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The Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection 2000 (HC) 368 pgs.

These issues were previously collected in two more economical TPBs titled:
Green Lantern/Green Arrow: Hard-Traveling Heroes and
Green Lantern/Green Arrow: More Hard-Traveling Heroes as well as reissued as simply "volume 1" and "volume 2"
As well as a 7 issue deluxe format mini-series in the early 1980s which might be cheaper to track down in back issue bins or on eBay than the HC collection.

Written by Denny O'Neil (with Elliot S! Maggin). Drawn by Neal Adams. Inked by Dick Giordano, and Neal Adams, Frank Giacoia, Berni Wrightson, Dan Adkins.
Colours/Letters: various. Editor: Julius Schwartz.

Reprinting: Green Lantern (2nd series) #76-87, 89, Flash #217-220 (The Green Lantern back-up stories) (1970-1971)

Rating: * * * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: a few times over the years

Originally published in the early 1970s, this collaboration between Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams is considered a comic book milestone. O'Neil teamed Green (Hal Jordan) Lantern -- very much the squeaky clean, Silver Age good guy who sees right and wrong as clear cut -- with Green (Oliver Queen) Arrow -- who had evolved by this point into a hot tempered idealist, more familiar with life's inequalities. It was the establishment ring-slinger paired with the urban Robin Hood. Then he did something kind of unusual -- he sent them off into the heart of real world America.

"Relevant" comics weren't unusual at that time. Over at Marvel Comics, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four had long ago tackled racism, campus unrest and drug abuse, and Marvel had given the world ethnic good guys like the Black Panther, Joe Robertson and Wyatt Wingfoot. But at staid DC Comics, the winds of change blew a little more softly. As well, even Marvel hadn't gone the route of actually doing a run of stories where each adventure would revolve around social problems and moral dilemmas, either as allegories or by literally confronting the issue in a real world context.

Essentially Wojeck with super-powers (or Quincy for the later generation).

The initial story arc has the two Greenies, paired with one of the Guardians of the Universe, setting out to "find" America in a beat-up old pick up truck, confronting urban slums, Native rights and cults. Although the stars of the piece are the two super-heroes, the real impact is on the Guardian who, forced to come down from his lofty intellectual perch, undergoes a spiritual metamorphosis that leads to a bittersweet resolution. Along the way they team up with Green Arrow's on-again/off-again love, the Black Canary. Later stories drop the Jack Kerouac frame work, but continue to jump feet first into social issues. Some issues are what you might expect, disguising the issues in not-so-subtle SF parables and superhero trappings, most, though, are more literal. Though the stories are still, fundamentally, action-adventures, familiar costumed villains like Black Hand and Sinestro only crop up in a couple of stories, and space adventures only feature in three or four. And though the Guardians appear prominently in some stories, the rest of the Green Lantern Corps do not.

So what's the result, viewed all these years later?

Mixed, of course, but surprisingly strong. The stories are unashamedly heavy handed, and the result can be cloying and awkward, as characters break into political soliloquies, and issues are simplified so as to be crammed into twenty-odd pages. But the passion seems real, and the down and dirty willingness to grapple with big issues (most of which are, sadly, still relevant today) is, at times, well...damn intoxicating in its very audacity. At other times, the passion -- the anger -- is a bit disconcerting, suggesting maybe O'Neil was working through some personal issues, with the characters a bit too quick to relish fisticuffs (not that he's the first comic book writer who seems to be working out some pent up anger through his characters).

Sometimes O'Neil and Adams come across as middle-class white guys trying to explore issues they barely understand, writing Native Indian characters in awkward ways (calling white guys "palefaces" -- sure, the character means it to be ironic, but still...) or introducing substitute GL John Stewart as the stereotypical angry black man (at the same time, Stewart is actually a more interesting, dynamic character than he would evolve into years later when he would get his own stories). The infamous "drug" story here came on the heels of Marvel's Spider-Man drug story (reprinted in Spider-Man vs. The Green Goblin, reviewed in my Spider-Man section), but though O'Neil and Adams were supposed to represent the young, hip crowd, their tale seems a little more square, a little too preachy, when compared with middle-aged Stan Lee's Spider-Man story line. Theirs is also the more simplistic and easily resolved.

