JLApe part seven: Green Lantern Annual #8, "Grunts"

Green Lantern Annual #8, "Grunts" Written by Keith Giffen, pencils by Octavio Cariello and John Nadeau, inks by Marcello Campos and Jordi Ensign. Bit of an odd one, here: back in part one, Kyle was turned into an ape, and left when the JLA split up to investigate, without any mental treatment from the Martian Manhunter. So, Kyle's mind backslides a bit, and he sides with the apes, joining a unit of ape soldiers.

Even though their new recruit is a human-turned-ape, the apes are pretty accepting of Kyle. Not unlike his status with the JLA, he's the rookie there as well, and they walk him through and explain events to him. Kyle is just another "grunt," a lowly ape footsoldier, even though he's got the mightiest weapon in the universe on his finger. Just as J'onn dropped the ball letting Kyle go without treatment; the apes don't pick up the fumble, failing to capitalize on it. (Ape Kyle would use his ring a little, but not to the extent you'd expect.)

Guy Gardner and Alan Scott appear, as Warrior and Sentinel respectively. They don't seem particularly worried that Kyle's 'gone ape,' over to the other side. In fairness, if you get bent out of shape about a little thing like that, you're probably not going to cope very well with a real emergency...

The Metal Men are also present, and Giffen may be the only writer to use Dr. Magnus as Veridium--he was turned into a robot or something, it didn't catch on. I think the weekly book 52 retconned that into a halluncination by Magnus, but here Veridium is. Guy asks him what it's like making out with a metal chick; which does seem a fair question.

Eventually, J'onn uses his telepathy to shock Kyle back to normal; but he has to go pretty deeply into Kyle's mind, almost having to force him to want to be human again. Kyle seems to feel like he betrayed his ape teammates, who end up in an ape POW camp, which thankfully doesn't appear to be a zoo with a different sign.

Next week? Martian Manhunter #2, the conclusion of JLApe!