Green Lantern #45

I should have some sort of secret code that I put here in the first caption to alert regular readers of this blog that I'm really going to half-ass the following review.

Remember when The Black Hand was a perfect choice to be a possible death in an issue of the Suicide Squad? But then Geoff Johns got hold of him and la dee da! Now he's all fancy and recognizable and hardly ever elicits confused yawns of "Who's that now?" I bet that's why nobody dies on the Suicide Squad anymore. I bet Geoff Johns called dibs on every unrecognizable DC villain so that he can try to work his stupid magic on them and get people to like them. Then he can pick up tons of chicks at the bar by saying, "Hey baby. You know I made Reactron a household name. Buy me a drink?" Then whoever he was talking to would have to get a bar rag to put under her so she didn't get the bar stool all squidgy because that's some pick-up line!

While looking through the Who's Who for a suitably unrecognizable criminal, I saw that DC had (or has?) a hero named Red Bee who was also a district attorney! Red Bee needs to come back because DC really could use more super hero lawyers.

Hal has figured out, with the help of Darlene and not common sense, that Black Hand is headed to Earth. I'm not sure why but I figure it must have something to do with stubbornness, Hal decides he has to go to Earth alone.

I wish Darlene wanted to go to a brothel.

Hal Jordan tracks down Black Hand who is pouting because everything he touches turns to stone. Luckily he's dead and he doesn't have to eat or drink or masturbate. I don't think dead people masturbate. Man, if zombies really just go by their basest instincts, nobody will have to fear Zombie Tess because I'll just be jerking it until it falls off.

Hal tells Black Hand he can help him but Black Hand doesn't trust him because he's alive. The Black Hand only has dead friends. For some reason, Hal reveals his identity to Black Hand because I guess fighting with him is better than not fighting with him? Maybe Hal views their relationship differently than Black Hand views it because Black Hand decides he isn't going anywhere with Hal. He'd rather remain on his stone planet taking up lots of comic book space with splash pages and double splash pages and pages with just two panels on them. This issue is the comic book version of larger font and narrower margins on a college essay.

So they battle the way super heroes and super villains tend to battle: for a long time and while spouting lots of nonsense.

I won't question why only the Black Hand's hands turn to stone. I won't question why only the Black Hand's hands turn to stone.

Why do only the Black Hand's hands turn to stone? I bet his penis is a big rock as well.

Hal finally realizes that Black Hand is a major plague to the entire universe and decides it's time to bury him once and for all. But if he's invulnerable to being turned into Source Wall, how is he going to stick to the Source Wall for his burial?

Green Lantern #45 Rating: No change. This issue averaged barely over three panels per page. And a lot of that was just Hal trying to avoid being turned to stone as he battled Black Hand. Darlene was allowed to be snarky in a few pages while The Little Prince and Trapper Keeper simply took a nap. I wish Robert Venditti has some secret code that he could put on the cover of Green Lantern to alert regular readers that he's really going to half-ass the issue.

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!

Black Hand #1

Geez, Hal. You suck. First you get chained to an asteroid then to a tree all the way over on Earth 2 and now to a gravestone!

I have a pretty shitty theory about Forever Evil so I thought I'd put it out there. There are probably more arguments against it than for it but since this is comic books I'm talking about, I figure anything is possible! So the events happening in Forever Evil are not happening on Earth Prime. The fight between the Justice League and the Crime Syndicate has not happened yet. The story that ended at the end of Trinity War has been paused to tell the tale of the Crime Syndicate and their battle on an Earth that was very nearly identical to Earth Prime (or Zero or whatever. But here on my blog, it's going to remain Earth Prime until I hear differently!). You have to really stretch your suspension of disbelief to think that the same events that brought the Crime Syndicate to Earth Prime happened at least once before on another world as the Crime Syndicate searched for a new home they didn't destroy. And then they end up destroying their new world and Ultraman winds up snorting all of the Kryptonite and then they need to look for a new world. And for some reason, only The Outsider and Atomica can travel between worlds to find the "Pandora's Box" which will allow the rest to follow. It gets really convoluted when looking at individual story lines and how they're going to proceed if Villains Month stories aren't actually taking place on Earth Prime. But if you consider the world the Crime Syndicate are attacking in Forever Evil is very nearly identical to Earth Prime then I imagine the events on both worlds would be nearly the same. So maybe the Crime Syndicate will defeat the Justice League and they'll be down and out for enough time that Lex thinks Superman is dead and Gotham begins to fall apart but then they'll come back and save the day. Meanwhile in Forever Evil, since it's a different Earth, Nightwing can be killed no problem. Big deal! Not the real Nightwing! And then Batgirl can follow. And whatever heroes are left after that that weren't in a Justice League. I think that's only Hal Jordan at this point?

