Green Lantern #53-62
Originally released in 2010
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Doug Mahnke
Following the Blackest Night event is, naturally, Brightest Day. Parallax vanished to parts unknown after the Sinestro Corps. War, but it's revealed here that a being who was the Guardians' enforcer before the Green Lantern Corps. or even the Manhunters has captured Parallax and intends to do the same with the rest of the entities that represent each of the Lantern Corps.
Meanwhile, the White Lantern remains on Earth, and it's looking for someone to represent it in the universe. This event seems more complicated than I thought (even ignoring the fact that there are over 100 tie-in issues, there's a separate Brightest Day series that's 24 issues long and deals with the heroes and villains who were fully resurrected by the White Lantern), but I'll just stick with the main Green Lantern series for simplicity's sake.
Hal's love life remains as complicated as ever; he's in a relationship with one of his fellow pilots, but he still seems interested in Carol Ferris, who is still using the Star Sapphire Ring. Hal and Carol are interrupted by Sinestro, who tells Hal that the White Lantern has been asking for him specifically.
Making matters worse is that Larfleeze and some of the Red Lantern Corps. have chosen to stay on Earth for the time being. Larfleeze has a conversation with Lex Luthor that reveals a lot about Luthor's values, though when Larfleeze dismisses Lex's initial answer, his second choice of "land" gets Larfleeze's attention since Larfleeze doesn't know what that is.
The White Lantern sends Hal, Carol, and Sinestro on a quest to locate the other entities, and as Atrocitus finds out, every single one of them (aside from Parallax and Ion, the entities of the Yellow and Green Lanterns respectively, who were captured by the mysterious villain) are located in the United States of America. What are the odds?
Before Hal, Carol, and Sinestro can try to talk Atrocitus into helping out, Lobo shows up, looking to collect the bounty on Atrocitus's head. The four Lanterns force Lobo to leave Earth, and Atrocitus agrees to help, though it turns out to be a ruse on Atrocitus's part - he hired Lobo in the first place, presumably knowing that he had to work with other Lanterns but his pride or his rage meant that he wouldn't ask them for help.
Issue 56 focuses on Hector Hammond, a telepathic Green Lantern enemy who's several different kinds of pathetic. However, the main villain needs him free for some reason, so he releases the giant-headed madman, presumably to attack Hal Jordan and try to force himself on Carol Ferris.
As it turns out, Hal is tracking down Larfleeze, who sealed the Orange Lantern's entity in the Orange Lantern itself. Hal tries in vain to convince Larfleeze to help, but Hector Hammond shows up to get the Orange Lantern's entity on behalf of his benefactor and, when he can't get it out of the lantern, he eats the lantern.
As Hector Hammond transforms into something even more monstrous, Saint Walker of the Blue Lanterns has been travelling around the world to try and bring peace to the souls who were revived by the Black Lanterns. He has a nice moment with Renee Montoya, the current Question, over the grave of Vic Sage, the previous Question.
Hector manages to gain control of himself long enough to go after Carol, and Hal and Larfleeze follow him to Las Vegas, despite Hal's entirely justifiable concerns about bringing Larfleeze along. Meanwhile, a male Star Sapphire is introduced, who goes by the name of the Predator, which seems rather unfortunate given the Star Sapphire's nature of being based around love. Apparently, this had been asked for by the fans quite a bit, though I'm guessing this is going to be a "be careful what you wish for" kind of scenario.
As Hal and Larfleeze arrive in Vegas, with Larfleeze feeling right at home, the Violet Lantern's entity, the Predator, possesses a stalker and gives him the power to do whatever creepy things he wants.
Carol manages to free the Predator from its host, and upon being transported to the Star Sapphires' homeworld, she convinces them that the Predator shouldn't be imprisoned in their Central Power Battery, since that's not what love is about. Agreeing with this, the Queen of the Star Sapphires gives the rest of her life force to restore the Central Power Battery and, with her dying breath, proclaims Carol to be the new queen of the Star Sapphires.
