Retro Comics are Awesome

[Sparky Prime]

Do you remember Ganthet telling everyone during Blackest Night that the rings allowed them to deputize someone for 24 hours? I don't know if Geoff Johns was aware of it, but that also is an early concept. In Hector Hammond's first issue (where he still looks normal, without the giant head), Hal needs to keep him distracted for awhile, so he uses his ring to disguse Tom Kalmaku as himself, and gives him a fully functioning GL ring that will last for 24 hours. At one point in the story Hammond is able to obtain the duplicate ring and use it as well.

I'm sure Johns knew that it was in the early concept, he's said in interviews he was a fan of the Silver Age comics himself. Blackest Night actually wasn't the first time Johns had Hal's ring make a duplicate of itself. During Rebirth, it duplicated itself so that Guy could become a Green Lantern again.

[andersonh1]

Do you remember Ganthet telling everyone during Blackest Night that the rings allowed them to deputize someone for 24 hours? I don't know if Geoff Johns was aware of it, but that also is an early concept. In Hector Hammond's first issue (where he still looks normal, without the giant head), Hal needs to keep him distracted for awhile, so he uses his ring to disguse Tom Kalmaku as himself, and gives him a fully functioning GL ring that will last for 24 hours. At one point in the story Hammond is able to obtain the duplicate ring and use it as well.

I'm sure Johns knew that it was in the early concept, he's said in interviews he was a fan of the Silver Age comics himself. Blackest Night actually wasn't the first time Johns had Hal's ring make a duplicate of itself. During Rebirth, it duplicated itself so that Guy could become a Green Lantern again.

I had forgotten that. It makes sense that Geoff Johns would have a familiarity with the Silver Age, given how well he often works old continuity into his stories.

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #7 features the first appearance of Sinestro, and he's a long way from where Geoff Johns took him. But just like Hal Jordan, his origin story has remained basically the same, even though we've seen details added over time. Sinestro was a Green Lantern from the planet Korugar, who let the power go to his head and eventually built himself a palace and declared himself ruler of the planet. The Guardians discovered this during one of their periodic spot checks on each Lantern's activities, recalled Sinestro to Oa, stripped him of his ring, power battery and Lantern insignia, and exiled him to Qward. And that's pretty much still Sinestro's backstory to this day.

Now later on, both in Emerald Dawn 2 and Secret Origins we would see Sinestro involved with training Hal Jordan. That's not the case in the original story, and in fact this is not only the first time Hal ever meets Sinestro, but it also appears as though the exile itself is comparatively recent, and that Sinestro was probably an active Green Lantern during Hal's early stories. Because as soon as he arrives on Qward, Sinestro immediately asserts himself with the locals and berates them for not being able to capture or destroy Green Lantern, who they've tangled with three or four times already. I think if Sinestro had been on Qward the last time Hal was there, they'd have encountered each other then.

Also in this issue, Hal meets the Guardians for the second time, and is allowed to retain his memory of them this time because of his "gallant service". So he continues to impress the Guardians and to earn good reviews from them. The induction into the Corps seems to be a fairly gradual process, with the new Green Lantern monitored from afar at first, and only after a good performance is he or she entrusted with more information about the Corps.

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #9 is Sinestro's second appearance in the series, and the first time he uses his yellow ring. If any of you remember when Guy Gardner used Sinestro's ring during the 90s, one of the ongoing plot points was that Guy had to figure out how to charge up the yellow ring, and he finally figured out that it powers up by absorbing the energy of Green Lantern rings. That goes back to this very issue, where Sinestro's whole plot to attack the Guardians revolves around first trailing Hal Jordan in disguise and slowly charging up his yellow power ring, then trapping Hal on Earth, diguising himself as Hal and taking his place at the first ever meeting of multiple Green Lanterns. He creates a fake menace and then takes even more Green energy before heading for Oa to attack the Guardians.

The meeting of the Green Lanterns implies that it's every one of them, but there are only about a dozen present, so clearly the concept of the Corps is still evolving. But it looks like even at this early stage the writers were starting to realize that a lot of what made GL unique and gave it such potential was the possibility of drama in space with the politics of the Corps, rather than simply having Hal on Earth all the time like most other super heroes of the era. The issue even takes the time to name and describe a few GLs, including Chaselon and the one-eyed tentacled GL whose name escapes me. No Kilowog though, and I don't think we'll see him for a long time.

Meanwhile Hal has managed to free himself and travels to Oa, where he takes on Sinestro and ultimately manages to beat him by overloading the yellow ring with power, causing it to explode. We get to see the first ever shot of multiple Green Lanterns charging up at the central power battery while the Guardians look on. They imprison Sinestro in a cell made of the green energy and shoot him into an orbit "that will take billions of years to circle the universe". Yeah, he's not going to escape that...

