Green Lantern #24

Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. when I was assembling my collection, I picked up most of my early-mid 1960s DC from a friend of mine named Jon, and his neighbor, Eric. They had long runs of the comics they were interested in, but every now and then there was an issue or two missing. I don't have a clue as to why; perhaps they had just forgotten to go to the newsstand that month, or perhaps they had been broke, or perhaps they had just used the money for a new baseball mitt or something else.

This was one of the issues I never found, and since I wasn't fanatical about completing my Green Lantern run like I was about Batman, it was only a few years ago that I finally found a low-grade copy cheap enough to justify the purchase. IIRC, the first story was reprinted in the 1970s, but I don't think that cover story was until the relatively recent advent of the Archive and Showcase Editions.

The first story is The Shark that Hunted Human Prey. An accident in an atomic station on the coast led to a sudden emission of radiation that hit a passing shark:

Now of course, as far as the science goes, that's absurd. Evolution is a slow, torturous process with many missteps along the way. Still, it's in keeping with the science of comic books, in which Ben Grimm can turn into a pile of orange rocks (and occasionally turn back again).

The Shark discovers he has extraordinary powers, but he retains his essential nature:

After dropping the heavyweight champ without raising a fist, the Shark uses his awesome mental powers to locate a foe worthy of his abilities:

The Shark contacts Hal mentally and issues a challenge. Hal quickly changes into his fighting duds and recharges his ring in the locker room, but:

And for much of the battle that ensues, the Shark maintains his desire to induce fear in Green Lantern. He demonstrates that GL's ring has no power over him as he can block it with his mind. Indeed, his mental powers seem unlimited:

GL realizes that the air in the room is not colored yellow, so he stuns the Shark with a bolt of compressed air. But the Shark recovers and ups the stakes:

His intent was to make Hal afraid, but instead the threat just redoubles GL's resolve to win. He condenses the water vapor in the room and creates a block of ice with which to kayo the villain. Then he uses his power ring to devolve the Shark back into his normal state:

Comments: I found the concept of a shark evolved into a human somewhat ludicrous, and that costume is inane. However, that should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the character development was excellent and the story itself, with the threats to those Hal holds near and dear, is compelling.

The second story is the cover one, and it is pretty simple and straight-forward. While traveling through space, Hal encounters the planet, which suddenly forms a continent that looks like him. It shoots a rocket at him and one grazes him, forcing him to the ground. He encounters visions of Pieface, and several of his enemies. Finally the planet itself finds a way to contact him directly:

It was an intelligent planet who had searched the stars for more intelligence, and GL was the first it had ever encountered. It just wanted to make a friend, but couldn't find a way to express that at first. GL helps it by removing a volcanic core that was causing earthquakes, and they part as buddies.

Comments: Cute story, and the concept of a living planet would be "borrowed" a few years later by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the Mighty Thor series.

Darwin of the Guardians

I confess I had not read this story in decades and it didn't make much of an impression on me back as a teen. But re-reading it last night, I have to confess I was flabbergasted.

The story starts with the Golden Age Green Lantern protecting Gotham City from a falling meteor. As it happens, the meteor hits a tree, which is about to fall on Doiby Dickles' taxi, Goitrude. GL is shocked when his protective beam deflects the tree, as his power ring has never worked on wood. He has an idea:

But when he reaches Hal Jordan, it turns out that his beam still doesn't work on wood. Hal suggests that he get the ring to tell him what really happened. It turns out the meteor wasn't a meteor, but a disembodied mind inside a packet of pure energy that was ten billion years old. The ring contacted the mind and learned it was from the planet Oa. The Oans were immortal and used their time to learn things:

But there was one forbidden subject:

And right there I came to a screeching halt. The pursuit of knowledge about the Oans had led to the invention of evil? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and the "reasoning" behind it is the classic fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this). Krona insisted on continuing his pursuit of the origin of the Oans, and so they:

Since one of their fellows had unleashed evil on the universe, they started the Green Lantern Corps to battle the malignant forces.

