Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5 – “Rings”! In the previous installment, the big fights ensue! Parallax vs. Spectre and Parallax vs. Hal Jordan and Sinestro vs. Kyle Rayner and Parallax vs. Ganthet and Hal Jordan vs. Sinestro and Sinestro vs. Green Arrow and the Justice League stands there looking extremely incompetant and useless! There were like 76 of them and they were all pointless! They can go fuck themselves.

Hal Jordan is alive! He got his ring now and he’s alive and he’s going to kick some butt and I’m excited and I’m 12 years old and let’s go!

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5 [April, 2005]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Rings”

CHECK OUT THAT COVER! HAL JORDAN IS GOING TO KNOCK SINESTRO’S DICK IN THE DIRT! WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP!

We’re in the Watchtower, the Justice League HQ, where Kyle Rayner is bleeding all over the place while Sinestro tears shit up. Hal Jordan has his ring pointed right at the yellow dude for serious. “I told you Sinestro, get the hell away from them.”

Rayner is staring up in slightly-horny awe. The uniform looks majestic. The ring fits a glove. You know, like the kind of glove that fits. And the glow! Oh, the glow! What a glow!

“When I was first recruited, I was told ‘do not challenge those more powerful than you’,” muses Hal. “Funny stuff.”

Sinestro is NOT afraid. He’s gonna fight his yellow fight, and with barely any effort he blasts Hal right through the wall of the Watchtower… which I guess is on the moon? Hal bounces about 17 times on the ground before he stops. He must be halfway around the moon. He looks out of the page at the reader shoots a rather dashing smile. This ain’t nuthin’.

Sinestro launches himself across the moon to go after Hal. It’s like, this guy sucks ass showing his face around here again! Foiling my yellow plans! Well, no mas! Not today!

As Sinestro gets closer, Hal checks his ring’s stats. 99.4% charged, good, good. There’s nothing in his head that’s scrambling his brains. No Spectre. No Parallax. Just Hal Jordan and all of his nasty little thoughts. We’re good to go.

Oh baby, keep those nasty little thoughts coming!

Sinestro leaps at Hal with the power of 45 mega-locomotives! Hands wrapped around the Green Lantern’s throat, they both spiral through space as streaks of green and yellow. A couple of buddies, these two. They hug and fight in the middle of outer space. “You took the oath too seriously,” Sinestro stammers as Hal has an arm wrapped around his neck. “You abandoned it,” Hal responds as Sinestro grabs Hal’s jaw. So cute.

After a spell, Hal decides that his ring is charged up enough to give it all he’s got. BAM! That yellow bitch gets sent a couple thousand miles in the other direction! He revs up the ring again and chases Sinestro down.

“The oath abandoned me,” Sinestro retorts. “You all did. When you ripped Korugar from my hands, you left it in chaos. Under the care of a naive child.”

Yes, yes, this is all about how Sinestro is butthurt that he isn’t in charge of his smelly hellhole of a planet anymore. He’s so butthurt, in fact, that he sends a thousand yellow shards flying in Hal’s face.

“You wanted vengeance against me and the Corps,” Hal says, fighting back the shards. “I don’t believe in vengeance.” And here’s the thing, though. Are you ready for the thing, Hal? “You were vengeance. Pure vengeance. And you are a murderer.”

Sinestro brings the tough love, wouldn’t you say? The poor boy just wants to have a little control, that’s all.

You can’t control your cat, Sinestro. You gonna kill your cat?

Hal Jordan remembers his first encounter with Sinestro while he was flying one of Ferris’ jets, helping R&D some new tracking devices. His radar detected something straight ahead. “I thought I was alone up here,” he radioed the control tower. They confirmed nothing on their own screen.

His eyes widen in the universal behavior of “oh shit” as he sees a Green Lantern Sinestro hovering above the clouds, arms crossed and staring straight at the jet.

BOOOOM. Sinestro destroys the jet and captures Hal in a green bubble. “Green Lantern of Sector 2814. You are wasting time.” Hal doesn’t know who the FUCK this douche is, but he is Sinestro! Sinestro of Sector 1417! Don’t you forget it!

Sector 1417. The most orderly sector in the universe. Hal is kind of impressed, and obviously Sinestro’s reputation precedes. He keeps things spic and span over in 1417. He bought a lot of those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Those things are a godsend!

