GREEN LANTERN #49

If you want to be green you must be mean and lean and ready to clean your Jeans. Come on, don't be a spleen. Get on the scene and be green just like those scream queens: Robert Venditti, Martin Coccolo, and Billy Tan. Especially when they created the following comic book published by DC Comics, in February 2016!

TO QUOTE Robin Williams Quoting Charlton Heston: 'Guns don't kill people. Apes with guns kill people'.

THE REVIEW:

With the world under threat from Sonar's terrorist attacks, leaving nigh on everyone scared, worried, and pleading for some much needed direction, in your opinion, what do you think Hal Jordan does next? Taking additional note that Sonar was the evil sod who put his nephew in a coma!

No, silly. He doesn't go and try and blow up Sonar's Modoran compound. He tried to do that last issue, remember? And that didn't get him anywhere! So, at the start of this issue we basically see Hal having a hissy fit about how last issue ended, tut-tut-tut, made even more dire due to the news that the UN have gathered together to counteract this threat.

But come on. Let's face it. Do you honestly think Hal is just going to hang around for an entire book, waiting patiently while elsewhere a group of bureaucrats just talk about blah-blah-blah, yawn-yawn-yawn, whatever? No. Of course he doesn't. He only waits around for about half a book, doing Jack-all, before he actually gets up off of his ass and does something about it. And let me tell you this, dear reader, when Hal does do the something that he ultimately does do (am I being too vague here?), nigh on straight away, you can't help but think to yourself, 'Oh my God! Is he going Parallax on us now, and was that the main reason P-Lax showed up at the end of last months episode, as a forewarning to what's going to happen this month?'.

But wait up! As you might have guessed I don't really want to divulge too many details or else I might spoil this comic (and I wouldn't want to do that). That being said, however, what I can say is that Hal's final few actions make an awful lot of sense after the event, and for me, this gave me that feeling that Robert Venditti and Martin Coccolo really know what they're doing with this series. In Martins case, his artwork is both very dynamic if a little rough around the edges. Whereas in Roberts case, bingo, home-run, or any other phrase you care to think of relating to someone producing something good.

The way I see it, Robert's run on Green Lantern is a really satisfying run. He's made Hal into a cosmic bad-ass who hangs around a ying-yang duo, in a spiteful spaceship no less, thus transforming him into a pretty well rounded character. Admittedly, sometimes Hal's disposition can seem rather far fetched: As seen in his outburst at the start of this book. Whilst at other times his actions are very compelling to follow: As seen in what he does at the end of this book.

I would also like to mention how much I'm intrigued with Parallax's sudden re-emergence. To me, whenever I see him I can't help but think that DC has something in store for him connected with their new Rebirth project. Is he on this title so he can link it to those events? And if so, does that mean Parallax, this version of Parallax, is actually the Parallax from the previous DCU, last seen in the pages of Convergence, implying that he walked away from that battle, only to start another one here.

Also, something else I'd like to say about the villains in this issue is why couldn't Robert -- or anyone else at DC for that matter -- do something about Sonar's real name? Bito Wladon, although very unusual sounding in the decade he was created, the sixties, in today's more cosmopolitan climate he sounds more like Ronald McDonalds long lost cousin, rather than a name you give to a known terrorist.

Apart from that though, yeah, all in all this was a pretty decent issue of Green Lantern. The artwork was easy to follow. The story was one part yammer and one part wowser. And on the whole, I can't wait to see what happens next month. Fingers crossed, it'll be good.

THE MUSIC:

One of the central themes running throughout this chapter was a phrase uttered by Hal a couple of pages into it. 'Talk is cheep' was Hal's phrase, which got me to think about songs that prohibit people speaking, and promote people doing. You know, just like the Right Said Fred song, 'Don't Talk Just Kiss'. Need I say more?

THE COMPARISON:

Yes-Yes-Yes! I know what you're thinking: Why on God's green earth am I now going to compare this issue of Green Lantern to Firestorm (pictured left... right... whatever)? Well, if you excuse the obvious pun, in each case both Hal and Stormy initially appear to be hot-heads!

OK. You may now groan in contempt. Sigh!

THE CONCLUSION:

Due to its explicit nature the editor on this book didn't want to translate a rude phrase Sonar uttered near the end of it. 'Tjacha' is that phrase, and now I want you to guess what it could actually mean. Could it be...