Green Lantern: Rebirth

Green Lantern: Rebirth by Geoff Johns
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hal Jordan, possibly the greatest of the Green Lanterns, battles with the two entities bonded with him, The Spectre and Parallax, for a second chance. Will he return to the land of the living and, if so, what will be waiting for him when he gets there...?

First off, the very first super hero action figure I owned other than some Mego ones was the Green Lantern from the Super Powers collection. That being said, I only have a handful of Green Lantern comics in my collection. I picked this one up because I like Geoff Johns and I figure he must be doing something right to have Green Lantern rise in popularity enough to warrant a movie (I still haven't seen). Did it live up to my expectations?

Nah. It wasn't bad, though. It was cool seeing Guy Gardner in a GL outfit again and great to see Kyle Rayner and Green Arrow taking on Sinestro, and Kilowog and John Stewart back in the fold. I may even have gotten a nerd chubby when the assembled Green Lanterns recited their oath at the central power battery.

Still, those parts were partially negated by all the fanboy masturbation Geoff Johns aimed in Hal Jordan's direction. The same thing happened in Flash: Rebirth. I hate to say it but the 1970's weren't the pinnacle of comic book creativity. Just because Hal Jordan and Barry Allen were the versions of the characters people remember from episodes of the Super Friends in the 1970's doesn't mean it always has to be that way. Johns pretty much negated ten years of interesting Green Lantern stories by hitting the reset button and restoring the status quo.

And to top it off, Kyle doesn't have the crab mask anymore! Let's see how long it takes Terry to notice that...

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Green Lantern: Rebirth isn't bad. It was a lot of fun at times. It just didn't feel that necessary to me. They could have stuck to their guns and had Kyle Rayner step up and lead the Green Lantern Corps. and not brought Hal back. Still, it's a 3 star book.




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