With the launch of Green Lantern Corps things have changed for the main Green Lantern title as Hal's adventures now not only tie into what's happening in the other book, but he's sharing page space with Kyle Rayner as the entire Corps become embroiled in a galaxy spanning adventure. As a long time Green Lantern fan I like this kind of set-up more, and I think we've reached the point where having a singular GL headline a lone book just feels somewhat too small for the universe that has been built up around them.
Following on from the events of the Fractured Spectrum special, this issue sees Hal dealing with an alien whose connected to the powers of the Red Lanterns, whilst Kyle and his team search for a piece of Source Energy in order to stop the Sorrow Lantern building his own Central Power Battery. Each of these stories takes up a fairly evenly divided portion of the book, though Hal isn't around for a good portion of his events as we spend several pages following Erastus, an alien blacksmith who eventually taps into the power of Rage. Erastus is a decent man, one who works hard, who takes great pride in his skill, but whose work is stolen by the local boss, who refuses to pay Erastus as he agreed to. We also see that Erastus's life partner cares little for him, going out partying when he comes home from work, putting him down, and even going off to sleep with other men.
After spending this time with Erastus we not only understand why he's driven to anger, but I think that most people would sympathise with him. It would have been easy to have started with Hal coming to Alteon-X to respond to the carnage that Erastus causes, being introduced to him at the same time Hal is, but that would have presented Erastus as little more than an angry monster; a faceless foe for Hal to overcome. By spending this time with him we see the person under the anger, we understand how he came to this point, and it makes you want to see him have a decent outcome rather than him just being stomped by the hero. It's one of the things that I think the original introduction of the Red Lanterns lacked. We would eventually find out more about them and would learn to see them as victims in need of help rather than monsters, such as Bleez being a victim of torture and rape, or the frankly heart breaking origin story for Dex-starr, but these latter provided origin stories always struck me as the writers going back and justifying why you should care for these characters. Here, Adams gives us that reason up front and it makes it much better.
When Hal enters the story we know Erastus, and as such I wanted Hal to be able to help him the same way that Sinestro was able to help the woman who'd tapped into the emotional spectrum in the first issue of Green Lantern Corps. But Erastus proves to be a quite formidable opponent, and this situation remains unsolved by the end of the issue, meaning that it's likely going to be carried across into the next one. What we do get is entertaining though, and the fight between him and Hal is decent, with Erastus using energy construct versions of his blacksmith hammers, whilst Hal does what he can to wear him down. It's pretty decent, and it's nice to see Hal in a situation where he has to think a little tactically, and where brute force isn't going to be the way out for him.
Whilst all of this is going on Kyle is continuing his mission to find Source Energy, a task that has seen him recruit Conner Kent, and the time travelling thief Odyssey onto a team with him. Their mission has brought them to the Source Wall, where they discover that one of the giant bodies that's part of the wall is actually a carefully hidden temple filled with traps that guard their prize. The fact that Kyle immediately makes the comparison to Indiana Jones (even giving himself the hat and whip) actually made it a bit more enjoyable to me as the book was able to lean into the tropes a little more, and the characters had some fun with the situation.
This was a decent issue, one that I enjoyed a lot more than the earlier issues of the run where Hal was stuck on Earth. Having the main book be part of a larger story that includes the other GL's is definitely more my thing. I'm still not completely sure about the new villain, the Sorrow Lantern, but I'm definitely interested in learning more and coming to a definitive decision on if I like it or not. I am still quite amused that Hal Jordan cuckolded a man so hard he became a super powered space villain though, it's a hell of an origin story.
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