Green Lantern #0
I must admit it...I had a certain amount of trepidation, in coming to this issue. First there were all of the pictures of the cover, showing a young man wearing a Green Lantern Ring...and pointing a gun. A gun? And after reading Caleb over at Every Day is Like Wednesday, saying that he looked as though he had his underwear on top of his head...well everytime after that I just started to giggle a little bit. That's probably not the reaction that DC was going for.
And yet...This wasn't terrible. In fact...it was pretty good!
Doug Mahnke is back, and I love Doug Mahnke. We begin with some dialogue-less scenes, showing our protagonist as a child, when 9/11 hits, and his family's reaction to it. Young Simon Baz is of Lebanese descent and he and his family have to cope with the whole reaction towards Muslims after the tragedy.
Anyhoo. Fast forward, and he's lost his job and is stealing a van, which just happens to be full of explosives. He didn't KNOW that it was full of explosives, but he's in one dilly of a pickle, and has to ditch the thing fast, so he heads towards his now closed-down factory, where he used to work, and bales out of the van just before it blows up. Naturally, he is considered to be a Terrorist, and is whisked off to presumably, Guantanamo, where he is undergoing increasingly rigorous questioning. Naturally nobody wants to listen to what he has to say.
He's going to be waterboarded, and resists, and is about to get shot, when lo and behold, Hal and Sinestro's combined ring, flies in, notices that he has the "error" abiltiy to overcome great fear, and so on and so forth, and with a nice boooooom...he's outta there!
The Feds are simply flabberghasted, that a Green Lantern Ring has chosen this fellow, and they call up Amanda Waller, who may be thin now, but is still a hardass...I guess. She doesn't want to call the JLA, naturally. Also naturally, Batman has been having Cyborg tap their phones. It occurs to the League that they don't know what happened to Hal after he quit.
Meanwhile, poor Baz is passed out in a field, while the ring glows and says "Message Waiting". And finally, in the epilogue, we see darkness and tendrils of white light...and Sinestro and Hal wondering where in the world they are.
Geoff Johns has definitely piqued my interest.
posted by SallyP @ 12:17 PM
6 Comments:
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I guess this is for you,
uswzb
I really didn't think we needed another GL from Earth, but I think we do need Simon Baz. I'm a little put off by the car thief thing, but it seems like the theme for Simon is a good guy in a bad situation. I'm willing to see how that works out.
Simon's going to work for me if he continues to be a guy who happens to be Muslim and of middle eastern descent. If he becomes all about those things, he'll just be a cartoon, and probably disappear. There's got to be more to him for it to work. I think Geoff has that in mind for Simon, but the real acid test will be if other writers can use him well.
– Jack of Spades
Thank you Anonymous, I HAVE seen the Green Lantern test! I think it's a hoot, although it seems a low blow to tag poor John with the Planet-killing characteristic. On the other hand...!
I agree with you Jack, about Simon. I also think it would be nice to have a Green Lantern from another planet in sector 2814...but we all know THAT isn't going to happen!
After reading GL 0 & annual 1, I'm totally confused on when blackest night took place. Anybody understand it?
Thanks Sally, I never realised that was a combined Hal/Sinestro ring. What could it all mean?
I'm pretty sure that Blackest Night still took place...the Green Lantern continuity took only a fairly small hit, compared to some of the other titles...but sometimes its best not to think about things like that.
Hal's ring was an offshoot of Sinestro's...and controlled by Sinestro. However, Hal got his ring jazzed up by the Indigo's, so that Sinestro couldn't control it anymore. They were desperately trying to combine their rings, in order to leave a message, but since one was a bit on the wonky side, it was an ad hoc attempt. Which is why it keeps repeating "error".
I think.
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