Green Lantern #1 - Comic Review

 

The Earth, and it's sector of space, have been quarantined by The United Planets, who no control the Green Lantern Corps. Never one to follow orders well, Hal Jordan has quit the Corps, and returned to Earth. The first issue of Green Lantern opens with Hal saving a group of trapped minders, using his power ring to drill down to save them. After years of adventures following Hal in space, of seeing him combat things like the various other Corps, the Blackest Night, the Third Army, the various Earth ending threats he's faced in the Justice League, it's really rather delightful to see Hal doing something rather mundane and normal like saving some people trapped in a bad situation.

But then this feels like the start of a rather mundane story for Hal (and I don't mean any insult by that). Hal has returned to Earth and is trying to make a life for himself. The biggest issue with that is that whilst Hal is a great Green Lantern, he's always been a bit of a fuck up when it comes to having a normal life. If Hal didn't have the ring he'd end up being one of those guys who tries to come across as cool, but everyone kind of pities because he can never get his life together. And I really like that about Hal. He's flawed.

We see some of this in this first issue as he comes to Carol Ferris to try his charms on her to get a job. It's pretty clear that Carol is kind of done with him at this point, and all of Hal's bluster and bravado are falling on deaf ears as Carol just wants to get away from him. However, she does give him the chance to prove himself, and offers him an opportunity. An opportunity that Hal ruins the first chance he gets. Taking control of a drone fighter Hal immediately showboats, resulting in the loss of the aircraft. The scene that follows shows how out of touch with life on Earth Hal is, not understanding that the old ways of flying are gone, and that he's not really going to be getting into a real cockpit again anytime soon. It also makes him look like a bit of a dick, as he doesn't care about the huge financial loss he's just made for Carol, treating it like a game because he was sitting in a remote control simulator. You can easily see why Carol has had enough of him.

The issue is also dotted with scenes set a month in the past, with Hal living in a small trailer outside of Coast City, where he spends his evenings drinking and staring up at the stars. I like that the art is clearly him drinking a beer, but the narration says it's a soda to help dispel the 'drunken bum' look that might form otherwise, and to excuse Hal speeding off in his pickup truck as he hears a news report of an attack in the city.

We get a nice scene with a villain that feels like something from a bygone era, some punk in armour made from Manhunter tech, who's causing chaos and destruction for their own amusement. The only issue with Manhunter tech, is that it's powered by Lantern energy, and so Hal is able to draw it out and power up. This does raise a question for me though, as it appears before this moment like Hal doesn't have his GL ring. When he goes in to fight this guy he's doing it as a civilian, and when he powers up it looks like the ring forms on his finger. The end of the last Green Lantern series was one that left a lot of questions unanswered, and mysteries hanging, to the point where it feels a little confusing going into this series now. However, I'm sure that Adams has a plan for things, and that we'll be finding out a lot of new stuff as the series goes on.

The book also features a back-up story, one that's setting up for the upcoming John Stewart series. The back up is kind of confusing too. At the end of the last GL run John was in space as the Emerald Warrior, saving some of his lost friends. He then turned up in Dark Crisis, where he got put into a pocket universe where he had turned everyone into a Lantern. Now he's back home, helping out his mother whilst he figures out what his next move is. It's obvious that we've missed a few parts of his story, and that itself isn't too bad. However, the stuff that comes next is the more confusing. We jump forward in time (possibly another universe?) where an older Guy Gardner is leading what seems to be the last squad of Lanterns in a desperate fight against some evil force.

That's about all we really get from the back-up feature, as it doesn't have a huge amount of pages to really delve into things here. It's clear, though, that this story is going to be going big. Whilst Hal's story seems like its going to be more grounded, and will focus on him putting his life together on Earth, Johns story seems to be dealing in big, confusing, galactic stuff. Hopefully as more of this is featured in upcoming issues it starts to become clearer what's going on.

Overall, this was a decent start to the new series. I've been a big fan of Green Lantern since I began reading comics, and I loved he Johns era and all of the extra titles we got for it, and the Rebirth era under Venditti. But since then it feels like the characters and their universe has been kind of floundering a bit. Far Sector was great, but was it's own thing. The Morrison run was very divisive, and very Morrison. and the last twelve issue story has made some big changes and left a ton of unanswered questions and unknown fates for a lot of fan favourite characters. It feels about time for Green Lantern to be given the care and attention it deserves.

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