Other times, it may not be O'Neil and Adams who come across as naive and simple, but my own lack of understanding that may be exposed. In the story "Journey to Desolation" (GL #77), the heroes tackle a one-company town run by the despotic company owner whose goons are Nazi war criminals. When I first read it, I thought throwing in ex-Nazis was a bit overdone -- but years later, I read a news report about North American companies that really had employed ex-Nazis to break-up unions and the like. So maybe O'Neil knew more about these things than I did.

Particularly memorable stories include "No Evil Shall Escape My Sight" (#76), which kicked things off, the eerie "Peril in Plastic" (#84), "And Through Him Save a World" (#89) and others. Also noteworthy in this collection is the 1st appearance of John Stewart in #87 (as mentioned above), the drug story in which a high profile character is revealed to have a habit (#85-86), and a Green Arrow solo story that marked Elliott S! Maggin's first professional sale (possibly from #87 as well).

Surprisingly, what holds these issue-driven tales together is the characters. Green Lantern and Green Arrow seem remarkably real, and the complex dynamics of their relationship brings grounding to the piousness. Ideologically, the reader is expected to be more in sympathy with the Arrow, the passionate, two-fisted hippy (if you'll excuse the paradox) but as a person, the Lantern is more likely to evoke sympathy. Arrow's bull-headed, quick-to-anger temperament, his mercurial nature and his childishness, makes him fun and dynamic to follow, but Lantern is the guy you'd want to hang out with, if only because he's more level-headed. It's a character paradox that, perhaps more than the social issues themselves, gives the stories a richness and level of maturity.

Though O'Neil has gone on to more powerful positions, for a long time being editor of the entire Batman line at DC (a character he has claimed more affinity for than GL), in many respects, this stands as among the best writing of his career, for all of its heavy handedness.

Neal Adams' art is, of course, Neal Adams' art, and with his organic lines, realist faces, sinewy bodies, experimental panel arrangement, and mood, it superbly complements O'Neil's scripts. He had a particularly nice visual feel for both GL and GA.

The complete run of O'Neil/Adams stories is reprinted in the hardcover "Collection", and in the two volume Hard Traveling Heroes TPBs (minus #88, which was a reprint)...I think. One description I came across seemed to imply that #83 was also omitted, but I find that unlikely, particularly as it's a story that explains why GL's girl friend Carol Ferris is in a wheel chair for a couple of the other stories. Which brings up a side point. O'Neil has, on occasion, received some flack over his treatment of women characters. As a writer and/or editor he has been involved in the (temporary) depowerment of Wonder Woman, the death of Batwoman, and the crippling of Barbara (Batgirl II) Gordon. Here, Carol Ferris is crippled...and a character puts it on the level of suggesting it's kind of cosmic retribution for being too proud (GL's "punishment" for the same "crime" is that he has to realize the world is a more complicated place than he had hitherto acknowledged -- not exactly an equal penance, is it?)

The fall out from this run was, well, very little. Poor sales led to Green Lantern going on hiatus (which is why the final story line ended up a back-up feature in The Flash) and this kind of hard-hitting relevancy never really caught on with any other titles -- even when Green Lantern was resumed a few years later. O'Neil has occasionally cranked out an "issue" story over the years, but even his passion seems to have left him. Green Arrow continued as the hot-headed, chilly-eating, anti-establishment character for the next decade and some, but increasingly in an unconvincing way (in the hands of, perhaps, more conservative writers who didn't "get" the character's Leftist P.O.V.) before eventually being remodeled as a less impulsive, more right-wing character in the late '80s. And both Hal and Ollie were killed off in the 1990s (though both have been brought back in recent years).

Perhaps this run of stories reflects, not just an exciting period in comics, but in western culture, when people believed, not necessarily that they could change the world, but at least that they could give it a try.

