DC has been hitting a lot of milestones lately, with 1940 being a huge year for character debuts. Although we’ve seen some Bat-villains highlighted so far this year, the biggest character to get the anniversary treatment is Green Lantern. More than just one hero, the Green Lantern name has been attached to literally hundreds of characters over the past 80 years, and DC takes the time to celebrate a great lot of them in this clunkily titled “80th Anniversary 100 Page Super Spectacular.” As bad as the title is, the issue works well for most of the stories, which we’ll tackle one by one. Let’s dig in.
Dark Things Cannot Stand the Light
Written by James Tynion IV
Illustrated by Gary Frank
Colored by Steve Oliff
Lettered by Tom Napolitano
The first story in the book, rightly, focuses on the Golden Age Green Lantern, Alan Scott. Scripted by James Tynion IV, the story acts as a bridge between a number of more recent stories, though set at the start of his career. Tynion weaves elements from “Doomsday Clock” (aided by “Doomsday Clock” artist Gary Frank), James Robinson and Nicola Scott’s 2012 “Earth 2” series, and a story by Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch in “Wonder Woman” #750 into a story that both retcons the ‘classic’ Alan Scott as being gay, and also cements his place in the history of the DC Universe.
Tynion does a good job with a script that hints at Scott’s homosexuality in overt ways but, in keeping with the 1940s setting, never exactly comes out and says it. Frank draws both Scott and his conversation partner, the mother of his deceased lover, as being very apprehensive around each other, though both are clearly reaching for a connection to their lost loved one. The story doesn’t have a ton happen in it, but it helps to remind everyone of where the DC heroes started.
It appears that the JSA are no longer off limits, and it’s going to be interesting to see how they handle other aspects of Scott’s history that are a little harder to simply retcon, like his children, or how editorial will handle the long layoff between appearances. This is a nice start to the re-establishment of Scott into the DCU, even if the story isn’t exactly chock full of import.
Last Will
Written by Geoff Johns
Illustrated by Ivan Reis
Colored by Alex Sinclair
Lettered by Rob Leigh
The most iconic modern Lantern scribe is Geoff Johns, who brought the Silver Age GL, Hal Jordan, back from the dead in “Green Lantern: Rebirth.” Johns, alongside his frequent collaborator Ivan Reis, tells a heartfelt Hal story about a mistaken location. While Johns does a few weird things, in terms of making a bigger deal of the Hal/Bruce Wayne friendship instead of focusing on Barry Allen or Oliver Queen, the story is short and sweet and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
More than anything, it is impressive for Johns showing more of a sense of humor about Hal than he did in most of his 100ish issue run on the character. Johns’s Hal is never exactly humorless, but he’s not someone who was written for yuks an awful lot. The twist at the end is a very funny moment, and allows the emotion of the prior pages to turn into laughter. Reis gets to draw just about the entire Green Lantern Corps and a good chunk of JLAers also, but the story lacks the bombast that Reis is so often known for.
The Meaning of Fear
Written by Cullen Bunn
Illustrated by Doug Mahnke
Colored by David Baron
Lettered by Carlos M. Mangual
It wouldn’t be a Green Lantern anniversary issue without a Sinestro story, but it isn’t a very good one, sadly. Sinestro is one of the more nuanced characters in the DC Universe, but this story retells his origin for the umpteenth time and highlights all the wrong parts of his character. Cullen Bunn and Doug Mahnke both have a history with the character, but they decided to focus on the Yellow Lantern Sinestro instead of the Green, which seems like a mistake for what this issue is, especially since it doesn’t pit Sinestro against Hal, his arch-nemesis.
Continued belowThe yellow ring doesn’t necessarily mean that the story can’t have layers, but instead of using the book to give Sinestro a chance to make his case for his brand of justice being superior, Bunn undercuts it by having him kill a stray Green Lantern, just because he’s a GL. It’s poor writing that Mahnke’s art can’t overcome. This story does nothing to highlight Sinestro as Hal’s foil, nor as his earlier glory as a Green Lantern, or even his leadership of the Sinestro Corps. It takes the laziest possible approach, and it shows.
Time Alone
Written by Denny O’Neil
Illustrated by Mike Grell
Colored by Lovern Kindzierski
Lettered by Clem Robins
This would be a tough story to review under normal circumstances, as it is so clearly built upon a nostalgic era of comics, but this story is essentially impossible to review now that Denny O’Neil has left us. This is a tale set during the classic “Green Arrow/Green Lantern” run, illustrated by the legendary Green Arrow artist Mike Grell. This is the story in the book that is most tapping into the past without commentary, and is simply presenting a story from a bygone time.
Grell does solid work here, though it isn’t exactly what I think of when I reminisce about his “Green Arrow” work, as the colors don’t exactly match the classic palette, but neither does the subject matter Grell more commonly illustrated. This assignment clearly came because Neal Adams was too busy to illustrate the story, and Grell does a fine job, even if it doesn’t necessarily highlight his strengths.
Legacy
Written by Ron Marz
Illustrated by Daryl Banks
Colored by Hi-Fi
Lettered by Josh Reed
Kyle Rayner is my favorite Green Lantern, and this story, by his creators Ron Marz and Daryl Banks, is a celebration of the ‘lost years’ of the Green Lantern Corps. There is metatext that is barely under the surface, of Marz saying to the reader “everyone may have moved on from Kyle, but he is an incredibly important piece of the GL mythos.” One of the best parts of the Geoff Johns run on “Green Lantern” is that Johns would remind you, periodically, that Kyle was the reason that everything was able to return. Marz and Banks use a fun premise – bring the old Warriors bar mementos to Oa – to show Kyle not just as a lantern of the past, but a reliable member of the present, too.