Sinestro is here to help Hal continue his training. Being the best dang Green Lantern of all the Green Lanterns has its perks! Perks such as… helping Hal continue his training? What a drag, man. “Only a select few have been honored,” Sinestro drawls as he name drops a few nerds that mean nothing to Hal nor I. Who the hell is Arkkis Chummuck? Some kind of groundhog?

What about the jet? That was a $20,000,00 jet! Use your special best-Green-Lantern-ever powers and cough up some dough before Hal gets whiny and wheezy! Sinestro says no and tells him to fall in line. Don’t talk to your superior officer in this manner. He’ll get his belt, don’t test him.

Pffft. Hal goes by the beat of his own drum. “Own-Drum Hal” they call him.

And tensions have been high ever since!

Now get on the floor and lick my boots, you worthless scum. Go on, now.

Back in the present, these two lovebirds are fighting within Saturn’s rings now. Bashing each other around the rocks and ice.

“Your mind is like a muscle. Unused for years. You forgot how to use the power ring,” Sinestro sneers while Hal sneers back. “I can see it, Jordan. You’re sweating. Working too hard. You’re working too slow.”

Sinestro claims that he has contacted the Parallax to return to Earth and consume it. He controls the Parallax as he controls Hal. He controls everything, or he destroys it! I think that point was made clear earlier. Then he’ll kill Kyle Rayner because that kid looks like he eats bugs.

Yeah, well, Kyle’s the man. He stepped up! Respect him! You’ll eat the bugs, Sinestro! You’ll eat the bugs!

“Green Arrow says hi,” Hal proclaims calmly as a dozen green arrows piece through Sinestro’s torso. Then he fashions some chains and shackles and crushes his wrist to keep Sinestro’s willpower down.

It doesn’t work very well. He returns the attack. But Hal is ready.

Thank you for turning me into a disintegrating skeleton, young man! Your training is complete!

Hal fights back so hard that Sinestro’s ring cracks. Then it shatters. Then Sinestro is fucked, but he’s happy. Everyone wins.

Rayner floats up out of nowhere and asks if Sinestro is dead. Hal calls up his ring’s Alexa and the answer is a resounding NO. He escaped into an extra-dimensional vortex! Duh! It’s the anti-matter universe where Sinestro was first banished, like, last Tuesday or something. Being able to track him now will be impossible even though, from my understanding, these power rings can literally do anything. Hold it at your crotch and it’ll suck your dick.

OK, well, don’t worry about Sinestro for now. Let’s do the important thing FIRST…

Hal sticks out his hand. “Hal Jordan.”

Kyle shakes Hal’s hand. “Kyle. Kyle Rayner.”

Beautiful! The handshake creates a nice orb of friendly, green light. It looks just like the usual angry green light, though. It’s hard to tell the difference, and one needn’t. Don’t worry about the various emotions and the dispositions of the green light, we’ll let Geoff Johns take care of that.

Rayner confirms that everyone is ok. Ollie Green Arrow Man is fine. The other who-cares Justice League members are fine, maybe, who cares. Then he looks glum. “You already know, I’m not like the other Lanterns, Jordan. I’m not… I’m not a guy that can overcome great fear or whatever.”

Hal laughs! HA HA HA! HA! Look, son, you have the heart and you care and yada yada yada. Touching moment alert. You know how these go already. Plus, being able to confront Sinestro and living to tell the tale is a pretty cool story! You can tell your friends, if you even have any!

Hal flies away while Rayner smiles like a starstruck little bitch.

I want some corn, mac & cheese, bananas, lemons, pineapples, a dang stick of butter, lots of cheddar cheese, potato chips, and, ooooh, French fries! With mustard! And some piss.

Something very scary has happened to Ganthet. An inconvenient possession by the Parallax, it seems? Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

So now Ganthet the big powerful Guardian is compromised. What are Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kilowog going to do?!

NEVER FEAR, THE UNDERDOGS ARE HERE! DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOOOO!! Hal and Rayner arrive, get hearty hellos, and they all ready their stupid rings. “Remember fear and you can shake off Parallax,” Hal advises vaguely. Even Guy Gardner doesn’t like that advice. Sounds like wankery, sir.

It don’t matter anyway. A batarang cuts through the scene. “Jordan,” says an unhappy Batman surrounded by his fellow unhappy Justice League buddies, “as long as I’m standing – you’re not doing anything.”

Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts? FINAL THOUGHTS?! Here’s a final thought for you: there’s one issue left before the Geoff Johns run kicks off proper! Hoo boy, what a yarn this is turning out to be. I hope Hal glues Superman’s butt to Batman’s face.