Green Lantern #43

The problem with recruiting for an army based on willpower is that everybody has too much willpower to succumb to the recruitment pitch.

The Black Hand is currently having trouble recruiting for his own army, The Black Lanterns. The problem is he needs to touch a corpse to make it rise and fight for him but he currently has hands made out of Source Wall. That means everything he touches turns to Source Wall. It's like the story of how Jesus couldn't have sex because he'd turned his cock and balls into loaves and fishes.

I thought last issue was going to be an episode of The Twilight Zone and it turns out it was except the ending of the episode was the beginning of this issue! We learn that The Black Hand is super duper lonely and has been driven mad (I mean madder!) by his new power to turn everything into Source Wall. So the lesson we've learned once again from an episode of The Twilight Zone is to never go into space because you'll wind up lonely and being lonely is the worst thing in the world. Although if Rod Serling were still writing Twilight Zone episodes at the end of his life, I think more episodes would have been about heart disease being the worst thing in the world. Unless the worst thing in the world is incompetent surgeons performing heart surgery!

That was unfair to the surgeons who killed Rod Serling. It wasn't their fault Rod Serling clogged his arteries so that they had to open him up and perform heart surgery on him! And it's not their fault...probably...that he had a heart attack during surgery! It's also not their fault that Rod needed heart surgery before technology made the operation less risky! So I apologize to the surgeons who killed Rod Serling. I mean, the surgeons who stood around not saving Rod Serling's life while he had a heart attack during surgery. I mean, the poor doctors who did their best but couldn't save Rod Serling who probably smoked his heart into a shitty lump of hardened muscle.

Anyway, did I mention The Black Hand has decided to go back to Earth? That will be a problem!

Last issue, Billy Tan drew a rather boring double splash page and I really felt bad even mentioning it because I generally really like Billy Tan's work. But at least now I can say that Billy Tan's double splash page is forgotten due to Ethan Van Sciver's boring ass double splash page!

After seeing this, I really should apologize to Finch and Daniel. At least their double splash pages are well-drawn and aren't generally the back of the character with stupid fucking tools floating around and a Goddamned screensaver for a backdrop.

Hal puts his hand on The Little Prince's shoulder and says, "I realize you just lost everybody on your world but look at that view! Amazing, isn't it?! How can you not appreciate the beauty and splendor of this mysterious universe!" The Little Prince is refined enough to keep his stupid tears to himself.

Hal has brought his new gang to the Source Wall so he can have a chat with Relic. He leaves Krona's Gauntlet on board Darlene and leaves in a space suit he prepared for this encounter. He doesn't want to be recognized by Relic because Relic doesn't really appreciate Lanterns. The meeting calls for another double splash page which sparks a theory in my brain! I bet Robert Venditti was quite a few months ahead in his scripts for Green Lantern when DC Comics told him they would be increasing the page count by two! So he probably just instructed the artists to fill up the extra pages by enlarging smaller panels from his script! Previous to last month, I don't remember any of Venditti's Green Lantern books having double page spreads. But then, I probably shouldn't trust my own memory because it is awful.

Also what comes with great age is greater and greater belief in your bigotries and your biases.

Relic tells Hal about that time The Black Hand touched the Source Wall and freed a bunch of creatures fused to it (himself included, I think. Remember that thing about my memory?!). Relic also mentions that The Black Hand flew off with stone hands. While Hal is interrogating Relic, The Little Prince decides to put on Krona's Gauntlet. Just to see if it fits, you know? When he does, it flares to life and Relic notices the green spectrum energy. That pisses him off and the whole encounter turns to shit.

Trapper has freed himself from his manacles and proves himself to be helpful in the ensuing chaos. I guess he respects his position as The Little Prince's butler. He understands doing the time if you can't commit the crime in a way in which you don't get caught. Darlene the ship tries to convince Hal to let her make her own decisions instead of having to follow the commands of a captain as she reboots her system. Hal treats her like a whiny girlfriend and Trapper mentions to The Little Prince that Darlene's attitude is why he never got married. I suppose if Darlene wanted respect among these assholes, she should have been programmed with a manly voice and given a name like "Nick" or "Tony."

Darlene manages to reboot and she hyper-jumps everybody to safety while Relic broods. I suppose Hal realizes exactly where Black Hand will eventually wind up. Time to go back to Earth!

I guess these gray agents are going to be some kind of trouble as well. I wish Venditti had made them Darkstars!

Green Lantern #43 Rating: +1 Ranking. I'm liking Hal Jordan a lot more now that he's dumped those anchors from the Green Lantern Corps. Overall, I like Venditti's style. He has characters who reveal the plot and characterization through actually speaking with each other in a realistic manner. This book isn't 65% Hal Jordan Narration Boxes! Hell, it isn't even 1%! I like comic books that don't rely on a constant inner monologue to tell the reader what the main character is like. That's one of the biases that I've been cultivating into old age!