Earlier in this review I mention anger. An interesting thought is raised examining the evolution of cover art -- though whether it reflects a change in comics, the world, or Neal Adams psyche, that's the question. Presented for your consideration is three exhibits, roughly a decade apart. The first is a black & white reproduction of the original cover from Green Lantern #76, in which the ideological conflict is presented in largely symbolic images. The next is from the 1983 reprint series, in which the conflict becomes more aggressively physical. The third is from the 1992 trade paperback. All are drawn by Neal Adams. 1970 cover - 1983 cover - 1992 cover. Make of it what you will.

This is a review of the stories as they were reprinted in the 1983 deluxe edition mini-series.

HC cover price: $__ CDN./$75.00 USA (Yikes!)

TPB original cover price per book: $15.50 CDN/$12.95 USA

Green Lantern: No Fear 2006 (HC & SC TPB) 160 pgs.

Written by Geoff Johns. Pencils by Carlos Pacheco, Ethan Von Sciver, Simone Bianchi. Inks by Jesus Mernio, Prentis Rollins.
Colours: Moose Baumann. Letters: Rob Leigh. Editor: Peter Tomasi.

Reprinting: Green Lantern (2005 series) #1-6, plus Green Lantern Secret Files #?

Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

This collects the first six issues -- along with Green Lantern Secret Files -- of the new Green Lantern series, featuring the newly ressurected, rehabilitated, and reinstated, Hal Jordan.

Hal was the alter ego of the character from the 1950s through to the early 1990s (save a period or two where he was replaced by John Stewart). Since Green Lantern wears a ring that gives him tremendous powers, it had been easy enough to shift who wears the ring. In the early 1990s, when DC was keen for "shocking" sales-boostin' gimmick stories, Hal went bad and eventually was killed, being replaced by Kyle Rayner. And though that character did well enough for a while, fandom has a long memory, and old time fans never quite gave up on seeing Hal brought back.

And he was, in the mini-series Green Lantern: Rebirth (which I below), which not only brought Hal back to life but also absolved him of most of the culpability for the things he did while bad (he wasn't himself).

The funny thing is, I gotta admit I'm a bit of a Hal Jordan fan. I never thought of myself as such, but when I look back through my comic collection, I realize I've amassed a fair number of GL comics -- from various Hal eras -- and many stand as some of my favourite runs of comics.

Though I like Hal, I had decidedly mixed feelings about Geoff Johns' Green Lantern: Rebirth, which attempted to reboot Hal for the modern generation. But once all that was over and done with, and Johns could now just focus on a monthly comic, things start out more sure footed. The initial three issue story arc concentrates on Hal trying to re-establish his civilian life in the newly reconstructed Coast City -- although "civilian" life is an odd description for it, as Hal decides to join the US airforce. While all this is going on, and Johns is introducing a new cast of supporting characters, a mysterious, homicidal android starts slaughtering its way across the countryside, heading towards Coast City faster n' you can say "hmmm, I wonder if this has any connection to Green Lantern's old foes, the android Manhunters?"

I had some qualms with the level of the violence in the story, as the android blows up busloads of innocent bystanders, and incinerates people in fairly gory detail, but that was a minor part of the saga. The art by Carlos Pacheco is bright and open, yet dynamic, and tells the scenes with clarity. The story isn't, perhaps, especially complex, but it's paced out well, with a few twists and turns, and appropriate cliff hangers between acts. Above all, Johns keeps the focus on character.

Granted, he tends to rely on exposition in place of demonstration, and his fixation on Hal being a heroic "man without fear" to the exclusion of much else means this isn't, perhaps, as well rounded, and as adult, a take on the character as we've seen in the past. Johns seems to belong to the school of thought that thinks to give a hero doubts or insecurities somehow demeans him.

Johns plays around with themes of courage vs. cowardice. It's not hard to read into discussions about Coast City -- which had been obliterated by an alien invader and is now being rebuilt -- a metaphor for the post-9/11 world. But ironically, the central concept of Hal bravely wanting to resume his life in Coast City contrasted with his brother's fear of moving back to the city, could easily be flipped on its head. Hal's obsession with recreating his old life reflecting a man afraid of change.

Bottom line, though: I liked the opening three-parter. Unfortunately, as much as I liked it...I was unimpressed with the next three-part story.

