Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #1 – “Blackest Night”!
Have I run into Geoff Johns before at this point along my comic book binge? It seems like I should have already, perhaps because I’ve seen his name everywhere when doing DC research, but I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure yet. Apparently, he’s a big fucking deal.
Which is why I’m excited to begin one of Johns’ most renowned runs (and one of anybody’s most renowned runs) in DC comics. Having read the first storyline of New 52 Green Lantern, I left with a good impression but no real motivation to continue with it. And I felt bad about that! So here I am, beginning to undertake the best of the Green Lantern that the history of DC has to offer. Arguably. Some people certainly have different opinions, but those people are probably stupid.
Here’s what I know about Geoff Johns:
1) He grew up in a town 20 miles away from the town I grew up in.
2) He and I went to the same university.
3) His sister died in the 1996 TWA Flight 800 explosion, which is absolutely beyond fucked up.
That’s all.
Enough backstory, let’s dive into the six-issue limited series that started it all. Or continued it all. Or ended it all?
Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #1 [December, 2004]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Blackest Night”
Woo! Look at that cover art! Woo! It’s, uh…
Yeah, whatever.
“The universe. I’ve been told it was a magnificent place back then. Full of wonder and adventure… and even romance. Defenders from a thousand worlds patrolling their respective sectors. Each one wielding the most fantastic weapon in existence.”
Ooooh, ooh, let me guess! It’s the Green Lantern ring! It’s the Green Lantern ring! Itsthegreenlanternring! Story over.
That was the intro narration, showing a backdrop of space and stars and a large, orange sun. Wait, there’s more. Let’s listen…
“For billions of years, the Green Lantern Corps lit the darkest ends of space. They were the manifestation of hope and achievement. Of righteousness and force of will…”
“Until one of their own destroyed it all. And the light of the Green Lanterns vanished.”
“Almost.”
Oh man, chills! From the closeup of a fiery, murderous sun, a large spacecraft pushes its way out though the sun’s surface and makes it gloop and glorp like a ball of pudding. The fluorescent green ship emits a thick, fluorescent green plasma that looks like a can of fluorescent SURGE was shaken up and popped open by a fluorescent 10-year-old asshole.
The ship makes its way to Earth.
HIGHWAY HILL, NEW MEXICO. The Nellis Bombing and Gunnery Range, a super-secret, restricted government piece of property. A couple whipper-snappers are considering trespassing on the property. One kid is nervous and apprehensive. The other kid is brave and stupid. It’s a deserted base anyway, there’s no one there to yell at them or arrest them or snipe their brains out. “All those stories about UFOs and Groom Lake – it was just the government testing stolen Soviet planes.”
I know this trope! Rude awakening in about four minutes.
The kids scale the barbed wire fence. I was wrong about four minutes. It’s more like six nanoseconds. An intense BOOOOM blows them both back as the green spacecraft zooms and crashes rather ostentatiously to the ground. It digs into the dirt as it slides violently toward the kids. It stops within inches of killing them both.
“So what kind of plane is that?” asks Dummy #1. Maybe it’s TWA Flight 800! *horn honk*
A hole has been burst open in the craft, and the youngins investigate.
“Please… don’t be afraid…” a scary-looking, fear-inducing man squeaks out meekly. Like a meek little mouse! Like a scary-looking, meek little mouse. He’s dressed in Green Lantern garb and he has a Green Lantern ring and a big, glowing Green Lantern lantern. I think he’s the Flash.
The plane crash victim attempts to pull off his ring, but he can’t. It’s not possible.
The man is Kyle Rayner. He’s the last of the Green Lanterns. And the first to know what fear really is.
Look, man, do you want spare change or something? I have a hot dog in my backpack.
Very unsettling! Very suspenseful! But forget about that shit for now, we’ve moved on to northern California where a woman, who must be Carol Ferris, checks out an old airfield that has long since been inactive. It’s where the woman grew up, and she has been stopping by quite often lately.
She’s on the phone with a man named Gil, talking about an interest in purchasing the property.
“I can still smell jet fuel burning. I can hear the roar of the turbines… you should come out here sometime… it was my childhood.”
I can imagine Gil on the other end mumbling and trying to squirm his way out of traveling to a dilapidated old boring airfield. It was a little boring for Carol too, having spent much of the time working for her father cooking the books and shredding documents and stealing airplane parts. But now, she rekindled her appreciation for the place.
