Green Lantern (1990) #48-52

Green Lantern #48-55

Originally released in 1994

Written by Ron Marz

Art by Bill Willingham (#48), Fred Haynes (#49), Darryl Banks (#50-55)

I chose these issues because when it comes to human Green Lanterns, Kyle Rayner is (to my knowledge) the main one that I haven't read much about. (Though for all I know, they could have made several human Green Lanterns after Far Sector) His first appearance is in issue 48, at the start of the Emerald Twilight storyline.

Coast City has been destroyed in the aftermath of Superman's death and resurrection, and Hal Jordan has gone mad with grief. He reconstructs his hometown with the ring's power, but even when these are constructions of his own will, they still tend to tear him down or make him feel worse, which doesn't seem to reflect well on his mental state.

To make matters worse, the Guardians of the Universe call him back to Oa, claiming that his actions are abusing his power and that he will face their judgment.  Hal doesn't take this well - he heads back to Oa, all right, but he intends to take out his anger on the Guardians and take the rings of any Green Lantern that he comes across, wanting more power so he can fully remake Coast City.

He ultimately makes his way to Oa, where as a last resort, the Guardians free Sinestro from the central power battery, where he had been trapped.  This leads to a bizarre role reversal, where Sinestro is the white-clad defender of the Guardians trying to save the universe from Hal's homicidal rampage. Sinestro appreciates the irony.

Hal ultimately snaps Sinestro's neck, killing him (though it would be later revealed that he faked his death somehow).  When I read Zero Hour, I figured that event would have been rough on fans of Hal Jordan, but it seems even worse here.  In the span of three issues, Hal goes from grief-stricken about the loss of his city to a homicidal lunatic blasting his way across the stars.  It feels so abrupt that it's outright jarring. I've read that this was done because Hal was seen as being boring, but this doesn't seem like the way to fix that.

Making matters worse, he unceremoniously murders Kilowog, his former trainer and (from what I can tell) one of his closest friends on the Green Lantern Corps. I guess this was done to cement his newfound villainy, but it feels like it comes out of nowhere.

Hal absorbs and/or destroys the central power battery, killing all but one of the Guardians in the process.  I don't think I've seen a character get ruined this thoroughly since the Trial of Yellowjacket in the Avengers comics, though unlike that case, this one won't stick, with the blame ultimately falling on a sentient fear parasite that was possessing Hal for an undetermined amount of time. The last remaining Guardian creates one final Green Lantern Ring, fleeing to Earth.

The Guardian in question doesn't seem especially picky when it comes to who he'll give the ring to.  He just hands it to the first person that he sees, Kyle Rayner, and then flies off with no explanation. From what I can tell, the destruction of the central power battery also depowered all other Green Lantern Rings, so you'd think he'd give it to Guy Gardner or John Stewart if he was going to pick someone from Earth.

I get what they're going for - a fresh start to get newcomers interested in the series, complete with a new and theoretically more interesting central character.  It's all handled in such a bizarre way, though.  Kyle's a freelance artist (though so far, it hasn't came up much) with a relationship with his on-again off-again girlfriend, Alex DeWitt.

The dynamic between the two of them is the best part of Kyle's introductory issues in my eyes, with her calling out his short-sightedness and not taking his BS. Together, they work to figure out how Kyle's ring works and she encourages him to build more complex constructs.

There's a bit of a mystery surrounding Kyle's ring, as pointed out during a brief team-up with Superman. Unlike other Green Lantern Rings, Kyle's lacks the traditional weakness to yellow, allowing him to hurt the likes of Mongul.

Superman isn't the only one who's curious about the ring. A US government agency seems to want it for their own purposes, and they send Major Force to find out who has it. Unlike Amanda Waller, who at least makes an attempt to curb the tendencies of the supervillains who work for her by putting explosives into their bodies, the agency makes no effort whatsoever to control Major Force, leaving him to his own devices.

The only lead that they have is that Alex DeWitt is connected to the new Green Lantern in some way, so Force tracks her down. He doesn't make much of an effort to question her, preferring to beat her instead before killing her and leaving her remains for Kyle to find.

This development was frustrating, both in that I felt a lot of sympathy for Kyle (so in one way, it was effective) and it got me annoyed at the creators behind the book.  It seemed like there was a lot of potential for Kyle and Alex's relationship as something that would set him apart from the other Lanterns (it doesn't seem like Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris had a consistent relationship, for example), so to see it thrown away so suddenly was jarring and stripped a lot of potential from Kyle's story.

I knew this was coming at some point - this event popularized the term "stuffed in the fridge" or "fridging" for when love interests are unceremoniously killed off to give the hero something to angst over - but to have it happen within Kyle's first five issues as the Green Lantern makes it even more irritating. Even worse is that it's heavily implied that Major Force will get off scot free, suffering absolutely no consequences for his actions.

I was looking forward to reading Kyle's introduction, but I wasn't a fan of it.  For every good moment, it felt like there were two or three bad ones.  Kyle Rayner's story seemed like an effective starting point for newcomers to the Green Lantern franchise, and as a result, I can see why he would be the favourite Green Lantern for a lot of people since he worked as their introduction to the franchise. However, the aggressive derailment of Hal Jordan and the senseless death of Alex DeWitt made it hard for me to enjoy these issues, casting a dark shadow over all of the other events.