero stories! 

Look at the above image. Green Lantern, while being quite competent in his own job, is literally carried over through magical powers to receive his super abilities. This brings to mind a quite feasible plot of an early Green Lantern adventure. The spandexed hero, hearing of a fried elephant or the cries of a screwed over Serbian, decides to give Thomas Edison a visit. However, he is defeated quite easily, as not only is electricity yellow, but Edison has an even better mastery of the color green due to his bank account! 
In all seriousness, it is interesting to think about how society views conflicts like this. The perennial Batman vs. Superman is a great example of natural talent vs. hard work, and has split the public for quite a while. It does seem that Batman is favored, and usually the "hard work" faction in debates like this does have the edge, but perhaps the finer details of the Tesla vs. Edison story make Edison the more obvious villain. It is also of note that, at least by my personal adjudication, online debates about Tesla vs. Edison are remarkably similar to Batman vs. Superman debates. Citations of specific achievements or flaws versus citations of comic abilities, powers, and flaws. Functionally, in the public's mind, there really is no difference between a character like Edison versus Superman, as albeit people do know Superman is fake, both are just reconstructions of legendary figures based on a series of primary sources. 


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