When the GA Green Lantern's power beam contacted the mind of Krona, he used it to free himself and followed Alan Scott into our universe. The Oans, alerted to the danger, warn the two GLs that they cannot locate Krona by normal means, but to expect an outbreak of evil nearby. Sure enough:

After handling the various crises, the Oans summon the two GLs to their home planet, where the cover scene takes place. Hal does not accept his demotion gracefully:

And yet, a moment later he seems surprised that Alan's not laying down for him:

Via a flashback, we learn that Alan's body has secretly been taken over by Krona, and that the Guardians are being controlled by the GA Green Lantern's ring. But (and this is a key point) Hal doesn't know this yet. So his revolt against the Guardians and his battle with Alan are not excused by this knowledge.

Krona erects a yellow shield to protect himself and then kayos Hal, after which:

We can see that Krona is rather reckless with other people's lives but not his own.

But Alan's disembodied mind contacts Hal, wakes him up, and the two combine their willpower to defeat Krona, with the aid of some trickery; Hal uses the GA power ring rather than his own so that yellow won't work against it. Krona is sent back on his endless journey, but this time the Guardians make sure his orbit will never intersect any planet or star.

Comments: The story can be taken as an allegory to the book of Genesis, with Oa before Krona as the Garden of Eden, and Krona as Adam releasing evil by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. According to the letters column in GL #43, that was the way writer John Broome intended it:

But you can also read it as anti-science, and anti-Darwinian. That the Oans turn out to be correct in their ancient superstition against studying the origin of their species is hardly surprising. It's a basic principle in fiction that the Cassandras of doom are always proven right (as was the original Cassandra, who warned the Trojans against bringing the wooden horse into their walls). But I have a hard time believing that the Oans were justified in their original banishment of Krona. Given what happens in this story you can argue that the subsequent exile was merited, but you can also argue that ten billion years as a disembodied mind might be the cause of his callous disregard.

The Sinestro Story

With the release of the Green Lantern movie, I thought I would talk about GL's main enemy, Sinestro. Sinestro first appeared in GL #7 as the renegage Green Lantern. This was during the brief period when GL was not aware that he worked for the Guardians, and so they summoned his "energy duplicate" to fill him in on Sinestro's origin. He was originally another member of the Green Lantern corps, until the power infected him:

The Guardians stripped him of his ring and power and banished him to the evil anti-matter universe of Qward (which Green Lantern had battled previously in GL#2-4).

Sinestro comes up with a plan that basically involves him saying evil a lot:

But as it happens GL misses his appointment in Valdale, and thus, unlike the 100,000 citizens of that fair metropolis, is not teleported to Qward. At the end of this back story, the Guardians decide to allow him to know that he works for them.

Hal makes it to Qward, but Sinestro plays his trump card; unless GL surrenders, he will kill the Valdale residents. GL agrees and is imprisoned in a yellow globe. Sinestro has an eeeeevil plan:

But GL manages to fool him by pushing the clock ahead a few minutes. He escapes from Qward, leaving Sinestro imprisoned in a green bubble. But when Sinestro returns in GL #9, we learn that he must have been a Boy Scout, for he believes in the motto, Be Prepared:

This time around he comes up with a scheme to siphon off the power from Green Lantern's ring to enhance his own. Once he succeeds in doing so, he imprisons GL inside a cage and goes off to a meeting of the other GLs where he again steals their power. He then zips to Oa to attack the Guardians, but Hal has gotten free by now and hits on a Silver Age cliched way to defeat him:

The Guardians put Sinestro in a capsule and launch him on an 18,000-year orbit of the universe.

