I wish these tribute issues had included not just the cover of the original issue, but the story as well; since I sincerely doubt
Green Lantern #31 was this much of a downer. From 2004,
DC Comics Presents: Green Lantern #1, featuring "Penny for Your Thoughts, Dollar for Your Destiny!" Written by Brian Azzarello, pencils by Norm Breyfogle, inks by Sal Buscema; and "Feel Something" Written by Martin Pasko, pencils by Scott McDaniel, inks by Andy Owens. Cover by Brian Bolland, in tribute to Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson.
"Penny for Your Thoughts, Dollar for Your Destiny" starts as a lark, with GL (Hal) in Coast City, selling power rings for a dollar! The JLA arrives in short order, to see what's up--actually, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman arrive, followed in short order by the Flash, who later points out they forgot to pick up Aquaman again. While confused at what Hal's up to, Flash is up for buying a ring, but didn't have a buck on him; so he's shoved out of line by a rather large--and hirsute--'woman.' Although the heroes don't seem to pay a lot of attention to 'her,' that was obviously Gorilla Grodd in drag: Hal captures him, apologizing that "power rings only fit on fingers,
not #@%!! dirty paws like yours..." The ring sale was a trick to lure Grodd out, and Hal says he'll buy back the rings he sold next. (Wouldn't all those people have flown off, in different directions? Hal's whole morning is going to be shot.)
The denouement is a bit off, though: the JLA'ers leave together in the invisible jet, and Superman muses that Hal's power is only limited by his imagination, and he may be the most powerful of them all. Flash counters, we're talking about Hal here; and they all have a hearty laugh, because god Hal's dumb. Batman over-explains the joke, though; leaving them all wondering, what if they had the ring...or if one of them did? It feels a little mean, and not quite right; but Breyfogle's art is great.
In "Feel Something," Hal isn't selling the rings: Ollie comes to him because a grifter pirates a TV transmission for an ad selling power rings, only $89.99! For, as Ollie puts it, "some hunks of
plastic you should only find in a
gumball machine." Ollie can't figure out why Hal isn't more pissed off about this, either: he had put the grifter away before, "the
sweat shop king of
Star City," who probably used slave child labor to make his fake rings. GA and GL catch him at another of his tapings, and Hal has to stop Ollie from beating the grifter to death, although Hal later admits he only stopped him because he might've killed him himself. The grifter reminded Hal too much of his father's abuse; worse, Hal had to use a lot of will to keep his thoughts away from the rage his father taught him. This was a Hal with grey on his temples, which would've been relatively shortly before his heel-turn as Parllax. Also, this particular issue would have been published just two months prior to the last issue of Kyle Rayner's
Green Lantern run, and almost feels like the last time DC would be down on Hal Jordan. (Actually, thinking about it; I don't think these were "in-continuity," and that Hal's dad has since been portrayed as the bestest, since Hal is the bestest...)
The only Julius Schwartz tribute issue left to cover here is the
Hawkman issue, which I might have around here somewhere? Someday.
2 comments:
Goddamn what a downer. The whole thing, even the part where Hal's friends bag on him at the end there. Maybe he's not so much dumb (well he is incredibly head strong & fights more than he should think) as he's obviously suffering from post-concussion syndrome. Poor bastard. No WONDER he turned heel. He went full-on Chris Benoit w/o killing himself...that'd be 4 years later in that silly ass Final Night "event."
Yeah, this is by far the worst of the Julius Schwartz tribute issues. Between Brian Azzarello thinking 'Silver Age' means a goofy, what-comedians-think-Super-Friends-was parody and Marty Pasko doing a Hard Travelin' Heroes story (still don't get the appeal of the 'socially relevant' hero stories), two big misses. Breyfogle art is nice though- Norm deserved better.
You should definitely do the Hawkman issue though- that's the best one as far as I'm concerned. Also, DC did a similar project a couple years after this that included both a new story and the classic (70's, 80's or 90's) story that inspired it. It was called DC Retroactive- check it out if you can.
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