So Fresh, So Green

Two legacy DC comics characters get to play green and gritty in HBO’s buddy-cop TV procedural that’s still heavy on the IP

The vow goes a little something like this: “In brightest day, in blackest night, let those who worship evil’s might… beware my power, Green Lantern’s light!” This is the sacred oath undertaken by members of the Green Lantern Corps, an interstellar police force some tens of thousands strong. It’s run by a cabal of celestial guardians who ensure that peace reigns not just in our galaxy, but in the gajillions of other galaxies in the infinitely vast cosmos. Each “space cop” is assigned a planet and/or region to protect, with one member per sector. Those protectors are essentially chosen by a superpowered ring, which, once the lucky duck recites the vow and fist-bumps the jewelry against a charging lantern, allows them to conjure any item they can think of. A sledgehammer, a shield, a racecar, a Howitzer — if a corp member can think it, they can summon a giant green version of it.

Of all the superheroes to give the gritty realism treatment, the Green Lantern is an odd choice. Tasked with enforcing intergalactic order with a magic ring bestowed by a group of blue aliens (before the Na’avi, there were the Guardians), the character occupies the opposite end of the tonal spectrum from Bruce Wayne stalking the streets of Gotham City sans powers. The larger DC Universe, as creatively overseen by the filmmaker James Gunn, already skews in a goofier, more cartoonish direction that embraces the inherent silliness of classic comics; last year’s “Superman” featured an appearance by a Green Lantern, Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, as de facto comic relief, with an atrocious bowl cut to match.

Ruf

Monterey Car Week is a big one for premium hand-built automakers, with so many of the world's well-heeled buyers in one place. Like the Porsches they take their inspiration from, Ruf's carbon-fiber monocoque chassis is sprouting new models with just enough differences to make it interesting. Named after the high-speed test track Ehra-Lessien located about six hours due north of Ruf's Pfaffenhausen headquarters, where Phil Hill broke the top speed record in an original CTR Yellowbird, the new Ehra is a high-speed all-wheel-drive widebody grand tourer. Like the CTR Anniversary and the Rodeo, Ruf built this car on the same carbon tub and powered it with the same twin-turbo 3.6-liter flat-six engine. You can think of this like a Rodeo without the off-road gubbins or an all-wheel-drive CTR, but either way the recipe is a good one. 

• Tiny German company Ruf bloodied the noses of every exotic automaker in the 1980s when its CTR managed to hit 211 mph.
• The name of the track where the record was set was Ehra-Lessien, hence the name of this new car.
• Peak power is 650 hp, and there's a seven-speed manual, but the real tricks are the widebody, all-wheel-drive, and deployable rear spoiler.

Back in the infancy of the internet, a grainy video of a yellow Porsche drifting its way around the Nürburgring at maximum attack set the nerves of every enthusiast jangling. The speed! The tire-smoking slides! Those loafers! Piloted by test-driver Stefan Roser, the Ruf CTR became an instant legend.

New Zealand have broken rank with Oceania's football governing body to become the latest nation to withdraw support for Fifa president Gianni Infantino.

Infantino has lost support from three regional confederations - Europe's Uefa, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and Concacaf (North and Central America and the Caribbean) - over his aborted plans to sell 20% of the World Cup's commercial rights to private investors.

For decades, they lay in a secret room in her attic gathering dust. Now, newly discovered artworks by the Booker prize-winning author Iris Murdoch – including the only self-portrait she is known to have painted, four surrealist landscape paintings and three sketches of female nudes – will go on display for the first time on Friday.

Pyongyang has accused the US of pushing the world ‘to the brink of nuclear war’.

North Korea has denounced major United States-South Korea military drills set to start next week as a provocation that heightens tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

NHS service admits data breach due to pager use