{"id":4583,"date":"2010-02-07T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T06:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=4583"},"modified":"2010-02-07T16:08:20","modified_gmt":"2010-02-07T16:08:20","slug":"showcase-presents-green-lantern-volume-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2010\/02\/07\/showcase-presents-green-lantern-volume-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Showcase presents Green Lantern volume 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy John Broome, Gardner Fox, Dennis O’Neil, Gil Kane<\/strong> & various (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 978-1-84856-322-3<\/p>\n

Slightly slimmer than the usual phonebook-sized tome the fourth collection starring the Emerald Gladiator of Earth-1 (here reproducing in crisp, stylish black and white the contents of issues #60-75 of the groundbreaking comic book) is a kind of throat-clearing shuffle to allow a fifth volume to begin with the landmark O’Neil\/Adams Green Lantern\/Green Arrow <\/strong>tales, but that doesn’t by any means imply that the superb collection here is unworthy of your attentions.<\/p>\n

By the time this selection of stories began DC was a company in transition – as indeed was America itself – with new ideas (for which, in comic-book terms read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new, young writers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) being given greater headway than ever before: an influx of new kids unseen since the very start of the industry, when excitable young artists and writers ran wild with imagination\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Green Lantern<\/strong> #60 (April 1968) was however an all-veteran outing as Gardner Fox, Gil Kane and Sid Greene introduced a fantastic new foe in ‘Spotlight on the Lamplighter!’<\/em>, a power-packed, crime-busting morality play that foreshadowed a spectacular team-up classic in the next issue.<\/p>\n

Mike Friedrich penned ‘Thoroughly Modern Mayhem!’<\/em> but mercifully the story was as wonderful as the title is not, since it cut to the quick of a problem many a kid had posited. If the power ring was so powerful why not just command it to banish all evil? When the old and weary Emerald Crusader of Earth-2 does just that, it takes both him and his Earth-1 counterpart to remedy the shocking consequences\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Issue #62 replaced Kane with Jack Sparling for Fox’s clever scientific mystery ‘Steal Small\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Rob Big!’<\/em> and Denny O’Neil’s metaphysical, history-warping thriller ‘This is the Way\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 The World\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Ends!’<\/em> in #63: whilst Mike Sekowsky and Joe Giella illustrated the O’Neil scripted ‘Death to Green Lantern’<\/em> wherein a long-forgotten foe almost destroyed the Green Guardian’s reputation before ending his life. Social historians might like to note the inclusion of benevolent and necessary (plus favourably depicted and written) hippies\/flower children acting as more than mere comedic asides: Those times they really were a-changin’\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

There was a return to straight superhero drama with Fox, Sekowsky and Giella’s doomsday thriller ‘Dry Up\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and Die!’<\/em> which apparently ended the criminal career of Doctor Polaris whilst John Broome took GL back to the future for another planet-saving sci-fi romp in #66’s ‘5708 AD\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 A Nice Year to Visit – But I Wouldn’t Want to Live Then!’<\/em><\/p>\n

Issue #67 featured two shorter tales, the first of which ‘Green Lantern Does his Ring Thing!’<\/em> was a delightful old-school conundrum as old enemy Bill Baggett wrested mental control of the ring away from the Emerald Gladiator (by Fox, Dick Dillin and Giella) whilst ‘The First Green Lantern!’<\/em> by Fox and Sid Greene revealed how the Corps began in the first (and only, I think) of a projected series: Tales of the Power Ring<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Contemporary space opera was the order of the day in the intriguing action thriller ‘I Wonder Where the Yellow Went!’<\/em> scripted by O’Neil and featuring the wonderfully welcome return of a rejuvenated Gil Kane, aided and abetted by Giella. Kane’s last efforts on the hero he visually created was to be a eye-pooping run of beautiful, dynamic classics, and none more so than the youth-rebellion parable ‘If Earth Fails the Test\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it Means War!’<\/em>, cleverly scripted by Broome and inked by the incomparable Wally Wood.<\/p>\n

Vince Colletta inked the less impressive Broome\/Kane space spoof ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Earth’<\/em>, but honour and quality were restored with the tense countdown to disaster mystery ‘The City that Died!’<\/em> (Broome, Kane and Giella): one of two tales in #71, and one that reintroduced Olivia Reynolds – a love interest whose subconscious mind was a planet-shattering energy source. The second story was another jolly Jordan Brothers yarn, from Broome, Dillin and Murphy Anderson, but ‘Hip Jordan Makes the Scene!’<\/em> was a regrettably old-fashioned tale of a grifting hippie way out of tune with its readers’ sensibilities – and that’s a shame because it is quite funny\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Phantom of the Space Opera!’<\/em> by O’Neil, Kane and Giella is a visually magical but rather heavy-handed co-opting of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs<\/strong>, transposed to deep space, but this was more than compensated for by the brilliant two-parter that followed.<\/p>\n

‘From Space Ye Came\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6’<\/em> in Green Lantern<\/strong> #73 and its climactic conclusion ‘Lost in Space!’<\/em>, by Mike Friedrich, Kane and Anderson was an unforgettable clash of ultimate enemies as Sinestro, the renegade Green Lantern, made a brutal attempt on our hero’s life using his foe’s unrequited love for Carol Ferris as a psychological wedge. However the alien mastermind was unaware of just how unstable Ferris was in her dual identity of the gem-possessed Star Sapphire\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

With #76 Denny O’Neil would become sole scripter and in collaboration with comics genius Neal Adams completely redefined contemporary superhero strips with relevancy-driven stories. But to complete this book and the first chapter of Hal Jordan\/Green Lantern’s chequered career comes the glorious swan-song ‘The Golden Obelisk of Qward!’<\/em> as the Emerald Crusader and a desperate doctor invaded the anti-matter universe to save Olivia Reynolds and destroy a weapon capable of demolishing our galaxy. Broome, Kane and Giella went out on a high note blending modern sensibilities with the plot-driven sense of wonder and high-octane action that made Green Lantern such an all-pervasive hit and the very foundation stone of DC mythology.<\/p>\n

These tales of wit and courage, illustrated with astounding dynamism defined the Silver Age of comics and they are still as captivating and engrossing now as they ever were – perhaps even more so. If you love the sheer gloss and glamour of superhero fiction, then it never gets better than this\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n