Art By: Steve Ellis, Andre Parks, Hi-FiCover Price: $3.99
Release Date: May 20, 2015
Guy Gardner: Ass Kicker
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
In the last issue of Convergence: Green Lantern Corps, we explored the world and mindset that Guy Gardner awoke to after his coma. Yeah, he was tortured by General Zod in the Phantom Zone and by Sinestro in the Anti-Matter Universe and these experiences put him in a coma, but it can't be all bad........... Scratch that, it's all bad for Guy and after suffering from PTSD from his experiences, he decided to confront the man who he blames for his misfortune....... Hal Jordan. Too bad, that once he found Hal, the dome disappeared and instead of Hal sharing his power battery and the two of them kicking some ass, Hal knocked Guy out and went to fight the good fight on his own. Not one to be left behind, after Guy came to, he leather jacketed up, strapped a baseball bat to his back and got on his hog to join the ensuing fight. Let's see if a powerless Guy can turn the tides of battle in this issue.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with Hal realizing that he's in over his head as he takes on the abomination that is the Anti-God. After Hal and John Stewart get their asses handed to them, we switch over to Guy's story and stay there for the rest of the issue until it eventually runs into Hal and John. We see Guy biking across the wasteland in between cities.......... but not like biking with weird helmets and lycra shorts, no he's a bad ass and he's doing this shit Road Warrior style and even kicks up the bad ass a notch by fighting a goddamn dragon.......with a baseball bat! Now, this bit is kind of odd because I don't remember dragons chilling in the wastelands of the planet Telos, but we'll go with it because it's so damn fun. Eventually, Guy decides to take a break from being awesome and camps out for the night, where he's met by a feral dog........ which he easily befriends and trusts to guard him while he takes forty winks. It isn't the restful sleep though that one hopes for while tearing up the desert. While Guy sleeps we get a little more insight on his state of mind as we watch him relive all the terrible things that happened to him leading up to him waking up under a domed city. General Zod breaking down his will, Sinestro challenging his confidence, but it all finally comes to an end when Guy startles himself awake, only to find that he's tied up.
After a bit of confusion about being tied up, we find out that Guy's captors are Hercules, Jennifer Monroe and her dog Basil, who totally sold Guy out. After finding out that the Green Lanterns are fighting the Anti-God and Hercules and Jennifer are spending their time rescuing survivors, Guy uses the fact that Hercules isn't fighting to goad him into a arm wrestling match, where the winner gets Hercules' impervious armor that is immune to the Anti-God's evil............... and holy shit, we actually get Guy telling us the technique he uses to beat Hercules and it's straight out of Over The Top....... Guy Gardner is a Stallone fan! After besting Hercules and dawning his armor, Guy goes into the city, where he finds and rescues Hal and John and the three decide to power up their rings and take on the monster one more time............... But what about the impervious armor? We never get to see how impervious it actually is........... and all of a sudden I realize that for how cool the arm wrestling match was, it was pretty much pointless.
In the end, our trio go up against the Anti-God, where Guy uses the knowledge he got earlier about how anti-matter is surrounding the planet, to blow up the monster and as a celebration for his victory, he punches Hal Jordan out and our Lanterns decide to go after Hercules and Jennifer to help them on the rescue effort.
That's it for this issue of Convergence: Green Lantern Corps and man was this issue off the wall crazy awesome. Yeah, there are some instances of what I would consider nonsense or pointless but the overall feel of this book is so much fun that I'll overlook it and get past my normally nitpicky attitude. I love that David Gallaher chose to tell a Guy Gardner story for this title and I love the fact that he decided to have fun with it too. The art for this book compliments the story so much that I wouldn't mind seeing this team work together on a straight up Guy Gardner book in the future. One thing I find kind of funny about this is, for all the strange crazy shit that happens here, the weirdest thing to me was seeing John Stewart wearing a mask. I highly recommend this book because it's the most fun that you'll probably have during Convergence.
Bits and Pieces:
Fun trumps continuity. That's what Didio said right? There are certainly a lot of strange things in this book, but none of it matters because of the fun you'll have reading it. Guy is just a straight up bad ass here, that hearkens back to the heroes of 80's action movies, complete with one liners. Add all that fun to some excellent art that totally compliments the story and you have one hell of an excellent Guy Gardner adventure.
9/10
I loved this book from start to finish. I feel like Gallaher captured the best aspects of Guy Gardner's personality so well--that he's a bad-ass, that he isn't above fighting dirty, but he is a hero through-and-through. And he punched Hal in the face! I'll never get tired of seeing that.
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