Banks gets to do what he does best, which is drawn Kyle’s incredibly creative constructs, and allow the artistic spirit to flow from his ring. The story manages to feel both apiece with the original run and a commentary on it, and is, perhaps, the most accurate representation of any of the past stories. This is no doubt due to the original creative team being together again, but also because Kyle’s legacy hasn’t really changed much in the past 25 years. There have been some slight detours, but he remains same as he ever was: a compassionate artist who just happens to be a ring bearer.
Heart of the Corps
Written by Peter Tomasi
Penciled by Fernando Pasarin
Inked by Wade von Grawbadger
Colored by Gabe Eltaeb
Lettered by Rob Leigh
Peter Tomasi has done some great Green Lantern stories in the past. This is not one of them.
There’s almost nothing else to say about this story, other than it fails at being either a Guy Gardner story or a Kilowog story, and it takes two of the Lanterns with the most easily identifiable personalities and somehow makes a story so bland I completely forgot I read it, and had to go back and read it again.
The Guy stuff plays slightly better than the ‘Wog stuff does, but both hint at their personalities, but obstruct them for reasons I can’t really suss out. The point of the story, ultimately, is to give Kilowog a moment of appreciation in his sorrow, but his sorrow seems like crankiness, and the appreciation seems forced. Fernando Pasarin does all he can with this dreck, but it’s a real shame that two long tenured GLs got done so dirty.
Continued belowReverse the Polarity
Written by Charlotte Fullerton McDuffie
Penciled by Chriscross
Inked by Jordi Tarragona
Colored by Luis Guerrero
Lettered by Steve Wands
This, along with the Denny O’Neil-penned piece, is the one that most clearly pays tribute to creator more than character. This John Stewart and Hawkgirl story is a love letter, almost literally, to Dwayne McDuffie, who was instrumental in getting John to be an entire generation’s Green Lantern in Justice League. McDuffie’s widow, Charlotte, does a fine job with the story, slight as it is. Chriscross also manages to evoke the tone of the animated series, even though he’s not at all trying to mimic the art style.
The story isn’t exactly Eisner-bait, but it’s solid enough and gives two McDuffie favorites a chance to share the spotlight. McDuffie deserves a ton of credit for the popularity of the Green Lantern as a concept, and it’s nice to see DC recognize that in this special.
Four
Written by Robert Venditti
Penciled by Rafa Sandoval
Inked by Jordi Tarragona
Colored by Ivan Plascencia
Lettered by Dave Sharpe
This story, by noting his absence, gives Guy Gardner a much better tribute that the earlier Tomasi-penned story. Written by primarily Hal scribe Robert Venditti, this story is about the four Earth Lanterns of the pre-New 52 era, Hal, Guy, John, and Kyle. It’s a sweet story that’s payoff is telegraphed from the first page, but it shows the brotherhood of the Lanterns, which was a cornerstone of the late Geoff Johns era.
Rafa Sandoval draws old Kyle like a creepy weirdo, but for the most part does a fine job with the story, which features action packed flashbacks within the quiet framing sequence. Sandoval’s strengths often lie in his ability to make those large setpieces look unique, and his layouts in those sequences do a fine job of doing exactly that.
I still don’t get Kyle’s look, but that’s ok.
The Voice
Written by Mariko Tamaki
Illustrated by Mirka Andolfo
Colored by Arif Prianto
Lettered by Gabriela Downie
The book ends with a story apiece for the ‘newest’ Earth GLs, the first of which is focused on Jessica Cruz. Cruz is a great character that, unfortunately, is often shorthanded to ‘the one with anxiety.’ Tamaki and Andolfo skirt very close to this line throughout the story, but manage to avoid falling into full stereotyping mode. The MacGuffin is a knife Jessica is washing, and the story works well with that as its centerpiece.
Like all of these tales, this is a short story, without a ton of room for development or growth, so there winds up being a lot of the same beats being hit that we see in many Cruz stories, but Andolfo’s art goes a long way to making the story more enjoyable. I’d love to see this team do more with the character, because there are the seeds of a fun book here. We also see Simon Baz here, as he is a more or less constant presence in Jessica stories, though that isn’t always true in reverse, as we’ll see in our final story.
Homegrown Hero
Written by Sina Grace
Illustrated by Ramon Villalobos
Colored by Rico Renzi
Lettered by Andworld Design
As anxiety is to Jessica, Islam is to Simon Baz. Sina Grace does a nice job at showing the faith at the center of Baz’s life, even if the well-trod path of Simon stopping a white nationalist from killing some Muslims is present, as it has been in a number of Baz stories. The difference here is that Grace takes the conversation a step further, and talks about some of the systemic roots and false information of their movement.
It also helps that Ramon Villalobos draws the story, as he’s one of the best artists working today, and adds enough unique features to the various characters to make them all more visually interesting than the supporting cast often looks in stories like this. I also like the way that Villalobos draws Baz’s constructs; they fall somewhere between Kyle Rayner’s unexpected shapes and John Stewart’s methodical designs.
Overall, this is a solid celebration of the Green Lantern family. These tend to be conservative memorials, which don’t ask the reader to do too much other than read and enjoy, and this follows suit, but it has enough good stuff in it that it justifies the price. Here’s to 80 more years (at least).
