Thursday, June 28, 2018

Throwback Thurdsay - Green Lantern #25

I'll come right out and confess. . .I'm not really a fan of Green Lantern. 

 I don't HATE Green Lantern in any of the character's many forms.  Really, it's okay.  But I never go out of my way to buy a Green Lantern comic.  It's just that, at the heart of things, Green Lantern (Except for the original Alan Scott version) is a Science Fiction character.  I prefer my Sci-Fi more in a "Space Ships and Laser Guns" sort of military fashion. . .Battlestar Galactica would be a good example.  And then also, I've never really been a big fan of "traditional" capes and tights sort of superheroes.  Batman and Captain America are probably my favorites of the "traditional" superhero bunch.  

So two strikes against Green Lantern.  But two strikes isn't an out, right?

And so here we are with a Silver Age Green Lantern comic in hand for another "Throwback Thursday" special edition of Longbox Junk, where I take a closer look at some of the older and more "valuable" comics lurking in my Longboxes.  

This comic is actually a pretty new addition to my collection.  As of this writing, I bought it 5 days ago at a flea market, where I found it unbagged and in surprisingly good shape mixed into a pile of old Archie and Dennis The Menace comics for the low price of 12 lousy bucks.  I don't know exactly where the guy got that weirdly-specific number from, but I know a good deal when I see it and so I came into possession of my one and only 1960's era Green Lantern comic.

Is it any good? Let's find out!

GREEN LANTERN (Vol. 2) #25


DC (1963)
SCRIPTS: Gardner Fox
PENCILS: Gil Kane
INKS: Joe Giella
COVER: Gil Kane & Joe Giella

Let's start at the start, with the cover.

Unfortunately, it's not a very good start.  I usually buy these older comics for their covers in order to add them to my rotating comic cover collection on my office wall at work.  To be honest, if this was just one of a stack of Green Lantern comics, I definitely wouldn't have chosen this particular one.  But as it is, this was the only one, so here we are. 

 I like the logo and the flying villain is interesting, but other than that there's WAY too much in the word balloon, Hal Jordan looks really stiff and is posed strangely, the "swoosh" marks trying to show action are a bit overdone, and really. . .I thought Green Lantern was a flying space cop.  He just looks strange running down the street on foot.

Not a good cover.  Moving along!

The story goes like this:

Hector Hammond (a Green Lantern villain with powerful psionic abilities who has lost the ability to move on his own after exposing himself to strange radiation in Green Lantern #22) rots in prison after being defeated by Green Lantern.  What Hal Jordan doesn't know is that Hammond has faked Green Lantern into believing that he had successfully deadened the parts of Hammond's brain that give him his extraordinary powers with his power ring.  In reality, Hammond is still fully-capable of using his powerful mental abilities. . .and he has come up with a plan to defeat Green Lantern, now that the superhero thinks his enemy is helpless.

Hammond uses his mental powers to help free the villain Sonar from prison across the Atlantic in the small country of Modora. . .AKA the most ridiculously-overdressed tiny nation in Europe. . .where he was imprisoned by Green Lantern after being defeated in issue #19.  As Sonar escapes, he thinks he's somehow gained some new mental powers. . .never realizing he's being used as a pawn by Hammond.  How Hammond even knows about Sonar or where he's imprisoned is never exactly made clear, because. . .Silver Age?

ANYWAY. . .

In an oddly-convoluted plan, Hammond decides the best way to go about defeating Green Lantern using his new pawn (Sonar),  is that he's going to use his super mental powers to have Sonar attack and switch weapons with Green Lantern. . .but only in Green Lantern's mind.  This way, he can see how Green Lantern would win in a battle.  With this information, he can come up with a better plan for his enemy that will actually work and only then REALLY send Sonar in.  

Wait. . .what?  Never mind. Great plan.  Moving along!

When Hammond puts his hilarious. . .er. . .nefarious. . .plan into motion, Green Lantern is the guest of honor at the Ferris Aircraft Company picnic, because when trying to maintain a secret identity, it's ALWAYS best to be right there among people you work with all the time, right?  

Green Lantern discovers that Lois Lane. . .er. . .sorry. . .Carol Ferris has secretly entered Hal Jordan as her partner in the three-legged race, causing a bit of secret identity consternation RIGHT at the moment when Hammond's mind probe hits.

Green Lantern is plunged into an imaginary battle with Sonar in the skies of Coast City.  After escaping being tangled in steel girders and crushed by a conveniently-gold statue, their weapons are switched, so Green Lantern has to dodge energy blasts while using Sonar's sonic gun against him.  The battle eventually ends with Green Lantern tricking Sonar into an enclosed space and immobilizing him long enough to take his ring back and take Sonar into custody.

The battle against Sonar lasted only a second in Green Lantern's subconscious mind, so he just gets dizzy for a moment without realizing anything happened.  And he STILL has to deal with Carol expecting Hal Jordan to show up for the three-legged race.  So to solve the secret identity dilemma, Green Lantern hunts down his best friend. . .Pieface.

Wait.  Stop a moment. Savor the 60's flavor of Green Lantern having an Eskimo sidekick named Pieface. Pie. Face.  Piiiiiiiiiefaaaaaaaace.  Yep.  They actually had an Eskimo guy called Pieface.  

Okay, enough. Moving along. . .

