Is “a fistful of power rings” a new sexual euphemism? Let’s see if we can make that happen.

Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but I always found the original Green Lantern comic design to be one of the sexiest in comics. Yeah, I know Hal Jordan is a dude, but I always appreciated the costume’s sleek, retro-future design. It’s truly one of the few costumes in comics that doesn’t need improvement. Even Jim Lee managed to leave it relatively unchanged in his horrible Nehru collar-inspired reboot of DC comic’s entire line of characters.

Of course, the producers of the Green Lantern movie managed to muck that up by making Hal Jordan look like a emerald-hued Slim Goodbody.

Critics beat the crap out of Green Lantern. It’s averaging a 26% “rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes right now. According to Box Office Mojo, estimated attendance for Green Lantern is below that of even Daredevil and Ghost Rider – two films synonymous with B-grade superhero movie flame-outs.

But the fan reaction has been interesting. People seem to be defending the movie as mindless fun. I take that to mean that the eye-candy was satisfactory even if the story fell flat on it’s face.

If you had asked me a few months ago to speculate on Green Lantern’s odds of success at the box office, I probably would have sided with the critics. Despite Ryan Reynold’s inherent likability, all of the new movie clips and preview material they were showing made Green Lantern look like amateur hour. Everything from the costume design, to the lumpy CG character work to the inclusion of Sinestro, Hector Hammond AND Parallax as villains did not inspire confidence.

But a strange thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. The success of X-Men: First Class effectively eliminated my doomsday predictions for Green Lantern. I don’t know why. Beyond their superhero subject matter, the films couldn’t be more different from each other.

I guess it’s because I was convinced that X-Men: First Class was going to be a complete bomb. To me it appeared as tone-deaf to the comics as Green Lantern appears to be. The fact that X-Men: First Class was actually good forced me to put my assumptions on hold and adopt a wait-and-see attitude toward Green Lantern.

So, despite the bad reviews, I’m still willing to invest the time to see Green Lantern. I’m willing to open up my heart a little bit and take my chances.

Because here’s the thing: I LOVE Green Lantern. For me, he’s the DC equivalent to Iron Man and I’ve been a fan of the character and the mythology for a long, long time. In fact, the GL books are the only DC books I read right now. So you know I’m serious about it.

It’s easy to love Superman or Spider-Man… Captain America or Batman. That’s like saying “I love America” or “I love vacation days.” It’s kind of a given.

It takes a little bit of fortitude to say “I love Green Lantern” or “I love Iron Man.” Because, for a long time, these guys were second-stringers and their comics were not very good.

I hate to be all “I loved these characters before they were cool.” That’s not how I feel. I’m thrilled these characters are getting their due in popular culture. I’m just trying to explain how long I have been invested in them.

So, yeah. I want to give Green Lantern and – more surprisingly – Cami wants to come with me.

Well, maybe not surprisingly. She’s a huge Ryan Reynolds fan. How big? Her favorite Ryan Reynolds movie is Just Friends. Okay, admittedly, it’s a pretty funny movie. But, yeah… watching Reynolds run around in a painted on costume for two hours? I’m sure it doesn’t hurt.

Did any of you check out Green Lantern this weekend? What did you take away from it? Is the costume everything it’s trumped up to be? Leave your comments below!