Green Lantern Vol. 4, #30

Published April 30th, 2008
Writer : Geoff Johns
Penciller : Ivan Reis
Inker : Oclair Albert
Cover : Ivan Reis & Dave McCaig

Review by Andrew NDB
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We come now to "Emerald Dawn, Take Two" book two. Let's dig in!

We start off by catching up with Hal, now working as part of a ground crew for Arden Air. Right off the bat we spend about half a page on a moderate retcon... now, apparently, Hal never called Tom Kalmaku "Pieface" or "Pie." All right, fine, it's become something of a slur in our current day and time and probably Hal should never call him that. But actually stopping the story and taking a moment to go, "Now wait, Hal never called him that! Here, you see? He doesn't!" kind of makes me begin to wonder... what is Geoff Johns' true goal here: to tell the best Hal Jordan origin story he possibly can, or just to slowly go over a list of things he just wants to change/retcon from previous material and tie things to Blackest Night?

I don't want to hate on what he's doing here, but it seems like Geoff may be a little too concerned with the latter by this point (but we're only two issues out of six, and this is totally going to be an arc I want to judge after it's over and in hindsight as a whole). And Hal calling Tom "Asian"... I'm far from an expert, but aren't Eskimo people/Inuit all technically Native Americans? I know if you go back far enough they probably came over from Asia, but then if you're going that route, didn't we all come from Africa in the beginning? Those nits are a pickin', perhaps. We could've easily avoided the issue of "Does Hal still call Tom Kalmaku 'Pieface' back in the day" altogether (and just have left it up to the reader), is all I'm saying, and still been able to move forward in this story. It just wasn't that big of a deal until it was made such here.

Hal laments flying, and remembers his dad. A couple of weighty panels as the wreckage of Hal's dad's final ride is dragged by him. We get into Hal's head more about the original "Four Musketeers," his dad and his dad's flying buddies, one of which being Mr. Arden, whom Hal now works for.

We see Hal's reintroduction (as an adult now) to Carol Ferris, as Arden Air is about to be sold to Ferris. It's played pretty straight-up, aside from the splash page used to make the moment seem more epic (it doesn't work, by the way, but Ivan can draw a mean curvy lady and he does Carol justice). There is a touching moment where Mr. Arden indicates that one of the conditions of the buyout was that Ferris keep Hal on board.

Hal going to his father's wrecked jet and sitting in it, I'm a little bit divided. On a quick read-through it didn't bother me at all and, yes, shows us a different side of Hal that we're generally ill-allowed to see otherwise in Vol. 4, and I kind of appreciate the symmetry as we see him there again as Abin Sur descends on Earth. But really... by this point, do we have to see Hal Jordan literally sitting in the cockpit of his dead dad's jet? He misses his dad, I get it (and the earlier page where the jet is dragged by him pretty much covered this)... why the redundant underscore? I'd rather see a little more attention to Carol, or more interaction... I don't know, something.

Switching gears and getting into Abin Sur and his story a bit, we see him ferrying Atrocitus from Ysmault to Earth to show him where (and how, I'm guessing) the Blackest Night gets spawned to thus prevent it. To summarize a bit, Abin Sur concedes he feels fear (even if he doesn't say it), Atrocitus frees himself, and we see the (new) reason that Abin Sur's ship crashed on Earth... and now we're presented literally with the killer of Abin Sur.

Just for fun, let's take a look back over twenty years to 1986 at Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #2 and how Alan Moore wrote these events happening:

This time, in 2008, he literally hears them laughing, doesn't he? Atrocitus was right next to him, apparently.

I only bring this up because I think it's worth mentioning that this was the same issue (and even the same tale) from Alan Moore that gave us the original Prophecy of the Blackest Night. It's interesting to me that Geoff would pick and choose to take something so completely as the Prophecy as depicted in this issue and same tale, yet alter the ending of the tale... but then I remember, "Wait, the whole thing with this story is that it's Sinestro telling it to a bunch of criminals and to impress the Mad God Sector... of course it might not be 100% true."

I do like Atrocitus there, I think. And it never really completely sat right with me that Abin Sur died just from his injuries from the crashed craft. Questions pop up, but the kind that you excuse because they're intrinsically part of a Untouchable Comic Book Character Origin Story, questions like, "Wouldn't Abin have just leapt out of his spaceship as he saw it beginning to crash?" "Back in the era where the rings were literally supposed to protect bearers from mortal harm, would his injuries really have been that serious?" Here Geoff gives us a pretty good, logical answer: because Abin was distracted by getting the crap beat out of him by Atrocitus the whole way down. Works for me.

And I think...

1) Sorry, Mr. Moore, but Atrocitus is cooler than a "yellow radiation girdle."

And, hell...

2) Sorry, Mr. Bright and Mr. Owsley... Atrocitus is way cooler than Legion, too.

To that end I really extend props to Geoff. A bit of stuff in the present brewing, a bit of stuff revealed here in the past... in short order, he's created from the ground up a damned compelling, badass GL villain. I look forward to seeing more of him.

By this point I can compare "Secret Origin" to "Emerald Dawn," as we are now well within the events in time that that arc covered. How does, say, GL #29 and #30 stack against Emerald Twilight #1? Overuse (abuse? I would dare to say so) of splash pages aside, very well! I was incredibly impressed by the exploration of Hal's younger years in #29, the relationship with his family, all of that. #30 doesn't do too much aside from provide us the "Hal gets the ring" sequence and provide a glimpse at his civilian life at Arden/Ferris Air. In these two issues, and especially this one, Hal is sharing space/pages with Abin Sur and his story, while Emerald Dawn #1 was all about Hal's story -- I'm not saying which take is "better" and I'm not even sure I really know. I can tell you that I like the Abin Sur bits... I like to see more dots connected between the Alan Moore tale and the Blackest Night that looms over GL like the Grim Reaper these days. But about the actual stories, the actual story-telling? Highly subjective. Just re-flipping through Emerald Dawn #1 now, there just seems to be so much more "going on" there, so much more depth and time allotted to the interaction of characters... the trouble with Emerald Dawn #1, though, is that most of the characters in it that aren't Hal, Carol, or Abin Sur aren't particularly interesting -- pound for pound, though, there is more story in Emerald Dawn #1 than either GL #29 or #30 alone. And not a single splash page... something you'll find an alarming, jaw-dropping seven of in GL #30 alone. Entire pages, just a single picture and minimal captions.

Don't know what to make of Hector Hammond popping up at the end. I'm intrigued.

Maybe I've beaten around the bush a bit with this issue. Do I like it? Yes, I am ready and eager to digest Part 3. Do I like it more than last issue? No, I think it's a bit of a step down in the character department. As cool and cinematically as a lot of the sequences are laid out here I felt the Carol-Hal stuff fell pretty flat but mostly because not nearly enough time was afforded to it (and here we are, already onto Hal as GL now). With seven splash pages that could have been converted into actual story, I don't think there's any excuse for it.

And c'mon, DC... white boots on Abin Sur and Hal Jordan in the arc that is supposed to redefine the origin of the definitive Green Lantern? I know Moose left some pretty big boots to fill, but hiring guys that at least know the basic colors of a GL uniform should kind of be a prerequisite.