Retro Comics are Awesome

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #59
March 1968
"Earth's Other Green Lantern"

I've been interested in reading Guy Gardner's first appearance for some time, and thanks to the fact that it's been reprinted in the GL 75th anniversary book, I've finally been able to. It's not quite what I expected. It's another "what if..." storyline, though it's fairly significant since Gardner will go on to be an important character.

Hal is on Oa, talking with the Guardians, who show him one of their machines that is able to record the last thoughts of a Green Lantern before they die. They allow him to view Abin Sur's last moments of life, and it is revealed that Abin's ring actually found two men worthy of being a Green Lantern: Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner. Abin Sur picks Hal since he's closer and time is of the essence. This intrigues Hal, and the Guardians not only show him where Gardner is living, but also run a simulation that shows what would have probably happened if Guy had been given the ring.

Guy goes on to have a similar career to Hal Jordan, fighting many of the same enemies. Events diverge when he comes across a planet where all the adults have died due to a disease, but the children live on though arrested in age and mental development. If you've ever seen the Star Trek episode "Miri" (which aired around the same time this issue was published... coincidence?), it's much the same setup. Only in this case, the children are fighting a war using robots, and they have enough mental abilities to be able to control Guy for a time. He finally breaks free and helps them end their war. Guy returns to Earth, but he too has contracted the disease, and as he is dying, he sends his ring out to seek a replacement. The ring chooses Hal Jordan, of course.

The simulation over, Hal gets permission from the Guardians to visit Guy when he returns to Earth, and the two of them hit it off, becoming friends rather quickly. They part ways with Hal convinced that he'll see Gardner again. I'm not sure when Guy actually turns up for his next appearance. I know he's briefly in John Stewart's first story, where his injuries make the Guardians decide that Hal needs a new backup, but presumably Guy appears somewhere in between those two issues. I don't know.

I continue to be convinced that it was Denny O'Neil who made the Guardians into the arrogant and sometimes hostile custodians of the Green Lantern Corps that we've seen ever since. In this story, two years before O'Neil and Neal Adams began their run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, the Guardians of the Universe are still polite and indulgent when Hal is interested in their technology. They even smile, something you rarely see later on. Sparky and I have debated the characterization of the Guardians from time to time, and at this point I think it's fair to say that the Guardians are good bosses and administrators during the Silver Age, and become a lot harsher and less sympathetic with the advent of the Bronze Age and Denny O'Neil. If you've ever read his intro to GL/GA volume one, where he refers to cops as "crypto-fascists", you'll have no doubt where he's coming from when it comes to law enforcement and authority figures.

Continuity note: the Guardians removed Abin Sur's body from Earth where Hal had buried it and interred it in the crypt on Oa. That will be contradicted in later stories.

Overall: a story that's only really significant because Guy Gardner would go on to be a major character in years to come. There's nothing terribly distinctive about him in this story, other than the fact that he's one of the few redheaded characters around. He wears a uniform identical to Hal's, and generally behaves in a selfless and heroic way. He's nothing like he will later become, the "gung ho" jerk who talks a good game but can't back it up, as he was in the 80s, before settling down a bit in the 90s and 2000s.

[andersonh1]

How does the Green Lantern volume balance out character appearances? Not as well as the Flash volume did, and Kyle definitely gets short shrift.

All American Comics #16 - 1st appearance of Alan Scott - Alan Scott
Comic Calvalcade #6 - 1st appearance of the modern Green Lantern oath - Alan Scott
Green Lantern vol. 1 #30 - 1st appearance of Streak - Alan Scott
Showcase #22 - 1st appearance of Hal Jordan, Abin Sur - Hal Jordan
Green Lantern vol. 2 #7 - 1st appearance of Sinestro - Hal Jordan
Green Lantern vol. 2 #11 - 1st appearance of the Green Lantern Corps - Hal Jordan
Green Lantern vol. 2 #16 - 1st appearance of Star Sapphire - Hal Jordan
Green Lantern vol. 2 #40 - 1st appearance of Krona, origin of the Guardians - Hal, Alan
Green Lantern vol. 2 #59 - 1st appearance of Guy Gardner - Hal, Guy Gardner
Green Lantern vol. 2 #76 - 1st Denny O'Neil/ Neal Adams issue - Hal Jordan
Green Lantern vol. 2 #87 - 1st appearance of John Stewart - Hal, Guy, John Stewart
Green Lantern vol. 2 #180 - Hal, John
Flash vol. 1 #237, 238, 240 - 1st appearance of Itty - Hal Jordan
Justice League #1 - Start of Justice League International run - Guy Gardner
Green Lantern vol. 3 #50 - 1st appearance of Kyle Rayner, end of "Emerald Twilight" - Hal, Kyle Rayner
Green Lantern vol. 3 #51 - 1st appearance of Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern - Kyle Rayner
Green Lantern/Green Lantern #1 - Kyle teams with Alex Dewitt - Kyle Rayner
Green Lantern; Rebirth #1 - Hal, Kyle, Guy, John, Alan
Green Lantern Secret Files #1 "Flight" story - Hal, Kyle
Green Lantern vol. 4 #0 - 1st appearance of Simon Baz - Simon

