Once again, the first comic you read in the new year sets the tone for the year...hmm.

It may or may not be a good omen, but we inch ever closer to blogging all of the "Legends of the Dead Earth" annuals! From 1996, Guy Gardner: Warrior Annual #2, written by Beau Smith, Kevin Dooley, and Mitch Byrd; pencils by Phil Jimenez, Joe Staton, Mitch Byrd, Rick Mays, and Dave Brewer; inks by John Stokes, Terry Austin, Wade von Grawbadger, Rick Mays, and Andrew Pepoy.

I've mentioned before that my recollection of this one--and I probably have a few copies of it, because I'm duuuuuuumb--was the whole book was "Guy's kids rule, Hal's kids drool." Was I right? It opens with the "earth is dead" as a Star Wars-style text crawl; as we visit the asteroid known as Warriors, largely built around Guy's bar from the current books. Three aliens like Legion of Super-Heroes member Tellus explain it's their first visit, and ask a young woman in a branded Warriors top for assistance: she explains how they can use the "cybertronic inducer" to relive legends and stories of everyone's hero, Guy Gardner; starting with a two-page recap of his history, with art by Joe Staton. (I had to look it up: Staton didn't co-create Guy; that was John Broome and Gil Kane; but Staton and Steve Englehart remade him into the Guy we know, starting with that sick GL jacket.) The history is more inspirational legend than fact, and admits as much, while acknowledging the legend had inspired so many.

"Hypersensitive" follows a cynical mailwoman, on a distant frontier planet called "Gardner's Green," as some shape-changers fight it out searching for the cybertronic inducer. Then, "See My Finger, See My Thumb. See My Fist, You Better Run!" finds four Little Rascals-like kids reminiscent of Guy's supporting cast, trying to use the inducer to fix one kid's teddy bear, when robots show up and one of the kids is zapped and Guy himself appears as a kid version of Warrior. Guy wakes up with the Wizard of Oz "...and you were there, and you were there!" bit as his pals think Guy's maybe taken too many shots to the dome in his career.

Next, "Dateless in a One Gender Town" is probably the story I was remembering, as the biker Gardner Gals follow Lizzie Jordan, who stole the inducer from them. It comes down to a ring shootout, and Lizzie ends up face down in the sawdust. The aliens are thrilled with the stories, and the young woman, Lumita, passes their compliments on to her dad, a roguish and slightly greying Guy himself! 

I'm pretty sure Guy would've been considered a B-list character at the time--B-list at best--but the creative team really seemed to be 100% Team Guy; like it wasn't just a job, they were pulling for him.