Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #49 - DC Comics

HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS No. 49, September 2018

Despite commendably being the sixty-seventh best-selling comic in July 2018, at least according to “Diamond Comic Distributors”, some within this publication’s 27,998-strong audience may well have felt a little nervous at a twenty-page periodical devoted entirely to a colossal confrontation between the Guardians’ intergalactic police force and their mortal enemies, the Darkstars. But whilst Robert Venditti’s narrative for “Disrupted” does rely somewhat upon the splash illustration skills of pencillers Rafa Sandoval and Sergio Davila to help pad the storyline out, there’s still arguably plenty of plot progression within it to have kept the majority of the title’s readers thoroughly entertained.

Foremost of these thrills has to be the titular character’s opening fracas with the utterly despicable Tomar-Tu, whose infuriating hubris and self-righteousness is finally brought back ‘down to Earth’ with a satisfying bump when he realises that his exo-mantle’s cowardly teleportation ability has been nullified; “Tell me if you see this one coming! Whammm”. The sheer look of terror within the beak-headed traitor’s eye is marvellous to behold, and shows very plainly just why the son of the “legendary hero Tomar-Re” is himself unfit to be a Green Lantern any more.

Similarly as successful is the Florida-born writer’s demonstration as to just how formidably powerful Hector Hammond actually is by depicting the telepath easily overpowering seven mentally linked Controllers within the space of a single heartbeat. “DC Comics” firmly focussed their pre-print promotion upon John Broome’s co-creation by highlighting how desperate the Green Lantern Corps must be to “ally itself with the monstrous” and “evil” physically disfigured mind manipulator, so Jordan’s all-too apparent unease at just how readily Hammond cut the strings to the Darkstars’ “puppet masters” makes for one of this comic’s stand-out moments.

Admittedly, the wealth of large panels presented within this second instalment to “Last Charge” does still mean that initially those bibliophiles simply perusing the action might finish Issue Forty Nine of “Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps” in record time. But almost all of these over-sized illustrations contain plenty to capture the attention and hold the eye, such as the sheer number of Kilowog’s followers drawn during John Stewart’s formation of a blockade to “keep the Darkstars inside the disruption zone” surrounding Mogo, or Guy Gardner’s gratifyingly graphic attempt to ensure he isn’t “upstaged” by his colleague’s efforts to non-lethally subdue their enemies by leading a spearhead consisting of Guy Gardner, Arkillo, General Zod, and Orion straight into the ranks of their numerous adversaries.

The regular cover art of "HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS" No. 49 by Tyler Kirkham & Arif Prianto