GREEN LANTERN: SECRET ORIGINS (PARTS 1 & 2)
October 16th 2008 22:35
Category: Graphic Novels/Comics
Publisher: DC Comics.
Production team: Geoff Johns & Ivan Reis – story, Oclair Albert – inks, Ranov Mayor – colours, Rob Leigh – letters, Ivan Reis & Dave McCaig – cover.
Cost: AU$6.50/US$2.99
Every so often it seems obligatory for the major comic producers like DC and Marvel to have some kind of climatic and apocalyptic event occur in the own respective creative megaverses, it seems that part of the reason that they do this so they can retell origin stories of various characters in their various comic lines. This is certainly the case with the Green Lantern: Secret Origins Parts 1 & 2. When I came across these particular issues in the local newsagent I decided to pick them up and give them a perusal and see what was going on, where was DC going with this particular take on one of their oldest and iconic characters.
There is a great deal of similarity in these two comics and the story that is told within the pages of Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn which DC released on the thirtieth anniversary of the creation of Green Lantern. Here we see that Hal Jordan, the man who will become Green Lantern, is a pilot and one with troubles in his personal life and his attitude. The contrast though is that unlike Emerald Dawn, where Hal has a drinking problem, looses his job at Ferris Air as a test pilot and gets involved in a drink driving accident that causes a fatality. None of that in Secret Origins, here Hal is a clean cut all American guy who flies fighters for the USAF, testing the latest in the jet fighters and his mother is suffering from chronic cancer. As a result of his enlisting in the USAF as soon as he turned eighteen he has become estranged from his mother and his older brother Jack.
The main defining events within this tale is that Hal’s father died in an accident as a pilot, the loss of his own pilot status in the USAF and the encounter with the strange purple skinned alien known as Abin Sur from whom he will receive the ring that will turn him into a member of the galactic force known as the Green Lantern corps. Rather than opting to go with a drink driving accident seeing Hal descend to the bottom the writers of this tale have opted to go with family estrangement and the death of Hal’s mother as the catalyst that sees him dishonourable discharged from the forces and ending up working as a trainee mechanic for Ken Arden. Perhaps this makes the story more palatable for a younger audience but it seems to me that Hal is now something a bit more larger than life, a caricature rather than a character with any real depth.
But even though this is the story of Hal Jordan it seems that the real action is focused on the enigmatic alien Abin Sur who is engaged in his own mission which will eventually result in him encountering Hal Jordan. Now we don’t know much about Abin Sur, where he comes from, what his species is but he first appears in the final pages of part one on a world very distant from Earth inhabited by entities that he calls demons. It seems that the locals have some particular knowledge about an impending doom that will envelop the rest of the universe, the have prophecies that Abin Sur feels he cannot ignore and they are all focused around something that he refers to as the “Blackest Night…” cue doom laden drum roll here.
Initially his queries are directed to Qull but then another demon, Atorcitus demands that Qull remain silent that the knowledge of the demons is something that they are only to be privy too, something not to be bandied about in ‘pleasant’ conversations with outsiders. Naturally Abin Sur doesn’t pay much heed to the words of this new arrival and realises that Atorcitus is the one he needs to query in regards to this impending event, about the fate of the universe and cosmic revelations in order to prevent the Blackest Night…
The priority that he has placed on this particular event thus leads to the incident that will cause his sudden climatic encounter with Hal Jordan, Earthman. He takes Atorcitus prisoner aboard his own vessel and leaving behind the festering pit that is the demon’s homeworld heads for more pleasant climes, no doubt intending to convey Atorcitus to the world of Oan, the system of origin of the Green Lantern corps and their superiors. It is whilst he is traversing the eternal night that is the interstellar void that things become unstuck for Abin Sur big-time. Obsessed with the possibility of impending cosmic doom he does not realise that his obsession has resulted in a weakening of his own willpower, the source of his power rings strength. Such a sudden turn leads to Atorcitus breaking free from his confines and causing Abin Sur to crash-land on a relatively back water world known as Earth.
Things naturally look bleak, as the demon makes good his escape and vanishes to who knows where and Abin Sur himself is drastically wounded, he also realises that if he tries to eject and heal the damage his vessel will end up crashing into a terrestrial settlement, Coast City and end up leading to the loss of two thousand two hundred and ten lives. There is no choice; Abin Sur elects to plough the vessel into a remote region where the loss of any life will be minimal. In fact the only person who does end up dying is in fact him, a fate that he has accepted for all members of the Green Lantern corps are capable of overcoming great fear. Before he passes he makes sure that his ring commences a search for a suitable successor…Hal Jordan who is picked for the simple fact that he is a man who can overcome great fear.
