#beau smith

Black Terror #2

by Beau Smith/Charles Dixon (W) Den Brereton (A) and Wayne Truman (L)

Undertaker #1 (April 1999) by Chaos! Comics

Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #8 (Spring 1994)

When Hal Jordan went bonkers in GL#50, he didn't just kill the Green Lantern Corps -- he also killed Green Lantern Corps Quarterly, the anthology series that, as the editor goes out of his way to point out in this final issue's letter column, was still selling pretty well when it got cancelled. DC could have kept the series going with past stories of the Corps, or maybe current stories of past Corps members, but I guess they wanted to go all in on the "only ONE Green Lantern left" thing and felt this series undermined that idea, so they asked Lobo to stop by and help kill it.

The stories included in this loosely "Emerald Twilight"-connected issue are:

"The Book of Endings"

The issue's framing story is written by Superman editor Mike Carlin, which I'm guessing means it had to be done at the last minute and he drew the short straw at the office. This story reveals that, while Hal and Sinestro where fighting in GL #50, they didn't even notice that the Book of Oa, the massive book containing the history of the Corps and the Guardians of the Universe, was burning up right in front of them (and neither did the Guardians, apparently, or they would have thrown some water on it or something).

As the oversized pages burn, we see stories that have absolutely nothing to do with "Emerald Twilight," like...

"Close Encounters"

This story is set during World War II, when Green Lantern Abin Sur, Hal Jordan's predecessor, is sent to Earth to stop a murderous madman -- but not the murderous madman, because the Guardians have forbidden him from interfering in human wars. Abin's target is an alien mercenary called Dask N'oir, who comes to Earth looking to offer his services (and sci-fi weapons) to the Nazis. Fortunately, the Nazis aren't big on multiculturalism and don't understand alien languages, so they think Dask is a demon and try to fight him.

The Nazis are so spooked that some run off to the Allied side to ask for help against the "demon." There, they bump into the 1940's Flash and (non-Corps affiliated) Green Lantern, Jay Garrick and Alan Scott, who bravely confront Dask... and are knocked out in one blast.

Abin Sur shows up to arrest the alien criminal, but he too gets easily knocked out when Dask shoots some yellow goo at his hand that incapacitates his Green Lantern ring. When Abin wakes up, he realizes Dask stole the ring, leaving him defenseless. That's when Abin notices that one of the unconscious Earthlings around him happens to have an off-brand GL ring on his finger...

So, Abin borrows Alan's ring and goes off to fight Dask, eventually tricking him into shooting that yellow goo at his own hand, thus allowing Abin to retrieve his ring. Before leaving with Dask, Abin returns Alan's ring and wipes his and Jay's memory of the encounter. The story ends with Abin looking forward to the day he can return to Earth (spoilers: he shouldn't) as Alan wakes up and wonders why his ring is in the wrong finger.

"Bad Intentions"

This one is written by future Guy Gardner: Warrior writer Beau Smith, and features an extremely Beau Smith character called Probert the Bad One, a sort of alien Conan the Barbarian with guns. One day, right after Probert has blown up a T. Rex to rescue a kid from being eaten, a Guardian shows up to ask him for help in taking down his sector's Green Lantern, Krudd, who has used his ring to take over a wealthy planet. Great pick, Guardians.

Probert only agrees to help because Krudd has taken his former lover, Poola, as a concubine, but he refuses to take the ring the Guardian offers him, because Probert don't wear no pansy-ass rings. (This might explain why Poola is a former lover.)

Of course, Probert regrets that decision once he's fighting Krudd and realizes his machine gun is no match for a power ring that can conjure up anything, including anti-machine gun force fields. Just as he's saying that, a GL battery materializes right next to him. Probert starts trying to activate the battery with various oaths ("It's probably something girly-like. Flower flower, give me the powers.") until he lands on something that works: "GIVE ME THE JUICE!"

Suddenly, despite still wearing no ring, Probert is imbued with green power, which he uses to materialize more guns. Krudd fights dirty and is actually quite good with the ring, so Probert ends up taking it away by cutting his finger off with a green energy knife (at least he didn't cut off the entire hand, unlike some other maniac).

Once Krudd is incapacitated, the Guardian comes back to take him and Probert's power away, but Probert says nah, it's his now. The Guardian takes that to mean that Probert has agreed to continue helping them "on retainer" and vanishes before Probert can protest.

He still ain't wearing no ring, though.

"Yella Belly!"

In this Gene Ha-drawn story, L.E.G.I.O.N. sends Lobo to Garnet, the most crime-ridden planet in the universe, to collect a criminal. This puts him in conflict with Garnet's very un-Green Lantern-like Green Lantern, Jack T. Chance. Lobo's not in the mood for fighting one of his many '90s ripoffs... until Jack calls him a "yella belly." Big mistake.

