Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern (Vol. 5), Issue #1 – “Sinestro (Part 1)”! And so I begin my precocious new adventure into the mythos that is Green Lantern, which may or may not have had its continuity upended and bastardized dozens of times by the time the New 52 imprint got their hands on it anyway! I have no frame of reference. I don’t know anything about the Green Lantern except 1) something about a ring is involved, and 2) that Big Bang Theory nerd wears a shirt a lot that may or may not even be Green Lantern-related in the first place! What the hell do I know? I’d rather read Batman comics! This better be good is all I’m saying.

Green Lantern (Vol. 5), Issue #1 [November, 2011]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Sinestro (Part 1)”

OK, so the Green Lantern looks like a middle-aged Vincent Price! When I think of superheroes I first think of Vincent Price! I’m already sold!

We start off with a cute little bedtime prayer: “In brightest day…in blackest night…no evil shall escape my sight…let those who worship evil’s might…BEWARE MY POWER!” Ok, so it’s not the greatest bit of poetry, and the complicated rhyme scheme kind of falls on its face at the end there, but hey, nobody’s perfect!

Oh, it continues. “…GREEN LANTERN’S LIGHT!” Ho hum. The Green Lantern is in some room with his wrists chained. A council of some hovering little big-brained blue guys in red robes surround him.

“It’s been a long time since you have uttered that oath, Sinestro. How did it feel?” asks one of the big-brained blue guys. I’m gonna call him Brett. Check out the big brain on Blue Brett! Ha! This Sinestro guy, his ring is glowing with positively RADIOACTIVE green light. His face is desperate and red. He looks like shit. “What do you want with me, guardians? I did what you asked. I said the oath. Now remove this ring!”

The stern-faced blue oompah loompahs tell Sinestro that the ring chose him to once again be part of the corps, even in spite of his past betrayal. Time for redemption, Sinestro! Get a move on!

Sinestro doesn’t want to redeem himself! Fuck that noise, he doesn’t have to prove anything to the corps or the guardians or nobody! But, he’s wearing the ring, so oh well! The guardians tell him to protect his sector and that he is free to go. Sinestro grabs his hovering lantern and floats away into space without another word.

Once Sinestro leaves, the blue guys start bickering. Apparently, Sinestro abused his Green Lantern powers in order to become a dictator on his home world of Korugar. That kind of shenanigans is frowned upon among the Blue Council! The one called Ganthet is extra pissed about this; he says Sinestro intended to destroy the guardians and now we just gave him his Special Decoder Ring and his Special Lantern back! Another blue guy simply says that it’s good to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

I’m with Ganthet on this one. That’s fucked up, Smurf guys.

But, the council has had enough of Ganthet’s shit and they mind-zap him!

The comic book intergalactic gangbang we’ve all been waiting for!

So the guy on the cover is Sinestro, not the main guy. The main guy is Hal Jordan, he looks like a better superhero. Nice hair, muscles, that’s more like it!

Hal Jordan is sleepily sifting through a giant pile of “BILL PAST DUE” envelopes on a dining room table. His skinny, young landlord is beside him giving him the business. Pay up or your ass is grass! As his landlord demands his money, Jordan is distracted by a domestic dispute in the next apartment over. He can see some bald, veiny fucker grabbing a skinny blonde woman by the throat through his kitchen window. He knocks his dining table over while running out of the room. “CALL 9-1-1!” he yells at his angry and bewildered landlord, who probably thinks this is another ploy to avoid paying the rent. Perhaps the RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH! sir.

OHH YEEAAAHHH!!

This guy, this Hal Jordan guy, he leaps across buildings and crashes through the goddamned window like the Kool-Aid Man. He starts punching this veiny, bald guy out of nowhere! Really letting him have it! …and then realizes that a camera crew is in the room filming a scene. And the only thing he has to say for himself is “Oh, damn.” Off to jail with you, you smarty man you!

This doesn’t seem to be the first time this has happened. Some young possible love interest named Carol Ferris posts his bail and they skedaddle. “You’re not the Green Lantern anymore, Hal. You could’ve been killed.” she berates him, and Jordan responds with exposition dialogue. That’s nice of him, he knew I was reading.

