A Trip Across America

I have been trying to go through the history of Green LanternMade up of aliens from sectors scross space, the Green Lantern Corp. defends the universe against threats with the power of the Green Light of Willpower., tracking major phases of the hero’s journey (and considering I’ve also covered a book about the Golden Age Green Lantern, we can really say “heroes”) to get a fuller picture of the character. The whole reason is because I want to build up to the Geoff Johns run, from Rebirth through Brightest Day, which is considered by many to be the best run of comics for the character. But to get there it seemed like we should understand the Green Lantern at a fundamental level.

I’ve bounced around a little so far, hitting both a compilation of the many adventures of Green Lantern (and the many men that wore the ring) as well as a specific time during the silver age leading to Hal Jordan giving up the ring. But I had forgotten another key section of Green Lantern history, a pivotal moment during the comic’s run that helped redefine a different era of comics: the time that Green Lantern teamed with Green ArrowCreated in 1941, this superhero was inspired by Robin Hood. He didn't find real fame among comic fans until he was teamed up with Green Lantern for a run in the early 1970s, becoming a social hero. to take a trip across America. Why? Because: social justice.

I mock a little there, but it really is true that Green Lantern / Green Arrow was a pivotal book when it came out. Starting with Green Lantern (Vol. 2) Issue #76, the series saw Hal Jordan team up with Oliver Queen so that they could see the world (well, America) not as super-powered individuals fighting aliens and megacorporations, but as two dudes who wanted to actually right the wrongs of the common man. It took on topics like racist, corporate green, sexism, and more, all with an eye towards educating as well as entertaining. And because of that it actually showed that comics could be more than silly capes-and-cowls adventures.

The first collected volume of the run starts with Hal, the Green Lantern, interceding as a young man attacked an older gentleman. Hal scoops up the younger attacker and carts him off to jail, but the crowd that was watching, including Ollie, the Green Arrow, are not impressed. The older gentleman was Jubal Slade, a known slumlord, and the younger man was going after him because of the way he ran his tenements. Ollie takes Hal on a tour of the rundown buildings, and Hal begins to realize he might have been wrong. While one man attacking another is hard to justify, who is he really protecting if he lets injustice like this go unpunished?

With a crisis of faith raised, especially once Ollie continues Hal’s tour of the slums and points out all the things the hero could fix but hasn’t, Hal realizes he has to find a way to reconnect with the people. He agrees to travel with Oliver across the country, getting in touch with the normal populace. And accompanying them on the trip is a Guardian, challenged by Green Arrow to step off their perch and see the world from a grounded perspective. This trio then heads out to right wrongs and really get in touch with what it means to be a hero.

While the overall storyline is a continuous trip across the country, each issue is an individual adventure. There aren’t major connecting storylines, or large arcs for this series. Instead you can take just about any issue here and read it as a standalone tale. We start off in the city with Hal and Oliver, of course, before moving off to Desolation, a small mining town where the workers are fighting against a landowner that is abusing them. They then encounter Black Canary near a Native American reservation, but she’s lost her memories and seems to have been brainwashed by a cult leader. They also fight injustice at the reservation, all before moving off back across the country on further adventures.

This first half of the volume really touches upon the social injustice aspects that writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Neal Adams seemed set on exploring. It’s interesting picking up this book decades after the issues were originally written (issue #76 came out in April of 1970) only to see how many social issues raised by the book are still prevalent today. For as much as we as a society seem to have moved forward, issues like corporate greed, racism, and sexism still rear their ugly heads.

With that said, I wouldn’t necessarily say that the book is always good at tackling these issues. The writing on 1970s comics does feel kind of archaic at this point, with the characters overly explaining every action and every thought they were having, as if O’Neil couldn’t trust that the readers could handle larger panels of just action. In fairness, this isn’t a problem just with Green Lantern / Green Arrow as plenty of other comics from the era have the same issue. Writers frequently filled space with thought bubbles and dialogue that overly explained everything going on.

But the handling of the topics is also not exactly the best. As an example, while dealing with the Native Americans on their reservation, the bad guys frequently call them “Injuns” while even Hal and Ollie refer to them as “Red Man” or “Redskin”, while the Native Americans frequently call Hal and Ollie “Palefaces”. It reads like someone that hadn’t ever actually talked to a Native American before and only knew about them from 1950s Westerns. It doesn’t read right.

Similarly, the issues featuring Black Canary do her no favors. The narrative often describes her as fair and frail, even as it tries to talk up her fighting prowess. She’s easily bested by men she should be able to take out, and her agency is stolen from her more than once. It’s telling that she’s the one that gets brainwashed and not Hal or Ollie. Meanwhile, Ollie is condescending to her the whole time, even when she’s supposed to be the love of his life. The male perspective in this volume is strong.

The back half of the volume, meanwhile, is weaker because it ditches the whole concept of the story. Instead of remaining grounded on Earth for an exploration of human society, instead we take to space so that the Guardian (who the other two take to calling “old timer”) can be put on trial by the other Guardians for, allegedly, shirking his duties. This then leads to a pair of space-based adventures that have little to do with the whole concept of getting in touch with the common man. Sure, there’s some passing nods to a villain who wanted to be a mother and goes crazy making babies for everyone else, overpopulating a planet, but… well, that doesn’t exactly read well. A baby crazy woman feels pretty sexist when you actually think about it. In general this whole section fails pretty hard

As does the final issue in this volume, which sees Amazonian warriors from another dimension do the bidding of an evil sorceress who is, as we quickly learn, the sister of Green Lantern nemesis Sinestro. This has no political context to it whatsoever, and Sinestro feels shoehorned into a book (and a story) that didn’t need him just to try and boost ratings. It’s a commercial ploy, and not one that feels earned in the story whatsoever.

In concept I like what this book is trying to do. I appreciate the nods towards real world issues and I salute doing this in a superhero book that kids were reading. Getting engagement is never a bad thing. I don’t think the writing on this first half is that great, though. But we are only one of two volumes in right now, and the most famous storyline is still to come: when Speedy gets hooked on smack. Maybe the books will pick up then because, right now, Green Lantern / Green Arrow feels like it’s a long way from being the classic everyone says it is.