In the fight that ensues, Jack tries killing Lobo with a green chainsaw, but the ring stops him because that's not within its parameters. "Letting its wearer get kicked in the nuts" is within those parameters, though.

Jack tries shooting Lobo in the head with a regular gun, but Lobo catches the bullets with his teeth and headbutts him after playing dead. As Jack is recovering from that blow with the assistance of some booze, Lobo gets an idea based on Jack's hurtful remark from earlier: he covers himself in the yellow blood of some other alien he'd killed earlier and exploits the ring's yellow weakness to beat the crap out of Jack, yelling "Yella belly! Yella belly! YELLA BELLY!"

Lobo tries stealing Jack's ring, but it's "encoded by his D.N.A." and can't be stolen... so, for the second time this issue, someone cuts a ring-bearer's finger off. By simply "wearing" Jack's severed finger on top of his own, Lobo is able to access the ring's power and thinks about all the wonderful things he's gonna do with it (starting with exploding L.E.G.I.O.N.'s planet) -- until the ring informs him that it only works in planet Garnet, killing Lobo's interest.

As Lobo leaves with that criminal he came for, we see the finger crawling back to Jack and reattaching itself to his hand. Upon waking up and learning that Lobo left, Jack takes that as a victory and declares himself the baddest dude in Garnet. (Until he was easily beaten by Hal and left for dead in space, anyway.)

Back to the framing story, the narration concludes that the Guardians are a bunch of incompetent asses and kinda had this whole "Emerald Twilight" thing coming. All the stories in this issue feature a ring being stolen and used for nefarious purposes (not always in that order), so maybe it has a point. As the Book of Oa finishes burning, we get a small glimpse of the future: it appears to be a young man...

...wearing a crab on his face?! Huh, weird.

Plotline-Watch:

I guess the above panel means this issue is technically the first appearance of Kyle Rayner's classic "crab face" costume, discounting ads and stuff like that. This should be going for hundreds on eBay, not a couple of bucks!

We'll see Probert the Bad One return on Guy Gardner: Warrior pretty soon. Alan Scott will also make some appearances there, starting sooner than you might think.

Lobo and L.E.G.I.O.N. will cross paths with Kyle Rayner in the near future, though they won't be called L.E.G.I.O.N. anymore...

Speaking of Lobo, as he's leaving Garnet's atmosphere, he kicks some little dweeb off his flying vehicle while exclaiming "One side, fan boy!" I have no idea if that's supposed to be someone in particular or if it's just a random joke, so I will assume it's the titular fanboy from the 1999 Fanboy miniseries by Sergio Aragonés.

And speaking of planet Garnet, I looked it up and its next appearance is in Superboy and the Ravers, of all places, so I guess we'll see that eventually over at the '90s Superman blog.

Guy-Watch:

Guy Gardner: Warrior #19 continues the "Emerald Fallout" storyline and also Guy's fight with Militia (or as Guy has started calling him, "Melissa"). Ice helps, but then she starts getting a little too aggro (a side-effect of her new powers) and tries to take on Militia all by herself while leaving Guy behind, which doesn't go too well for her.

With Ice down and Guy's new armor malfunctioning, Militia's really got our hero by the balls. Militia picks that moment to reveal his identity and why hunting Guy was so personal to him: he's Guy's supposedly dead cop brother, Mace Gardner! Cue emotional "family reunion" music.

Mace resented Guy for becoming a superhero so, after getting crippled, he faked his death and volunteered for government experiments that gave him his legs back at the cost of making him look and sound like a '90s supervillain. Just when it seems like Mace might kill him, Guy's yellow power ring, which has been on the fritz for the past two issues, gets a sudden burst of energy that allows him to defeat his bro in about two seconds.

WYNONNA EARP: Cheerfully derivative supernatural Western based on a Beau Smith comic book, originally aired from 2016 to 2018 with a fourth season in 2021, about the bad girl descendant of Wyatt Earp (Melanie Scrofano), who's inherited the family curse of battling white trash demons in the small town of Purgatory with a magical revolver called Peacemaker, aided by the cynical but handsome Marshal Xavier Dolls (Schamier Anderson), her adorable younger sister Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley), the mysteriously immortal Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon), and cute local sheriff's deputy Nicole Haught (Katherine Barrell), who eventually becomes Waverly's girlfriend.

Created by Emily Andras, this by-the-numbers nerd show is a great improvement on the original 1996–1997 incarnation of the comic (above left), but it's a sloppy goulash of ideas obviously lifted from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, ANGEL, SUPERNATURAL, CHARMED, and TRUEBLOOD, executed with the expected allotment of self-consciously quippy dialogue, cheesy special effects, convoluted internal mythology (little of which makes any sense), adolescent love triangles, and cute but rather one-note characters who act like high school kids regardless of their actual ages.