Green Lantern Part 2

Okay, the issues started picking up after issue 98 or so. I may keep them from that point on. The art especially picks up. But the writing is still not great. They have a series of issues where Kyle's girlfriend Jade is Green Lantern for a bit and they do a story on her coming across a guy who tried to sexually abuse her as a child. The writing was okay, a little heavy-handed but okay, I appreciated that he was trying to tackle a tough subject. But Jade is drawn throughout the issue as a tarted up sex object which mixes the message more than a little. I mean, they have a full page picture of her looking over her shoulder and sticking her butt out at her would-be molester (she kidnaps him and ties him up and threatens to kill him) which just made no sense to me. And if memory serves, a few issues ahead Kyle gets a gay assistant after saving him from a beating. But he serves no purpose to any of the long running plots or to Kyle as anything other than a token gay character so DC can claim diversity. I think the writer, Ron Marz, really tried to make Green Lantern a character driven comic, but he did so as someone who doesn't know how to create interesting characters. I mean, I like Green Lantern because of the costume, the ring and he goes to outer space a lot. Do good adventure stories based on those 3 concepts and I'm happy. But through most of his run Marz did very few of those things. Yes the costume and powers were there, but there are at least 3 "I'm breaking up with my girlfriend issues" where the formulaic break-up conversation takes up at least half the comic. Which would be find if there were anything interesting about it to begin with, but there isn't. The villains have no background and no personality, and in one issue, after defeating russian arms dealers, and restraining ALL of them, he then sinks their massive cargo tanker boat in the middle of a busy New York harbor for no apparent reason, and flies off declaring how the authorities are just going to have to deal with this mess because he has a date. It's just so dumb. What was I thinking when I bought these?

Edited to add in:

This article on the inconsistency of Green Lantern comics is pretty good if you're at all interested (he said, knowing he was the only one interested). Basically no one has known what to do with the character long term and he's been constantly and consistently revamped to revitalize sales. Reading it kind of exhausts me. Comics and their fans exhaust me. I think I'm just going to stick with trades mostly from now on, so I can pick and choose the good stuff.

Oh, and reading that article reminded me, I only ever really liked GL as he was written in JLA, starting with Grant Morrison. If anyone is at all interested in GL, I recommend starting there.