Green Lantern 172
“Judgment Day”
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| Even when whining about his girlfriend, Hal has time to stomp crime. |
Green Lantern is back! I'm not sure
where he was before, but initial confusion is all part of the fun
with stories and continuity beginning in media res.
A quick bit of
primer: Green Lantern is test pilot Hal Jordan, a man chosen by a
dying alien to be one of the Green Lantern Corps: space-cops
with magic wishing rings. Literally, the ring can create green
plasma constructs of whatever the wearer wishes. As long as the wish
or need is not of selfish origin. Alas, this ring has one weakness:
it will not work on the color yellow.
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| The character from the 5-page back up is more interesting than Hal. Plus he couldn't be bested by a lemon. |
This titanic tale of terrific intrigue opens as GL Jordan is
cruising through space eager to return home. Apparently he'd been
ordered off Earth for one year to dedicate more time to the rest of
his assigned 'space sector' rather than just watching over his home
planet. A quick digression: One of the aspects of the 'shared
universe' story-telling I love about comic books is evidenced with
scenes like this. I'm clearly at the beginning of a story as well as
the end of one; these characters have continuing stories and lives
that aren't simply bound in neat story arcs. I'll bring this up more
and more as these articles progress, but I can't stress enough the
appeal of the shared universe. And this story also explains why we haven't seen Green Lantern thus far. See how much fun continuity makes everything?
Arriving at the planet Oa, the
known center of the entire universe and home to the Green Lantern
Corps, Jordan argues with the makers of the Green Lantern ring, The Guardians, for being allowed to return to Earth. The Guardians are known to be the oldest beings in the universe and probably the first sentient race as well. This status has afforded them the luxury of self-appointing themselves protectors of order in the universe. To this end they've created the Green Lantern Corps to patrol and police all of the 3600 sectors of space in this dimension. The Guardians are mostly just but always self-serving and a continual thorn in Jordan's side. Regardless of this adversarial relationship with his bosses, The Guardians grant Jordan's request to return to Earth.
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| I like the beak-faced guy. Also, see Hal be a pimp with alien women. He's the Kirk of the DCU. |
During the celebration many other members of the Corps are introduced. Hal Jordan may be a milquetoast character (spoiler: he's lame), a white-bread caricature of rebellion and cockiness, but the various non-Earth-based members of the Corps
have always been a repository of bitching looking aliens. When
white-bread just won't do, go with the pink humanoid with four arms
or the tree-man. In fact, always go for the tree-man.
Jordan's return to Earth
ends with a pretty laughable scene of him returning home to see his
girlfriend, Carol Ferris, (after a year, of course) and finding her in the arms of another man. Of course, in the grand style of crappy comedies of misunderstanding, Hal realizes
this was all a misunderstanding and he and Carol make up after he throws a contrived tantrum. soap opera hand-wringing in comics is approved, but keep the sitcom-style antics away, please.
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| All he had to do was act like an adult and talk to Carol, but then he couldn't scream her name at sub-sonic speeds. |
I don't know why
Green Lantern would want to return to Earth; space with all it's
wacky alien-ness seems so much more fun. Regardless, we have our
introduction to Hal Jordan and next issue we'll have some
rousing Earth-bound adventures I'm sure. At least there'll be grand
Z-grade villains to wallow in. I love that shit. No gorillas though,
sadly enough.
Caarrrollll!
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