Here Johns seems to be channeling a few X-Files episodes in a story involving alien experiments -- in fact, I'd swear I've seen the opening scene before! The story involves old foes Hector Hammond, the Shark, and Black Hand. Green Lantern: Rebirth artist Ethan Van Sciver returns, and his style, though detailed in its realism, I find cluttered and overly dark, so that it's hard to quite tell what's going on.

And Johns' brutal excesses just get unleashed full tilt. I read somewhere that Johns' ressurrection of Hal was meant to herald a return to Old School heroism...well, Old School was never like this as Johns and Sciver just wallow in violence. When the key "action" scenes in issue #4 seem to involve Hal getting into a pointless mud wrestling (!) contest with fellow Green Lantern Kilowog, or slugging guys trapped behind bars and beating the crap out of Hammond -- a quadriplegic -- you know Johns' notion of heroism and mine are lightyears apart. I've read a couple of GL vs. Hammond stories from many years ago...and in neither one did the writer feel it appropriate for GL to assault a man who, after all, can't fight back on a physical level.

And it just goes from there as the Shark munches his way through swimmers (and we're treated to bloody limbs and a severed eye ball!) and Black Hand announces Hal'll be his twenty-third kill that day. Johns seems to be a one trick pony when it comes to villains: make them nastier and more sadistic than they ever were before -- though having Hammond go all Hugo Strange (a Batman foe if you don't get the reference) and develop a fixation on Hal was a potentially interesting touch.

The pacing just seemed -- off. I found this story arc just kind of...bland. I didn't really find myself interested in where it was headed, nor why, as it just gets cluttered with fight scenes and arch foes (Johns just shoe horning in villains like they do in Hollywood super hero movies). I found it visually confusing, particularly in the final chapter drawn by Simone Bianchi who has a beautiful, semi-photorealist style...but a weaker eye for storytelling, as where characters were in relation to each other was often confusing.

Another problem is just the familiarity of it all. Although Johns revamps Hal's civilian life, he then proceeds to trot out all the old foes (even if he and Van Sciver have radically altered them in personality and look -- I mean, when did Hammond's head get as a big as a wardrobe?). Personally, I'd have preferred the opposite. Return the familiar cast of Tom Kalmaku (a sympathetic Inuit character in a medium not exactly brimming with Inuit protagonists), Carol Ferris, etc. (particularly as the notion of GL as a de facto agent of the airforce just seems repetative, as he's already an agent of the Guardians of the Universe) -- but with new stories and imaginative threats. For that matter, why bring back old foes...if you're going to so mess with them they aren't really the same characters?

As noted, Johns trucks out a lot of themes -- sometimes seeming to sacrifice the needs of the character and the scene for the sake of symbolism. Of course, the problem with wanting to be taken seriously in some regards, is it kind of opens you up to all sorts of scrutiny. There's also a sexist undercurrent -- the modern take on Hal is as a cocky womanizer who sees every woman as a potential conquest...and instead of an immature character flaw, this is apparently supposed to make him cool (and who says comics are no longer written by, and for, dateless nerds?) And a special focus has now been given to GL's relationship to his dead father, while his late mother is, if anything, portrayed as something that was keeping him from being himself. This is nothing new in many comics, of course -- Batman's motivation is that both his parents were murdered, yet particularly in recent years, his focus often seems to be on the death of his father, with his mother more an abstract side issue.

There's also a curious contradiction in that Johns wants Hal to be the stereotypical rebel, who doesn't respond well to authority...then has it be that he desperately wants to re-enter the military, a profession all about deference to authority! (Not to mention that sort of runs counter to previous takes on the character where, as an agent of the Guardians of the Universe, he was one of the few super heroes who wasn't a rebel/free agent). This military-centric focus is also a bit off-putting, such as a sequence where a navy man and his girlfriend are found mutilated by the Shark...and GL and his military contacts seem to regard the civilian's death as barely an afterthought compared to the sailor's death.