Like I said, it's a shitty theory with a lot of holes. But this is fucking comic books so I figured I'd put it out there.

On to Black Hand. I've only read the first page with a couple of laborers are cremating bodies from an asylum when I turn the page and see the credits. Another fucking book written by Charles Soule? What is this guy doing? Trying to make as much money as he can in one month so he can take the rest of the year off? Although if DC is still giving out royalties on books, I think this would be the month to take on extra issues!

A Black Lantern Ring drops from the sky and into the pile of crazy serial murder lunatic ashes these men have dumped in a ditch. I don't know where the ring came from. Did Hal Jordan lose it? And why is Hal Jordan alive again anyway? Was that ever sufficiently explained or am I just supposed to accept the "it's a fucking comic book" logic of it all? Not having read any of the big Lantern Epics of the Naughts, I don't know how many Black Lantern Rings there are or where they go when they're not animating corpses or any of that shit. But now one is free and it has taken control of the ashes of the dead so that they could envelop and kill a man and turn him into Black Hand.

Is he going to be Black Hand this time because the Black Lantern Light will have to form his Black Right Hand? On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man in a dusty black cape with a black right hand! DONG!

Black Hand does not need a fucking light hand. He just picks up the one on the ground and shoves it on his wrist. Good as new, motherfuckers! Time to go kill some Green Lanterns! But first, how about a tour of the old family mortuary? Which ends up getting Black Hand Tasered and thrown in a cell. It's quite possible this is the first time a super-villain has ever been captured by rent-a-cops. No offense to security guards. You guys do a great job keeping empty businesses safe and keeping word search puzzle book sales steady. I just thought that sound better saying "captured by rent-a-cops!"

Oh, I'm sorry. After thinking about that last paragraph, I should really apologize. I'm sorry to legitimate puzzle books for including "word searches" among them. That was uncalled for.

Waking up in his cell, Black Hand soon remembers that he has the power of death and undeath. Or unlife. He soon has a cockroach army which trades up to a rabbit-eared rat army which equals a single undead cat which eventually leads to a zombie cop. Don't worry, the math works out. You can trust me. I know it seems like a loss of effectiveness from undead cat to zombie cop but the undead cat can't work the keys for the cell, you know? So Black Hand had to go with a less cool minion in trade for an opposable thumb. After the zombie cop kills the other criminal in the cells, Black Hand escapes his cell with the beginnings of a zombie gang composed of about 68 cockroaches, one cat, one cop, and a drunken vandal. And with all the chaos outside, Black Hand finds plenty of new recruits for his army.

It must suck to be a zombie horde in the Era of Zombie Preparedness.

Turns out those Security Guards earlier were actually real fictional cops. Oops! I didn't mean to portray them as lazy bastards that do more sleeping than guarding. I should have portrayed them as power hungry asshole with itchy trigger fingers. My mistake!

Black Hand's army can't get to the cops so he uses his power to find something dead on or in the cops and to use those dead things to touch the cops and kill them. So he uses the dead virus inside one cop who just had a vaccination. He uses the dead tooth inside another cop's head which his partner is acually thankful for because holy fuck was he stinking up the patrol car with that rotten tooth stench. And he uses the dead sperm in the underwear of another cop that just masturbated at lunch and had some post-ejaculatory leakage when he sat back down at his desk and his boys fired that one final shot that never seems to get clear until you piss or squat. And just like that, the cops are down! Looks like they'll have to add a few new rules to their Zombie Training Manual like no vaccinations, regular dental check-ups, and no ejaculating while on the job.

