Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern (Vol. 5), Issue #5 – “Sinestro (Part 5)”! In the previous installment, Hal Jordan doesn’t die in the battery. It rejects him and spits him out whole when it discovers that he’s not Sinestro. He gets thrown in a cell and his power runs out.

Sinestro eventually gets thrown in a cell too after a session of torture renders his green ring completely unscratched. The cell contains a bunch of civilians, including Arsona, who hate Sinestro’s fucking guts. Jordan gives Sinestro the idea to create a whole pile of green rings for his people to use in a fight against the corps. He does so successfully…

…but they declare that they can now get their revenge…

…against…

…

…HIM! AAAHHHHHH!!!

So let’s continue.

Green Lantern (Vol. 5), Issue #5 [March, 2012]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Sinestro (Part 5)”

Finally, Hal Jordan is on the cover. TWO AGAINST A THOUSAND! Sinestro got Jordan entirely on his side in less than, what, 10 hours or something? And why does Jordan get a mask and Sinestro doesn’t? Is Jordan planning on robbing a bank? Is Sinestro anti-mask?? So many questions.

Arsona still isn’t done taking the piss out of Sinestro. She just keeps going on and on about betrayal, trust, dictatorships, accountability, abuse of power, and it’s making Sinestro very sad! He’s frowning, the poor little guy!

“But now the people you put under your boot heel will execute you with the power you used against us. FIRE!” she instructs her crew of newly-appointed Greenish Lanterns. Sinestro stands there hunched like a tired dog, ready to just take it. You know, take it like a dog. He’s really cruising for a bruising! He’s coasting for a roasting! He’s scouring for some overpowering! He’s tunnelling for a pummelling! He’s journeying for a gurneying! He’s-

The Korugar Vincent Price has bested us once again!

Do you think Sinestro is SO FUCKING DUMB that the rings HE MADE HIMSELF would be able to harm him whatsoever? Didn’t you talk to Hal Jordan?! He tried that shit already! Issue #2! Old news! Catch up!

You are now able to crack the code with your secret decoder ring. Ready? BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE.

Arsona is in furious denial and tries to cheerlead her group into trying again, but Hal Jordan butts in to say that they need to conserve their powers for the real threat. He doesn’t say anything about having already tried destroying him a few hours ago with a Sinestro-crafted ring, which I would think is very important information for Arsona (who is now so angry there are tears running down her face) and the other Korugar civilians. She gives it everything she has and tries blasting him again! And it works!

Jordan is thrown back from his cell wall. Sinestro is untouched, and Arsona is finally told that the ring can’t harm its creator. Arsona goes back to yelling at him about what he did, which is getting old for even Hal Jordan at this point. Jordan butts in again to explain how much he hates Sinestro’s guts and how many times Sinestro has already ruined his piss-stained life, but now they share a common goal and everyone needs to be on the same goddamned page! OK?! Christ…

Sinestro agrees that time’s a-wastin’, so he instructs his people to fire when ready as he prepares to open the cell door. Hal Jordan, in essence, asks him “with what, your dick?” since the rings are useless against them. Nope! Sinestro’s got a Plan B.

Back outside, Professor Insidd is trying to figure out how to discharge Sinestro’s lantern, which keeps hovering and glowing and taunting the lot of them. Some corps goons show up to tell the professor that the lantern may be interfering with their own yellow rings, since they’ve been working like shit ever since Sinestro got here. Professor Insidd says “NONSENSE, POOPYPANTS!” and peers directly into the lantern. It blasts a hole right through him, severing his top half in-twain! Gross!

Then the lantern flies off! The surviving corps members chase after it! You can tell the lantern is laughing to itself! HA HA HAAAAA!

It blasts a hole in the cell, freeing the prisoners, but the yellow corps dudes are already running toward them before they have a chance to walk on out.

Hahaha. “NO FEAR”. Let’s listen to Lamb of God and watch some Motocross.

As the Korugarians start blasting their way to freedom, Sinestro throws Jordan the lantern and tells him to join in on the fun!

The rings will only last another minute. If Sinestro tried to make them any stronger, the extra strain on the rings would’ve broken them. “You can’t break the ring.” Jordan insists, but Sinestro tells him that he’s broken two rings already in his day!

The Korugarians keep fighting. Sinestro just needs enough of a distraction to get the lantern back into the giant yellow central battery. Jordan’s like “ARE YOU BATSHIT LOONEY, SIR?”, but Sinestro tells him that he fucked up and did it wrong in the first place! Always the fuck-up, that Hal Jordan! At least that’s what I’VE learned here through my Green Lantern adventures.

