Set the Way-Back Machine for...2016?! I thought this was twenty years ago, easy.

I mean, I got the action figure for it in 2017, which impossibly feels even longer ago. It's always disappointing when a long-standing character gets a redesign that's very obviously not going to stick around long-term, yet sometimes still gets an action figure. Hal and Sonar also don't have their classic looks either, because it was apparently time to try something new, as in something old...from 2016, Green Lantern #48, "Close to Home" Written by Robert Venditti, pencils by Martin Coccolo and Billy Tan, inks by Martin Coccolo and Mark Irwin.

Hal was a fugitive from the Green Lantern Corps at this point, and instead of the traditional power ring was using a prototype power...glove, thing. His nephew Howard was among those injured in a bombing, the work of long-time GL foe Sonar. Despite having fought him about 80 times, Hal flies from Coast City to Gotham for intel from Batman...so who's this armored bunny-guy? It's Jim Gordon, in his cup-of-coffee replacement stint as Batman! Hal's still able to browbeat the 'Rookie' into making with the information, since, hey, Batman would've, right? Sonar was still fighting for Modoran independence, and had taken leadership of the separatist front with sound-powered bombs. The Rookie lets him know the Modarans had a training facility in Kahndaq: GL flies over to try and shake them down, but they kill themselves with those bombs rather than spill. Furious he was getting nowhere, Hal demolishes, then buries, the terrorists and their base; while asking his nephew not to die.

Meanwhile, in space, more specifically the space where Oa is supposed to be, Parallax isn't thrilled that Oa is gone and the universe had "Sinestro-worshippers," but at least Coast City was still okay, right? Better keep it that way...by getting rid of Hal Jordan. 

Woof, this issue also features ads for the last X-Files episodes, and Dark Knight III: the Master Race, more things that have aged terribly. (I just stared into space trying to think of something better than 'like a piece of Fruit Stripe gum after three chews,' or my go-to, 'like a microwaved banana.')