Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #46 - DC Comics

HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS No. 46, Early August 2018

Considering that the arguable highlight of this twenty-page periodical is the distasteful threat of Guy Gardner giving “an old drunk the easy way out” by conferring upon the vulnerable old man “some final justice”, it’s probably something of a safe bet to believe that some within the comic’s 28,085 strong audience weren’t overly entertained by Robert Venditti’s narrative for Issue Forty Six of “Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps”. Admittedly, the newly recruited Darkstar has a substantial grudge against his target “for the crime of knocking me around when I was a kid”, but even for someone as violent as the former Baltimore Police officer, murdering his own aged father in cold blood is a rather unpalatable proposition; “Go on. Cry now. Think you’re some big man?”

Just as deadly, though debatably far less emotionally penned, is the American author’s bizarre scene featuring Hector Hammond and the titular character on a dead world in Space Sector 563. It makes perfect sense for the superhero to bring the supposed “evolution of mankind” to an uninhabited planet which is “out of the way and has breathable atmosphere” in order to fulfil the madman’s dream whilst the “God Brain” considers Hal’s proposal to aid the Corps against the “huge threat” of the Darkstars. But just how the former test pilot thought he could trust someone who spontaneously shows a mortified Jordan “how I’ll kill all the villains” with a mere thought is utter madness, and doubtless led to many of this book’s readers probably sympathising with the Justice Leaguer when in a moment of weakness he asks Superman “You ever think, if you just squashed a head now and then, there wouldn’t be so many ticking time bombs in the world?”

Regrettably, Hammond’s unsurprising assault and subsequent personality ‘mind-wipe’ of his guileless “friend” is probably as exciting as “Death Sentence” gets, with the Hollywood-raised writer’s story-line for the rest of the twenty-page periodical proving to be little more than endless conversations about betrayal and broken promises. Indeed, even John Stewart’s tense discussion with General Zod as to an effective way in which the Kryptonian can assist him countering “the new Darkstar mantles [which] have tactical teleportation capabilities” is rather plainly pencilled by Clayton Henry as nothing more than a series of word-heavy panels. Whilst Kyle Rayner’s incarceration inside New Genesis, the home of the New Gods, is no less statically sketched, despite the furious Green Lantern’s ferocious argument with the spineless ruler of “a realm beyond our universe” after saving the Highfather's son, Prince Orion, by keeping “a construct heart beating in his chest when his real heart was cut out!”

The regular cover art of "HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS" No. 46 by Tyler Kirkham & Arif Prianto