Anyway, those are just random thoughts that came to me. But the bottom line is: I enjoyed the first three-part story...and pretty much didn't like the second three-parter. And as much as I kind of like the idea of seeing Hal Jordan back in action...Johns has left me somewhat on the fence and disinclined to follow the series -- at least while Johns is at the creative helm.

This is a review of the stories as they were first serialized in the monthly comic.

Cover price: __

Green Lantern: Rebirth 2005 (HC & SC TPB) 168 pgs.

Written by Geoff Johns. Pencils by Ethan Van Sciver. Inks by various.
Colours: Moose Bauman. Letters: Rob Leigh. Editor: Peter Tomasi.

Reprinting: Green Lantern: Rebirth #1-6, plus the short prologue from Wizard X (2004-2005)

Additional notes (at least for the hardcover edition): intro by Bard Meltzer; covers; original story proposal.

Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

So...with Rebirth DC Comics has now apologised to the fans.

Okay, so not really. It's just that they've brought back Hal Jordan as Green Lantern which is no small feet given that he was corrupted and dropped from being a Green Lantern in stories published back in the 1990s, was a murderer, died, and by this point his ghost was the new Spectre. For years old time fans complained about what happened to Hal -- not simply that he was killed, but essentially demeaned. And writer Geoff Johns works so hard to undo the last few years of continuity that it smacks of someone thinking those years had been a bad idea. And yet he does it without ignoring, or even disrespecting, what's occurred (other than current GL Kyle Rayner remarking "what the Hell were they thinking?" -- he's referring to the Guardians of the Universe but it's not hard to see it as a dig at previous writers and editors). Johns cherry picks through tumultuous events that turned Hal Jordan into a super villain and comes up with an explanation that actually absolves him (even making the grey temples Hal sported in the 1990s part of the puzzle).

And he does it without dissing Kyle Rayner, who is still alive and ring slinging by the end of this story.

Detractors of Rebirth denounced it as a product of old school fans who won't accept change...but aren't those detractors themselves just angry fanboys upset by this radical new change? Me -- I have no problem with bringing Hal back. I do, however, have some problems with Rebirth.

The solution itself gets top marks, incorporating various bits from GL history, making you almost believe it was intended all along, building to a big smackdown with an ancient malevolence -- introducing the idea of Parallax as a yellow fear entity (and beginning the whole colour scheme theme Johns would pursue in the subsequent monthly series). But it is true that Johns delivers almost a caricature of a fanboy re-boot, reassembling all the old toys, not just bringing back Hal, but essentially re-setting that bar across the board. So Guy Gardner loses his current powers so he can become a GL again, and even the long ago destroyed Coast City gets re-built (for reasons that, I'll admit, seem a bit vague). Johns even trying to create a sense of mythic resonance with Hal's old apartment building...when I'm not sure Hal actually had a signature address in the old comics (not like Superman and his 344 Clinton Street apartment, or Batman and Wayne Manor).

But the DCU, and the GL mythos, has become so convoluted, it kind of works against simply telling a clean story with a focus on the human drama as Johns piles on too many super characters -- from GLs like Hal, Kyle, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kilowog, to Green Arrow, the Justice League, and cameos by a bunch of others from the Justice Society and The Teen Titans.

Johns' crams paragraphs of psychoanalytical dialogue into characters' mouths, expressing his vision of who these people are -- but little of it sounds like what people would actually say. Defining characters in terms of testimonials more than simply portraying them, and some in pretty broad strokes. Batman is the usual one note hard nosed avenger he's been reduced to in recent years, and the incessant testosterone-driven pissing matches he and Hal get into are kind of tedious. Johns spends so much time telling us how great a hero Hal is, that he forgets to make us care about him as a person -- but maybe that's because it's hard to care about a guy whose defining characteristic seems to be that, gosh, he's perfect.

Johns tries hard to milk crowd pleasing scenes out of the action scenes, but they're so self consciously heavy handed they lose much effectiveness.

The art by Ethan Van Sciver has garnered a lot of praise, but didn't quite woo me. He has a dense, detailed style, but as a result, his (over-muscled) figures can seem a bit stiff, and awkward, the faces not especially subtle in their emotional nuances, the imagery a bit confusing (particularly in the action scenes), and his eye for composing a scene not the best.

