Beware His Power!
Written By: Tony BedardArt By: Ron Wagner, Bill Reinhold, Paul Mounts
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 15, 2015
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
I feel like I've said this a thousand times now but Pre-Zero Hour is right when I started reading Green Lantern so going into this issue feels like catching up with an old friend I haven't seen in a while........ Well, at least since the last time that I read my Emerald Twilight/Emerald Dawn trade... So at least eight months. Anyway, I love this era of DC Comics because it's at this point where I started becoming less of a Marvel kid and growing hair in strange places that I hadn't had it before............. Okay, that' getting a little weird, All I'm saying is it's at this point where I started noticing DC more and thus changing my life forever........... Who knows, without the Pre-Zero Hour events this might be called "The Lost Boys Marvel Comics Blog. That's enough jibber-jabber, let's head back in time to when Hal Jordan was Parallax and Kyle Rayner was just starting to get his ring slinging groove on. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our story begins with a lot of exposition to get the reader into the know about what was going on in the Pre-Zero Hour DC Universe. You know, Mongul destroyed Coast City so Hal tried to recreate it using his power ring but was shut down by The Guardians because of his misuse of the power, leading him to go all psycho and killing Corps members on his way to Oa, where he took all the energy in the power battery into himself.................. If you didn't know this, you should totally read Emerald Twilight/Emerald Dawn. So now that our heroes are living a powerless domed existence, Hal Jordan for his acts against the Corps and the Justice League has made sure that he pays for his crimes by having the Metropolis PD keep him locked up.................. Much to the chagrin of Kyle Rayner who comes to visit Hal every day so that he can remind him that it wasn't truly him that did those awful things............ It was Parallax. Now, that's a cool concept to have here because at this point in the timeline we didn't have a Fear entity that was taking over Hal, we just had Hal going all power crazy and having the duality of the continuities here is interesting............... I just wish there was more this issue.
After the exposition, Kyle leaves the police station and witnesses the Dome comes down and an image in the sky that shows him that he must fight Princess Fern of Electropolis. The problem is after his ring turns back on and we see that it has the same amount of charge that it did the day The Dome went up, he realizes that if his powers are back, then so are Hal's and just like that the top of the police station blows up and we see that Parallax is back. For all the guilt and doubt that Hal has felt over the year without power, now his identity flips and he's actually pissed at himself for feeling guilty for so long. Kyle tries to talk him down and for a second actually manages to reach Hal......... that is before Princess Fern decided to enact a preemptive strike against Kyle, leading Hal to make sure that everyone beware his power.
In the end, defeating Princess Fern and her forces weren't enough for Parallax and he decides to find this Electropolis for himself and make everyone pay for their princess's attack against Kyle........... and at this point, I know that Parallax is more in control but this seems like a pretty personal attack that Hal might be behind. All I can say is that even though we end this issue with Parallax simply flexing his "Nobody Can Fuck With Me" muscles.............. I think we all know that Electropolis is doomed beyond belief.
That's it for this issue of Convergence: Green Lantern/Parallax and even though it was a lot of fun seeing these characters in their old costumes again and exploring the events of this era, this issue was bogged down by excessive exposition that I guess is useful for a lot of readers that might not be familiar with this timeline but I think that it might have been better suited if it was used to explain Electropolis more than these popular Green Lanterns. Really, the main draw of this book is the nostalgia it brings forth and while I'm all for that, the story just lacked because there didn't seem to be much except for the initial "Do You Remember" section and then Parallax just destroying everything around him. The art was fantastic all the way through, so no complaints there. Hopefully, we'll get a little more in-depth with the Hal Jordan/Parallax personalities next issue and hopefully, I can see my boy Kyle Rayner kick a little more ass.
Bits and Pieces:
While I personally really liked this issue because of all the nostalgia it brings out of me, I can't say that it's one of the strongest stories in Convergence. The majority of the story it tells is to make sure that readers know what was going on during Pre-Zero Hour Metropolis instead of giving us insights on the characters after living in a dome for a year. Hopefully, the next issue will remedy this but if you weren't a fan of this era in the '90s, I can't really see you enjoying this title............ Or maybe this will make you want to check that out. It could go either way really. It was fun but it just wasn't great.
7/10
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