Black Hand remembers what he was going to do during Geoff Johns run but because Johns had so many children in the fire, he couldn't maintain all of his plot threads. So Black Hand heads back to Shady Vale Cemetery to speak with Hal Jordan's father, the corpse of Martin Jordan. But what did he want from him? Some dirty Hal Jordan teenager secrets? To know Hal Jordan's middle name? Hmm, I don't know what else a father would know about his son!

Oh. That's what he wanted? I bet I know the first thing he's going to do with his new right hand!

Umm, yeah! Exactly what I was thinking!

Black Hand #1 Rating: If you're into all of this Green Lantern, Black Lantern, Rainbow Lantern crap, maybe you liked this issue. I don't know! Maybe you didn't like this issue because it wasn't written by Geoff Johns! I'm not even a comic book reviewer but now I'm supposed to tell you if you'd like this issue or not? What gives me the right? Who am I? I don't know anything! Especially about all of this Green Lantern crap. But I did like this issue. Once again, it felt more like a back-up story than a main arc. Maybe that's because Charles Soule is writing so damn many of these things, his stories have been stretched out to fill twenty pages when they probably really just need half of that. Anyway, Earth is kind of fucked with Black Hand raising the dead everywhere. I think Power Ring is going to have to deal with him. Except he probably shits himself and faints whenever he sees a dead body.

Black Hand! (as seen in Green Lantern)

PERSONAL DATA
Alter Ego: William Hand
Occupation: Professional Criminal
Martial Status: Single
Known Relatives: Peter, David, Joseph (brothers)
Base of Operations: Mobile
First Appearance: GREEN LANTERN #29
Height: 5'9" Weight: 167 lbs.
Eyes: Brown Hair: Brown

HISTORY
A professional criminal nearly all his life, Hand turned to crime as an abnormal reaction to his lineage, the wealthy and respectable Hand family of Coastville, California. Resenting his family's prestige and position, Hand became determined to drag the Hand name through the mud [Coincidentally, this is the same reason I tell dick jokes on the internet.].

He therefore became a super-criminal who developed a means of absorbing energy from Green Lantern's power ring (see below) [Terrific if you somehow know Green Lantern is the guy who's going to show up to kick your ass every time.] and who based his criminal methods on the wisdom of old maxims (which others would term clichés) [So like, "A stitch in time saves nine giants" and "The early worm gets the second cheese"?].

POWERS & WEAPONS
While Hand possesses no true super-powers, he is blessed with a photographic memory with which he is able to recall at will every item recorded in a book he has spent the bulk of his life compiling. The book contains the solution to any possible problem a criminal could confront [What shitty writer thought up this escape plan to get out of whatever dead-end they'd written themselves into?].

A talented technician, Hand has also built a device capable of absorbing radiation residue, specifically the radiation of Green Lantern's power ring (see Green Lantern), from objects upon which Green Lantern has used his power ring energy. Hand is then able to utilize this energy himself, directing it through a rod-like mechanism he carries in his hand.

Hand is not a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, but his power-rod and his scientific expertise make him a foe to be reckoned with.

Hand's single affectation is a fascination with cliché sayings, and he has based many of his crimes on these old adages.

Green Lantern Annual #1

Green Lantern's been slimed!

The comic book begins with the Oans discussing their failures across billions and billions of years. It appears their main goal has been the elimination of chaos in the universe. That seems silly. The universe is a chaotic place. I think the only for them to be happy is to eliminate their need to eliminate chaos! But instead, they keep making Armies to destroy the things they think are causing the chaos.

They created the emotionless Manhunters believing that emotion caused Chaos. But the Manhunters went and destroyed a whole sector and that was deemed a failure. But I bet that sector was less chaotic afterward!

The Guardians then believed that fear was behind Chaos, so they created the Green Lanterns to eliminate fear. But that didn't work either for some reason. Perhaps because Krona went and created a bunch of stupid Lantern Corps that made no sense.

