GREEN LANTERN #46 - October 1993

Death City

Credits:  Gerard Jones (writer), M. D. Bright (penciler), Romeo Tanghal (inker), Albert de Guzman (letterer), Anthony Tollin (colorist)

Summary:  Green Lantern, enraged at the destruction of Coast City, fights his way into Engine City.  He faces Mongul in battle, but is unable to destroy the engine room when he discovers its kryptonite power source, knowing that Superman is nearby.  Mongul takes advantage of Green Lantern’s inability to affect yellow and breaks his arm and knee.  Green Lantern finds Steel’s hammer and uses his ring to build armor around his body.  With the hammer, he beats Mongul into unconsciousness.

Irrelevant Continuity:

• Steel left his hammer behind after he flew Cyborg Superman’s metal form into the engine room’s gears in the previous chapter.  Where he is now is not revealed.
• Mongul is still referring to Cyborg Superman as “the leader” even though Mongul’s turned against him by this point.
• Green Lantern’s title was going through an awkward stage during this crossover.  This is the gray-at-the-temples, drunk driving, renegade Hal Jordan from what I’ve been able to glean from online articles.

Total N00B:  Green Lantern’s ring is still powerless against yellow at this point in continuity.  I was surprised to see that bizarre old rule was still in place in 1993, but then I remembered Ron Marz stating in Wizard that Hal’s replacement wouldn’t have that absurd restriction, so this must be one of the final stories to feature it.  

Production Note:  The Return of Superman trade only reprints sixteen pages of this issue.  Presumably, the rest of the issue deals with storylines that don’t directly relate to the GL/Mongul fight.

Review:  Green Lantern was thrown a bone and allowed to participate in the “Return of Superman” event, although it’s debatable if this really helped the title in the long run.  Within a few issues, the destruction of Coast City will become the basis for Hal Jordan turning rogue, an idiotic decision that DC stubbornly stuck to for a surprising number of years.  (Never tear down the existing hero in order to build up your replacement hero.) This issue is mostly dedicated to Green Lantern screaming at Mongul and futilely punching him.  Gerard Jones does exploit the basic flaw in the fight’s premise -- Mongul is yellow -- and gets a few entertaining pages out of it.  Green Lantern knows he can’t directly hurt Mongul, so he has to use his ring to destroy everything around Mongul, using Engine City as a weapon against him.  The action’s staged rather well, and M. D. Bright keeps the fight energetic, but it’s hard to ignore that almost every other page is either a splash page or double-page spread.  It’s a quick read, and what passes for “depth” are some melodramatic narrative captions from Green Lantern about his hate fueling his power.  It’s not pleasant.  

SHADOW OF THE BAT #34 - January 1995

Prodigal: Ten

Credits:  Alan Grant (writer), Mark Bright (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker),  Todd Klein (letterer), Adrienne Roy (colorist)

Summary:  Batman falls for a trap set by the Tally Man, who then chains him up and fires a revolver loaded with one bullet at his head.  As Tally Man teases Batman about the inevitable fatal bullet, Dick Grayson reflects on his life.  Eventually, he finds the strength to break the bonds.  Batman pursues Tally Man and eventually captures him.

Review:  In response to likely no demand whatsoever, Tally Man has returned.  This time, he’s rendered by a competent artist, which settles the issue of whether or not he’s supposed to be some kind of ghost or smoke creature.  He isn’t.  He’s just wearing a dress.  I’m glad that’s settled, and it’s always nice to see Mark Bright show up in the credits.  He draws a very traditional Batman that I’ve always liked, and he's a welcome break from the kind of artist who normally shows up as fill-in pencilers in this title.  The emotional arc for the issue is Dick Grayson’s insecurities, a theme that hasn’t been explored in-depth in “Prodigal” so far.  I’m not sure if Alan Grant is on the same page as the rest of the writers, because he seems to be working from the premise that Dick views himself as a failure in every aspect of his life, which is much angst-ier than I’ve seen in the other titles.  Grant actually handles the character work rather well, even though having Dick reclaim his self-esteem as he magically finds the strength to break Tally Man’s bonds is borderline cheese.