Alan - five appearances
Hal - thirteen appearances
Guy - four appearances
John - three appearances
Kyle - five appearances
Simon Baz - one (one too many... why was this guy even included?)

The Flash 75th book balanced out the four main characters to use that identity better than this book does with the Green Lanterns. Did we need Streak or Itty's first appearance? Yeah, it's nice to see both get some attention, but at the expense of Kyle, who had a 10 year run as GL, but who only gets two full stories of his own from that decade, along with his cameo at the end of Emerald Twilight? John Stewart fans fare even worse, with only his already frequently reprinted first appearance, an issue from the early 80s and GL Rebirth #1. I think this is one case where the book was simply too short to do justice to all of these characters. It hits a lot of high points, but could have hit a few more.

[Sparky Prime]

Simon Baz - one (one too many... why was this guy even included?)

He might be new, and hasn't shown up in many stories since his introduction, but he is still a Green Lantern of Earth. Including Streak and Itty in the book seems really odd to me when they could have used that space to show other more well known GL characters/issues.

[andersonh1]

Simon Baz - one (one too many... why was this guy even included?)

He might be new, and hasn't shown up in many stories since his introduction, but he is still a Green Lantern of Earth.

I think Simon may well have been intended to be bigger than he ended up being, for whatever reason. If the rumors that John Stewart was going to be killed off are true, maybe Simon was going to replace him. But with John still around, and four other Lanterns from Earth, Simon is a fairly redundant character.

Including Streak and Itty in the book seems really odd to me when they could have used that space to show other more well known GL characters/issues.

I'm glad both characters were included, but this is definitely a collection that could have benefited from some extra pages so they could have included a few more stories for Kyle and John. There are just too many Green Lanterns to include more than a handfull of key stories for all of them with the number of pages these books are apparently given. Still, it is a good collection for a Green Lantern fan.

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #50
Emerald Twilight part 3 - The Future

I remember distinctly when this issue was published. It's inclusion in this collected edition puts it in context with the larger volume of Green Lantern history, and a few things jump out in hindsight.

- The inclusion of Sinestro in the story really is out of left field. Apart from an issue of Mosaic in which John Stewart was supposedly possessed by the deceased Sinestro's spirit, this is the first time the character had been seen in six or seven years. He's treated as Hal's arch enemy, which he certainly had been in the past, but the character had largely been left by the wayside. And after this, he would turn up a few times in the Hal Jordan Spectre series, but It would take Geoff Johns to really turn him into a major character, another 10 years down the road.
- All of that underscores how thrown together this storyline was. There's no buildup to Sinestro's return at all. He's just there because the Guardians needed him to stop Hal, who fights him and then snaps his neck.
- This goes on to demonstrate how this story was written with an end result in mind, rather than growing naturally out of earlier storylines. The end goal was to get rid of Hal and usher in Kyle, and so the Guardians behave in inexplicable ways. Rather than send a large group of Green Lanterns after Hal, they send them one at a time to be defeated. Rather than simply drain his ring of power, as they'd done to John Stewart earlier in the series, they stand by and watch as he goes on his rampage, killing both Sinestro and Kilowog. And they do nothing to stop him entering the central power battery. Even Ganthet, who protests, doesn't actually do anything to stop Hal. There's a bit of meta commentary in Hal's dialogue as he tells them, tears running down his face: "You can't stop this. Neither can I." All the characters are at the mercy of editorial.
- Alas, poor Kilowog. He's killed when Hal literally burns the flesh from his bones with his GL ring.