No the Guardians believe that free will is causing all that Chaos. So the Green Lantern Corps and every other being in the universe is going to have to die. Because then no Chaos will be left! Except for all the non-sentient Chaos that the universe is filled with. These Oans are dumb jerks. Can't they see they're the problem? They have boundary and control issues. Someone needs to slip some Vicodin in their food so they'll let go and relax a bit.

The Guardians head off to free the First Lantern from some giant cube chained with Green Lantern light. But the First Lantern is guarded by another group of Guardians who have sworn to protect the First Lantern with their lives. Looks like it's time for a little blue man brawl!

You would think the ones kept in a dark cube for billions of years would be the ones to have gone insane.

The Guardians kill one of their long lost brethren and steal The First Lantern while the other lost Guardians stand around in shock. The Guardians lock them back up and leave with the First Lantern. On their way home, they notice Black Hand battling with Hal Jordan and Sinestro. This is the first time they're seeing that Hal once again has a Green Lantern Ring. They decide to charge up Black Hand so that he can kill Sinestro and Hal. Those Guardians are just insane. They don't make any sense! They decided the Green Lantern Corps had failed because it couldn't destroy the Black Lanterns alone. But now they're helping a Black Lantern because they've suddenly decided the Green Lanterns are the problem.

Whatever the Oans deal is, their plan works so why should I be complaining?

Green Lantern Hal Jordan is dead! Long unlive Black Lantern Hal Jordan!

The Guardians have finally decided to let the Black Lantern Black Hand live because they can control him without Nekron to back him up. They place him locked away in the Shadow Chamber to use later when they need someone to kill everything.

Sinestro's ring flies off to find a replacement now that he and Hal are dead. But something has gone wrong with the ring during the blast of Black Lantern power. It keeps screaming error as it searches for a replacement. My guess is that it is now like Jaime's Blue Beetle. It will find a replacement but that replacement will have no connection to the Guardians of the Universe at all.

And finally, the Guardians siphon the power from the First Lantern so that they can create the first member of their Third Army from their own flesh.

I'm not a fan.

These new Lanterns are part of the Guardian's consciousness, so they have no free will. A human stumbles upon this scene and is instantly transformed into the second member of the Third Army. The human's heart is removed because biologically that's where emotions and free will come from, right? The human is allowed to keep its eyes but its brain is now part of the new Guardians' Third Army Hivemind. And I'm guessing that everyone is already calling this Third Army the Borg Lanterns. If not, they will be soon!

Green Lantern Annual #1 did everything I expected it was going to do. Killed off Hal Jordan (although according to the Book of the Black, he'll be back as a Black Lantern) and created the Third Army. The Third Army just look like mouthless aliens. Although the human one that is allowed to keep his eyes sort of looks like a zombie from Return of the Living Dead. My main hope is that Hal Jordan becomes a likable character now that he's dead.

Green Lantern #12

"The hills are alive...with the sounds of blackness!"

Hal Jordan and Sinestro have just recently crashed Black Hand's undead family reunion. They brought him a little present in The Book of the Black.

Tales told about dead people? This book must be exciting!

And now a story by Grunion Guy! (Applause)

The Tales of the Dead: Past. Present. Future. Unless that punctuation should be different.
By Grunion Guy

1,000,000 BCE: Ok lie in hole. Ok dead. Ok not move. Worms eat Ok. Tickle. Ok not think nothing. Ok dead. Ok not never believe in nothing before. Ok learn different! Ok not think this though because Ok dead. Ok hate Shaman Ack for lying about Sky Baker.

800 CE: Svenergin is taking a trip out to sea. "Oh, this is nice," is what Svenergin would have been thinking if he hadn't been dead. But he was dead. So he wasn't thinking anything. There really wasn't even a he there anymore. He was as "he-ish" as a mound of dirt or a pool of water. Svenergin was lucky he wasn't alive to enjoy the trip because he was also on fire.

