Green Lantern-Related Titles Round-Up (November 1994)
This month: Guy vs. Dementor! Kyle vs. a baby! Alan Scott vs. stress!
Double-sized anniversary issue! And I'm glad that some of those extra pages are devoted to something completely unrelated to the rest of the issue but that we needed to see: Guy finally reacting to the death of his beloved Tora "Ice" Olafsdotter (which happened four months ago, but he's been kinda busy). Guy makes his way into the magical winterland or whatever where Ice grew up, which requires throwing around a bunch of old dudes in robes, and collapses in front of the memorial statue that Ice's mom made back in Justice League International #91.
Ice's mom hears Guy talking about how much Ice changed him, making it clear to her that this rug-colored meathead really loved her daughter. Despite the whole "throwing old dudes around" thing, she invites Guy to stay here for as long as he wants, but he has to leave pretty soon so he can get to, you know, the actual plot of this issue.
The story really gets going when Guy goes to a hospital to visit his supervillain brother Mace and high school sweetheart Heather, both of whom are coincidentally in comas (Mace after his fight with Guy in GG:W #19 and Heather after a booze-related car accident in school). Things take a sudden Cronenbergian turn when a gross head somehow grows out of Mace's chest -- it's Dementor, the buff demon we met in GG:W #22, and whose origin was linked to Guy's in GG:W #0. Dementor is here to invite Guy to come to his realm, Comaville, if he doesn't want his bro and ex to "end up like bologna in a meat grinder."
(I guess if you end up like bologna in a meat grinder in Comaville, you end up like bologna in a meat grinder in real life.)
Before Guy has a chance to smash his head against a wall (or ask Batman to punch him unconscious again), he's visited by the Phantom Stranger, one of those mystical DC Comics guys who show up whenever a hero needs to travel to another realm. Guy rather impolitely accepts the Stranger's help and enters Comaville, where a quite badass fight with Dementor immediately kicks off. During the fight, Dementor keeps calling Guy his "brother" because of their shared Vuldarian ancestry, and reveals that he's the one behind Guy's personality changes whenever he went into a coma (like when he became an asshole during Crisis or when he turned into a sweetheart in JLI).
(How come supervillains don't reference Bewitched anymore? Is it because anyone who remembers the show is unspeakably old?)
Dementor's gross attempt to absorb Guy's body backfires spectacularly when Guy bursts from inside his guts and destroys him, causing this entire realm to collapse. Mace, Heather, and Guy make it out before the whole place is destroyed -- but by the time Guy is back at the hospital, Mace has already been violently kidnapped by his employers at the shady government organization known as Quorum. At least Heather is finally awake after, uh, however long it's been since Guy Gardner went to high school.
The issue ends with Guy's rich cowboy friend Buck Wargo calling him to say he's got a bar-sized surprise for him, and then we get some pretty cool Guy pin-ups by various artists... which I'll show in another post, because burying them down here wouldn't do them justice.
Continued from GL #56, which ended with the space-stranded Kyle Rayner bumping into a big spaceship belonging to L.E.G.I.O.N., the interstellar police force. In this issue, Kyle is taken into the ship and meets L.E.G.I.O.N.'s current leader, a green talking baby called Lyrl Dox (who happens to be Brainiac's grandson). Space Boss Baby tells Kyle he's arrested for "carrying an unregistered weapon" -- it probably didn't help that the first thing Kyle did in the ship was casually mention that he (thinks he) killed Hal Jordan, though at least he was smart enough to omit the part about blowing up a planet at the same time.
Lyrl tells Kyle he'd gladly let him go and send him to Earth, if only he could get rid of some nasty terrorists who are going around murdering innocent space cops. Kyle volunteers to go after the "terrorists"... unaware that they include Lyrl's dad, Vril Dox II, who was L.E.G.I.O.N.'s leader before his evil baby usurped the post. Vril, an "end justifies the means" bastard, intentionally crashes his ship under an alien village, knowing that Lyrl will order all the aliens wiped out to get to them. As Vril predicted, Kyle turns against L.E.G.I.O.N. when he sees this, in completely shock that cops can do bad things. Is that even legal??