Gone is the fact that Hal Jordan becomes Green Lantern through an incident of pure chance and so to is also gone the fact that in accepting the ring Hal Jordan eventually becomes a changed man, someone stronger, someone at peace with himself and his life, in short a character with more depth. This particular incarnation is already a man without fear and in reality his only significant problem seems to be that he’s unable to fly any more, although its hardly life threatening or even changing in any significant way. Apart from the Blackest Night angle there isn’t really much to recommend Secret Origin, gripping it is not and as far as I can tell there is not much secret about it, unless its something to do with Sinestro the guy who in the cartoon version of the JLA was Green Lantern’s nemesis. Here it seems he is a member of the Green Lantern corps and a contemporary of Abin Sur. At the end of the day though rather than some kind of amazing revelation or even a likeable character the result is more a Green Lantern light, a sort of sanitization of the story that was originally told in Emerald Dawn and told better.
Production team: Geoff Johns & Ivan Reis – story, Oclair Albert – inks, Ranov Mayor – colours, Rob Leigh – letters, Ivan Reis & Dave McCaig – cover.
Cost: AU$6.50/US$2.99
Every so often it seems obligatory for the major comic producers like DC and Marvel to have some kind of climatic and apocalyptic event occur in the own respective creative megaverses, it seems that part of the reason that they do this so they can retell origin stories of various characters in their various comic lines. This is certainly the case with the Green Lantern: Secret Origins Parts 1 & 2. When I came across these particular issues in the local newsagent I decided to pick them up and give them a perusal and see what was going on, where was DC going with this particular take on one of their oldest and iconic characters.
The main defining events within this tale is that Hal’s father died in an accident as a pilot, the loss of his own pilot status in the USAF and the encounter with the strange purple skinned alien known as Abin Sur from whom he will receive the ring that will turn him into a member of the galactic force known as the Green Lantern corps. Rather than opting to go with a drink driving accident seeing Hal descend to the bottom the writers of this tale have opted to go with family estrangement and the death of Hal’s mother as the catalyst that sees him dishonourable discharged from the forces and ending up working as a trainee mechanic for Ken Arden. Perhaps this makes the story more palatable for a younger audience but it seems to me that Hal is now something a bit more larger than life, a caricature rather than a character with any real depth.
Initially his queries are directed to Qull but then another demon, Atorcitus demands that Qull remain silent that the knowledge of the demons is something that they are only to be privy too, something not to be bandied about in ‘pleasant’ conversations with outsiders. Naturally Abin Sur doesn’t pay much heed to the words of this new arrival and realises that Atorcitus is the one he needs to query in regards to this impending event, about the fate of the universe and cosmic revelations in order to prevent the Blackest Night…
The priority that he has placed on this particular event thus leads to the incident that will cause his sudden climatic encounter with Hal Jordan, Earthman. He takes Atorcitus prisoner aboard his own vessel and leaving behind the festering pit that is the demon’s homeworld heads for more pleasant climes, no doubt intending to convey Atorcitus to the world of Oan, the system of origin of the Green Lantern corps and their superiors. It is whilst he is traversing the eternal night that is the interstellar void that things become unstuck for Abin Sur big-time. Obsessed with the possibility of impending cosmic doom he does not realise that his obsession has resulted in a weakening of his own willpower, the source of his power rings strength. Such a sudden turn leads to Atorcitus breaking free from his confines and causing Abin Sur to crash-land on a relatively back water world known as Earth.
Things naturally look bleak, as the demon makes good his escape and vanishes to who knows where and Abin Sur himself is drastically wounded, he also realises that if he tries to eject and heal the damage his vessel will end up crashing into a terrestrial settlement, Coast City and end up leading to the loss of two thousand two hundred and ten lives. There is no choice; Abin Sur elects to plough the vessel into a remote region where the loss of any life will be minimal. In fact the only person who does end up dying is in fact him, a fate that he has accepted for all members of the Green Lantern corps are capable of overcoming great fear. Before he passes he makes sure that his ring commences a search for a suitable successor…Hal Jordan who is picked for the simple fact that he is a man who can overcome great fear.
Gone is the fact that Hal Jordan becomes Green Lantern through an incident of pure chance and so to is also gone the fact that in accepting the ring Hal Jordan eventually becomes a changed man, someone stronger, someone at peace with himself and his life, in short a character with more depth. This particular incarnation is already a man without fear and in reality his only significant problem seems to be that he’s unable to fly any more, although its hardly life threatening or even changing in any significant way. Apart from the Blackest Night angle there isn’t really much to recommend Secret Origin, gripping it is not and as far as I can tell there is not much secret about it, unless its something to do with Sinestro the guy who in the cartoon version of the JLA was Green Lantern’s nemesis. Here it seems he is a member of the Green Lantern corps and a contemporary of Abin Sur. At the end of the day though rather than some kind of amazing revelation or even a likeable character the result is more a Green Lantern light, a sort of sanitization of the story that was originally told in Emerald Dawn and told better.
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