Green Lantern #50 Review and *SPOILERS*

Mirror Match

Written By: Robert Venditti
Art By: Billy Tan, Vincente Cifuentes, Mark Irwin, John Livesay, Alex Sinclair, Tony Avina, Dave Sharpe

Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: March 2, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

We've finally reached the epic #50 and with it our confrontation between Hal Jordan and Zero Hour's Parallax.  We've been leading up to this for awhile with Hal Jordan questioning himself about how useful he actually is after his nephew Howard was hurt by the terrorist: Sonar and he wasn't able to protect him............. and Parallax figuring out of nowhere that he has to go to Earth to kill Hal Jordan so that he doesn't destroy Coast City for some reason.  Yeah, I don't quite understand Parallax's motivations, but he's all crazed up on ultimate Green Lantern power like he was in the 90's so maybe he's just not thinking straight.  Anyway, we've got the confrontation between these two going on in this over-sized fiftieth issue and I can't wait to see how our current Hal Jordan plans on defending himself against the crazed power of the entire Corps.  Let's jump into this issue and find out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Parallax getting to Earth and having himself a little game of compare and contrast because the last time he saw Coast City it was merely dust in his hands and here it's the bright beacon that he remembers it being.  Well, now that compare and contrast is over, I guess it's time for Parallax to get to slaughtering Hal Jordan.  Before the battle we get this scene where Hal's nephew Howard is coming home from the hospital and Hal has created a bunch of construct party decorations for him so that he could take his brother's money that he gave him and go out and buy the kid s bad ass gift with only Hal's name on the package....... That's right, Hal's a dick.  The point of this scene though is seeing how sorry Hal is for Howard getting hurt in Sonar's attack and how he can't forgive himself for not being able to protect his family.......... so really, it's showing him feeling a lot like Parallax did before he went all power crazy and killed all of his friends.  

Eventually, the celebration for Howard not being dead winds up at the park, where Hal and Parallax get to it and we find out that Parallax's whole plan is to kill Hal so that he doesn't have the opportunity to let Coast City be destroyed like Parallax did himself in his own Universe and once he's done with the murdering, Parallax plans on just straight up taking Hal's place and protecting Coast City from all the attackers it might have in the future.  So yeah, we get a fight, we see that Parallax is one bad mama jama, but it's at this point where the whole story breaks down for me because I'm just seriously lost in our hero's timeline.  Since the New 52 started I've been questioning things like if Superman never died, how did Cyborg Superman ever blow up Coast City, making Hal become Parallax and then the other butterfly effects from there on and for the most part I spent years just thinking that all of the Green Lantern history was carried over into the New 52 and was compressed within that five year timeline, but more recently it's seemed to me that things might not be that simple and that I don't really know anything about what's been going on in the world of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps and in the beginning of this comic it was really looking that way............ until after Parallax spends the first half of the book telling Hal who he is and why he's doing what he's doing and out of nowhere Hal lays the bomb on us that Coast City was destroyed and then rebuilt and that he went through the whole Parallax thing as well........... Mostly, this is a big scene because Parallax just assumed the city hadn't been destroyed yet, but the thing that really makes me wonder what the hell is going on is that Hal didn't seem to know who Parallax was or his power set, but out of nowhere drops the bomb on us that "Oh yeah, I remember when I was you" and it just doesn't make any damn sense to me.  

In the end, I'm really confused as Hal tells Parallax what's actually going on with him...... you know, with the fear entity influencing him and all that and Parallax kind of drops his Zero Hour look and goes all monster face like he did in Green Lantern Rebirth and starts using fear power...........which does make sense, but since this Parallax is from Zero Hour, I kind of would have like him to maintain the look and feel of that character and not go all fear monster out of nowhere because since he doesn't believe that he is this thing that Hal claims him to be, becoming exactly that doesn't really help Parallax keep up that point of view.  As confused as I am about the timeline in this continuity, I'm even more confused by the ending of this book because while we've established that Hal has the power of a dozen rings with Krona's Gauntlet and Parallax has the power of an entire Corps within his body, somehow Hal turns into a construct ghost and appears to scare off Parallax, who runs off claiming that he has to find more power.  As our issue closes, it seems that Hal has to use all his will in order to become tangible again, but by the time he gets back to his brother Jim's place, he's all constructed up again............. and I'm just lost.

That's it for this issue of Green Lantern and I spent the majority of this issue confused because of Hal's apparent ignorance towards Parallax and then his total recall of the situation.  Up until this point I don't think it's ever been spelled out what remained of the previous continuity when it came to the Green Lanterns and after Superman Doomed when we finally found out that Superman never died, I started thinking that Hal never became Parallax because the events leading to Coast City's destruction never occurred............. So yeah, things have been a mess with continuity and now I guess we can safely say that Hal was Parallax, but his confusion about who this character was in the beginning of this book really threw me off and then him becoming more powerful than Parallax at the end........ out of nowhere continued to just leave me in the dark about what's going on.  So we've got this over-sized issue that was essentially a big ass fight with no ties to what Sonar might be up to after our previous issue and I find myself being left with more questions than I started with.  While the art was okay in this book, I find it weird that it has two pencilers in it that I love, but the artwork doesn't seem to be what either usually puts out.  I don't know if this issue had to be quickly finished or what, but I've just come to expect more from Billy Tan and Vincente Cifuentes.  That's not to say that the entire book looked rushed though because we definitely had some bad ass pages throughout this issue, but overall it just didn't feel right at times........... We did get some bad ass color this though and I always appreciate that in a Green Lantern book.

Bits and Pieces:

I found myself confused throughout this book mostly because of the forced timeline of the New 52 and us as fans trying to put it together........... and then mostly because it seems that Hal doesn't remember what he used to be in this issue........ until he does.  Pretty much things just happen in this without much of an explanation and even the Hal Jordan vs. Parallax fight we were all looking for comes off really lackluster because the characters go back and forth between being too powerful and not powerful enough.  

5.8/10