GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #1

Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Ethan Van Sciver
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: Parallax

By now, a lot of you have already read this book, so you know what happened. You know that we get to see all of the most important iterations of the character in this issue, and they’re all treated with a lot of respect. I have a lot of love for Alan Scott and Kyle Rayner in particular, so it’s good to see them here. They both have small roles so far, but there’s obviously a lot of groundwork being laid. Alan seems to suddenly be developing some sort of health issue (tired and unusually thirsty—perhaps the tragedy of adult-onset diabetes will be tackled?), and Kyle has crashed to earth with a coffin and some apocryphal warnings of an impending threat. Meanwhile, Guy Gardner’s Vuldarian biology’s going haywire and John Stewart’s getting a bit salty with Batman (in part due to Guy egging him on).

This brings us to one of those scenes I was talking about that required careful reading on my part to truly appreciate. On pages 14 through 16 we see Hal show up at Ollie’s place, where his old opponent the Black Hand has just turned up to try and steal a spare power ring Hal had left with Ollie. Ollie and Mia seem to have things under control when Hal crashes the party. When he first appears on 14, it’s as Hal Jordan. He then transforms into The Spectre on page 15, demanding vengeance for Black Hand’s crimes. On page 16, though, when The Spectre reaches out to punish Hand…it’s not The Spectre. It’s PARALLAX. Huh?!? Yep. You got it. His face isn’t pale white; it’s temporarily more flesh-toned in that first panel. Not only that, but the costumed arm reaching out to Hand is in Parallax’s costume—a change from just three panels previous, where it was The Spectre’s. We then get a shot of The Spectre’s face shadowed by his cowl, with nothing but one sparkling eye and one mouth full of leering white teeth. A couple of panels later, and we’re back to seeing an apologetic Hal saying he’s losing control.

I can’t wrap things up without commenting on the art here. There’s no question that DC wants this series to be a huge hit, and they put together a team guaranteed to knock it out of the park. Van Sciver’s work is amazing in this issue from the front cover image to the final page. The amount of attention paid to every little detail, even in the background, is phenomenal. His Mia is gorgeous, his Hal is rugged, and his John Stewart has a gravity and determination I’m not used to seeing with the character. Van Sciver’s command of facial expressions also makes a huge impact on the readers. Far too often in comics the faces seem like they’re almost an afterthought, but in this book they’re given enough attention to make everybody in the book feel like an actor, not a drawing. I’m sure I’ve seen colorist Moose Baumann’s work somewhere before, but I’m not sure where. I do know this, though—we’re definitely going to be seeing a lot more of him. This is a book where a bad colorist would have crippled the artist and ruined the visuals, but Moose really nails it here. I particularly liked the way the green detailing on Kyle’s ship was still visible when backlit by an orange explosion on pages 2 and 3 and he also does a great job on the detailed crowd scene on page 11, among others. The work these two are doing together meshes beautifully and gives us a book that looks fantastic.

Sometimes we get “event” books from the Big Two that just don’t do the term justice. Sure, they’ve got popular characters, or there’s supposed to be some big new change that nobody wanted or whatever. Every now and again, though, there’s an event book that really deserves to be treated as such. This miniseries has a killer creative team who has stepped up and brought their A-game like nobody’s business. With writing this tight and art this gorgeous, there’s no reason not to buy the book. I, for one, have gone from having severe reservations on this to being a full-blown cheerleader (the green and black polyester uniform is in the mail). If you ever dug the Green Lantern mythos, this is definitely the place to jump back onboard.