It's a testament to the elastic nature of these characters and the possibilities inherent in comic book storytelling that Geoff Johns was able to rehabilitate the character of Hal Jordan after he'd been so completely and deliberately ruined by DC editorial at the time, who were apparently determined to be sure that no one thought this was a temporary stunt. And in changing the nature of Parallax, Johns was able to build his whole concept of the emotional spectrum, which fueled his 9 years as writer. It just goes to show that you never know what tiny seeds a writer can use to build a story.

[Sparky Prime]

I think Simon may well have been intended to be bigger than he ended up being, for whatever reason. If the rumors that John Stewart was going to be killed off are true, maybe Simon was going to replace him. But with John still around, and four other Lanterns from Earth, Simon is a fairly redundant character.

Yeah, I think they'd intended Simon to be bigger as well. I'd be interested to know what happened behind the scenes with the character. It seems like after the Trinity War storyline, they didn't really know what to do with him seeing how he's only appeared in one or two storylines since then.

It's kinda interesting, since Simon was introduced most of the other Earth Lanterns have gone through changes... Kyle became a White Lantern, Guy became a Red Lantern, and currently has both a Red and Green ring and Hal has become a renegade. Really Simon and John are the only two strictly Green Lanterns from Earth right now.

[andersonh1]

The Spectre #16
June 2002
J.M. DeMatteis, Norm Breyfogle

I only have five issues of the Hal Jordan/Spectre series that ran in the early 2000s. I pulled them out last night and sat down to read a few, and realized why I only have five issues: this series employs a very strange, very stream of conciousness type of storytelling, and Hal Jordan is a bad fit for the character of the Spectre. Sure, trying to turn the Spectre from a spirit of vengeance to a spirit of redemption as Hal tries to atone for his actions as Parallax is a sound idea, so I'll give DC credit for the concept. It's an attempt to do what DC is currently doing with Dick Grayson: moving a character from a traditional super hero comic into another genre entirely. Norm Breyfogle remains one of my favorite artists, and it goes without saying that his art is excellent. It goes a long way towards redeeming a very odd storyline that really is hard to follow without knowing what happened in earlier issues.

The book draws heavily on Hal's past as Green Lantern, both in the way his costume as the Spectre blends the classic cape and hood with the Green Lantern uniform. And in this issue, Hal is out in space trying to help a planet, while his past as Green Lantern is heavily referenced. There are three plots running concurrently: Hal/the Spectre's dealing with some energy beings (who take the form of the Hal's dead Green Lantern friends), Hal's niece learning the same type of cosmic travel that the Spectre is capable of (or something), and the sprit of Abin Sur heading back to Ungara, after having spent some time with Hal. This is not a self-contained story by any stretch of the imagination. It picks up from previous issues and continues in future issues. It's not a very compelling narrative, and it's largely down to the writing. DeMatteis employs a style that relies on random comments, lots of cuts back and forth between plotlines, and a main character who is carried along by events rather than being proactive. The writing is very random for the sake of being that way. Maybe that was felt to be appropriate for a character like the Spectre.

Looking ahead to future issues that I have, I know that one deals with Abin Sur, and the other three have a cosmic villain resurrect Sinestro after Hal killed him, only for the Spectre to send him to Hell or something. I think Geoff Johns was hoping no one would remember this story when he brought Sinestro back for Green Lantern Rebirth, because they really can't be reconciled easily.

[Shockwave]

Masters of the Universe mini comic collection. This compiles all of the mini comics that came with toys. Ever. Like, any He-Man toys that had them included, even the ones from the recent Classics line. I've just read the first few pages but it's already interesting to see how different the concept was in it's beginning from the cartoon and even later comics. Instead of being the alter ego for an Eternian prince, he was a warrior for a tribe of jungle people. A sorceress gives him the armor and weapons after he rescues her from a beast.

That's about as far as I've got. There are some referrences to Castle Grayskull and other franchise maiostays, Skeletor and Beast Man and Teela have already made an appearance but I'm interested in seeing how this evolves to match up with the cartoon, if it ever actually does. Artwork is pretty decent, writing, art and other credits are listed where available but some issues are unknown.