And why Geoff Johns would want to write stories involving airplanes and pilots is beyond me. He should have stuck to Superman, that guy doesn’t need airplanes.
Carol is distracted by an old, dusty aircraft in one of the hangars. She tells Gil that she’ll call him back later. Then she says “I love you.” He returns the sentiment.
But she was actually talking to the airplane! She wipes a film of dust off the side, revealing the words “H. Jordan”. I know that guy!
I have plenty of personal experience in this matter, and I’m going to throw out some essential wisdom. Ready?
Don’t ever trust a fucking Kyle.
THE BRONX. NEW YORK CITY. YANKEE STADIUM, BABY. There’s a guy dressed up like a Green Lantern who has a ring like the Green Lantern and he’s flying around like the Green Lantern, but if Kyle Rayner is the last of the Green Lanterns then someone’s pants are on fire already. This one is named… I don’t know yet. His companion is named Guy. Like Fieri (yuck) or Fawkes (still yuck). The Green Lantern guy must be new, and the Guy guy keeps telling him to relax and let the ring do its job. “You point and glide like a freakin’ ballerina.”
Not Guy tells Guy to put a cork in it. He’s not going to listen because there are only two people he trusts: Kyle Rayner and Hal Jordan. And Hal Jordan’s off that list!
“Our rings could be out of power, we could be trapped on the edge of a black hole facing off against Evil Star – but if I looked Hal in the eyes, if he told me we were going to get out of it – I always believed him,” says the thus-far unnamed Lantern Man.
“I miss that look.”
Yeah, and I bet Hal Jordan had the dreamiest eyes of all time. Like pools of sparkling blue water.
“Evil Star? You’re worried about a guy like Evil Star?” asks a guy like Guy, incredulous.
“That’s not the point.”
“Look, Jordan had stones, I’ll give him that, but he was nothin’ special.”
“Then why are you here?”
“You kidding? These seats are GREAT,” Guy says, flashing a couple of tickets as they make their way through the stadium’s security line.
“You miss the ring.”
“Come on.”
“You miss being a Green Lantern.”
Guy’s friend is named Stewart. He’s currently hanging out with the Justice League, but Guy thinks Stewart’s just riding coattails while he flails around incompetently. Says that Batman is pushing him around, and Stewart’s just a yes man. Useless, when you think about it. Pure garbage.
Stewart is salty, but he restrains himself.
What is it about Bat Men and their abuse of power? Huh?!
Guy has more stuff to say. Stewart, you’ve been neutered, man. When Hal Jordan bequeathed to him his fancy schmancy green ring, Stewart had his scruples! He challenged authority! He did good for good’s sake! Now what? He makes one teensy tiny, hitherto unknown and still unexplained, mistake. And now he’s some little bitch following orders instead of being assertive! That doesn’t sound like a Green Lantern. That sounds like a Green Shit.
“You threw all your willpower into bein’ an architect,” Guy says, lifting a single finger an a condescending manner, “and now all ya think about is how things work – instead of why things work.”
Very profound, Guy. Do you tongue your mother with that mouthful of wisdom?
Stewart has had enough and tells him, for the second time, to put a goddamn cork in it. Guy relents and, long story short, he doesn’t want the ring anymore. He hates the Guardians and he hates all the rules and he hates all the pussy that you get from it. He’s finito. And he “sure as hell doesn’t miss being forced to live up to some higher code of universal ethics”.
Yeesh, keep an eye on this one. He’s bad to the bone! B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-
In one panel, Guy reveals himself to be Guy Gardner, he who has Vuldarian powers laced in his genetics which have brought him back from the brink of death. Even during the interplanetary war. He is bigger and better than the Green Lanterns. He is a Warrior!
Ho hum. That’s going to be his downfall, I’m sure. Let’s move on.
Hal Jordan is not around anymore. Apparently he’s dead, and he died as a ghost! And that’s a literal statement. He literally became a ghost and died. That’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard so far and I’ll probably never get around to reading about why.
Table that one for now, though. Guy and Stewart are sitting in their seats just now talking about how Hal Jordan will never, ever show up again, and then Hal Jordan immediately shows up again. Like Beetlejuice, but you only have to say his name once.
Of course, Stewart isn’t surprised, but Guy makes a big ddduuuuuurrr face about this. Hal and Stewart cozy up and exchange sickening words of mutual fondness for one another.
Translation: Get launched into the fucking sun.
“I used to love baseball,” Hal says, staring vaguely onto the field, “The Coast City Angels were quite a team back in the day. My dad used to take me and my brothers to every home game.”
