Creative Staff:
Story: Jeremy Adams
Art: Xermanico
Colors: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
Hal Jordan’s homecoming is off to a rocky start! Carol Ferris is this close to firing him from the job he’s only just begged his way into, his power ring isn’t exactly working right, and off in the shadows, Sinestro, the architect of Hal’s current crisis, is waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Plus, the hard-hitting “John Stewart: War Journal” backup series from writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and artist Montos heats up as the Guardian John Stewart and his team, the Watchtower, fall under siege from a mysterious new threat!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Getting back into Green Lantern with the first issue was pretty easy even though I’m a number of years out of date on the stories. I haven’t read much since the Flashpoint reboot over a decade ago, but I’ve enjoyed the character in a bunch of the non-continuity books over the years and have decades of prior reading of Hal and most of the gang. This series has Jeremy Adams stepping in to guide Hal to a new place in the DCU and it’s my first time reading their work, which they handle well here even if I dislike the flashback storytelling within it as a general rule. What got me to check out the book, however, was Xermanico on the artwork as I thoroughly enjoyed their stuff on some of the digital-first series I read several years ago and still miss. There’s a good dynamic look to the action here, the designs are great, and with the color work from Fajardo Jr, it delivers a solid experience without overdoing the green.
While things started off well, the book does make it clear that Hal is pretty much the type of person a lot of people don’t want to hang around with. Thankfully, the book gives us a flashback to the fight we saw before from a month earlier where he fashioned a power ring out of the Manhunter armor and worked to test it out. It’s done pretty well in that we see him exploring what it can do and being somewhat cautious but also using it creatively to deal with a group of thieves he stumbles across. Naturally, it’s not quite up to snuff and we see it falter as he starts to exit the atmosphere, but it’s just good to see him recognize that others like Norad and Clark are likely keeping an eye on him since they don’t know what he is yet and if they do know it’s him, that they need to be aware of it.
While that’s all decent for Hal, the present-day side of things are going a bit worse for him since he lost the job after ruining the drone. Kilowog does manage to smack some sense into him at the trailer but we see once again how Hal just does everything to show that he’s a problematic dude. He ends up working the mailroom at Ferris but within the space of a day, he’s moved up the chain a few times over and finds himself as the co-pilot on the plane that Carol uses for business matters. And she discovers this only when she and her fiance Nathan are boarding it for a meeting they’re heading to. Hal is his light and friendly self but he’s essentially coming across as someone that will easily take out Nathan – who has an instant liking toward Hal – and we see just how much of an ass Hal is as the flight progresses.
In Summary:
Unfortunately, this proves to be a jumping-off point for me pretty easily. The first reason is that the book doesn’t come back until September as we get two issues spinning off into the Knight Terrors summer event, which totally smacks the progress of this book in the face completely. The other is that the backup story with John Stewart just doesn’t grab me and that combined with liking Hal less and less with each panel means I’m not getting much out of the book. I do have a love of Green Lantern overall and I know Hal is a problematic character – always has been – but it just feels even worse in this instance and so many other things make the book feel like work more than anything else. There are a lot of neat bits but it’s hard to feel like it’s worth investing in when just two issues into it you find yourself caught up in a 45-series/90-book crossover event. I just don’t have it in me for that kind of thing anymore.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics
Release Date: June 13th, 2023
MSRP: $4.99
