Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #5 – “Feeding Frenzy”

* Part 5 of 6 of the No Fear storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #5 – “Feeding Frenzy”! In the previous installment, the Guardians are starting to dispatch new rings to various sectors. The Green Lantern Corps is reinstating!

Meanwhile, the drooling giant-headed telekinetic guy in prison is named Hector Hammond (did I know that yet? Who cares.) and he means business! If by “business” you mean “mind-raping Hal Jordan for his precious memories about fuckin’ broads”, then boy does he ever mean it! Hammond mentions “they”, whoever “they” are, have been experimenting on him. “They” also have an experiment going on in Coast City, which appears to be some man-shark entity terrorizing the river. That’s out of left field, because I was under the impression that Manhunters were the big threat right now, but apparently it’s now man-sharks.

The military hit an alien dude with their jeep outside of the Air Force base too, and an autopsy revealed that it’s actually a human evolved a few million years or so. Not even from the future! Something fishy is going on there.

Anything else? Oh yeah, my penis is caught in my zipper, so I must be Ben Stiller. Hi everybody.

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #5 [November, 2005]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Feeding Frenzy”

BLACK WATER!
GREEN DEATH!

Not exciting in the least. If anything, I want to read this less! Take that, you fucking lantern.

The fun-filled issue begins on a commercial airline flight. A man reads a newspaper while a businessman sitting next to him yammers about corporate-related nonsense. I didn’t even read it all, and it was like three sentences! He’s headed to Coast City for a fresh start, that much I know.

The man with the newspaper scans an obituary. Franklin H. Anderson, 69, of Star City. The businessman introduces himself as Jerry and reaches out to shake the man’s hand, but he is greeted with an awful stump! It’s quite a disgusting-looking stump; it looks cauterized and there are veins popping and it’s simply awful. “It still hurts,” is how he introduces himself back. The guy has these maniacally red eyes. I imagine no blinking as he describes his hand adventure. “I can feel it. My knuckles cracking apart as they rot away. Tendons snapping as the skin burns. And finger bones clattering as the flesh of my palm is miraculously transformed into ash. All thanks to a vengeful God.”

Jerry looks uncomfortable! But that’s not even close to as disturbing as what happens next. The plane flies through some blinding light, and a group of ethereal demons that look like Chozo Ghosts from Metroid yell in German as they take over the plane. The passengers are horrified as the demons grab Stumpy, who yells at them to get off of him. Like “GET OFFA ME!” Like that.

Back at Edwards Air Force Base, Hal Jordan’s flight gets cancelled in favor of Captain Pearlman. “General Stone wants to see you A.S.A.P.” Col. Shane Poopypants Magoo says to him as Pearlman grins. “Ya needed a real pilot anyhow,” she says as she shoots Hal a look that says “I’m never going to fuck you, so don’t even think about it.”

Hal is ticked off. This General Stone knucklehead is getting in the way of all the flying he wants to do by telling him that he can’t fly! It’s a horrible situation!

You don’t get to tell me what should be on my priority list! Eating Pizza Rolls and jerking off are at least within the top four.

Hal “Green Lantern Jordan” Jordan is going to get involved in that brutal man-shark killing. The body was found yesterday, and his family demands answers. Here’s an answer: the military is performing experiments, ma’am. It’s a small price to pay for raising a man-shark army!

On the beach, Hal scopes out the crime scene. An officer holds his hand to his mouth, fighting back his nausea. “The only reason they knew it was him was by the tattoo on his arm,” he says, wondering too if it is indeed his arm. The remains of the guy are just a pile of guts and bones in the sand.

“I’ve just never seen a man’s skull cracked open like a coconut and the brain eaten,” says another officer, strapping on some anal probe gloves. “It looks like it was licked clean.” They find a shark tooth in the sand. Hal has an inkling about this, so he dives into the water to do some man-shark butt kicking.

No man-shark seen, but there are regular sharks aplenty. More sharks than you can shake a shark stick at! Too many sharks! It’s unusual, but maybe they were following an even bigger predator to grab its scraps. But what?! And from whence?!

Oh, there it is. That was easy.

So Hal forms a barricade around himself, which the man-shark starts gnashing into. This is going to take a while, let’s see what’s going on elsewhere.

TERREBONNE PARISH, LOUISIANA. At the dang prison where Hector Hammond’s head keeps on getting bigger and bigger until it explodes, splashing the entire prison cell with chocolate syrup. How predictable.

