Green Lantern #26

Oh Hal.

Seriously, have you lost your mind completely?  I know things are a little difficult for you right now...the Guardians are gone, the New New Guardians are out cruising with Kyle, who is supposed to be dead, but half the galaxy knows he's alive...Oa is gone, and you and the Corps are shacking up on Mogo.  And instead of getting down to basics, such as food, shelter, logistics, replacing dead Corps members, or rebuilding Oa...you take Kilowog and fly off to chase a bunch of people on their own planet, whose modus operandi is basically piracy...but hey, that's how their planet works...because they have a Star Sapphire who is doing her very best to help her people.

You also declare that nobody in the Universe can use their rings EXCEPT for the Green Lanterns...and individuals that you personally like.  You arbitrarily declare this to be a LAW,even though you don't have an iota of authority to do something like that.  What the hell is going on?

Hal and Kilowog are up against it, mainly through Hal's pigheadedness.  They are fighting  the entire planet of Dekann, and their leader, Nol-Anj, who is a very proficient Star Sapphire.  Hal is just outraged, and proceeds to go to town.  When that doesn't work, he decides to call in THE ENTIRE GREEN LANTERN CORPS to bail out his sorry behind.  His beautiful sorry behind. 

Granted, there are probably only 100 Green Lanterns left, after all the brouhaha, but still!  Hal Jordan whining and calling for help?  Not to mention that Hannu and Graf Toren are still pretty skeptical about using their rings, since they don't want to deplete the potential power in the Universe.  Naturally Vath starts yelling at them and basically calling them pussies.  When did Vath become such a complete asshole?  But they all fly off anyway and rescue Hal and Kilowog and somehow, they manage to get Nol-Anj to give up her ring.  But the entire planet of Dekann is still very very mad at them.

Hal then whines that nobody respects the Lanterns anymore.  Which is probably true.  But you don't really gain respect by marching in and telling people what to do OR ELSE.  That seems to be what the various Thug  groups are doing, and they're the villains!  It's a sad thing when the supposed heroes are being just as obnoxious as the Bad Guys.

I'm not really getting into this whole "I can't Use My Powers!" aspect.  It's stupid for one thing.  Why give someone a power and then restrict their use of it?  The way that it worked before was that emotion generated the powers, not some weird reserve of mythical power located..somewhere that had a finite source of energy.  I don't care what Relic says.  Relic is a jerk.  And Hal's a jerk. 

You know what?  The only bunch I am enjoying right now are the Red Lanterns, because they don't give a damn about marshalling their powers, and they've got that whole magic thing going, and By God, they don't know what they are doing, but they are going to go out and save the Universe anyway!  And Guy of course.  And Zillius Zox, who is fabulous.

The Green Lantern Whiners is not exactly what I am looking for.  And I say this as a MASSIVE Green Lantern fan.  I know that Hal is headstrong, and not the greatest at strategy, but sheesh!  He was never quite this stupid.  Is he possessed by Parallax again?  Get Sinestro back leading the Corps! People don't give Sinestro lip! 

I did not particularly like this issue, as you may have gathered.