1660 CE: James Goodfellow was lowered into a hole in the ground. It's a good thing he was dead because he would have been pretty upset to find out his pious life on earth had been wasted by denying himself the bounties of the material world. He probably would have been pretty angry instead of super happy and dancing in Heaven with Glory Windhom who died of the same fever earlier in the week. They probably would have done it if the preacher hadn't kept shouting at them on a nearly constant basis. It's a good thing he was dead.

3000 CE: Zapfirneous Ferolghan lie in a pile of ashes. He was disintegrated by a Stun Laser on the Disintegration Setting. He wasn't disappointed at all because his consciousness was just a side-effect of the evolution of the organic body that was distinct to himself. Eventually the pile of dust blew away when the wind blew because that's what has happened to dust for millenia when the wind blew.

There were many, many, many, many more stories of the Dead but they're all pretty much just variations on the above stories. The end!

Black Hand begins reading the book and judging by his reaction, it was written by Grunion Guy!

"I signed it! To Black Hand: Of my soul. Grunion Guy!"

The real reason Black Hand is upset is that every page of the book now repeats, over and over, "Hal Jordan is not your enemy." And it must be true since the page is also stamped by a Green Lantern Notary Public. If I were Hal Jordan, I would be a bit perturbed that my name was in the Book of the Black which tells the tales of the dead. I don't think Hal Jordan should be looking forward to the Green Lantern Annual.

To destroy a Black Lantern, it takes a blast from a Green Lantern combined with a blast from another color ring. I know that not because I read Blackest Night but because Hal Jordan thankfully decided to recap that plot point. He tries to get in contact with Carol Ferris since she has a Star Sapphire ring but she's busy lying to Amanda Waller.

According to her flag, this story takes place sometime before 1949. And in a dimension where the red stripe sits under the field of stars. The colorist and artist must be communists!

Hal knocks out Black Hand by frying his brain. But he'll heal eventually. In the meantime, they head outside to get better reception on Hal's ring so he can contact Carol. The yard outside Black Hand's house is filled with zombies. Oh, who cares! Fly away! Make a flame thrower. It doesn't really seem like a big deal.

Meanwhile on Oa, the Guardians of the Universe are finally preparing to unleash the Third Army. Their reasoning for needing a new army goes like this: every time the Guardians make a galactic police force, something invariably goes wrong and they need to make a new galactic police force. So they're now making a new galactic police force because they are fucking insane.

Actually, they believe the Green Lanterns failed because they needed the help of the other Lantern Corps to deal with the Black Lanterns. And those other Lantern Corps are pretty stupid ideas. The Guardians believe that the only things standing in their way are the Green Lanterns of Earth and Sinestro. But they also think that they've taken care of most of them. They still think Hal does not have a Green Lantern ring because they're so arrogant they don't have a fact checker. They think John Stewart is broken from the guilt of having killed a fellow Green Lantern. They think Guy is with them due to the obviously fake promotion they granted him. And they're going to let Ganthet deal with Kyle Rayner. These Guardians think if these Lanterns are destroyed, the Green Lantern Corps will fall apart. That's a pretty weak-willed Corps if they're going to give up simply because the Earth Green Lanterns are dealt with.

While the Guardians are discussing this, they're also traveling to the homeworld of the Indigo Lanterns which they located due to tracking Sinestro an issue or two ago.

Everyone who has ever written the Guardians of the Universe have always fallen back on "absolute power corrupts absolutely" as their describing characteristic. Why do they continuously have to fuck everyone? Why does everyone keep trusting them?!

Meanwhile back in Black Hand's yard, Green Lantern and Sinestro take my advice when they realize the zombies aren't Black Lanterns but merely puppets of Black Hand!

I don't know exactly how green light turns into fire but I've lived with the conceit my entire comic book reading life.

But once Black Hand regains unlife, the zombies become more of a threat. Not much more. While Hal and Sinestro are fighting outside, Black Hand consults the Book of the Black and asks who Hal Jordan is if he isn't the enemy. The book tells him, "Hal Jordan will be the greatest..." and then Black Hand flips the fuck out because he apparently was able to read the rest of that sentence.

Let's see. If this is a book that tells the tales of the dead, then my guess is Hal Jordan will be the greatest corpse the universe has ever seen! Or the greatest necrophiliac? The greatest mortician? The greatest crematest?

