Only two parts left in
the 7 part "Secret Origin" now, let's dive right in.
We begin with a young
William Hand in what appears to be the Hand family mortuary
(and learn that death is literally the family business),
looking rather oddly at a body-bagged corpse before being
shooed away by his mother. She asks why he can't be a good
Christian like his brothers -- whom we actually saw back in
1964's GL Vol. 2 #29... we don't see them here, but they
sure didn't approve of his activities at all then (so I kind
of appreciated the story here as a nod to that) -- and young
William asks in a pretty sordid manner that he doesn't know
why.
Creepy. Is he already
the host to the Death/Black equivalent of Willpower/Green
(Ion) and Fear/Yellow (Parallax)? It seems like it. In fact,
a later scene where we catch up with Atrocitus after he'd
massacred a gun store, he flat out says that William Hand is
"its host" in reference to "this power of the Black."
Back to where we left
off with Hal and Hector. Hector is tormenting Hal, doing his
best to give him a mental screwjob and payback (in his mind)
for Carol.
At this point there's
really no question to GL fans -- Hector Hammond is
absolutely tapping into the Orange/Greed color of the
emotional spectrum here. He is able to make what would
otherwise be ring creations with his mind... all of a very
distinct orange color.
The orange shirt a
couple issues ago, the bit last... yeah, the writing has
been on the wall. Very intriguing, and we are left to assume
that Hector is about to play a big role in the Orange
Lantern Corps when GL returns to the present following
Secret Origin. Pure fan speculation, but some evidence
points to Hector possibly playing host to the Orange entity
and subsequently... creating the entire Orange Lantern
Corps (meaning, the whole Orange Lantern Corps would be
ring-creations, possibly).
Hal protects Carol a
bit before Sinestro rather promptly disarms Hector by
creating a bubble around Hector's head and sucking the
oxygen out. Very effective sequence, and it's always nice to
see well-thought out ringslinging like this play out. Going
back to the scene shown to us originally in the backup in
the Sinestro Corps Wars Special, Sinestro and Hal return to
Abin's grave to talk. This time, however, Hal's ring plays a
final message from Abin to Sinestro, and we learn a bit more
about the Prophecy of Blackest Night. Well, maybe not the
Prophecy itself... but it's a doozy.
We learn what the
"Massacre of Sector 666" was. Turns out when the Manhunters
had their day 3 billion years ago they actually massacred
every living being in the entire sector... of which there
were only five survivors -- the Five Inversions, of which
Atrocitus and Qull are members (oddly "Qull" is referred to
as his name here, when in the original Alan Moore tale we
were specifically told he was a Qull... we never
found out his name). Presumably -- and I bet the next issue
will delve into this a little -- these Five start the Empire
of Tears and cause the Guardians to wage their war against
them, ultimately leading to their imprisonment on Ysmault.
But wait... weren't we
told that -- along with the Guardians' big magic purge -- happened 4 billion years ago?
Holy shit, did Geoff just retcon a billion years away?
Heh, moving on...
Atrocitus, holding the
Black-outfitted device that Black Hand will one day use to
aid his life of crime (which may or may not indicate Geoff
intends to remove William's history as a proficient
inventor), stalks William Hand and chases him
through a cemetery, declaring that his insides "hold the
doorway to absolute Darkness." Sinestro and Hal show up and Atrocitus uses his device to suck out all the juice from
their rings... leveling the playing field.
As both Hal and
Sinestro's GL uniforms vanish... we see a very familiar blue
and black outfit Sinestro wore underneath. Nice touch.
Just for fun, let's
take a brief look at the first appearance of William
Hand/Black Hand from GL Vol. 2, #29.