Green Lantern uses his power ring in the most responsible way that a Galactic Space Cop entrusted with one of the most powerful weapons on Earth can. . .he changes Pieface to appear as Hal Jordan so that Carol won't be disappointed by not being able to run the three-legged race.  Eat THAT Spider-Man! With great power comes whatever the hell you want to use it for over in the DC Universe! 

AND THEN. . .

JUST as Green Lantern changes his best friend into Hal Jordan and they're both standing in front of Carol Ferris. . .who somehow fails to notice that Hal and GL have the same hair color, hair style, face shape, chin, height, and body type. . .the REAL Sonar attacks and Green Lantern avoids awkward questions by flying off to battle.

Everything goes pretty much exactly as the first (mental) battle, up until Green Lantern tries to trick Sonar into a trap.  Hammond uses his mental powers to help Sonar avoid captivity, and Sonar gains the upper hand, trapping Green Lantern in a solid block of emerald.

As Sonar flies the trapped Green Lantern to Modora, where he plans to put the hero on display, Green Lantern uses Sonar's sonic gun to pull off a trick from The Flash's playbook.  He uses the gun to vibrate himself so fast that he is able to pass through the solid emerald block.  Green Lantern then uses the Sonic Gun to create a waterspout that knocks Sonar out long enough for him to recover his power ring and then take the defeated Sonar back to prison in Modora.

Meanwhile, the "Mastermind" behind the whole thing finds it hard to believe that his overly-complicated plan using an underpowered C-List villain somehow failed.  As far as Hammond is concerned, the only good thing to come of it was that Green Lantern is completely unaware that it was him who was manipulating things from behind the scenes, and he swears to keep trying until he gets it right.

AND FINALLY. . .

At the end of it all, Green Lantern returns to the Ferris Aircraft Company picnic. . .which is STILL going on even though Green Lantern has made a two way trans-Atlantic flight (I guess there ain't no party like an F.A.C. party).  He learns that "Hal Jordan" did indeed help Carol win the three-legged race and gets to stand by and be jealous as a guy called Pieface kisses the girl he's been chasing since issue #1.  

The End.

Okay,  let's break it on down now!

I'm gonna be honest here and say that, as far as I'm concerned, this comic is everything good AND bad about the Silver Age.  So let's go with the good first. . .

There's a simplicity here that comes with the knowledge that this comic was NOT written for a 50 year old comic collector like myself.  It was written for kids during the 1960's.  There's a definite feeling of an honest suspension of disbelief that's possible when you're a kid in this comic.  It's hard for me to suspend that disbelief at my age.  This sort of comic makes me remember when it was easier. 

To me, that's what's great about Silver Age comics. . .the ability for them to remind the reader of a time in their life when even the most ridiculous things could be taken as they were.  I'm more of a child of the 70's so I get that feeling stronger when I read those Bronze Age comics and especially when I see those old ads, but I definitely got that whiff of what it was like to be able to completely suspend my disbelief when reading this comic.

THAT SAID. . .

Looked at objectively by the 50 year old comic collector, this isn't a very good comic.

The concept is interesting.  It's basically a villain team-up without the superhero OR half of the villain team realizing that it IS a team-up.  Unfortunately, the decent idea at the center of things is surrounded by Silver Age crap.

The Villain's plan is hilariously complicated and even unnecessary.  Hammond shows that he can influence the mind of Green Lantern.  Why not just do THAT?

And then there's the whole "Picnic" sub-plot.  I don't understand the Silver Age obsession with secret identities. . .especially on the DC side of things.  I think over at Marvel during the same era, the only characters REALLY trying to hide their identity were Spider-Man and Iron Man.  With DC, EVERYBODY had a secret identity, whether they really needed one or not.  It gets pretty. . .well. . .stupid.  This comic's secret identity shenanigans are a perfect example of the general stupidity of trying to force every character in your stable to have a secret identity.  

And now I'm gonna tip the sacred cow.  Let's talk a bit about the art.

Gil Kane is regarded highly by a lot of comic fans.  Part of that high regard comes from his work on Green Lantern.  But I have to honestly say that I don't see it in this comic.  

I'm not going to completely bag Kane's work here.  It's not BAD, but it's barely on the good side of "okay".  It's probably also the fault of the inker and/or the colorist, but I find the art in this comic to be about as utterly average as it can get.  There are a few nice moments, such as this shot of Green Lantern flying into battle. . .



. . .but for the most part, the art is pretty uninspired.  


Like I said above. . .I realize that this comic wasn't written or drawn for me.  But that said, the minimum effort that the art team put into this issue is pretty plain to see.  There's a lot to like about Gil Kane's later work, but it's a bit hard to see here.

CONCLUSION
If I had to describe this comic with one word, that word would be: Juvenile.  It has an interesting idea at its core, but uninspired art and basically being written for kids does not make Green Lantern #25 a shining example of the Silver Age evolution of comics.  That said, I'm pretty sure that if I was a kid in 1963 buying this comic off the spinner rack, I'd be about as happy as could be.  So it's kind of hard for me to kick this comic around for not appealing to a 50 year old comic collector when I can plainly see that it was perfectly written and drawn for the audience DC had in mind.

Up Next. . .

Longbox Junk business as usual as I take a look at a comic prequel nobody asked for to a movie nobody cared about.  IDW's The A-Team: War Stories.

Be there or be square!

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