[andersonh1]

Masters of the Universe mini comic collection. This compiles all of the mini comics that came with toys. Ever. Like, any He-Man toys that had them included, even the ones from the recent Classics line. I've just read the first few pages but it's already interesting to see how different the concept was in it's beginning from the cartoon and even later comics. Instead of being the alter ego for an Eternian prince, he was a warrior for a tribe of jungle people. A sorceress gives him the armor and weapons after he rescues her from a beast.

That's about as far as I've got. There are some referrences to Castle Grayskull and other franchise maiostays, Skeletor and Beast Man and Teela have already made an appearance but I'm interested in seeing how this evolves to match up with the cartoon, if it ever actually does. Artwork is pretty decent, writing, art and other credits are listed where available but some issues are unknown.

That sounds like a great little collection. I'd enjoy seeing all the Transformers pack-in comics over the years collected, though I suspect there have been far fewer of them, so it might not be a viable project.

[andersonh1]

The Spectre #21-23
"The Resurrection of Sinestro"

To get in the proper frame of mind for this story, we have to go back to before all of Geoff Johns' retcons from GL Rebirth in 2004. There was no fear entity because Hal Jordan really was Parallax, and he really did kill Sinestro rather than a Parallax created construct. This story takes the events of Emerald Twilight and runs with them as originally written. Hal died during Final Night, so he's dead, he's become the Spectre, and he's trying to redeem rather than punish. His older brother Jack and sister in law Jan were killed by a being named Monsieur Stigmonus, so Hal is raising his niece Helen with the help of Materna Minxx, a woman with some kind of supernatural powers. Oh,and for whatever reason, the Hal Jordan Spectre fractures himself into hundreds of fragments, so various different versions of himself exist all around the universe.

Stigmonus feels a lot like the type of character that Grant Morrison might have created. He's a white humanoid with a yin yang symbol in his forehead, and his purpose as a villain seems to be to embody gloom and despair as an opposite number for Hal Jordan's Spirit of Redemption. Stigmonus finds whatever is left of Sinestro's corpse after Kyle destroyed Oa and reunites his spirit with his body, which takes some time to reform into Sinestro's familiar appearance. He keeps goading Sinestro, wondering where his rage and will is, with the end goal of using him to attack the Spectre. Meanwhile Hal has been checking up on a married Carol Ferris, and he misses being human. He unwittingly creates an alternate reality where he's human, married to Carol with a family. He's completely forgotten that he's the Spectre and lives a happy life with all his family still alive.

Sinestro has been given his yellow ring by Stigmonus. He goes to the Spectre's home and attempts to find him, only to be nearly killed by one of the Spectre's aspect/other selves. Stigmonus mocks him, and then reveals that he's given Sinestro the power to be an opposite number to the Spectre and to have power nearly equal to his. Sinestro finds Hal, still in his delusion and unaware of who he is, and wreaks havoc using his newfound powers. It's not enough, and in the end Hal reclaims his role as Spectre, and after offering Sinestro a chance at redemption, sends Sinestro back to Hell as Sinestro demands. He talks with Stigmonus and tries to find out why he did all of this, but Stigmonus refuses to answer, only saying that he's planted seeds for the future.

The most interesting thing about this story in retrospect is trying to make it fit with everything that was revealed in Green Lantern Rebirth about Parallax. It's necessary to assume that Parallax (the entity, not Hal) is powerful enough to fool both the Spectre and Stigmonus, and to reach beyond the grave to do so. Or else Stigmonus was just as delusional as Hal was in this story. Or maybe Geoff Johns just decided to paper over the problems of continuity and move forward with the story he wanted to tell, which was probably the best approach. I think this whole series is something of a massive character derailment and dead end for Hal Jordan, who honestly never feels like himself in any of the five issues that I've read. Rather than confident and willfull, he's constantly experiencing self doubt and confusion about his role in the universe. I can see why I didn't stick with this series, and it was probably just the follow up from Emerald Twilight that interested me enough to buy this storyline.

Even though this sequence of events was retconned away, it's worth noting that Jack Jordan is still dead, so that's one result of this series that remains in continuity. I do wonder what happened to Helen, Hal's niece. Hal's younger brother and his family are still in continuity, but I think his niece has been forgotten.