Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #3 – “Flight Delay”! In the previous installment, Hal Jordan gets used to having his old powers back and it feels like a WELL-OILED GLOVE! Gross!

We learn about an ancient race of space cops, basically, called the Manhunters. The Air Force is transporting an obsolete version that is 3.3 billion years old for some reason, but the one walking around blowing up diners and buses is a new version that’s designed to do two things: 1) find the obsolete versions and destroy them, and 2) kill anything else in its path.

So here’s the enemy that Hal has to beat, and I bet somewhere along the line Sinestro will show up to be like “I HATE YOU HAL JORDAN, BUT GRRRRR WE NEED TO TEAM UP”. Calling it now.

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #3 [September, 2005]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Flight Delay”

Cover art suggests a really boring fight is afoot. Someone’s going to hand Manhunter ver. 2.0 his own butt on a platter.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE. HANGAR 44. New Manhunter is giving Old Manhunter the business. “YOUR SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE MUST BE ACTIVIATED. DO YOU COMPLY?”

No, bitch, he doesn’t comply. He tries shooting Old Manhunter, but then Hal Jordan touches his butt with the talking green ring. “You are in violation of Section Six-Five-Two of the Book of Oa. Endangering innocent life within an authorized military installation. Dismantling procedures have been approved and encouraged.”

Fat chance. The Manhunter Union Local 289 doesn’t recognize Green Lantern shenanigans as an official authority on anything. Not even breakfast. “GREEN LANTERN 2814.1 — YOUR DEATH IS WELL-DOCUMENTED. YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE. YOU ARE OUTDATED. YOU ARE OBSOLETE.”

Well… that’s quite true, actually. Hal Jordan should be dead and buried in the ground, turning more and more into bones as each day passes.

Manhunter shoots his little missile at Hal, which flies across the room like a paper airplane and whacks him on the side of the head. It does literally nothing. Manhunter then grabs Hal’s ringed hand and tries to crush it. While he does this, Manhunter lifts open his face cover, revealing a green battery. Egads! He’s draining the power from the ring!

“Power levels at 65.4%.”

“Power levels at 24.8%.”

Egads! It’s draining faster than the batteries in a Sega Game Gear! Manhunter’s steel grip is impossible to wrest from! Egads! Is… this… the end… of… Hal… “Poopypants”… Jor–

Old Manhunter suddenly propels himself sky high from the building, which redirects New Manhunter’s attention. He blasts off to follow, and Hal recovers. These two lovebirds are headed west toward Coast City (“The City on the Coast”), and Hal only has 1.2% of juice left in his ring. Not enough to fly, call John Stewart, or authorize breakfast. He needs to borrow a jet before the Manhunter decides to explode. When a Manhunter explodes, it’s like seven Hiroshimas and three Nagasakis. It’s like a bunch of 9/11s and an insurrection.

My hero!

General Stone rides up to the scene and immediately tries to shove Hal Jordan along on his merry way. “We’re tracking the object,” he says. He tells him that the military has it under control, that it’s classified, that he shouldn’t get involved, and also he looks very pretty today in his green uniform. Hal returns the favor by punching the teeth out of his head.

Military personnel cock their guns and aim at Hal’s face. “I could have you arrested,” Stone grumbles, rubbing his flabby jaw. But… since he did, you know… save everyone’s lives… grumble grumble… he can borrow a jet. But just this once. If people in the base catch wind, they’ll all want to fly jets.

Coast City construction crews will need to evacuate the city, if they’re even there. Half the workers are playing Pokemon Omega Ruby in their underpants right now while their hotplates are heating up Salisbury steak TV dinners. I don’t know why I wrote that. It was funny to me.

Back in Sacramento, Jim Jordan with his happy wife and, therefore, happy life, is discussing his son’s desire to play football at school. Jim says NO! His wife Susan says HE LIEKS FOOTBALLZ! Jim says WAIT UNTIL HE IS EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE! Susan says YOU CAN’T PROTECT HIM FOREVER!

“Yeah,” says Jim and Susan’s meek, rather corpulent son. “All the other kids get to play.” STFU, kid. Who told you that you get a say in this matter?

The TV is turned to the news with a report of the Green Lantern returning to Coast City, and the subsequent halting of the city’s rebuilding project.

“Warning. Power levels 0.7%.” Meanwhile, Hal’s ring keeps using all its battery life warning him that it’s running out of battery life. Safely up in the sky where General Stone can’t punch him back, Hal requests (curtly) for Stone to be straight with him. Straight as an arrow, sir. Was that jet that Captain Pearlman was flying reverse engineered by a Manhunter?? No more bullshit, chief. The ring may be running out of power, but he can still make a large dent in his head with it.

“The development of the projects in Hangar 44 started long before the skies were crowded with ‘super-heroes’,” Stone says (curtly) over the phone. Butt out. “We picked up what pieces we could find and we started rebuilding the ship from the ground up. But we could never replicate its engine.”

They spent hours upon hours of smug frowning, but in the end it just couldn’t be done.

When the Manhunters showed up to attack Earth, they were able to pull a defeated one out of a Louisiana swamp. They couldn’t crack the A.I., but they could at least replicate the propulsion system. Thus, the jet.

