Strange things lurk in the Dollar Boxes.

So...I was perusing the bargain boxes at my beloved local Comic book shoppe, and stumbled upon a few gems. Numbers 59 and 60 of Justice League International, which dated from December of '93 and January of '94. The first one shows an enraged Power Girl punching out Hal Jordan...although there was something odd about the way that his hair was portrayed. I started thinking to myself, "what the heck" and bought them.

Well! This turned out to be quite an interesting little story! It was written by Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs, both writers that I admire. Drawn by Ron Randall, whom I am completely unfamiliar with and alas, for good reason, the art is pretty horrible. Of course this WAS during the 90's.

Our story begins with Wally trying to hunt down Hal Jordan, whom he saw on tv, and for some reason thinks that he looks familiar. Hal is a car mechanic, but he too has the odd feeling that he knows Wally. They go off to find some guy named Rex Mason who has written a book and is apparently an archeologist. At the museum where they track him down, is a large ornate sarcophogas, which when opened, holds the slumbering form of Power Girl. Things are starting to get really weird at this point, when Green Lantern shows up. Hal is so thrilled to meet Guy Gardner that he can hardly contain himself. Just then Power Girl wakes up, yells 'Arrrrggghhhh" and starts punching Green Lantern around. Rex yells out "Kara" and suddenly she knows all of them.

Obviously something is seriously awry.

Then some weirdo in a tophat and opera cape comes staggering in, named Erewhon, who is apparently the only one who knows who they really are, and what is going on. He even knows that Guy Gardner is the Green Lantern's secret identity! Of course they all start freaking out, yelling and running around and in general behaving like idiots. Business as usual. What is REALLY strange, is that Guy is the voice of reason here...he's calm, polite and very efficient. They decide to start investigating Erewhon's theories that time has been derailed, and wants to start with Hal, who chickens out.

So somehow, through his ring, Guy is able to transport them back in time to the precise moments when they were supposed to recieve their various powers. Some large pink bald guy keeps showing up with a strange gun, which messes everything up. Wally gets hit with the chemicals and lightning, but it doesn't do anything for him. Rex gets exposed to the rock that gave him his powers...except that it doesn't. The others are beginning to think that Erewhon is a fake, but Guy realizes that nothing is working, because Hal is the oldest, and they really should have started with him first.

So then we go to the next issue, and Guy is insisting that they go to Hal's origin. Hal is being a wuss about things for some reason, and it turns out that he doesn't want to become Green Lantern because it means that Guy WON'T, and he admires him too much to do that to him. Apparently Erewhon explained to Hal that Guy loses his marbles in the proper time stream. When Hal explains this to Guy, he's quiet for a minute, and then says that it doesn't matter, they have to restore time the way that it is supposed to be, and what happens to him isn't really important.

Back they go, and Hal does indeed meet up with Abin Sur and is given the ring. Guy is naturally feeling a little on the depressed side, so he beats the crap out of the large pink bald fellow. Then WHAMMA JAMMA, in a flash of light, they are back in the correct time period, with all of their identities and everything back to normal. This is a group that consists of Metamorpho, Power Girl, Hal, Wally, Dr. Light, an extremely large hairy beasty sort of guy (Tasmanian Devil?) and some chick with a bow. There is a very long and rather involved fight scene, where they defeat the bad guy of course.

Then who should show up, but Guy Gardner, who is in his yellow ring era, with the blue jeans and cowboy boots. Of course, he's just as obnoxious as he can be, and keeps calling Hal a wimp, in his usual charming manner. Hal however, remembering what Guy gave up to save all of them, goes over and shakes his hand and thanks him for being the greatest hero of them all. Guy is understandably quite confused about this, and just says "Huh?"

It all ends with a cliffhanger showing Crimson Fox on the last page. WHY this is supposed to be so shocking, I can't tell you, but I sure am going to go and look through those same boxes next week, and try and find out.

In your face, Hal!