Kyle meets up with the real L.E.G.I.O.N.naires at the site of the massacre, and seeing the big crater makes him understand why Hal tried to bring back Coast City (apparently Kyle had never imagined a big crater before). It sure looks like we're gonna get an extended crossover event about Kyle helping Vril and his friends take down the genocidal baby... until one of Vril's "friends," Strata, tells Kyle about the whole village gambit. Vril points Kyle in Earth's direction, and Kyle thanks him with a punch (which unfortunately did not send him into a coma and turn him into a sweetheart).
As Kyle leaves for Earth, Vril says they didn't need him anyway, because "his stomach's weak." Yeah, he's clearly not prepared for the kind of spicy food they eat here in space. He'd be on the space toilet the whole time.
John Stewart and Donna Troy finally meet up and double-finally help end that sloooooow plotline about Darkstar Colos being framed by his corrupt boss, Jeddigar. Jeddigar sends some Darkstars to fight some other Darkstars, but then all the Darkstars get together to fight him. Donna leads the charge because, well, she's pretty cool.
The issue ends with Colos chasing Jeddigar into a portal, but then the whole place blows up and John announces that Colos must be dead. Oh no! If only there was a portal or something he could have escaped through! Anyway, the issue also includes a mention of a "renegade Lantern on the prowl" and I'm honestly not sure if that's about the one who tried to restart the universe or the one who blew up a planet. Oh, and oddly enough, there's a reference to the following comic...
Most of this issue is about Changeling, who's been sorta-evil for the past issues, going full evil and hunting down the other Titans so he can bring them over to Raven, the one who's been making people evil (she's also evil now, if that wasn't clear). However, there's also an epilogue about Kyle arriving on Earth after his space adventure and going straight for an alley. That dude loves alleys.
Kyle is so tired that he never noticed the weird helix-shaped thing that tagged along with him last issue, which has followed him all the way to Earth, where it morphs into "mystery villain in a cloak" form. The weird helix thing/mystery villain, in turn, hasn't noticed that a little blue alien guy called Jarras Minion is following it/him in a spaceship, because the helix somehow destroyed Jarras' planet (this is what was referenced in Darkstars). I'm now imagining a planet full of Dreamworks Minions blowing up and smiling serenely.
So, to recap, while lost in the vastness of space, Kyle: 1) got spotted and followed by a mystery villain, 2) ran into a former GL, 3) bumped into L.E.G.I.O.N., then The Group Formerly Known As L.E.G.I.O.N., 4) got followed by a little blue guy following the mystery villain. Small universe!
This one's about Damage going on trial because he blew up part of Atlanta in the previous issue (as if superheroes aren't constantly blowing up part of Atlanta, c'mon). There's a scene where some scientists are studying the limits of his Atlanta-destroying powers, and Damage thinks he's gonna lose control and blow everything up again, but then a cool blond guy a teaches him some relaxation exercises that calm him down, likely saving everyone in the building.
What's that got to do with Green Lantern? That's what I was wondering (along with "why did I write down this issue for the GL blog?"), until it's revealed that the blond guy is Alan Scott.
While we're here, I might as well mention that Coast City's destruction is brought up during the trial, along with Metropolis' near destruction during the "Cadmus-LexCorp war," which makes sense because the one narrating this issue is actually Superman's Co-Worker, Ron Troupe.
In the end, Damage is banned from Atlanta and sentenced to... appear in the New Titans comic, basically. I guess that's kind of like doing community service for young heroes, which would explain why Kyle is about to join that team too (planet Oa was at least twice the size of Atlanta).
NEXT: More Titans! More Damage! And I find out why I wrote down an issue of Deathstroke, the Hunted (???).
