Green Lantern: Season Two #12 Review

 

You Don't Have to Be An Alien to Enjoy It, But It Helps

Written By: Grant Morrison
Art By: Liam Sharp
Colors By: Liam Sharp
Letters By: Steve Wands
Cover Art By: Liam Sharp
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: March 9th, 2021

In Green Lantern Season 2, #12, Hal Jordan is marooned on Athmoora without his ring, fighting against "plastic" toy versions of nearly every villain he's ever encountered. The Golden Ones have formed an alliance with Hector Hammond to destroy Jordan and feast on the restrained intelligence of Athmoors, restrained by the Intelligence Engine Jordan's predecessor, Abin Sur, put in place years ago. With no way to win in a head-on battle, Jordan tries to make a deal.

Was It Good?

It was exhausting. Morrison is an accomplished writer. There's no denying that, but this issue (and the arc as a whole) is a much simpler story than what you see on the page. It's bogged down with so much soliloquy and, much like Hector Hammond himself, fascinated with how smart it is. The story gets buried in heavy, bloated noise.

Liam Sharp is an amazing artist, and here he's doing his best Bill Sienkiewicz impersonation, but the art adds to the ponderous weight of the story rather than cutting through Morrison's noise. It was a valiant effort, and there's plenty of visually interesting panels, but as a story from the writing and art, it's a wheelbarrow of wet mud.

What's It About?

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

We begin in Athmoora where Draatha and his plastic mercenaries are hunting the ringless Hal Jordan. Jordan dispatches the henchmen easily, and during the fight, Vespero arrives to give Jordan a hand. together, they defeat Draatha gladiator-style.

Soon, other and hokier villains from Jordan's past arrive to do battle: Black Hand, The Tattooed Man, and Major Disaster to name a few. Jordan and Vespero figure out these villains are plastic copies of the original. Toys, if you will, and they're dispatched with equal ease.

Samandra and Fekk arrive to join Vespero and Jordan in their fight, but they like Vespero as we learn, are upgraded copies of the original. Everyone Jordan encounters is a manufactured toy copy of the original. Regardless, Jordan leads them to Star-City of the Golden Race to end their invasion of our universe and subjugation of its world to feed on energy.

Hector Hammond, it turns out, is the source of the Golden One's knowledge about Jordan --his enemies, his allies, and everything being manufactured. Hammond has projected his mind from Earth to Athmoora to help the Golden Ones in exchange for the power to destroy Jordan, and Hammond has control of Jordan's ring.

Without spoiling too much of the ending, Jordan gets his ring back, Hammond's intellect is consumed by his partners and defeated, and Jordan makes a deal with the Golden Ones to give them an alternate food supply if they promise to go away.

Bits and Pieces:

Green Lantern Season 2, #12 is a simple alien invasion story made ponderous by overly-complicated plotting, dialog that reads like an unpublished Shakespearean play, and good art that ultimately makes the issue more burdensome than it already is.

4.5/10