Green Lantern 1: Back in Action Paperback – June 4, 2024
by Jeremy Adams (Author), Xermanico (Illustrator), Scott Godlewski (Illustrator)
I love it when DC reminds us why we love their characters.
While treading familiar territory that hasn’t been trod by Hal Jordan ever since the run post DC Rebirth, Back in Action takes Hal Jordan back to the ground he started from; back to being a typical superhero with a double life between being a test pilot for Ferris Air and being the solo earth borne Green Lantern, a reality that hasn’t been for years and years since the Corps has become more and more crowded.
There are spots where it does feel it is too lighter than the heights soared by Jordan, I must say. It is definitely weird reframing the heights of Blackest Night and the end of his battle against Zod in Rebirth with such “pedestrian” adventures, but I do get what they are trying to do here.
It is certainly odd to stop and reflect on Carol Ferris and Hal’s will-they-won’t-they once again, really. In some ways I think it would be great if Hal moves on from her really, but in others…damnit I love Star Sapphire.
But that aside, I get it, they are trying to bring back familiar territory while building beyond, a start of a new adventure. And it does so quite well; I have found myself utterly engaged, particularly in a tie in to an event comic of all things, Knight Terrors, where Hal just whales at an embodiment of fear not unlike parallax in a very cartoonish manner which I can’t say didn’t entertain me, like something out of Looney Tunes but with more “realistic” proportions.
My only let down truly was Sinestro’s characterisation. Gone is the complex, cold and calculating guy; so far into the run he has been only a fearmonger and that is it. Nothing that keeps him himself really in any way other than superficially. But…I’m cutting some slack; it’s still the beginning of the run and while bearing in mind that GL is Cosmic propoganda for the military industrial complex, at least it does so in a fabulously entertaining way.