Issue 100 of GL volume 3 where Kyle travels back in time and meets a young Hal Jordan is set during the events of this issue. In that story he interrupts the fight between Hal and Sinestro and has to help set things right. I think part of Sinestro's backup plan in that story was to crash an asteroid into Oa and wipe everything out, but he's got nothing beyond his (apparently new) yellow power ring in the original story. And to be fair, his plan almost worked. He stayed one step ahead of the GLs and got to Oa, and only the force shields around the citadel slowed him down enough for Hal to catch up with him before Sinestro could attack the Guardians.


Also in this same issue, since the book is divided into two stories, we get the first appearance of Hal's two brothers. His older brother Jack is running for district attorney, and his younger brother Jim and Hal are both helping with the campaign. Also appearing for the first time is Jim's future wife Sue Williams, a reporter who is convinced that Jim is Green Lantern and keeps trying to prove it. Yeah, shades of Lois Lane here, who Sue even name drops at one point. I think in the present day Jack is dead, though I don't know how or why that happened, but Jim, Sue and their two children are still around, and have appeared in a couple of Vendetti's GL issues. I like the fact that Hal has a family, which is something I'm not sure we see with all that many superheroes, and that time and various continuity changes haven't erased them.

[andersonh1]

Some scans of the Detective Comics issue I found. Yellowed but still in decent shape and very readable. The scans seem reasonably close to the actual color of the page.

[andersonh1]

I finished the first Green Lantern omnibus last night, which reprints Showcase Presents #22-24 and Green Lantern #1-21 from the Silver Age. And overall the majority of stories are considerably better than others I've read from the same time period, which are mainly Batman and Superman. I have to wonder if the fact that it's a new character and they're building him from the ground up that contributes to this. Superman and Batman had been in print for over 20 years already by the time Hal showed up, and were perhaps familiar and a bit stale and so we got sitcoms with superheroes. Green Lantern has some of that, but there's also a lot more sci-fi, as well as side trips into the world of the Corps, something no other character had anything even remotely similar to use as a dramatic device.

Obviously a lot happens in 24 issues. The Guardians only appear a few times, but when they do they're positive, helpful and generally seem very supportive of Hal and the Corps. We get several stories with the Corps, though Tomar-Re is the most frequent GL to appear apart from Hal. Sinestro turns up six or seven times in these early issues, and though they capture him and imprison him at the end of every story, he always has a backup plan or has anticipated what might happen, so he has a way to escape. The seeds of what Geoff Johns would work with to grow the character are there with all those contingencies, although early 60s Sinestro revels in being evil, so he does have that shallow Silver Age villain characterization as well.

Other villains appear for the first time. Hector Hammond appears once, but he's still normal in appearance without his giant brain. Sonar shows up a couple of times. The Qwardians are major villains in the early issues, but are later pushed aside in favor of Sinestro, who of course has been exiled to Qward. Dr. Polaris makes his first appearance in GL #20 as a person pushing the benefits of magnetism on health, and I could almost see him as one of these late night infomercial hosts, pushing whatever "health" product you can think of.

Apart from other Green Lanterns, the only other hero to turn up is the Flash, who makes two guest appearances. Superman and Lois Lane are mentioned in passing, and a reference is made to something Hal did in a Justice League issue and repeats in a GL issue, so the shared universe is there, but minimized.

The series does have ongoing continuity. Storylines themselves are always self-contained, and often there are two short stories in a single issue. But events in past stories are referenced, and the storyline of various returning characters are advanced whenever they appear. The Green Lantern Corps in particular grows and changes in size and scope every time we see them.

In a nice bookend, Carol Ferris' father Willard Ferris leaves in Showcase #22 for a two year around the world trip with his wife. He puts Carol in charge of Ferris Air. He returns in Green Lantern #21 (now named Carl, oddly) having discovered that Hal is Green Lantern. Naturally Hal is able to preserve his secret identity. But it was a nice choice by the modern day editors to open and close the book with those stories.

None of these are very weighty or dramatic stories. They're light and fun, and I'm sure that's all they were ever meant to be. But I have enjoyed seeing where Hal Jordan started out, and how the character and his world were built. The writers of today are still using concepts and characters that were introduced over 50 years ago, and they're still recognizable despite the difference in tone. On to volume 2, which runs through GL #45.

[Dominic]

The depiction of the Guardians is likely a function of the times. Pre-Watergate, people were generally willing to view state authority more favourably. (I hate to go back to Watergate, as it gets blown out of proportion. But, it did change how people saw the Feds.)

In the 70s, as people become more cynical, the Guardians were portrayed as being flawed. Since the 80s, the Guardians have become consistently more evil/inept.