In GL #11, Sinestro returns. It seems the Guardians forgot to check his heel, where he stored a backup power ring. He returns to Qward, where he uses a mind-control device to cause Green Lantern to screw up several times on the job. Then, at a trial held by the other Green Lanterns, Hal pleads guilty and requests to be sent to Qward (again by the force of Sinestro's mind control). Fortunately the other Green Lanterns were only agreeing to find out who was behind the plot, and after a brief subplot where Hal uses some high school chemistry to escape from a death trap, they use Sinestro's mind control machine on him:

But in GL #15, Sinestro escapes. Once again, thinking a step ahead of the Green Lanterns, he had set the mind control device so it would not work on him. He's back on Qward, competing in the annual "Most Evil Citizen Contest", with a sidekick that should be familiar to Golden Age fans:

Yep, that's Doiby Dickles (although Sinestro calls him Magot in this story and the next). Sinestro has a plan to win the contest; he'll trap GL on a world where everything's yellow, and that's not all:

It's all terrifically eeeeevil, but Sinestro makes one mistake; he decides to televise GL's death, and the beam he uses to do it turns out to be purple, giving Hal his one chance at escape. He fixes the mind control machine so it will work on Sinestro, and locks the villain away.

Except that Sinestro again had planned ahead for this eventuality. We learn in Green Lantern #18 that he placed a hypnotic suggestion in GL's mind, instructing him to turn the mind control device off at a point in the future. Sinestro's again in the contest for "Most Evil" and after getting Hal to Qward without his power ring, he reveals his diabolical plan:

Well, it turns out that GL had anticipated all this (two can think ahead!) and only faked not having his power ring. He uses Sinestro's own plot against him:

Having made five appearances in less than a year and a half, Sinestro now went into hibernation for over four years. In his next appearance he came back as a car (Doiby Dickles taxi, Gertrude). This of course is a nod to the insane 1960s TV show, My Mother the Car:

This time his plot is to steal the giant power lantern on Oa, but Green Lantern foils the plot with the assistance of the Golden Age GL and Doiby Dickles.
Sinestro returned one final time in the Silver Age, in GL #74, in which he teams up with Star Sapphire.

Overall, the qualities that I would associate with Sinestro and hope will appear in the movie, are his preparedness, and his desire for revenge against GL and the Guardians.

Green Lantern on Magic Mushrooms?

Just in case you thought Speedy on Smack was the first drug mention in a Green Lantern comic, check out this letter from Green Lantern #18 (January 1963):

Take Me Out to the Ballgame...

This panel comes from Green Lantern #12 (April 1962). Of course, about 6 months earlier, Roger Maris (Ramis jumbled) had broken the record for homers in a season with 61, topping Babe Ruth's 1927 total of 60. Green Lantern's editor at the time was Julius Schwartz, who had grown up in the Bronx and was a die-hard fan of the NY Yankees.

Green Lantern #59: Guy Gardner

This story starts with Green Lantern visiting Oa, the planet of the Guardians, for a seminar in advanced Green Lanternship. Hal learns that the Guardians have a machine that can read the minds of dead people. They offer to show him the last thoughts of Abin Sur, the alien Green Lantern who crashed on Earth and offered Hal Jordan the chance to take his place. Abin Sur had two requirements for a suitable replacement. The candidate must be honest and he must be utterly without fear.

To Hal's surprise (and ours) it turns out there were two possibilities: Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner. But as Jordan was on the West Coast, while Gardner was back east, Abin Sur chose Hal. We get the familiar origin sequence:



Hal is intrigued. What would have happened if Guy Gardner had been chosen as Green Lantern? Well, funny you should ask, because the Guardians just happen to have a "What If" machine:



Of course the same type of machine features in two of my favorite Silver Age stories, The Second Life of Batman from Batman #127, and Superman's Other Life, from Superman #132.

Gardner's home base is "East City" continuing DC's coy tradition of fictional town names. Guy's occupation is quite a bit different from Hal's:



They both sure like to punch! We found he would have battled pretty much the same crime gallery: Sonar, the Shark, Black Hand, Dr. Polaris, and Sinestro are shown. But when the Gardner GL returns to Earth following his initial meeting with the Guardians, he takes a slightly different route, and this is where history starts to diverge. He encounters two robots battling, one orange and the other blue, and learns from them that they come from a planet where the Yellow Plague killed off all the adults, and where the children do not age normally, so they have divided into two warring factions.

