As one might expect, Rann has pulled ahead in the poll at the Absorbascon after a brief, baffling tie that was surely caused by Thanagarian saboteurs too clumsy to develop a sustainable means of vote-fixing. (It’s sad, really.) I attribute Rann’s inevitable victory to a number of factors.
The people of Rann have emotional maturity. Its citizens are capable of sustaining healthy, loving, long-distance relationships. This is romantic and inspiring. Thanagar’s most prominent couple has been stalking one another from reincarnation to reincarnation for centuries. This is neither romantic nor inspiring. It’s co-dependent and creepy.
The people of Thanagar are trying too hard. Their raptor-fetish drag screams of over-compensation, like a comb-over or a shirt open to the navel. The people of Rann are more comfortable in subdued, retro styles. It takes a confident individual to wear a fin on his or her head and to make it work.
While Rann has occasionally been misplaced, its existence has never been called entirely into question. Thanks to various blips in the DC time stream, one might reasonably wonder if Thanagar won’t merely vanish but actually retroactively disappear altogether. This is not a planet that’s come to win. Even if it is, it might just wink out of the time stream like a redundant Earth-2 super-hero.
The bulk of recent Thanagarian appearances have been written by Geoff Johns. The majority of recent Rannian appearances have been written by Andy Diggle. Advantage: Rann.
Rann is populated largely by good-natured, imaginative nerds. Thanagar is filled with bulked-up bullies. If shônen manga has taught me nothing else, it’s that good-natured, imaginative nerds will thump bulked-up bullies every time.