The art is heavy on dark shadows and grim and oppressive colours, even though this was hyped as a rejection of modern "dark n' gritty" comics -- symbolized by grim Batman getting knocked on his ass with one punch by a "real" hero like Hal. The return of Hal -- and the other GLs -- is supposed to represent a return of "light" in the darkness. But Johns and Van Sciver's storytelling sensibilities are completely the opposite of that. In themes and imagery, this is a dark, nasty tale -- almost more a horror story than a super hero or sci-fi adventure -- full of grotesque imagery, exploding viscera, suppurating wounds, broken limbs, and more -- much of it instigated as often by Hal and the heroes as by the villains.

And this is something I've noticed with a lot of Johns' work.

Indeed, viewed one way, the creators of Rebirth seem to be exploring personal S&M fetishes for body piercing and mutilation that would be better left for late night prowls of underground clubs!

And Johns fumbles when dealing with the deeper issues that he clearly wants to pretend are at the heart of it all. Such as violence: Hal, unable to control the vengeful Spectre spirit (remember he'd been acting as the new Spectre previously), attacks old foe Black Hand and literally dissolves one of his hands to dust while Green Arrows looks on, piously appalled. Yet GA had just shot an arrow through that same hand himself! And as I say, excessive violence is a hallmark of the story, both in Johns' script and in Van Sciver's visuals. Johns also wants to play around with themes of individuality vs. respect for authority -- sort of suggesting it's bad to slavishly obey your "superiors"...even as the climax is based on Hal just saying "trust me" as he leads them into battle.

Maybe Johns idea of "old school" values has less to do with rejecting modern violence, than it does rejecting deeper characterization. When Hal vows, "No more soul-searching road trips", it seems Johns isn't just rejecting semi-recent events, but GL stories dating back decades to the classic "relevant" stories by O'Neil and Adams! (When Gerard Johns -- hey, another GJ writer! -- kicked off the early 1990s GL series, he also had Hal boasting that he was done with the navel gazing -- though Jones' run was heavy on the introspection regardless).

Johns' message seems to be real men don't have self-doubts...and they hit on anything with a skirt.

Awww...and who said comics weren't adolescent fantasy fulfilments anymore?

Johns maintains the post-Crisis take on Hal as a womanizer and babe magnet (which wasn't really the character originally). I dunno, man. People complain about comics being sexist for their penchant to feature underclad babes with big breasts (a few on display here, courtesy Van Sciver) but I can't help thinking glorifying a hero who seems to regard women as simply conquests to be made is sending an even worse message to readers. Should we read anything into the fact that despite Johns' rush to re-establish all the old icons, he doesn't seem as concerned about re-establishing Carol Ferris as the love interest (though that may just relate to my point about the emphasis on the costumes and the fantasy over the kitchen sink human drama). Likewise, it seems almost no one stays dead in GL comics anymore...except female GLs like Katma Tui and Arisia. Go figure.

I realize I've gone on a bit "analyzing" Rebirth, and reading (negative) sub-text into it...but, hey, if the story doesn't quite hold your attention, what else are you gonna do? In its favour, Rebirth is big and splashy, and once the action gets started, it's like a movie serial and doesn't really let up. But as I've indicated...that's kind of the problem for me. It's more about the noise and the pyrotechnics than about the plot. And the reason I harp on the themes and attitudes is because if you don't like the characters, or believe in them, or enjoy hanging with them, it's hard to care what happens to them.

The irony is, though I had never necessarily thought of myself as a huge GL fan growing up, I realize I kind of am -- that if you look through these reviews, you'll realize I give quite a number of GL TPBs high ratings (and I highlight a few uncollected story arcs on my They Ain't TPBs page)...but equally I give others kind of middling ratings. And maybe that's the thing...I like GL when he's done right (in my opinion) and get disappointed when he isn't. I've reviewed a couple of other Geoff Johns written GL TPBs but, I'm afraid, Johns' take on the character and his adventures just hasn't really clicked with me.

Cover price: __

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