Green Lantern #33

Yet another excellent issue, in the ongoing saga of Hal's origin. You would think that this could be dull and repetitive by now, I mean after all, how many times have we seen Hal's origin for Pete's sake? But you would be wrong, because in his usual inimitable fashion, Geoff Johns is dropping clues and hints and retcons all over the place.

Guess what? It turns out that Black Hand's parents ran a mortuary! How cool is that? It suddenly all makes sense now! Oh, and by the way, William Hand is a SERIOUSLY creepy young fellow!

Atrocitus is still up to no good, but you all could have figured that out. Turns out however, that he has a pretty good reason to hate the Guardians however.

Hector Hammond just keeps getting better and better, and by that, I mean weirder and weirder. I see that all of his little mind-whammy constructs are tinged in orange, which is interesting, along with his choice of words about Carol. "...no. You can't have her. She's MINE."
He's pretty much got young Hal on the ropes too, peeking into both his and Carol's thoughts and past traumas. It is rather fun to see Hal so inexperienced, he may have a lot of willpower, but he doesn't have much of a clue yet.



Fortunately for Hal, Sinestro shows up, and DOES know what he's doing. And furthermore, he does it very very well. With Hammond now incapacitated, Sinestro grabs Hal, and off they go, with Sinestro giving Hal a critique on his ring-slinging. Hal tries to defend himself, saying that Kilowog and Salaak have given him pointers, but you can almost hear Sinestro's derisive snort. Then Hal brings up the whole yellow problem, and they suddenly discover that in some things at least, they are kindred spirits

Together, they fly to Abin Sur's grave, and their proximity seems to trigger a message that Abin had left in his...now Hal's...ring for Sinestro. Abin tells them that he's been researching the secrets of life, and the whole Blackest Night scenario, and how the Guardians came up with the idea of using the Manhunters. For eons, the Manhunters worked just fine, until the massacre of sector 666, where a glitch was triggered, and the Manhunters suddenly changed their whole modus operandi. Suddenly they were convinced that order could only be maintained without life, and they wiped out the entire sector with the exception of five survivors...who became the Five Inversions, with Qull and Atrocitus among them.



Well! This certainly puts things in a whole new light! It seems as though the Guardians have a LOT to answer for, those impish little blue pixies!

Meanwhile, Atrocitus is on the hunt for William Hand, whose "...insides hold the doorway to absolute DARKNESS." That sounds ominous. Good thing that Sinestro and Hal show up to aprehend Atrocitus! Except that it doesn't exactly turn out that way, since Atrocitus' handly little gadget thingie turns out to have the power to drain THEIR power.

Oh, this is going to be good.