Green Lantern #18

The most powerful weapon in the universe and these chumps use it to make swords and flails.

Hal Jordan and Sinestro have been stuck inside The Black Hand's Black Lantern Ring for a good space of time. That's about as accurate as I can be since I really don't know how much time has passed in the Green Lantern Verse since the Zero Issue. Or whenever they were sucked up. The issue before that? An Annual? Anyway, it's been a long fucking time. And now Simon Baz has joined them. I think that means they're counting on the cosmic squirrel to save their asses.

With Simon Baz now trapped inside The Black Hand's ring, things look pretty bleak for Hal and Sinestro.

Oh Sinestro! You're always so critical! If you're so perfect, why the fuck are you in The Dead Zone too?

From what I've seen, Simon Baz utilizes the ring even better than Sinestro and he's brand new at it. Once Sinestro sees what Simon Baz can do, he'll take all of the credit and forget about the fact that Hal Jordan got his chocolate in Sinestro's Power Ring even though it's the combination of these two Green Lanterns that enabled the ring to pick a person more suited to the job than either of them alone.

Although you'll never convince Sinestro of that fact. Or me, either, really. I never did like Hal Jordan.

Sinestro doesn't believe in the competency of anybody but Sinestro. So as soon as he realizes Simon Baz is wearing his old ring, Sinestro tries to take it. And either Sinestro's willpower is so powerful that he can withstand the blows from any Green Lantern ring or he's just simply unaffected by it due to some changes he made in his ring before he lost it. Sinestro just wades through anything Simon Baz can hit him with. Well, almost anything.

Well, you had to figure the gun would come in handy at some point before Steve Trevor and the JLA took it away from him.

Meanwhile the Space Squirrel B'dg that I keep disrespecting because he's so fuzzy and wuzzy and cute is busy making a bad ass stand against The Black Hand in the hopes of rescuing Simon from Black Hand's ring. How come I can't treat B'dg with the respect he deserves as a Green Lantern? Is it my fault half the Green Lanterns were created during the silliness of the Silver Age? They're never going to fit into the grim and gritty modern age stories! I mean, they will. But I won't accept it without kicking and screaming and pointing out how cute B'dg's widdle bwack eyes are and how fwuffy his widdle tail is!

Back in the ring, Sinestro's will is too strong to be killed by one bullet.

Sinestro's eyeball has some serious trust issues.

Dead Tomar-re graces everyone with a short book report on Volthoom since even Sinestro doesn't know who he is. But Tomar-re knows because millions of the dead people in the Dead Zone were killed by Volthoom and they just can't shut up about it. Volthoom was, of course, a mysterious explorer from an unknown time and an unknown place. He's probably from a time far in the future so that his actual origin never has to really be explained. But he traveled back in time to witness Krona witness the creation of the universe. Why didn't he just go back in time to actually witness the creation of the universe? I don't know! Maybe that was too dangerous! As it was, when he arrived and/or when Krona looked at The Big Goat.se, everything blew up and things went haywire and Volthoom suddenly had the power of the Emotional Spectrum. The Guardians saw his power and said, "Hey! Quit bogarting that fucking power, dude!" And Volthoom looked down on them and said, "No."

That sounds like a whole lotta hogwash!

After the lecture, B'dg's green light reaches in to pull Simon Baz free. But as he's leaving, he creates a duplicate ring for Hal Jordan so that he can escape as well. When did one of the powers of the ring become making duplicate rings? They've used that a number of times in this book and it just seems silly. And dangerous! If I were a Green Lantern, I'd just make thousands of rings to give out so I wouldn't have to patrol my gigantic, enormous, fucking crazy big sector of the universe all by myself. Or, you know, with just the one partner. Whatever the current protocol is.

But the ring doesn't go to Hal Jordan. Sinestro frightens Hal just a smidgen and the ring goes to Sinestro. But since Hal Jordan's destiny is to become the greatest Black Lantern ever, it's fitting that Sinestro escapes along with Simon Baz. But once they're free (thanks to the fuzzy wuzzy space squirrel!), Black Hand disappears into the ring himself. While wearing the ring. Oh shit! RECURSION ALERT!

RECURSRECURSIONALRECURSIONALERRECURSIONALERTTERTIONALERT!

So the ring was sucked inside the ring and the ring was not sucked inside the ring to be able to suck the ring inside the ring which sucked the ring inside the ring which wasn't sucked inside the ring while simultaneously being sucked inside the ring that wasn't sucked inside the ring that was sucked inside the ring.

end recursion alert

Now the only way out of the Dead Zone is for Hal Jordan to use the Black Lantern Ring. But he can't use it because he's still half-alive. Which means he needs to stop willing himself alive and commit suicide. And since he's going to be the best Black Lantern ever, get ta steppin', Hal!

Splat.

Green Lantern #18 Rating: +1 Ranking. It took about a year or so for me to finally feel comfortable with all of the Green Lantern history that was dragged along into the Reboot but now that I am, I'm enjoying this book a lot more. Plus Hal Jordan isn't the star!