Hal is hazy with nostalgia. If my dad took me to every single Detroit Tigers home game I would have emancipated myself from the family at age 9. But Hal liked that, apparently, for some weirdo reason.
A rude awakening jars Hal when a man approaches him, grabs his hand, and insists that he needs to tell him something. “I’m a sinner,” he says, gripping Hal’s sweaty hand and kneeling on the floor like the former Green Lantern is Jesus H. Crackers. Now everyone sitting around him suddenly starts confessing their sins to Hal. “I’m embezzling money from the office.” “I lied to my wife. I committed adultery.” “My butt hurts.”
Guy is annoyed by all this attention that Hal Jordan is getting! As he turns to lay down some real petty whining, Guy’s eyes begin to widen. “I… I cheated on my taxes.”
The whole section of the stadium gravitates toward Hal like he’s a black hole of salvation. That’s a terrible analogy! Or is it? Hal gets uncomfortable, and who could blame him? Only Stewart is impervious to Hal’s strange energy. “As much as I want to, I can’t stay here, John.” The spirit of vengeance… it won’t give me a break anymore.”
So this dude’s name is John Stewart? He’s one missing H away from hosting The Daily Show.
Hal magically disappears from his seat. Perhaps ghostlike.
NEXT. Star City, home of Oliver Queen. Green Arrow.
“Hurry it up, Mia,” says Green Arrow. To Mia. Mia is a woman.
“Just give me another minute. I’ve got to get my mask on before we play Robin Hood.”
Green Arrow looks like a dandy right out of the Renaissance period! Mia looks like she’s going to go jogging in the park. Two seconds later, someone bursts through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man. Instead of going “OH YEAH!”, he goes “Where are you? I know you’re here, you little…”
I don’t know who this guy is, but he’s got a clicker that he keeps clicking like he’s changing channels. KRIK KRIK KRIK KRIK KRIK KRIK KRIK. The business end has a green light. He has a mask with an arrow pointing down on his forehead like the nerd from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Bow & Arrow Man and the Fantastic Mia Lady hide while this guy scans the premises. He’s looking for the ring. The ring. You know the one. He finds one and feasts his eyes on its deliciousness.
Then he gets stigmata’d.
Oh shit, oh shit. Is it bad? Is it going to leave a scar?
The ring falls to the floor. This supervillain is Black Hand. More like Arrow Through the Hand!! LOL!!! Green Arrow readies another arrow, mocking the infiltrator for being one of Green Lantern’s “old losers”. If this Black Hand problem wasn’t enough, Ghostly Hal Jordan decides to just pop into the room to say hello to his pal! Not a good time, but whatever. Always on your terms.
Green Arrow would love to chat, but he’s got a Black Hand thing he’s got to take care of first. Does that sound ok, Hal? Please?
“I’d like nothing more, Ollie,” Hal says, glowing a sinister, off-putting shade of green, “but that’s not what I’m here for.”
Hal becomes a scary hooded Green Lantern guy and starts frightening the Black Hand! “The Spectre must deliver vengeance,” Hal says, approaching Mr. Hand. Long story short here, Black Hand has been a Bad Boy and must be neutralized.
“Hal, what are you doing?” asks Green Arrow, nervously. But Hal isn’t listening. He’s caught up in this display of occultism!
“Judgment has been passed,” Hal says, gripping Black Hand’s throat. Then his right hand dissolves into a pile of smoldering, green dust. Black Hand cries on the floor, gripping his stump. He moans like this: “NNNAAARRR!”
Is it still bad? Please tell me it’s not as bad as it looks. Do you think I’m going to lose the hand?
Now Green Arrow has his bow trained on Hal and tells him to stay put. Hal says something about him not being himself, that this shouldn’t have happened, that he’s finding it hard to focus, that there’s something wrong. Then he disappears in a flame-y tangle of green light while Green Arrow and Mia stare flabbergasted.
Black Hand is still crying. Hal would never do this. But the Spectre? Yeah, that guy would! He’d Jaime Lannister the shit out of anybody.
So what’s going on here? Is Hal trying to send messages to his closest friends that things are really fucked up? Green Arrow lifts the bloodied ring. “Hal gave me this ring a long time ago. He said, ‘In case of emergency, break glass.’ I think the glass has just been broken.”
Oh no, not the glass! I just noticed that Green Arrow has this awful beard that flips up like Dilbert’s tie. Seems like that would get in the way of his careful aiming!
