David Smyth reviews Green Lantern #50…
In this extra-sized issue, it’s a battle for the fate of Earth! Parallax believes Hal Jordan has failed this universe—and now, he’s prepared to wipe Hal out of existence! Hal has to get over the shock that Parallax still exists so he can unleash the power of his gauntlet to stop him! It’s a battle neither Jordan can win, and one that will change both forever.
The New 52 Green lantern turns fifty this week, and an old foe pays him a visit to celebrate.
Hal Jordan’s two greatest enemies have always been Sinestro and his own self-doubt. At its most extreme, his doubt lead to his infection with the fear-thing Parallax. The events of DC’s lacklustre crossover, Countdown, seem to have allowed Parallax to reach the current Coast City, so a showdown with the new 52 Hal was inevitable.
The Green Lantern series has been something of a mixed bag since its inception, with poorly conceived mega events and vanilla new foes. Hal has been wielding a will powered gauntlet for some time now, having abandoned the role as Green Lantern proper for the good of the Corps (fat lot of good it did them in the end). He has since bounded from one adventure to the next, in a series that felt like series writer Robert Venditti was going through the motions. With issue fifty, it suddenly feels like he was building to something.
His characterisation of young Hal, from his interactions with his brother to his default position of blaming himself for things he has no real control over, Venditti is finally showing his affinity for the character. In a pre-new 52 Hal/Parallax he has found a villain the reader can get on board with, and he writes the hell out of him. His sorrow filled disbelief at suddenly encountering a family he long thought dead, to his terrifying reversion to the power mad Parallax is brutally effective. Would that GL had been this compelling to now.
Billy Tan and Vincente Cifuentes deliver a solid, if irregular shift on pencils. At times Hal can look anything from teenaged to late thirties. The colour team make the pages sing however, so it is easy to look past the inconsistency.
For the first time in some time, Green Lantern is worth reading again. In dissociating Hal from the larger GL universe, Venditti lost a lot of what made Green Lantern great. By incorporating one of those lost elements, namely Parallax, into this latest arc, he has belatedly managed to produce a book with real promise.
Rating: 7/10
David Smyth
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Originally published March 2, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