But, ho hum, I guess it’s not entirely Jordan’s fault. After all, he was wearing a Sinestro ring and he was carrying Sinestro’s lantern. We, the attentive reading audience, already know that the battery spit Jordan out in one piece once it realized that he wasn’t who it thought he was. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid to venture back in.” Sinestro asks haughtily.

The Korugarians’ rings are starting to vanish. Sinestro explains that some yellow energy needs to be siphoned into the lantern in order for the battery to think that it needs to go into survival mode…so, if Hal Jordan and Thaal Sinestro both close their eyes and try reaallllyy hard, the battery will start siphoning energy from the yellow rings to compensate! This sounds like plot hole shit to me! Bah.

No way, sucker. This meat’s staying alive.

So as one of them leaps toward Arsona with a killing strike, the yellow rings suddenly crackle and burst into blinding waves of yellow light. The corps members, all of them, lie still on the ground. Smoldering.

Sinestro claims they aren’t dead, just in a forced coma state until the battery is activated again. Which he won’t ever activate again. “How do we know that?” asks the ever-skeptical Arsona. But the rest of her clan, they’re hootin’ and hollerin’ and cheering him on. “HOORAY FOR SINESTRO!” “YAY, SINESTRO!” they all cheer, carrying on like a bunch of loser Whos from Whoville!

“I do not deserve your praise or trust, little ones.” Sinestro says with an air of condescension and scorn befitting of a man who actually does believe he deserves every little ounce of praise and trust that he can wring dry from these peons. He does, with sincerity, promise his people that he will rid the planet of the yellow corps, as well as the battery that energized their slavedriving rings. He apologizes to Arsona one last time, perhaps hoping to get a little nookie for the road, but alas! “No, Sinestro. The children may be too young to remember, but we are not. Go. And if you ever return to Korugar, you will return as our enemy.” she says with the finality of a woman who once loved this bastard about 100 years ago and is too hurt to continue loving such a bastard.

Sinestro and Hal Jordan fuck off from Planet Korugar, with Sinestro single-handedly hauling a giant cargo consisting of the battery and the sad-sack comatose yellow corps members. Jordan offers his assistance, but Sinestro knows that the last person the guardians want to see is Hal “Beats Up Actors While They’re Filming Movies” Jordan.

lol

They have a heart-to-heart, but they both hate each other’s guts and aren’t afraid to speak aloud about it. Jordan tells Sinestro that saving his planet is far from redemption. A whole history of killing innocent people, murdering other Green Lanterns, yaaawwwnnn. Get over it, Hal, and get your bone on like we all know you want to! No shame!

Sinestro’s not going to waste one more second with Hal Jordan at this point. “Our pact is over, go the fuck home” he tells him in kinder words. Hal gets to keep the ring, as promised, but Sinestro never said anything about giving him a lantern to charge it! Ha! So long sucker! He flies away into outer space, and he slingshots Jordan back to Earth like the piece of space junk that he is!

Jordan crashes into a pile of garbage in a dark alley, and that’s an lol from me.

“I have to find a way to charge this ring. I need to get a lantern. It’s all I have.” Jordan cries pathetically. “It’s all I…want.” he finishes with a dumbass look on his face.

He runs over to the airport to meet up with Carol Ferris. She gets out of her car and immediately mentions seeing him on TV with Sinestro cavorting around as Green Lanterns during that whole busted bridge incident. Before she can finish asking him what the HELL is going on, he kisses her and asks her to let him talk.

I’m glad he doesn’t recap the entirety of the last five issues right here and now! He cuts to the chase! But really, he tells her the “important part”, which to him (and NOT to me!) is that he conjured up a construct of her in his holding cell. It was the last thing he wanted to see before his ring ran out of green juice.

“Just give me a second chance.” he begs of her.

“Technically, this would be your tenth.” she responds, grinning, even though we all know that Hal’s tenth will be far from his last.

Blech.

FINALLY, on the planet of the Powerful Smurfs, the guardians are discussing Sinestro’s victory over the yellow corps. First they were able to get rid of Hal Jordan, and now they successfully got rid of Sinestro and his army of drooling yellow energy parasites!

“It is time to proceed to the chamber of shadows and free the First Lantern!” one declares.

For you see, it is the First Lantern that will lead the Third Army. And it is the Third Army that will replace the Green Lantern Corps.

Yeah, you and what army?? … oh

“WE ARE GUARDIANS. WE WILL NOT BE STOPPED.”

Final Thoughts

Someone’s gotta try stopping those guardians! They seem bad!

Some sources call this the end of the Sinestro storyline, but au contraire! The next issue will wrap it all up! Look at how much I know about comic book storylines! I’m really a Comic Book Kinda Guy.

Until next time, keep your green light lit. Or something!