Hammond gets water dumped on his head. Bath time! He sits there in an undignified manner as the water runs down his face. Brian Thomer is the guard taking care of him today, and he’s a boring motherfucker. Hammond doesn’t want to deal with him. He watches repeats of Law & Order and eats TV dinners every single night. No girlfriend. Not exciting! Not Hal-caliber! Pah!

Guten tag, Herr Hammond! Hast du soap, shampoo, or a breath mint?

Suddenly, these little German demons surround Hammond’s chair. “Das experiment war ein erfolg,” one says, which I think translates to “Hector Hammond smells like toilet minestrone”. Hammond freaks out at these imps. “You leave me alone now. You leave me be. You’ve done enough!!!!” That’s right, four exclamation points.

The man-shark tries to bang through the cage in order to chew up Hal Jordan for a bit. “This thing has no name. No real name. It’s been swimming in the waters off Coast City for a decade. A shark super-evolved millions of years by a freak accident. Evolved just like Hector Hammond. And that body at Edwards.” Hal wonders if this shark is the Coast City experiment that Hammond was talking about (probably). Or maybe this is yet another Hammond Mind Game™.

Hal talks to the creature like it’s going to start speaking English back to him, then gives up and blasts him in the mouth instead. “Ring. Scan and report the contents of his stomach.”

The ring reports that his stomach is full of ox semen and potato skins from T.G.I.Friday’s. Plus a bunch of fish. Oh, and a man and a woman. Also, some radioactive substance and an extraterrestrial tracker. And some bull semen.

“A tracker?” Hal exclaims, obviously not concerned about the two types of semen. “Let’s get that out. See who’s keeping tabs on you.”

The man-shark starts penetrating Hal’s force field, astoundingly enough, and begs for brains like some sort of man-shark-zombie. Its teeth are two inches from Hal’s screaming, ugly face. He always liked a challenge!

They fight underwater. They tackle each other so hard that they bust through the hull of a Navy ship, which sucks for them. All kinds of seawater filling the place up while sailors go “AAHH!” and “UNNNHH!” and “ZZZRRPP”. The man-shark-zombie begs for blood. Hal ties him up with green light, allows him to bite his arm, and they both launch into space. Busting through the top of the ship now. If this thing doesn’t sink, I’ll eat one of my many hats.

PALMDALE, HILLSIDE PARK! The handless man from the airplane gets beamed down to the grass. His presence causes every living thing within a four foot radius to wither and die instantly. Feeling woozy, he puts his only hand against a tree, which dies immediately. Purple light emanates from his good hand and his stump. The other hand appears to be regenerating. Happy at first, the hand-regeneration starts fizzling out. Then it goes away as quickly as it came.

Inexplicably, he says the following while smiling: “…I smell something… I smell… death.”

Hey, great! I was wondering where I left my collection of used disposable celebrity enemas!

The man-shark attacks the ship. I don’t know why it, nor Hal, isn’t in space anymore. No matter, Hal’s gonna shoot it with his concussive missile fist. “Plug your ears, sailors,” he says as he basically blasts the fucking ship to pieces. Hal then leaves the destruction in his wake.

Ring levels are at 45.65%. Hal will need to recharge before he enters the water again, but as he grabs his battery, the man-shark leaps out of the water and bites his tender, supple torso!

“The shark keeps growing,” he thinks. “The hungrier he gets, the bigger he gets.” The man-shark drags Hal farther and farther down into the depths of the sea. Hal struggles to breathe even though he’s a Green Lantern with half his battery life left, and he can conjure up a snorkel if he so chooses.

No, Hal has a plan: he forces man-shark to bite the battery! Somehow! It explodes in a blinding green light, sending Hal flying in the opposite direction. The ring froze like a computer and needs a hard reset. I guess that’s something that rings need once in a while. Maybe a defrag here and there.

And the man-shark still persists.

Hal heads to the surface, desperate to make it back before he completely runs out of air. The man-shark tackles him again. Comics like these are boring. It’s all fight fight fight. I’d rather see some talk talk talk!

Hal is about to get hella killed… but then those German demons pop in like Kramer.

We’re about to give you a night you’ll never forget, you hunk of man you.

“ER WIRD DIE MEISTE WERTSACHE ZU THANAGAR SEIN.” It’s like, are you ok? What is going on? Where are the goddamned Manhunters?

This dude with the stumpy appendage, he’s Black Hand. I sort of remember him from the Green Lantern: Rebirth mini-series. This asshole, this real piece of shit, the issue ends with him killing a whole hospital full of people. These people die and damn near turn into skeletons immediately with flies buzzing all around them. And he’s all like “yay, I’m getting my hand back!”

And he gets his hand back. To be continued.