BHOC: GREEN LANTERN #113

Back in the days when comic books were a mainstream impulse purchase rather than a medium largely focused on the tastes and desires of a dedicated hardcore fanbase, it was pretty well guaranteed that every winter season would bring at least one or two holiday-themed stories. These tales tended to stress sentiment over story logic, and were intended as a joyful holiday confection, while still bringing in the requisite 40 cents worth of revenue. Over the course of his long career, writer Denny O’Neil penned a number of such tales, most memorably for Batman. This issue of GREEN LANTERN (co-starring GREEN ARROW) was another such release.

And it wasn’t as though anybody was trying to hide this. Quite the contrary, from the first page, the fact that this will be a seasonal adventure is clear. The cover is more ambiguous, though, perhaps a sop to the notion that there will be a certain percentage of the potential buying audience who either doesn’t celebrate, and so has no interest in a Christmas tale, or who find such stories cloying and childish. This became a growing situation as the Direct Market became a greater and greater percentage of the overall sales picture. Comic book fans had (and have) very strong opinions, and they aren’t shy about sharing them. And one thing you can be sure to get blowback on is anything deemed silly or juvenile. In effect, anything that makes that audience reflect on the fact that the thing they love so much is really intended to entertain children, no matter how much it’s grown and evolved over the decades. Comic book fans like to be taken seriously, as connoisseurs of sophisticated graphic fiction–and if Superman’s trunks need to be a casualty of moving in that direction because they “look too gay”, well, that’s the price that will have to be paid.

So the story starts off immediately laying out its obvious premise: while driving his rig on a wintery evening (Hal Jordan was plying a trade as a trucker at this point, a quasi-popular pop culture occupation in the days of Smokey and the Bandit and the CB Radio fad) Green Lantern experiences an earthquake, and sees a passenger car go careening off the road and crashing. He steps in to give assistance, discovering that the people in the car are the punk rock band Slog, whom Green Arrow had encountered a few issues earlier. Their car is totaled, though, and the wife of one of the musicians, Marcy, is pregnant, so the Lantern gives them a ride to a ski lodge where he’s intending to spend Christmas with Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance, who are already there.

But the group is seen departing by Granny Bleach and her redneck boys, Zeb and Lem. They want to take possession of the pregnant Marcy for unclear reasons having something to do with the earthquake and a prophesy that an unborn child will perform miracles. Accordingly, they follow Hal and his crew to the ski lodge, where Green Arrow is celebrating in full super hero costume for no discernable reason other than that it makes the story easier. The frozen travelers head into the lodge while Hal intends to scout around and see if he can figure out what caused the quake. But before he does, he’s clubbed down from behind by Zeb–who notices Hal’s sparkly power ring and swipes it off him before locking him in the shed. The trio then bursts into the lodge demanding that Marcy be handed over to them. You’d think that Green Arrow and Black Canary could take two big guys and an old woman in their sleep, but that’s not the way the confrontation goes down here.

O’Neil then ties this story into a recent Batman adventure in which the Caped Crusader resolved the curse of the White Bat. But Granny tells us that there’s another curse on their mountain, known as the Hundred Years Curse. It indicates that 100 years after the mountain is settled, it will split open and rain down fire upon the land. And only an unborn child can save everyone. Accordingly, Granny and her guys are taking off with Marcy, convinced that she is somehow the key to preventing their annihilation. After they go, Green Arrow and Black Canary spend little time freeing themselves, and Hal joins them. But without his Power Ring, they’re going to need to give chase the old fashioned way, through the frozen woods. Marcy’s husband insists upon coming with them, despite Green Arrow’s protestations,

As the heroes and husband make their way up the mountain, the landscape is once again rocked by an earthquake, and Hal thinks he’s figured out what’s going on. This is no mountain, it’s a dormant volcano (!!!) that’s building up to an imminent eruption. The good guys find Granny and her kin holed up in a Ranger Station, but the group is set upon by wolves. Green Arrow is able to keep them at bay, but he doesn’t have an unlimited supply of arrows. Hal begs for the return of his ring, saying that he can prevent the impending eruption if it’s returned to him. Zeb hands the bling over to him, and he’s off as Green Lantern, despite probably being concussed from Zeb’s cheap shot earlier. He is able to corral the wolves before he jets off, though, so that’s something.

Despite his distress, Green Lantern is able to drill massive holes into the mountainside to relieve the pressure that’s going to cause the volcano to erupt. And that’s it, danger solved. And of course, Granny tells the returning Lantern that the prophesy was entirely correct, that it was the danger to the child that brought him there to save them. In the meantime, Marcy has given birth in the Ranger Station, and so the story closes out with a nativity scene. It’s a perfectly fine low-key issue that’s not really all that memorable. But for a few minutes of holiday entertainment, it did its job.