GREEN LANTERN: WANTED HAL JORDAN (DC)
Written by Geoff Johns, drawn by Ivan Reis & Daniel Acuna
Collects Green Lantern #14-20
I fully intended to do these Books Of Oa posts on a more regular basis, but got a little caught up with the holidays and all that. So, I’m going to double up for this week and hopefully get back on track. So, let’s jump right into it. Wanted is essentially split into two parts. They break down in a story sense, but also a kind of thematic sense: stuff that’s trying to clear up One Year Later and stuff that builds towards the bigger Green Lantern story. Picking up right after the previous volume Revenge Of The Green Lanterns, we finally find out what happened to Hal and his fellow co-pilots during the year jump which was essentially them crashing their plans and becoming POWs. Then, in the modern time, Cowgirl, one of the pilots, flies off to attack the terrorists who tortured them, but it’s up to Hal as GL to save her and bring her back. This pits him against the new Global Guardians and new Rocket Reds who happen to be mind controlled by one of a group of bounty hunters after him lead by Amon Sur, the son of Abin Sur, the person who held Hal’s ring before him. Amon’s hacked off at Hal and the GLC because he thinks the ring should be his to wield. This is the stuff that matters to the bigger story, not so much the Global Guardians stuff which really felt like it was going to go somewhere when it came out, but that wasn’t the case. I don’t believe they’ve been mentioned ever again, though the Rocket Red have been, especially in the pages of Justice League: Generation Lost. When these issues were coming out, they were very confusing. This time around, they tie in to the larger story, but it definitely feels like a dropped ball or one of the many times when Johns introduced/reintroduced a character/characters but never really explained much about them (see Teen Titans for more examples).

The other part of the story involves the Star Sapphire returning to Earth, first inhabiting Carol Ferris and then Cowgirl because Hal has the hots for her. This is your pretty standard Star Sapphire story until Carol starts talking about Sinestro, a coming war and the creation of a pink ring at the very end, with the Zamarons swearing to collect one of each color lantern (or something). As it turns out, the Zamarons absorb love like the Green Lanterns absorb willpower from the universe or the Sinestro Corps does fear. We see a lot of this in flashbacks along with flashbacks between Hal and Carol so it’s a good history lesson as well. Being a nerd I noticed a few continuity errors while reading, specifically when it came to flashbacks showing the Guardians and Zamarons. For one thing, female Guardians didn’t exist until after Kyle Rayner recreated them when he had the Ion power the first time. There were never male Zamarons. Also, if memory serves, the Guardians didn’t have names until the late 80s/early 90s which wasn’t a good sign for them, but Ganthet is referred to by name at some point.

Johns does a good job of weaving the two stories together, even having John Stewart posing for months as one of the bounty hunters who was after him. If memory serves, John hadn’t really been seen much since Rebirth. A lot of groundwork is laid for Sinestro Corps War (we see Qwardians enslaved on their own planet and Arkillo sending yellow rings out to bring trainees back to him, curiously, he’s wearing a purple and black suit instead of yellow and black) and even Blackest Night here, but all the OYL stuff just feels tacked on and not followed through on. I’ve noticed a bit of a pattern for Johns’ early arcs on this book, they usually involve Hal dealing with his regular life before running off to deal with some cosmic disturbance. That’s what you’d expect from a space cop, but it sometimes feels like we’re left hanging when we’re trying to learn more about Hal or his life. After this, he spends a good deal of time fighting in SCW which I’ll hopefully get to reviewing next week.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS: THE DARK SIDE OF GREEN (DC)
Written by Dave Gibbons & Keith Champagne, drawn by Patrick Gleason, Dave Gibbons & Tom Nguyen
Collects Green Lantern Corps #7-13
This collection of GLC issues is an interesting. It includes the story that the collection takes it’s name from which was written by Champgne and drawn by Gleason which introduces an established, but never seen subsection of the Corps dubbed the Corpse. It’s a black ops unit lead by a shapeshifting Durlan by the name of Von Daggle. Guy Gardner and a rookie butterfly-looking GL named R’amey have been sent by the Guardians to give Daggle a message. As it turns out, they’re his new recruits and they’re tasked with getting the rock that gave Captain Comet his powers off the Dominator planet, because one Dominator still pissed about the events depicted in the Invasion series has used it on himself to make him physically and psychically superior. It’s a pretty rad idea with lots of fun little easter eggs for continuity geeks. The bummer of the whole thing is that, even as cool as it is, I believe Geoff Johns has said this is basically a one-off story that will not be referenced again by him. That doesn’t mean that no one else will come along and once again revive the Corpse, but just think of how cool it would be if Daggle popped back up in the next big GL story line?

Once Gibbons is back to writing the book, we’re returned to his cop show-style writing where we get lots and lots of little segments, like Soranik trying to once again help people on her home planet of Korugar, Isamot Kol going to Mogo but leaving after being creeped out by Green Man, Guy Gardner getting accused of murder and the introduction of Bzzt, Mogo’s partner in the Corps who looks like a house fly. It turns out that most of these little stories lead to a larger conspiracy as it turns out that a yellow fungus has been invading Mogo along with many Corpsmen and women who have visited him for psychiatric help. I noticed the yellow things flying around people in the previous trade, but couldn’t remember if it was an overture to the Sinestro Corps, but as it turns out, it is. Mogo takes a pretty big hit at the end of the story, but he’ good for the most part. It’s not the worst thing that will happen to him. All of this leads right into Sinestro Corps War, which kicks off with a one-shot and uses Mogo along with a slew of other Lanterns in an all out war.