"Emerald Dawn,
Take Two" begins here. If anyone's earned the right to take
a crack at doing one better/updating the last major attempt
at Hal Jordan's origin, it's Geoff Johns.
Here lies the first
chapter of which.
I'll get the negative
out of the way immediately, and it's not much. Well, it is
in a way, but not in the greater context -- the splash
pages. There's 5 splash pages in the issue, 5 pages out of
22 pages in the comic. Did we really need to sacrifice two
pages to have a single picture of Hal crashing the plane? A
single splash page of Hal sitting at the Air Force door? I'm
not so sure we did, but nothing new here in the Vol. 4 camp.
Moving on... the rest
of the issue is gold!
Literally, apart from
the over-splashiness and just the one moment with Little Hal
and Little Carol where Hal is like, "I'm not afraid of
getting in trouble, Carol!" (a little bit too on the nose,
now in a time where words like "afraid," "hate," "hope,"
etc. have all become veritable buzzwords in Green Lantern),
I can find no fault in this issue.
This is Geoff Johns'
writing on GL like I haven't seen it before. At least, not
in this sense to this degree within the course of a single
issue (obviously, in other arenas like JSA and possibly
Flash going back a few years, character pieces aren't alien
to the guy... we just haven't seen it so much on GL). It's
completely refreshing and great to see.
My kneejerk reflex is
to immediately compare and contrast this issue to 1989's
Emerald Dawn, the first real attempt at fleshing out
Hal's origin and earliest days en masse (well, or Showcase
#22 from 1959... but let's not go back quite that
far). Well, we're not quite there yet. While the exploding
of Hal's father's jet is seen right in the beginning of
Emerald Dawn, the rest is still mostly grounded before
the core events of Emerald Dawn take flight... so I
can't really judge which is the "better" course just yet.
Perhaps over the next couple of issues, as we move forward
in time a bit.
First meeting of Hal
and John Stewart. Well, the first meeting of Hal and John
Stewart now. I actually didn't have a problem with it at all
-- they meet in a bar, John sticks up for a buddy that may
be in the wrong, there's fists thrown, and it's over.
Surprisingly, it doesn't actually contradict 1971's GL Vol.
2 #87 at all, if you just assume that Hal doesn't recognize
him when he sees him in that issue (and why would he? he had
an afro there, was in civvies, and had lost some of his
build). This issue of GL actually works just fine as a sort
of prequel to that first meeting. Again, I'm all for the
Marine retcon as long as it's adapted around his existing
backstory... and not the other way around.
Geoff crafts a very
touching moment early on, then gives the payoff later with
Jim Jordan, Hal's brother. I won't necessarily spoil it, but
it involves a gift. Very solid writing, and I don't think
we've seen a moment like this from Mr. Johns on GL yet. This
is the kind of thing I would like to see if not on a regular
basis, then certainly once in a while.
Hal's mom, well, the
seeds of this particular plot thread were sown early on as
well. I have to admit I kind of saw where this thread was
going but that made it nonetheless worthwhile and effective
when we see where it ultimately ended up. My hat's off to
Mr. Johns here.
And the end... we see
one page with Abin Sur returning to Ysmault. I'd been
puzzling over the solicitations for a while now, at last it
begins to make sense. Well, if he's returning to
Ysmault and getting a bit more of the Prophecy, a lot more
that didn't make sense makes sense now... notably, the whole
business in the Sinestro Corps War Special with "a machine
head speaking of the 52" or whatever it was that was
supposed to be from the Alan Moore "Tygers" Prophecy yet
wasn't, originally. Now it all adds up and I'm eager as ever
to see where this goes.
As a footnote, I'll
add that this issue didn't need that last page with
the Blackest Night intrigue by any means... but it was a
nice bonus.
And Ivan Reis. Mike
McKone didn't drop a beat, but it's nice to see an
apparently well-rested Ivan back on the wheel. Some of his
best work here.