Speaking of glass, Guy and John “Your Moment of Zen” Stewart are chilling in a bar of sorts that shows large statues of various Green Lanterns under glass. “At least the Yanks beat the BoSox. Helluva game,” Guy drawls like he thinks he’s cool. John isn’t in the mood to talk about no BoSox. Obviously, he’s preoccupied by whatever the hell that was with Hal Jordan back at the stadium.
“Look, maybe it isn’t time for Hal Jordan to enjoy life. Think of what he went through,” Guy says, trying to make his pal feel better, “What he actually did after Coast City. The ‘One, True” Green Lantern lost all his marbles.”
Sure, Coast City. Whatever you say. If Hal Jordan is supposed to be the biggest deal in Green Lanterndom, then he sure didn’t seem like it back when I read about him Hangin’ with Mr. Sinestro.
Oh my GOD dude, just shut the fuck up. Get over it.
Guy tells John that he wasn’t even around to see Jordan’s downfall. The man is wack. He called himself “Parallax”. He wanted to rewrite history. He wanted to beat everyone up in his path. He wanted pussy! Oh man, did he ever want some pussy. But he really wanted to rewrite history and be called Parallax, which is less respectable.
“He did die saving the planet,” John argues, “He used his power to reignite the sun.”
“And now his soul is trapped inside the Spectre. God’s spirit of vengeance or whatever the thing is,” Guy argues further.
EXPOSITION DIALOGUE! Catchin’ up nicely here. Thank you, Geoffrey Johnny Jeffrey Johns!
Apparently, Guy owns this bar, and John asks him if he’s so in love with loving to hate Hal Jordan now, then why does he keep his statue here looming over them like one of those mean Gods. It’s because Hal Jordan, with all his flaws and his possessed diabolical pursuits, he always had Guy’s back.
They’re about to call it a night when Guy starts clutching his chest, wriggling and getting bumps all over his skin. It’s those Vuldarian powers laced in his genetics again! Oh, the hubris!
“Skin’s on fire,” Guy groans and moans and writhes and sweats and bellows and grunts and oinks, “John… get… OUT! HURRY!”
You’re being such a baby, Guy. Knock it off..
John Stewart readies himself with a Green Lantern suit and his glowing ring. Maybe he’s going to punch Guy in the forehead with it. Guy’s arms are turning into FLAME CANNONS and bright, yellow light is shooting out of at least three of his seven head holes! The bar is engulfed in a fiery inferno of flying shrapnel and splintering wood. Guy screams and blasts John across the room. The the building explodes! BAWOOM! Gotta love these sound effects.
That was in New York. An airplane is flying over the twilit coast of North California. Coast City, to be precise, as it is aptly named! The place is destroyed. It must be why Hal Jordan lost his marbles. I hope he finds them again. They mention that the large, horrible alien Mongul was involved, and hey, I’ve come across him before, helping Superman and then betraying Superman! That guy is dastardly! And Mongul ain’t too good himself.
One of the pilots of the small plane asks why the hell Coast City has one very large and pristine-looking building left intact among the rubble? Weird!
We turn our attention now to a prison in Louisiana. A prisoner who is usually quite brain dead and useless has somehow attacked a prison mate. The guards are flabbergasted as they wheel the now-insane victim out of the building. The doctor is glabberflasted as he insists that the brain dead prisoner, Hector Hammond, is still brain dead so how could he be awake and babbling and doing active mind stuff?? It’s nuttier than a Snickers bar, I tell you whut.
We see the man now, alone in his cell. He has a head that’s easily as big as the rest of his body on a bad day, with his tiny little baby arms. His giant head is that of an ugly old man with an ugly little Salvador Dali mustache and glassy, nearly-closed eyes. He’s telepathically trying to communicate with Kyle Rayner. He’s trying to scare him.
Heh heh heh… …ohhhh, ha ha, I get it now… yes, very funny… (?)
THE WATCHTOWER. HEADQUARTERS OF THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA. Woop woop! There must be some kind of way outta here! lol
The Justice League has Guy Gardner on an operating table. He looks like a complete mess. Exposed organs, broken ribs jutting right out of his torso. They may as well leave him for dead, honestly, but they’re working on him anyway. Martian Manhunter wants to shut down his pain receptors. Batman suggests just knocking the poor sucker unconscious. They listen to Batman because, as Guy Garnder has stated earlier, that motherfucker bosses everyone around.
