“THE ALPHA LANTERNS” (DC)
Written by Geoff Johns, drawn by Mike McKone
Green Lantern #26-28 in Green Lantern Rage Of The Red Lanterns
Anyone who bothers to read anything I write about comic book collections knows that my biggest pet peeves is collecting issues in a strange order (ie, skipping issues). That’s exactly what DC did with the Rage Of The Red Lanterns book which collects two stories that, while they are related, have a nearly 10-issue span between them. The first story is a three-parter called “The Alpha Lanterns” which is the first story in the regular GL book immediately following Sinestro Corps War. It also takes place chronologically before Green Lantern Corps Ring Quest because Alpha Lanterns make an appearance in that book. The idea is that, after introducing the first new law in the Book of Oa, which is that Green Lanterns can kill members of the Sinestro Corps, they’ve developed a new faction of the Corps called Alpha Lanterns which are essentially a combination of Manhunters and GLs (they don’t seem to have any emotion any longer). This story is told in a way that I don’t think suits it very well because we actually see Lanterns Green Man, Kraken, Chaselon, Varix and Boodikka as Alpha Lanterns in the first few pages of the first issue. That really kills some of the emotion of the story because, as it turns out we see that those guys get offered the chance to become Alpha Lanterns, John Stewart also did. Of course, we know he doesn’t accept, because we already saw that he didn’t.

Anyway, the other, meatier part of the story involves the Lost Lanterns–who we first saw make a triumphant return in Revenge Of The Green Lanterns and who saw members like Jack Chance and Ke-Haan perish in the war against Sinestro’s Corps–losing two more members of their unusual group, Boodikka to the Alpha Lanterns and Laira because she murdered Sinestro Corps member Amon Sur. He had gone to Ke-Haan’s home planet and murdered his family then waited for the Lost Lanterns to arrive with the corpse. He talked some shit and then surrendered, but Laira straight up killed him. She goes on trial and gets stripped of her mantle as GL, but is “saved” by a Red Lantern ring from Atrocitus who somehow freed himself from his prison on Ysmault and killed Qull who originally told Abin Sur the prophecy of the Blackest Night. We also get a glimpse of Scar, the Guardian attacked by the Anti-Monitor in Sinestro Corps War, tasking GL Ash with finding the Anti-Monitor’s corpse.

A lot goes on in these three issues, including Hal meeting up with Cowgirl again, but really it’s more of a Corps story than a Hal story. In fact, he’s kind of just there to narrate and act is the intro to the story. John Stewart actually gets the spotlight for a while too, which is good to see considering he’s had nearly no role in the Green Lantern universe since Rebirth. We even get a look at a Sinestro Corps ring trying to get on Scarecrow’s finger, which is pretty rad and a nice precursor to Blackest Night. Oh, by the way, I absolutely love seeing Mike McKone draw Green Lanterns and wish he had spent more than three issues on that book.

“TYGERS” (DC)
Written by Alan Moore, drawn by Kevin O’Neill
Originally printed in Tales Of The Green Lantern Corps Annual #2, collected in DC Universe: The Stories Of Alan Moore
Before getting any further into the Green Lantern epic that has been churning for years, I figured it would be a good time to re-read Alan Moore’s “Tygers” which was the first story to mentioned Blackest Night, Sodam Yat, Ranx the sentient city, the Children of the White Lobe, Ysmault and Qull. The story shows Hal Jordan’s GL predecessor Abin Sur attempting to save a downed spacecraft on the planet Ysmault which holds a much of demons. He winds up talking to Qull, a big freaky demon looking thing that looks like he came out of Sandman who winds up telling him the prophecy of the Blackest Night which you can read in the page to the right.

Of course, Geoff Johns has greatly added to the events of this story, but I think it’s important to actually read the original for yourself. I’ve got the DC Universe trade, but I believe it’s also reprinted in Tales Of The Green Lantern Corps Vol. 2 (though, really it should have been included in one of the actual trades considering how much has been built on its foundation).

It’s a cool little story that meant almost nothing the first time I read it aside from showing why Abin Sur was driving a space ship when he crashed on Earth instead of using his ring. Now it’s a big huge deal that everyone should check out at least once.

GREEN LANTERN: SECRET ORIGIN (DC)
Written by Geoff Johns, drawn by Ivan Reis
Collects Green Lantern #29-35
The reason I made sure to read “Tygers” again aside from wanting to refresh my memory of the details was to see how Johns’ new take on the story differed from the original. I don’t mean that in the sense of the glasses pushing nerd who wants to call out discrepancies between comics printed over two decades apart from one another, but just out of curiosity to see what he added. And, considering Johns rewrote the history of Hal Jordan in Secret Origin to include Atrocitus (who did not actually appear in “Tygers” nor any previous tellings of the fall of Abin Sur) I’m glad I did. What really surprised me was how Johns seemed to rewrite himself, but more on that in a bit.

This story is told completely in Hal Jordan’s past. I remember when this story was first announced I was not interested whatsoever. I wasn’t interested in Hal or seeing yet another explanation of his past, I wanted to see more alien ass kicking or maybe the reveal of another Lantern or two. But, upon reading this book again, I actually enjoyed it for the most part. My biggest problem with the book is reading panels and scenes that I’ve already read before! I appreciate Johns wanting to keep his stories tight and go back and refer to moments he hinted at in previous stories, but do I really need to read pages worth of material over again? No. I can give it a bit of a pass because, when reading these books on a monthly basis, there’s a much larger time gap between mentions than when reading them in rapid succession in trade form.

So, we get to see Hal feeling bad about his dad dying and Hal feeling bad because his mom was dying and refused to see him because he was in the Air Force (why didn’t he just lie to her instead of going through all the steps he did?). Then Abin Sur crashes while transporting Atrocitus to Earth in an attempt to find the source of “the black” that will presumably spawn the Blackest Night prophecy. Atrocitus gets free to roam the Earth a bit. We see Hal training on Oa and also Ganthet contacting Sinestro to ask him to go hang out with Hal even though it breaks one of the edicts about GLs staying in their own sectors. We get a better look at his early animosity towards the Ferris family and a better understanding of his lack of fear, but the big story finds Hal and Sinestro fighting Atrocitus on Earth right after the big red guy finds the kid who will become Black Hand and accidentally provides him with that ray gun thing he used as a weapon for a while.

I’m still not sure whether spending seven issues on an origin story was the best use of space for the ongoing Green Lantern comic book, but reading it now is an enjoyable experience. I’m not sure yet how well this fits in with Hal’s past because I’ve never read any of that stuff, though I’ve got a book coming to me that will hopefully remedy that. It is fun to see Hal’s questioning nature go up against the Guardians and the early days of Ganthet separating himself from the rest of his blue brethren. Overall, I dig the story and think it was necessary, though I wish it wasn’t so repetitive of previously seen moments.