When Guy first visits the planet he is controlled by the mental powers of the blue faction, but during a battle with the "Orangers" he breaks free and manages to shield his mind from control. After that, it's a pretty simple matter for the gym teacher to get the kids to behave properly, especially since his ring ensures they will start to mature.

Unfortunately:



Guy Gardner must summon another worthy individual, who just happens to be Hal Jordan. Again, this perfectly echoes the Batman and Superman tales, both of which ended with Bruce wearing a cowl and Kal in a cape.

There is a very nice bit at the end. Hal asks for permission to form a friendship with Earth's other Green Lantern and they hit it off after meeting at Guy's health club:



Comments: Cute idea, but it did not get developed in the Silver Age after this; Guy Gardner popped up in a Green Lantern/Green Arrow issue and then basically disappeared until the mid-1970s. But he would become a major character in his own right, with his personality more like the cover of this issue than the ending.

Single Issue Review: Justice League of America #15

As the story begins, the US is testing a "Star Wars" weapon:



Yet another example of Gardner Fox being ahead of the curve on technology. The satellite base containing the cannon in the sky is filled with reporters and military personnel including Diana (Wonder Woman) Prince and Clark (Superman) Kent. Suddenly the satellite comes under attack and the pair have to save other people. Superman observes that some strange force is yanking the atomic cannon away from its base, but he and Wonder Woman are too busy to follow it.

Barry (the Flash) Allen observes the cannon being aimed at the tallest building in Central City (the Wilmoth Skyscraper), and hurriedly changes into his fighting togs. Using his super-speed to gather up the tenants of the building he empties it before the cannon can fire:



After the cannon is fired once, Superman and Wonder Woman arrive. Although nobody seems to be operating the big gun, it fires again, and Wonder Woman diverts the missile into space with her lasso. Since they can't stop whoever's firing, they destroy the cannon itself. To solve the mystery, an emergency meeting of the Justice League is called. They learn that similar incidents are happening elsewhere:



The JLA split up into teams. Green Arrow, Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter journey to Japan, where they discover a giant stone idol watching the heavens. The idol smiles when it sees an atomic missile headed for Tokyo. At first, J'onn J'onzz plans to use his super-breath to blow it out into space, but the idol reacts quickly:



Fortunately, Green Arrow is able to use his parachute arrow to get the missile to land harmlessly in Tokyo Bay. Aquaman prevents another attack on the city by an underwater stone idol. However the three of them are captured by the idols and apparently about to be killed, when suddenly the stone giants disappear.

Meanwhile, Superman, the Atom and Wonder Woman have traveled to Brasilia, where they also discover the giant idols. The weapon the giants intend to use on this city is acid rain (once again, Fox is ahead of the general public):



The Atom manages to get into the rain-maker and destroy it, but again at the end of the segment the three heroes are captured by the stone giants, who suddenly disappear.

The final JLA team consists of Green Lantern, Flash and Batman, and they head to Central City, where they find a pair of stone idols trying to destroy the local skyscrapers with an earthquake machine. Green Lantern holds up the building with hands projected from his power ring, while Batman and the Flash go after the idols:



Pretty bad perspective there; obviously Batman is supposed to be far behind the Flash, accounting for their difference in size. The giants capture both of them, but at the same time, GL destroys the earthquake machine. Once again, the idols grab all three heroes, but quickly disappear. However, they take Green Lantern's ring with them for study.