Because they couldn’t figure out the computer motherboard CPU RAM Intel Pentium 4 400 MHz graphics card 1TB SSHD processor mouse clicks, they sent the robot back to Edwards Air Force Base. It reactivated itself seven weeks ago, and it must’ve sent a distress signal to the new one that we all know and love. “This was strictly for engine and computer development. No one was supposed to get hurt,” Stone adds unhelpfully.

Hal ambushes the Manhunter in the air, who immediately senses the threat and tries to neutralize it. KRRAAKKSHH! A punch right through the windshield. Well fuck, I guess Hal’s going to return a destroyed aircraft. What a piece of shit.

Manhunter lifts Hal with so much force that his arm almost pops out of his socket, which would have been hilarious! Arm all flopping around. At this point the engine fails at the same time his power ring reaches 0.0%. A winning combination of certain, fiery death! Let’s hope, for his sake, that it’s swift. Or slow. Whichever is funnier.

“SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED.” That’s the old Manhunter after the new Manhunter throws his metal missile thing right through the back of its head and through the eyeball. Old Manhunter shoots like a bullet right in the middle of a Coast City construction site. “DETONATION IN FORTY SECONDS.”

Hal is plummeting toward Earth, jet completely out of control despite his best efforts to not be completely, utterly screwed. Now that the old Manhunter has been taken care of, new Manhunter redirects his murdering efforts back toward Hal.

It’s unclear what happens next, but it looks like Manhunter blows up the jet and the flying debris knocks its face shield off, exposing his internal green battery face. Hal, now falling un-Green Lanternly, grapples onto the robot and sticks his ring right in its face. In an impossibly improbably unlikely turn of events, Hal charges up his ring immediately and gets Green Lantern-y again. He throws Manhunter’s head away, beams the falling jet away and prevents it from crashing into the city, and tends to the old Manhunter ticking timebomb. “Detonation in 30 seconds,” his ring says. “Estimated damage: Complete destruction within 25 miles.”

Well, oh snap and whatnot. Now what? If I were Hal I’d launch that fucker into outer space, OR, better yet, use magic Green Lantern powers to stop the bomb. Isn’t that something he can do?

Twenty-five mile radius, man. This shouldn’t be hard. Send him to Jupiter.

While these two saunter through space, Manhunter starts admitting that he’s afraid. Afraid of what happens after self-destruction. After dying. Is there a Manhunter heaven? Does he worship a Manhunter Allah? Did Manhunter Jesus die for his Manhunter sins?

Moot! The robot blows up. Shrapnel and robot parts fly everywhere. Hal is like “buh” and heads back toward good ol’ Earth. Hal Jordan thinks that he accidentally summoned the new Manhunter for some reason. Something about having his ring fully powered up again. Not sure. I thought the old Manhunter sent out a distress signal. I thought that was already established. Continuity! Hal’s gonna check in with the cute and cuddly Kilowog, and then inform the Guardians, those useless, awful Smurfs.

You want competition? I will kick your tight little ass at Monopoly.

Back at the base, Capt. Pearlman has passed her checkup and is ready to fly again! Whoosh! She bumps into Hal on the way out of the office and puts her hand up to his chest seductively… almost… like she knows… that maybe… the guy with the identical hair and identical face structure might POSSIBLY be Green Lantern? A stretch, certainly. “Hope you’re as good as Stone says,” she says after telling Hal that she has heard all about him from Col. Sellers. “’cause I’ve been missin’ something. Competition.”

Hal Jordan looks salty! Ain’t no WOMAN gonna show him what-for, y’heard? But that’s for another time, right now he needs to crawl his way into General Stone’s office and kiss his ass. After apologizing for his past transgressions, Stone agrees to let him back into the test flight program. “It’s be a great honor to have Green Lantern in the U.S.A.F.”

BUH-WHAT? HUH? MOI, THE GREEN LANTERN? SIR, ARE YOU HIGH ON MARIJUANA CIGARETTES? Nope! Stone recognized the signature Hal Jordan punch in the face! They shake hands, and Hal regrets this decision to rejoin the Force immediately.

Hal’s been ruminating upon Old Manhunter’s last words. The fear he had about being destroyed. “It ‘lived’ for over three billion years and it never felt a damn shred of emotion. And then – in its last moment of existence – it finally figures one out.” Three billion years and fear, of all things, is the dominate emotion. “Is this what I’m coming back to? Is this the strongest emotion in the universe? Is fear what controls everyone and everything?”

Then he decides to be fearless and fly around the Ghost Coast City having some Green Lantern fun! His brother’s family, driving around Coast City, gets to see the brilliant beam of green light as if Harry Potter himself is shooting out the Avada Kedavra final blow!

Elsewhere…

THE ARTIFICIAL PLANET OF BIOT. SPACE SECTOR: UNKNOWN

The Committee of Manhunters is having a meeting! The last recorded message from Old Manhunter before he exploded into 999 quadrillion pieces verified contact with the Green Lantern of Sector 2814.1. There is no doubt that the Corps is attempting reformation.

“Let them, my Manhunters,” speaks a mysterious hooded figure. “Your former leader lacked the personal investment in his program. I do not. We need the rings back online… and nothing will escape us… not even Hal Jordan.”

Pan to a bunch of unconscious Green Lanterns from other sectors strung up like puppets.

The End.

Final Thoughts

All right, so now we have the mysterious hooded figure trope in play here. One can only imagine who it is, and I’m sure it’ll be someone that everyone knows except for me! Like “Dorthar of Xyxus” or “Brown Lantern”.