Summary: When Green Lantern discovers that Katma Tui, his mentor and former lover from the Green Lantern Corps, has gone missing following a battle against the forces of the militant prophet Despero, he travels to the planet Kalanor, Despero's homeworld, in an attempt to save her. After discovering the horrors of the planet's theocratic dictatorship, Stewart vows to free the people from Despero's influence, but a telepathic attack by the tyrant renders him unable to use the energies of his power ring. Now, as he and the Justice League team up with the planet's resistance movement, John Stewart must relearn to use his gift if he wishes to overthrow the false prophet, liberate the population, and rescue the woman he loves.
JL
Roll Call: Green
Lantern, The Flash, J’onn J’onzz,
Hawkgirl
GLC Roll Call:
John Stewart, Arkkis
Chummuck, Galius-Zed, Katma
Tui
Featured Character:
Green
Lantern
Villain:
Despero
Cartoon Network on “Heart’s and Minds”: “When John Stewart learns that Katma Tui, his old girlfriend from the Green Lantern Corps, has gone missing in action, he leaves Earth to try to rescue her from the clutches of the mad prophet known as Despero (courtesy of Cartoon Network).”
Phil LaMarr on “Hearts and Minds”: “This was the one where they introduced John’s love interest from his past, Katma Tui. I think that was also one of the first hints of the Hawkgirl / Lantern relationship. She had a little bit of jealousy when she realized what [John’s] past was with Katma Tui (courtesy of ToyFare Magazine).”
Bruce Timm on “Hearts and Minds”: “This is an example of what we like to call ‘ring the bell.’ When we got to the end of the show and came up with the whole concept of this god-like being manifesting himself as a giant tree and actually turning Despero’s [soldiers] into trees as they’re out to conquer the universe—that’s a pretty out there kind of concept. We knew a lot of people would look at it and say, ‘What? God is a tree?’ But I think it’s kind of valid; kind of mythological in its own way, going back to legends of the World Tree and things like that. Lots of different cultures have seen God as a healthy force of nature. There’s all kinds of weird, backwards Biblical allusions like burning bushes. Despero basically dying at the end, wrapped up in a crown of thorns. So there’s all kinds of weird religious metaphors in the whole episode.
“It also gave us an opportunity to explore the Hawkgirl / Green Lantern romance from a different angle by reintroducing a woman from Green Lantern’s past in the person of Katma Tui and seeing how Hawkgirl reacts to that. We wanted to avoid the obvious claws-out cat fight, but she’s doing her best to kind of say, ‘It doesn’t bother me, but I don’t like her’ (courtesy of RetroVision CD-ROM Magazine).”
Bruce Timm on parallels to current events: "'Hearts and Minds' is, admittedly, fairly heavily influenced by real-world events, specifically recent events in the Middle East. For example, there is an overt echo of the Taliban in the scene where Despero's acolytes are ready to murder a citizen for possessing books, but even there, we were very careful to make sure that the show wouldn't come off as a slam against Muslims. Islam, as I understand it, is actually a very tolerant religion, as organized religions go. However, religious extremists, of any denomination or faith, who use their faith as an excuse to hate and demonize those who disagree with them, or are different from them, can be very scary. So, again, the messages (there are two) of the story are very basic, and are hard to argue with: one, 'beware of false prophets,' and two, 'hate is bad, love is good' (courtesy of The World's Finest)."
Dwayne McDuffie on Ol’ Yeller: “All old school DC fans should know that Green Lantern has a weakness for Ol’ Yeller (courtesy of Toon Zone).”
Commentary
"I can still pull my weight, you know. There’s more to me than just a fancy ring."
Green Lantern (to Hawkgirl) in "Hearts and Minds"
Commentary coming soon!
Image courtesy of The
World’s Finest.