 

The major problem with the issue is the mere presence of Tally Man, who isn’t a memorable or interesting antagonist at all.  Grant plays up the idea that Dick getting kidnapped is “doubly ironic” since Tally Man first attacked Jean-Paul thinking he was Bruce, and now he’s targeted Dick thinking he’s Jean-Paul, but none of that makes Tally Man himself any more tolerable as a villain.  He’s just someone the reader has to suffer through before Dick can have his emotional catharsis and end the story. 

X-FACTOR #120 – March 1996

Meeting the Maker
Credits: Howard Mackie (writer), Mark D. Bright (penciler), Al Milgrom (inker), Glynis Oliver (colorist), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering)

Summary

Forge ignores Roma’s warnings that the Adversary can’t be defeated with technology and equips X-Factor with advanced weapons. While the team prepares for battle, Adversary secretly possesses Mystique. He tries to use Mystique’s shapeshifting powers to distract Forge, but she is overcome with pain and forces the Adversary out of her body. Adversary easily destroys X-Factor’s weapons and takes Roma captive. He apparently kills the team, leaving Forge alive. He destroys Forge’s cybernetic limbs and boasts that he was the one responsible for Forge using a “spirit spell” in Vietnam, which lead Forge on a path to reject magic. Adversary disappears, leaving Forge alone. Naze suddenly enters, offering Forge a chance to finally defeat the Adversary. Meanwhile, Val Cooper watches as Sabretooth is equipped with a restraining collar. She learns that he’s being forced to join X-Factor against her wishes.

Continuity Note

The “spirit spell” Adversary mentions is a reference to Forge’s Vietnam experience. He took the souls of his fellow troops and used the energy to channel a demon against their enemy. He performed a similar spell with the X-Men’s souls against the Adversary during the “Fall of the Mutants” arc in Uncanny X-Men.

Creative Differences

There are several re-lettered word balloons, all of which are poorly done. It doesn’t seem as if any of them are actually undermining Mackie’s story, since most of them just read like added lines of dialogue. For example, Comicraft’s lettering for Naze on the last page ends with “The choice is yours, Maker.” The added balloon after that reads, “Do you dare take back your birthright?”. It seems like someone wanted to punch up the script, rather than actually change any plot elements.

Review

I guess this is supposed to be the dark middle act of the Adversary storyline, since X-Factor is apparently killed and Forge is left with Naze to fight back. It’s all extremely dull, as Mackie tries to pull off a sequel to “Fall of the Mutants” but without any of the interesting character dynamics or any real commitment to actually change the status quo. You might scoff at the new setup that had the X-Men living as “ghosts” in Australia after the original storyline was over, but at least the book truly was different after the story ended. There really was a sense at the time that anything could happen, and that the “Fall of the Mutants” actually mattered. Here, Adversary is brought back as just a generic bad guy to fight the team for a couple of issues. X-Factor’s death scene couldn’t be less convincing, since it just consists of an average-sized panel depicting the team turning into dust. Further undermining the death stunt is the fact that several pages of the issue are dedicated to setting up Sabretooth as a new team member. Well, if X-Factor is really dead, why is so much of the issue spent on introducing a new member? I guess the truly naive could believe that he’s the first member of a new team, but it just seems as if the subplot was introduced without thinking about how it reflects on the main plot.

The more I think about it, the more I have to wonder why Mackie revived the Adversary in the first place. It really seems as if he just liked the original storyline and wanted to use the character again. Aside from one mildly interesting idea, the possibility that Adversary manipulated Forge into using magic in Vietnam as a way to drive him away from it forever, he really has nothing new to say about any of the story elements. The Adversary, who’s supposed to be the “Great Trickster”, doesn’t really do any tricking outside of possessing Mystique for three pages and trying to distract Forge with the possibility of sex. Forge is going through the same character arc Claremont originally put him through in the ‘80s -- Forge is devoted to technology but his father-figure has to pull him back to his tribe’s mystical roots. Forge learned a lesson the last time, overcame his fears to use magic again, and defeated the Adversary. Apparently, Forge learned nothing from the experience, because he’s going through the exact same arc ten years later. The entire storyline is just boring, and it’s a shame that one of the best X-titles has descended into this.