We learn that the giants are actually scientists on another Earth, one that is one minute ahead of ours. Due to an atomic explosion on Earth and a cobalt explosion on their world, the time differential between the two worlds is decreasing, and when they reach synchronicity at three separate cites (Brasilia, Tokyo and Central City):



Green Lantern has ordered his power ring to bring him, Batman and the Flash to the stone giant's world after reading their minds for five minutes:



But it turns out that the giants have sabotaged their cities so that in the event of an alien invasion, they will be destroyed. Fortunately GL realizes this in time and decides to simply fix both worlds so that they are again one minute apart (nice to have a power ring that handles this sort of complex stuff with just a thought). And in the end, the JLA realizes that the stone giants were just like them, only different:



Nice sentiments by Wonder Woman, and the call for tolerance is pretty early; this issue is cover-dated November 1962. If anybody has any idea what Snapper Carr was saying, let me know!

Golden Age In the Silver Age: Showcase #55

The DC Silver Age was marked by the emergence of new characters based on old characters, but with significant changes. Jay Garrick was no longer the Flash, Green Lantern's power ring didn't work against yellow instead of wood, Hawkman was a lawman from the stars, and the Atom could actually change his size.

This must have been somewhat frustrating for fans of the Golden Age. True, there started the Silver/Golden Age crossovers between the two Flashes and the two GLs, and the Justice League/Justice Society annual stories provided some real Golden Age action. But Julius Schwartz had to this point avoided bringing back the GA characters in a separate book, solely dedicated to them.

This issue changed all that. Schwartz enlisted the talents of Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson for this issue, featuring the return of one of the more famous Golden Age villains, Solomon Grundy.

In the story we learn that Solomon Grundy had more or less spontaneously arisen from decaying vegetation in a swamp, that he'd led a criminal gang on a rampage across the country, but that the Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott) had sent him away in a green bubble to outer space. Now he has returned. Can Hourman and Doctor Fate stop him on his mission of revenge against GL?

Doctor Fate's crystal ball alerts him to the presence of Grundy on Earth. Hourman (Rex Tyler) also finds out:



Why do I get the feeling that Rex's chemical company became a Superfund cleanup site in the 1980s?

Tyler swallows his Miraclo pill and becomes super-powered for one hour. Thus begins one of the annoying parts of the story; every time there's a panel featuring Hourman, we also have to have a clock telling us the current time. Not the information that's useful (like how many minutes are left on Hourman's hour of power), but the present time.

Obviously part of bringing back Solomon Grundy was to appeal to Hulk fans. But I confess, the "Hulk smash!" bit was a little tame compared to this:



As you can see, Dr Fate arrives as well, and the three of them battle it out for a bit. But Grundy wins and so he goes into Gotham City in search of Green Lantern. GL shows up and Solly kayos him with a bunch of wood. And when Doctor Fate and Hourman arrive, they turn against each other:



But unlike a Marvel slugfest of the period, where we'd see the skills of one hero against the talents of another, this is just a brief diversion. It turns out that they knock each other out, and they realize that there's some odd interference between Hourman's Miraclo pills and Dr Fate's magic.

Meanwhile, Grundy has encountered his old gang, giving him the chance to explain how he got free of the alien world where Green Lantern had left him. A comet happened by and swept his green cage into space with him in it. By holding the sides, he was able to guide the bubble to Earth, where it smashed.

Grundy helps out his old gang by smashing a few stores open so they can rob them, then continues back to the radioactive swamp with GL. The radiation works a change on Alan Scott:



But Dr Fate is able to change him back and in the end, he and Green Lantern team up to seal Solomon Grundy in a part-power ring, part-magic bubble that they place in orbit around the Earth.

Comments: This story has all the elements of a classic: great artist, talented writer, teamup of heroes and a classic villain. And yet it falls flat. Anderson appears to be mimicking the Golden Age style (especially on the inks), but the effect is to make it look old-fashioned. The story is dull as dishwater, and the conflict between Dr Fate's magic and the Miraclo pills appears to be padding to make the story last a little longer.

Update: For a different take on Showcase #55, check out M. Hamilton's post at the Comics Bin.