From power rings to radioactive rocks, explosives to magical artifacts, every hero and villain has some equipment they just can't live without. And when you need to decide which of these weapons you need on your Heroclix team, it can be a pretty tough decision. I'm here to help.

This time on Object of Desire: Blue Lantern!

Greetings, my fellow Clixers! Today I want to look at something from the mind of the greatest enemy to DC Comics continuity, Geoff Johns. As a result, we are looking at the Blue Lantern!

bbS005 Blue Lantern

Light: Continual. Characters within 4 squares of this object that can use Barrier or Telekinesis modify their range values by +2 and can use Telekinesis for 10 squares instead of 8 (for all limitations of Telekinesis) if they can already use Telekinesis.
5 Points


Availability: The Blue Lantern was available in the Brave and the Bold prize kit, and is now available on the secondary market.

I know I’m going to catch a lot of flack for this, but I don’t like Geoff Johns. I think he ruined Green Lantern, and I’m not fond of him killing Rond Vidar off just to shoehorn a crappy character into the Legion of Super Heroes continuity. Oh yeah, and Superboy Prime sucks, no matter which character he’s trying to destroy and who he’s working with to do it. That is all.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to an object review! The Blue Lantern basically restores Telekinesis to its old rules, which is a good thing. That’s right kiddies, Telekinesis used to be a 10 square power, just like Outwit and Perplex are now. It also increases the range value of the characters that can use either Telekinesis or Barrier by +2; this works regardless of whether or not you’re actually using the qualifying power, so you can attack farther with those characters instead of just using the extended range for Barrier. For 5 points, it’s a pretty decent investment.

In Action

You know, this object seems like it would be perfect for the Green Lanterns as well as the Blue Lanterns. They use Telekinesis as much as the Blue Lantern guys, and there’re simply a lot more of them. It’s certainly better than their crappy object. But I digress. Telekinesis getting a range boost is certainly helpful, as it lets you slingshot your characters farther and launch objects into characters from farther away. That alone makes it worthwhile, and the range boost to regular attacks is great in many ways. In today’s environment, with ranges steadily shrinking, a bonus to range makes your team that much more effective. Plus, Barrier is a wonderful power to have, and being able to use it from farther away just opens up more options for board control.

Final Assessment

Great for extending your board presence, the Blue Lantern makes your attacks, unit placements, and terrain manipulations reach further into your opponent’s territory. While it might not be best for every team, it certainly is helpful.

That’s all for this article; come back next time when Alternate Team Spirit decides to carry on the Lantern theme with the one ATA pertaining to that set of continuity. Until then, happy Clixin’!

I only have the White Lantern. That Blue Lantern would be very useful for a heavy Barrier team like I played several weeks ago.

For completeness,

Geoff Johns made Superboy-Prime bad. The character was fine before he got his hands on him.

Alexander Luthor as well. That character was destroyed, and could have been reintroduced as one of the most important characters in modern DC continuity. Oh well.

I'm just shocked that the DC head honchos let both characters get abused so badly, but after seeing Blackest Night and the nonsense that was perpetrated on really good long-term characters like Hawkman and Ralph Dibney, well....

The blue lantern is my favorite special object, and possibly the best one. I've worked it onto hundreds of teams and it doesn't always come up, but when it does it usually means the difference between not being able to attack and being able to, or preventing an attack and being attacked. There are few things more powerful than Heroclix than flat-out preventing attacks from being possible, and that's what the blue lantern works with. It's a fantastic effect.

The Player's Guide errata says "Blue Lantern's effect only increases range values when using barrier."

This decreases the value of the object a great deal, but few people seem to be aware of it.

p l ease a keep yoau rocmmentar yao nteh Late Gerat Jeoff JOhns to your self tha nk you......

sadface that all the lantern objects cost like $20.

@commandercool-
I would say the yellow lantern is the best one, but it really depends on the team.

Other than his pretty amazing work on the JSA relaunch a decade(ish) ago I agree with you.


And back to the article, I never use a lot of special objects but the range bump from this one might make me reconsider, I had never really thought about it bumping anything but TK and Barrier.

Thanks,

Not sure what you mean by the "Late Gerat Jeoff Johns."

Geoff Johns isn't dead, although lots of fans probably wish he was for what he did to continuity. Especially fans of Wally and Kyle.

Eh, that effect is easily to duplicate. Not for five points, granted, but it's also much more likely that your opponents can get some value out of your yellow lantern than your blue lantern. The blue lantern provides a valuable effect that you really can't get anywhere else, and it's an effect that's useful mostly in setup so by the time your opponent can get within the area of effect of it it's no longer that beneficial.

Last time I checked (In the rules) The Blue will ONLY Boost their range when using the power : |. It's not a OH you ahve it...Ok great here's a boost like Yellow Lantern : |. Despite the wording.

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showth...t=Blue+Lantern

Unless Questions made an unwarranted call.

Nope:

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showpo...92&postcount=2


Love your articles but take a quick sweep of the rule forum before writing.

Magneto loves the blue lantern... I know this for a fact!

This is completely wrong. I looked in the official players guide for golden age just now. There is no wording for the blue lantern only boosting the range of barrier and telekinesis. It states that figures that can use those powers have their range values increased by 2 (not power range) and the range of telekinesis now has a value of 10 instead of 8.

...lol so the crux of the article is moot, all that remains is him #####ing about Geoff Johns?
lolol time well spent.

Yup, is a bit tricky as the power says CAN USE TK/Barrier and then goes on to specify that the range is only increased when that power is used.