The Green Lantern #5 Review and **SPOILERS**

Do You Have What It Takes to Suck?

Writer: Grant Morrison

Artist: Liam Sharp

Colorist: Steve Oliff

Letterer: Tom Orzechowski

Cover: Liam Sharp & Steve Oliff

Variant Cover: Joe St. Pierre with Steve Firchow

Associate Editor: Jessica Chen

Editor: Brian Cunningham

Cover Price: $3.99

On Sale Date: March 6, 2019

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

Hal Jordan is in Deep Cover with the Blackstars, and to prove his mettle he has to…EAT FIVE LIVE GOLDFISH!!! Hey, don’t laugh. To join the Indigo Lanterns, you have to play Ookie on a Cookie with the elephant-headed guy. Let’s see how Hal does in The Green Lantern #5, which I have helpfully reviewed right here!

Explain It!

It’s not enough to tell a space vampire succubus that you want to be a Blackstar, you have to prove it, as well. On the evil planet Vorr, which is also the name of a slavering beast that hunts Blackstar applicants, Countess Belzebeth gives Hal Jordan three trials to complete—and for each one, he will get another piece of the Blackstar suit. And, uh, he does. That’s about the short of it. He has to give up some emotional control for it, but in the end, Hal is a Blackstar.

Each trial is appropriately spooky; Hal has to beat back zombies, Hal has to fight a giant monster larva. But it’s a fait accompli as to whether Hal will get his Blackstar suit, and to think otherwise is foolish. There’s a scene where we can see a Guardian giving Hal Jordan his deep cover assignment, in case we forgot that he’s a double-agent. And he’s going to have to prove his fealty to the Blackstars right away—by killing Adam Strange of the planet Rann!

Here’s the first of Morrison and Sharp’s The Green Lantern run that I think is kind of a dud. Many of the visuals, particularly the splash pages, are spectacular. But when the panels get smaller, things tend to look pretty cramped within. There are a lot of references to cutesy space stuff that add little to the narrative, and this issue definitely feels it was slotted into the natural proceedings in order to bulk it out for trade collecting.

Bits and Pieces:

Hal goes through the application process to be a Blackstar, and after retaking the test with an sharpened #2 pencil. Some nice scenery in this issue, but it’s really a place holder for that sixth issue huzzah.

6/10