Guy’s body is rejecting his own body! That’s bleak and grounds for therapy. His organs are twisting and shapeshifting into forms that Guy’s shapeshifting body can’t shift back into shape. Some guy named Mr. Terrific should probably come to help at some point!
Mr. Terrific – First appearance: 1997
Mr. Fantastic – First appearance: 1961
I’m just saying.
Superman asks a temple-rubbing John Stewart if he’s ok. He’s not. Guy just exploded out of nowhere like a jerk! “Unleashed a massive amount of firepower.” Lowkey rude.
Wonder Woman has something to say. A lot to say, actually. I’ll post the panel because I don’t want to read it and also it might attract some Google hits to this page.
Uh huh… uh huh… right, right… uh huh… heh, uh, can you repeat all that? I was busy not listening, half-naked lady.
Hubba hubba, gentlemen. Anyway, these Justice League members all look very SERIOUS. Saving the world is never a laughing matter unless you’re Deadpool or Plastic Man or Paul Rudd.
Metamorpho? Justice Society? Alan Scott? Jade? Speak English, Amazonian! I don’t know any of that stuff!
The one statue that was not destroyed by Guy Gardner’s big farty blast? The Hal Jordan statue, of course. It’s completely intact, unblemished, and sexy as all get-out. Wonder Woman looks at it in awe. lmao, they brought it with them to the Justice League HQ. They packed it in a box and transported it like it was FedEx.
I don’t know half these heroes so bear with me. One guy is crying, saying that Hal tried so hard to change the nature of the Spectre to no avail! Boo hoo, now he’s some weird green ghost apparition thing. And “they” won’t ever forgive him. Whoever “they” are. There’s always a nefarious “them” lurking around. Big Brother. Bugs and ants. Gary Busey.
THE FLASH REPORTS FROM THE WEST COAST! FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH!! Running fast like Sonic the Hedgehog voiced by Jaleel “Steve Urkel” White. Coast City is nuts. There are roads and street lights and stop signs and garbage cans and mailboxes and taxi cabs and one building! Two is not a number he would use to describe the number of buildings in Coast City at this moment. It’s located at 22 Sea View (one block from 21 Jump St.) and this doesn’t mean anything to the Flash, but it means something to Aquaman. Perhaps because the word “sea” is in the name. The man sure likes his sea.
Oh wait, it also means something to others who are not the Flash. Superman, John Stewart, and Batman are all like “it was Hal Jordan’s address, you fast dumbass”. It’s his old apartment building. New, rebirthed Hal did this on purpose.
Hal planned this. From jumping to Parallax to the Spectre, he’ll be unstoppable if he harnesses the Parallax power and tame the Spectre vengeance. See, that’s what I thought too, heh heh heh. Batman just beat me to it!
Martian Manhunter argues that Hal Jordan is looking for redemption. He’s a changed man. Batman almost slaps him like he’s one of his sultry Robin boys. Hal Jordan never changed. He’s a giant narcissist. He didn’t think ahead! No one should have ever trusted him in the first place!
John Stewart has had enough of Batman’s shit. Finally, at last, he stands up for himself and for Hal.
Oh no! Scolding from John Stewart! Batman’s one weakness!
“Hal was the man without fear. And what is “the Batman” when you’re not afraid of him. Just a man,” Stewart says, getting close enough to Batman’s face that he could give him a quick peck on the lips if he wanted to.
“Rein it in, John,” Green Arrow berates distastefully as he enters the room, “As much as I hate to see it, or even admit it, Hal isn’t the same guy we used to know. I just saw him. He severed a man’s hand. He said ‘none of this should have happened’.”
Fancy seeing you here, Green Not-Lantern. Thanks for your unwanted input! He doesn’t continue, though, because he sees the large, wriggling pile of fleshy goo that is now Guy Gardner. Looks like that guy has seen better days!
Batman likes the validation. John Stewart has to face the facts: The real, unchanged Hal Jordan is back, he took the past back with him, and we all have to deal with it. That guy talks about his golf games a lot. Nobody cares about his golf games! Why does he have to talk about them so much?!
The issue ends with Carol Ferris hanging out in her airplane yard in the rain. With a loud KRANK KRRRRKKKK, A wild Hal Jordan appears.
“Hello, Carol,” he smiles, hands in his flight jacket pockets.
Final Thoughts
VERY long writeup! Lots of setup! Lots of people talking about Hal Jordan! Too early to make any hasty opinions! Geoff Johns!
Bye!
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