Look Hal, we don’t want an accidental 9/11 on our hands. The real 9/11 was bad enough without you upping the ante.

He tells her that while he was discharged from the air force because he was missing in action, but SHE knows the REAL truth: that he was off the planet saving the Green Lantern Corps! She tells him, fighting off the planet or not, she can’t insure any planes that he flies. So there! This woman owns a whole airline?

Anyway, Hal Jordan’s a sad sack these days in more ways than one. The guardians took his ring for what may be similar reasons that his pilot’s license has been revoked. Not only that, but they gave a ring to Sinestro! Sinestro! It’s like, what the fuck! That guy’s a real douchebag! She says, maybe whatever’s going on with the Green Lantern Corps is none of their business anymore. Fuck it! She herself hasn’t put on the “star sapphire ring” either since she got back. So relax, homie.

MEANWHILE, SPACE SECTOR 1447, PLANET KORUGAR: Sinestro is chillin’ on some asteroid-thing looking through a weird, giant glowing telescope. Big dinosaurs with scepters are enslaving the citizens! WHAT ELSE IS KNEW, EH? Suddenly, some grotesque purple reptile crashes down on Sinestro and destroys the telescope. “DIE, LANTERN!” the creature snarls while Sinestro barely looks phased. He looks like he’s about ready to fart, actually. Perhaps this purple creature caught him at a bad time? A bad fartin’ time?

“I will skin you!” the reptile yells, and then recognizes him, “…Sinestro? We have been waiting for your return. What are you wearing?” the big ugly creature stares at the ring while Sinestro points it at his face. Sinestro wants answers, his orders were to protect Korugar, not enslave it. The creature is fuming! The yellow light is betrayed! What is this nonsense?! The yellow light! Not the green light, we’re talking about yellow here, Sinestro! Yellow!

Sinestro reveals a cord from his ring and starts choking the Purple Lizard with it. “I betrayed nothing.” he says, choking the bastard out. The yellow ring leaves his finger and Sinestro blasts it to pieces.

Hal and Carol are dressed up all fancy-like and having a fancy-like dinner, which I’m sure Carol is paying for since she owns an entire airline and Hal’s a deadbeat bum. He’s been thinking a lot about what she said, about forgetting the whole Green Lantern business and moving on. Sounds sensible to me, he needs to get a fucking job. And that’s just what he does. Whatever position is open for him at Ferris Air, he’s willing to take it. Janitor! I hope it’s a janitor! I hope he gets to plunge toilets at a gross airport bathroom. The private pilot bathroom! I want him to plunge other pilots’ turds.

“I never thought I’d be doing this, but…I need to ask you something,” he tells her sheepishly. She thinks he’s going to propose or something, but he asks her to be a cosigner for a lease on a new car.

How charming!

Ooooh, I’m a connoisseur of drinks splashed in my face! Could that be…hmm…is it Capri-Sun? Ahhh, the aforementioned Kool-Aid?

Anyway, she leaves. He runs out after her and wonders what her fucking problem was, and then realizes that maybe he got her hopes up. She’s still mad, though, basically tells him to go eat worms! “You’ve been off-planet for so long, you’re beyond out of touch with everyday life–and people” she tells him bluntly as she gets in her car and burns rubber! He has no ride now! LOL!

Hal Jordan walks home in the pouring rain, only to discover an eviction notice taped to his apartment door.

We end with an off-putting, slightly glowing, still kinda red Sinestro approaching Jordan in the hallway. “If you want your ring back, you’ll do everything I say.”

Final Thoughts

So far so good. I’m already primed to expect any DC superhero to be all super and heroic, so I’m taken aback already that Hal Jordan has Marvel-levels of rock bottom patheticness! Show me the Superman comic where he kicks an actor’s ass in front of a camera crew, I dare you!

That won’t last long, though. Hal’s gonna be back on his feet by the end of Issue #2. As far as what he’s going to need to do to get his ring back, I’m guessing there’s going to be page after page of Hal Jordan sucking Sinestro’s dick in the next installment, and I, for one, welcome it.