Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #6 – “Black Sheep”! In the previous installment, Hal Jordan spends about 45 minutes battling a man-shark, then Black Hand gets his black hand back.

You’re all caught up. Here’s the “thrilling” conclusion of the storyline!

Green Lantern (Vol. 4), Issue #6 [December, 2005]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Black Sheep”

Nice cover art, all like “RRRAAAWWWRR LOOK AT MY GARGANTUAN BLACK HAND”. It’s bigger than an entire fleet of jets! It’s bigger than the world and the moon! Gimme a high five! *slam*

“That shark-thing just leaped right out of the water and grabbed him,” announces a sexy sailor. He’s on a ship with other sexy sailors, discussing Hal Jordan’s fight with man-bear-shark. They’re looking for an incandescent green light, but they sure don’t see an incandescent green light. They see bubbles as far as the eye can see, they do!

Out of the water comes an enormous spaceship, big enough to beam up the entire sexy sailor ship and give them all sexy probes. “Get me General Stone at Edwards,” radios the ship captain, like Stone is going to be able to do a damn thing about it. That guy looks like he huffs and puffs tying his shoes.

Meanwhile, on the spacecraft, those little German-speaking demons have the man-shark contained and are desperately trying to wake up Hal Jordan. Or do something with him, at any rate. Have their way with him? A telepathic signal from Hector Hillsdale Hunky-Dory Hammond causes Hal to bolt upright. Hammond himself is having trouble with these imps. “I told you they were back!” he shrieks as one is messing with his gross, exposed brain.

Hal’s ring informs them that they’re gremlins. “A race of capitalist scientists from the planet Krolot known for their obsession with the re-engineering of technological and biological resources from other cultures.” What, really? These guys? They look like they’re going to scurry around the walls with spiders and rats.

“They’re harvesting me,” Hammond says, rather glumly. “And the shark. They’re going to sell us – as living weapons to an intergalactic warrr.” Hammond drools like a doofus, tears streaming down his cheeks. I want to kill him myself, I’m so tired of looking at his awful face. It’s atrocious.

Something suddenly incapacitates Jordan. It makes him hold his head and go “HAKK”! “You know what?” says a voice. “You’ll be the twenty-third person I’ve killed today.”

Who else is showing up in the mess of a comic book? None other than Black Hand, of course. “Death is good. And death wants you back,” he tells Jordan as a mysterious pink beam flows from Black Hand’s not-black hand to Jordan’s chest. Jordan pulls up a green forcefield to block the energy.

And Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Phish Food, for sure.

Black Hand has a score to settle here. Jordan took his hand! His poor hand! Reduced it to a smelly, cauterized stump! Well, two can play it this game. Time to reduce your life to a smelly, cauterized stump! Ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!

Hal’s ring warns him that the shield can’t hold shortly before the shield no longer holds! Black Hand blasts him across the room with fervent energy. “You’re what the gremlins are looking to improve upon. Even with that ring, you’re still human.”

Yes yes, poor vulnerable Hal Jordan. He requires reinvigoration via gremlins. Like a health spa. For what reason? Fuck if I know. We were just battling man-sharks moments ago.

While Black Hand strangles the life out of him, Hal has flashbacks of himself as a young lad. His mom makes him promise her that he’ll never become a pilot. He cries as he says “I promise”. A promise he obviously broke! Don’t ever depend on Hal Jordan, the slimy little weasel. He’ll stab you in the back 45 times at Slenderman’s request.

General Stone and his Air Force Platoon Company Squadron Buddies are flying around and striking the spaceship with their ballistics and heat-seaking missiles! Gremlins start swarming the Air Force jets. “We got company. Ugly little bastards, too.”

Man-shark wakes up with his containment tube. Hammond wants Hal to shoot him visions and memories of Carol Ferris, that sexy little piece. Hal tells Hammond to cork it.

Man-shark crashes out of his tube. Gremlins do a double-take. Man-shark starts chasing after the gremlins. This comic sucks.

While man-shark and the gremlins are busy, Black Hand and Hal Jordan carry on with their skirmish. Hal Jordan’s flashbacks continue…

“She made it crystal clear. You’re not welcome. And the state she’s in, I’m not going to let you upset her.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“You can’t be surprised she’s acting like this. You broke your promise.”

“I was a ten-year-old kid.”

“And still, every time you snuck out of the house and hit an airfield, it was like slapping her in the face.”

Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Hal old boy! Now your mom hates you to ‘til death does she part. This is what you get for following your dreams!

“How do I fix it?”

“You can’t fix everything Hal.”

Especially not the refrigerator, obviously. It’s been broken for months.

So Hal quits the Air Force to make his mom happy, but she died, like, minutes beforehand. That’s an lol from me. Hal sees visions of visiting her grave. Then he sees visions of identifying his brother Jack’s body.

“Death,” says Black Hand.

“I’m not afraid of death,” says Hal.

“No… but you hate it, don’t you? You hate death.”

Yeah, who doesn’t? Exploiting such a weakness is fish in a barrel, Black Hand.

“No… I just hate you!” Hal retorts. Then he fashions a blade out of his green lanterny light and chops off Black Hand’s hand again! Hilarious! He goes “Arrr!”

“You’re telling me how powerful death is… but without life, death is nothing. You’re proof of that,” Hal tells Black Hand before opening up a grave in the ground and dumping him into it. “No…” is all Black Hand has to say about this before Hal covers up the hole.

Anticlimactic as shit.

There’s still the spaceship to take care of. “Jordan! We’re crashing!” Hammond yells telepathically as the fiery spaceship spirals out of control. Hal conjures up some giant robot and saves the ship. The end.

“Since we halted work on the X-2020, Hangar 44 has been empty,” General Stone fesses up to Hal. “But since it’s already secured and equpped to house alien technology, transforming it into a containment unit for extra-terrestrial threats wasn’t a stretch.”

Hector Hammond. Black Hand. The Manhunter. Everything but the man-shark, they didn’t account for that one. But it looks like everyone is suddenly gone! So let’s move on!

General Stone has an new idea to target these aliens. “There’s an organization in the pentagon I think I can get access to.”

Jordan is half-listening. He’s staring at a photo of his dad in General Stone’s office.

General Stone kisses it every day before he leaves for home.

“Untranslatable” translates to “goddamn mothercunting”, actually.

We wrap up with Hal Jordan meeting up with a German-speaking space creature named Tagort and his buddy Venizz. They’re both Green Lanterns of Sector Whatever. Hal Jordan still has the spaceship in tow, and he thanks them for taking it off his hands. He finds out that German isn’t actually the language, it’s Krolotean! They sound similar because Hitler conquered Krolot in 1944.

Hector Hammond is in stasis in Hangar 44. “Green Lantern saved me, yes, he did. You should have seen it. Oh, it was simply delightful. A true memory to cherish.”

He’s chatting with the head of a Manhunter, also in stasis.

“I was rescued by the greatest Green Lantern there ever was.”

“NO MAN ESCAPES THE MANHUNTERS.”

“Oh, you’re no fun to talk to!”

Hammond does let his bionic friend in on a little secret: he knew they were coming for him, and he knew Green Lantern would stop them. He’s a free man now. The gremlins, they opened him up and pulled out his cortex and did more experiments.

“And… well…” he smiles, drooling. “Things are a little different now.”

Final Thoughts

Geez, was this bad. At least this writeup was super short! I’m tabling this one for a bit. Geoff Johns can suck a lime. Until next time, Green Lanternites, this is Tom signing off with a “nanu nanu”.