[andersonh1]

The depiction of the Guardians is likely a function of the times. Pre-Watergate, people were generally willing to view state authority more favourably. (I hate to go back to Watergate, as it gets blown out of proportion. But, it did change how people saw the Feds.)

In the 70s, as people become more cynical, the Guardians were portrayed as being flawed. Since the 80s, the Guardians have become consistently more evil/inept.

There is definitely a decades-long character arc for the Guardians. I don't doubt cynicism about government, and cynicism in general for that matter, played a big part in how they changed over time from benevolent and thoughtful beings to the absolute despots we saw at the end of Geoff Johns' run.

[andersonh1]

I thought this was an interesting "first" column. I've read this story in All-Star volume 8, and I had wondered if it was the first time we ever saw DC's "big three" together on panel. Apart from a one-panel cameo, it's the only time Superman and Batman participate in a Justice Society adventure during the Golden Age. http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.co ... nt-5569787

Technically, the first time all three characters are in the same panel is the middle panel, top row on page 6, though we get the back of Batman's head in silhoutte. Like so many firsts in the 1940s, things are very low key. There's no real fanfare, they just happen. Scroll on down through the comments section, and some other panels in the story where they appear are also given as examples. And as someone points out, this is almost a proto-Justice League, given that we've got five of DC's big seven. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern.

[andersonh1]

Justice Society of America
1991, 8 issues

I broke this out to re-read it a few nights ago for the first time in many years. I suspect it was the first time I had read any stories featuring these characters, though I was generally aware of the Jay Garrick Flash. This series is, as far as I know, the first post-Crisis appearance of these characters since they had been written out in The Last Days of the Justice Society. It seems odd that they would have survived the Crisis, only to be immediately disposed of soon after, but DC often treats these characters in ways that don't make sense.

The mini-series is eight issues, and according to the editor's afterward, was largely begun in order to give some of DC's artists some work while they were waiting for their regular assignments to come through. While discussing a possible topic for the series, the writer and editor hit upon the same idea. They wanted to tell a story about the JSA. They set the story in 1950, and structured it similarly to the old All-Star stories, in that the characters would have individual issues to themselves before banding together in the final chapter. In this mini-series, they actually have four solo chapters, two chapters where two characters team up, and then the final two where everyone is present, so it's not exactly the old format, but the idea is there. They also deliberately chose characters that had modern equivalents that were being published at the time so the newer readers would easily get up to speed. And since this is post-Crisis, the story is on the main DC Earth rather than set on Earth 2, not that it matters much.

The plot involves Vandal Savage using Ted Knight/Starman to unwittingly contact and draw creatures made of stellar energy to Earth, which Savage can then use to drain away all of the energy produced by various power sources on Earth and regress society to an era that he's happier with. Ted is injured and under Savage's control for most of the story, though he's secretly working to assemble a second gravity rod since Savage has use of his main one in order to control the star creatures. As the series progresses, we see various Justice Society members take on the creatures one at a time. The Flash goes after one that's draining electrical power. Black Canary goes after thieves and looters in Gotham who are taking advantage of the power drain and then runs across Solomon Grundy, who is working for Vandal Savage. Alan Scott/Green Lantern is also in Gotham of course, since that's where his radio station is located, and he takes on a stellar creature who is shutting down radio and television waves. And finally Carter Hall/Hawkman fights a third creature, discovering that one of his ancient weapons can harm it. And then we get two team up chapters, with Flash and Hawkman working together, then Green Lantern and Black Canary (and Doiby Dickles, who I had forgotten showed up in this story), and then finally all four, joined by Starman in the final chapter.

There's some definite repetition of plot due to the way the mini-series mimics the old All-Star format, and the series might have benefitted from being a few issues shorter to avoid some of that. Black Canary is more of a feminist and more defensive about her gender than one would expect in 1950, and they can't decide if Jay Garrick is married or engaged, but overall it's not a bad showcase for these five Golden Age characters. Between Vandal Savage, Solomon Grundy and the star creatures, there's a variety of opponents to keep things interesting, and it's honestly nice to see these characters young and in their prime. We get four artists who get two issues each, so the art style changes from chapter to chapter, which can be distracting, particularly with Solomon Grundy who looks different depending on who is drawing him.

I think this series was successful enough that it led to the return of these characters to the main DC universe in Armageddon 2001, and then to their ongoing series that ran for only 10 issues which DC editorial cancelled despite strong sales because they didn't want to publish older superheroes. I guess they just wouldn't be as young and kewl as Marvel if they did that, or something. I enjoyed the mini-series at the time it was published, and as far as I can remember it introduced me to DC's Golden Age characters, and they've remained among my favorites ever since.