BHOC: GREEN LANTERN #112

This issue of GREEN LANTERN (co-starring GREEN ARROW) was one that I looked forward to after reading the first chapter of this story in the preceding issue. It featured a team-up between the regular Earth-1 Green Lantern Hal Jordan and his Golden Age Earth-2 counterpart Alan Scott. What’s more, the story tied Scott into the larger legend of the Green Lantern Corps–in a way that fascinated me as a kid, but which today I think was maybe complicating something that didn’t need to be so complicated. This oversized story had been produced for a single oversized special and then split in half and repurposed as two issues of the ongoing series in the wake of the DC Implosion that cut the line back by 40% No room in that stripped down publishing schedule for such Specials, it seems.

Writer Denny O’Neil was strongly associated with the character and the series, and wrote the title for several years–this despite having no particular affinity for Green Lantern or his mythos. Denny’s connection to the character came when he and artist Neal Adams produced the original run of GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW stories that attempted to be more timely and plugged into contemporary issues than any comic books up to that time. For years, Denny was the go-to author when it came to Lantern material, and as a working writer, he always stepped up to the plate. But his heart was far more with Green Arrow and Black Canary and other more believable street-level characters of their ilk. There was always just a little bit of a sense of one-foot-out-of-bed with Denny’s Green Lantern material when it dealt with more cosmic matters.

Because this story was repurposed material that was broken in two for this printing, the issue opens with a splash page designed to bring readers up to speed before instantaneously dropping back into the story abruptly. Suffice it to say that somebody has stolen the Starheart, a repository for all of the magic in the universe that was sealed away by the Guardians, the creators of the Green Lantern Corps. Tasked with locating the thief and retrieving the Starheart, Green Lantern and his pal Green Arrow call in the specialist assistance of Alan Scott of Earth-2, since his Power Ring is magical in nature and will more easily allow them to track down and cope with the Starheart’s power.

The trail of the stolen Starheart takes the trio across the universe, where they finally locate a strange planet that seems divided down the middle. One side is modern and technological, the other is mediaeval and mystical in nature. Before the heroes can get their bearings, they’re zapped from below. Hal Jordan ends up falling beneath the surface of the magical side while Alan Scott does the same on the technological side. And Green Arrow just slams down on the surface, where he’s almost immediately accosted by both pseudo-Stormtroopers from the science half and angry trolls from the magic half. Dispatched, he later wakes up before the master of this strange planet: Zalaz, who calls himself the Jack-Lord.

Zalaz is sympathetic to Green Arrow’s cause, but he explains that he’s stolen the Starheart because it’s the only thing that might be able to cure his love M’La, who lies stricken. When Arrow tries to disabuse Zalaz of this course of action, he’s thrown into a cell with Hal and Alan, one that’s impervious to their Power Rings. Well, impervious to them separately, anyway–while their prison is composed of yellow wood, by combining their energies and thus eliminating their weaknesses, the two Green lanterns are able to break the trio out from captivity. They burst into Zalaz’s chamber, and Hal and Alan use their powers in tandem to hold Zalaz off.

The heroes offer to help Zalaz with M’La’s situation, but the egomaniac insists that he must revive her alone. Hurling the Starheart at the trio, Zalaz moves towards Z’La and empties his own life force into her, returning her vitality at the cost of his own existence. M’La is meant to be the most beautiful creature in existence, and so artist Alex Saviuk needs to conceal her features all throughout this sequence lest the whole readership be ensorcelled by her beauty. But the damage has been done: the Starheart is awake now, and threatens to unravel, causing a cascade of chaotic magic all across the universe. Oh, and in an off-handed manner, we learn that the Starheart is the source of the mystic meteor that Alan Scott’s Lantern and Power Ring were eventually forged from. It cast a piece of itself into the universe of Earth-2 knowing that this day would come. Which, as I said at the top, sure feels contrived to me today.

Anyway, the story has now run out of pages, so on the very last one, Z’La merges with the Starheart, intending to contain it and replace it where it was safely kept at the heart of a star. Before she goes, she instantly transports the three heroes back home–so we don’t really get to see any of Alan Scott’s reaction to the revelation that the source of his power came from this Earth-1 magic item. And that’s the ballgame. This ending is so abrupt that I kind of wonder what happened here. Even with this being repurposed from elsewhere, surely these events wound have warranted two pages in any outline, yes?