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We’ll talk more about this in tonight’s feature article.
Earlier this week an article popped up on Cord Cutters News that ratings on both Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon were down over the past decade.
Industry figures show that combined ratings for the two networks have fallen more than 85 percent since 2016. Both channels once dominated after-school and weekend viewing for millions of children. Today they compete with streaming services, short-form video on YouTube and TikTok, and a steady decline in traditional cable subscriptions. Advertising revenue tied to linear kids programming has softened as brands shift spending toward digital platforms that offer more precise targeting. The drop has left both networks with thinner schedules, reduced production budgets, and growing questions about how long they can operate as separate linear businesses.
Just out of curiosity I decided to check on what their programming is. Even since we dropped cable and satellite and went almost fully ad-sponsored free sites (HBO Max and Frndly being the exceptions for different reasons) and digital antenna, which is about to come with its own issues thanks to DRM, and the home video library I’ve made over the years, I haven’t kept up with either network. And when I did I could immediately tell you why both stations are doing so badly: the scheduling.
I’m going to go over those two specifically, but it’s not like the livestreaming kids channels do any better. Luke Bouma, owner and contributor for Cord Cutters News, also reports that the new Skydance conglomerate is hoping the upcoming Warner Brothers and Paramount merger will benefit both channels. If this is how they plan to compete, they’re already in trouble because they’re both making the same mistake. Let’s look at the schedule:
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Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as a read-along book club.
So last time we finally got to hang with the actual cast of this portion of the franchise and set up yet another problem. One of the previous not-a-plague-or-theme-related problems is coming up as we return to Korsal and Kevin. They were up a mountain last we saw.
I don’t remember having a problem with the subplot count as a kid, and we have quite a few:
- the plague that’s the central conflict
- the potential impact on the IDIC perspective that serves as the theme of the character conflict
- the radical activist types that are tied to it
All that I’m okay with, but we also have:
- Kevin getting into Starfleet as the first half-Klingon
- the generator damage possibly causing power issues
- Kevin and Korsal stuck on the mountain
- an Orion considering turning the plague into a bioweapon for money
- one of the aforementioned activists with a history of the Vulcan version of stalking going after a new target
Admittedly, some of my annoyance now is due to what I’ve gone through recently with Watchmen and the Op-Center novels: too many subplots and character moments that don’t really tie into the main story. It’s the same reasons I never got into soap operas. The one time I saw an interesting story as a kid, because my mom was really into her soaps, they kept moving away from the villain trying to flash freeze the city in a spy story for things I didn’t care about. Again, I enjoyed this book enough to eventually grab the novel it spun off of, but now I kind of want to spend more time with the regular characters than all these expanded characters that have been the focus so far. We still aren’t quite at the halfway mark so maybe we’ll get the regulars more of a presence, but it’s not happening this chapter. We have a different mountain to climb, and this one’s literal.
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I didn’t even know he was Canadian.
Dissecting The Green Lantern Oath
Those of you who want to yell at me for just using reviews and official promotional material to decide not to watch HBO Max’s Greenless Lanterns…did they not change and ruin the oath? The promotional material says they did and to them it’s a good thing.
Given everything I’ve heard about this show, I’m not surprised that they don’t understand the Green Lantern oath. For one thing, they think its silly. Given what better writers have done with the oath, it makes them look even more, perhaps even willingly, ignorant.
One would think John Stewart, a former soldier, would understand what an oath means.
It’s not just some rallying cry, and while the Green Lantern oath (and probably some of the other Technicolor Lantern oaths) may double as charting the time it takes to charge the ring, it also reminds the bearer why they took that oath and why they are Green Lanterns. The Greenless Lantern John Stewart of Lanterns, a man who fought for a power he may not completely earn because racial nonsense and a crazy mom, decided to create his own oath.
Bullcrap! Stewart’s oath in this series misses what the oath stands for, replacing it with himself. I don’t care what the showrunners say, making the oath more “ghetto” and bringing up a blind Lantern who had to replace a line for her situation isn’t the same thing. The spirit of the proper Green Lantern oath was taken away. To demonstrate, let’s go over the TRUE Green Lantern oath and put it against Damon Lindelof’s oath to see just how wrong the new oath is.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on October 6, 2026 in DC Spotlight, Streaming Spotlight and tagged comic to streaming adaptation, commentary, DC Comics, DC Gunnverse, DC Studios, Green Lantern, Hollywood versus comics, John Stewart, Lanterns (HBO Max), the Lantern oath.
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