Carol has to stay and protect the Predator from whoever's hunting the entities, so Hal and Larfleeze head back to Earth when they discover that the Blue Lantern's entity has found a host, a missing girl who had been kidnapped. Unlike the other entities that we've seen so far (aside from Ion), this one seems more benevolent, even if it's still willing to do horrible things to those who strip hope away from communities like the kidnapper who was responsible for the girl's disappearance.
However, while Hal was dealing with the Star Sapphires, Atrocitus and Sinestro were still on Earth, with Atrocitus murdering a busload of murderous prisoners. Upon finding out about this, Barry Allen (the Flash) tracks down Hal to make him explain what's going on, as Hal has been keeping this whole excursion secret from both his fellow superheroes and his fellow Green Lanterns.
The Indigo Lanterns, at least, prove to be more cooperative, bringing their entity to Hal (complete with a person for it to possess) as a sign of good faith. However, part of that group includes the Black Hand, who (despite the Indigo Lanterns' insistence to the contrary) has clearly been brainwashed, and the same thing goes for the rest of the Indigo Lantern Corps.
That's when the mysterious villain shows up with Parallax in tow. Parallax isn't after Hal this time - it's drawn to the large amount of fear that one member of the group feels for his friend. Parallax enters Barry's body, possessing the Flash.
As Parallax insists that Hal needed him, and that the possession was good for him, Hal tries to get Barry to fight Parallax off, though he knows how that's almost impossible. He manages to remove Parallax's influence by daring Parallax to possess him, saying that the embodiment of fear is too afraid to try. That's when the cloaked villain makes his move, revealing that he was the keeper of the emotion entities in the earliest days of Oa.
As it turns out, the mastermind behind this is Krona, a character who I don't know much about. I know that he was responsible for one of the Marvel and DC crossovers, and that he's a former Guardian of the Universe who was banished for trying to discover the origin of the universe, as the Guardians made that illegal for some reason. That's about the extent of my knowledge, which makes me wish I had branched out a bit when it came to my Green Lantern reading over this past year.
Krona captures the Blue and Indigo entities, along with taking back Parallax. As for the Red Lanterns' entity, the Butcher, it turns out that it has a history with the Spectre, who wants it off of Earth. An execution is interrupted by the Butcher trying to possess the father of one of the murderer's victims, with both the Spectre and Atrocitus trying to stop the possession for their own reasons.
Atrocitus proves to be more calm, level-headed, and dare I say compassionate than I expected someone who is powered by rage to be, arguing against the Spectre himself that the father who was possessed by the Butcher and used that power to kill the convict should be spared. By the end of the issue, he seems to find value in human lives (at least some of them) when he couldn't before.
Krona was originally responsible for a lot of the technology and other advancements that the Guardians use, which make it child's play for him to get ahold of the remaining entities. As he escapes, the Guardians are considering the idea that Hal Jordan is too much of a renegade and he needs to be removed, as he's acting behind their back. This whole event turns out to be a prologue for another event, The War of the Green Lanterns, which will seemingly continue Krona's plot to control emotion throughout the universe, though I'll stop here for today.
While this event didn't advance certain plot points as much as I was expecting (I know that someone gets a White Lantern Ring on a permanent basis, and I thought that would happen here), it did a good job with building up the Green Lantern side of the DC universe and providing development for the main faces of the various Corps., even if Hal remains kind of static as a character. Atrocitus was probably the most surprising for me in terms of his development, though it makes sense that he'd see some of himself in a person who's angry over the death of a family member given his history of his entire world (aside from him) being killed by the Guardians' robots. It makes me wish that I was more familiar with Green Lantern outside of Geoff Johns' run (as aside from that, my experience has mainly been Far Sector, the start of Kyle's run, some Justice League stories, and John Stewart's debut), but that can serve as motivation to keep reading Green Lantern stories even when I'm done this blog.
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