After battling the zombies for awhile, Hal Jordan takes my other advice! I'm a tactical genius!

I'd be a master at role-playing a Green Lantern!

For some reason, Hal and Sinestro can't destroy zombies with their Green Lantern rings when Black Hand regains consciousness and retakes control. They still need another color to help them. So Sinestro pulls his Yellow Lantern out of the pocket dimension he's attached it to (although his pocket dimension allows him to pull it from his headquarters and not from a planet dependent on its power that would end up hating him later because he took it away from them) and drops it amid the zombies. Together, Sinestro and Hal use the last of their rings' power to blow up the Yellow Lantern and destroy all of the zombies. But they collapse unconscious afterward and only Black Hand is left to stand over them and read his book.

Oh yeah! I guess I was close guessing Hal would be the greatest corpse.

Green Lantern #12 Rating: +1 Ranking. Heck, it foreshadows Hal's death! How can I not enjoy that? But what, exactly, does it take to be a great Black Lantern? What's the point of the Black Lanterns? What are they meant to do? What's their goal? What is it about Hal Jordan that will make him the best zombie ring bearer ever?

Green Lantern #11

This is why Green Lantern is ranked so low. No new reader knows why Black Hand is a Black Lantern or why he wants revenge. What makes him so dangerous? Who cares?

Sinestro awakens to find that he's been allowed to leave the Indigo Lantern Corps. But there are some catches.

Hal blasts Sinestro just to test it. And because he's a dick.

Hal Jordan finally has what he's been after: a Green Lantern Ring with no strings attached. I believe he still needs a Power Battery though. But he's too busy patting himself on the back for besting Sinestro to realize that. He's also too shallow and self-involved to notice the thing that Sinestro notices immediately upon returning to normal: Black Hand is missing.

Sinestro plays know-it-all and Mr. I Told You So while acting the arrogant prick and scolding Jordan. Just like he always does. But you can't blame him! Hanging around with Hal Jordan is like babysitting. But Jordan suddenly decides to try to be mature and responsible when he realizes Black Hand may have returned to Black Lanterning.

That's the Green Lantern calling the Yellow Lantern black.

Meanwhile, Black Hand has returned to Earth to bring Chinese Take-out to his dead family.

Is this his revenge? "Oh! I forgot the egg rolls! FUCK YOU!"

Meanwhile, Hal and Sinestro travel back to Korugar to recover the Book of the Black. While they're searching for Black Hand, the Indigo Lanterns will be forging more Indigo Rings to place on the Guardians of the Universe. This will subdue and change them so they stop being manipulative little bastards.

Sinestro retrieves the Book of the Black from his headquarters beneath his home planet.

So there is a book for every Lantern Corps? Why? What are the books for? Who created them? This is the dumbest Reboot in the history of Reboots!

Sinestro decides what they need to do is read the Book of the Black's prophecies because that never clears up anything. They already know everything they need to know. The Guardians are going to destroy all of the Lantern Corps and replace them with The Third Army. The Indigo Lanterns are making rings to fight this. Black Hand has once again become a Black Lantern and disappeared. But since he's from Earth, where the fuck is going to go? Yeah, Earth. So what do they need to learn from the Book of the Black?

Whether they need to know it or not, they get some glimpses of the future. John Stewart being zapped by the Guardians. Guy Gardner in prison. Kyle Rayner as a Red Lantern. Atrocitus leading an army of Manhunters. And Black Hand wearing a Green Lantern Ring and wielding a gun. Yep! That was helpful!

I guess the really helpful part that they didn't plan on is how the Book of the Black teleports them to Earth to join Black Hand and his family at the dinner table.

"Ha ha! We ate all of the Orange Chicken! REVENGE!"

Green Lantern #11 Rating: No change. Geoff Johns seems to think every Green Lantern story needs to be convoluted, over-the-top, full of history, and of universal importance. And, hell, they are the universal police force! He's probably right. I just don't think this comic series should have "The New 52" on the front cover. Just admit it's part of the old continuity and separate it from the rest of the experiment.