DCU Comic Book Reviews

GREEN LANTERN #6

Black Sheep

December 2005

Written by Geoff Johns

Pencils by Simone Bianchi

Inks by Simone Bianchi

Cover by Ethan Van Sciver

Synopsis

Hal Jordan (aka Green Lantern) finds himself on a spaceship that has risen from the depths of the ocean floor, battling Gremlins from Sector 2812.  Also on board is William Hand (aka Black Hand) who feels death all around Hal and feels that Hal should not have a second chance at life and should therefore die.  During the battle, Hal releases Shark from custody and the great white begins to eat the aliens.  The battle with Black Hand spills out into a cemetery.  Hal is able to defeat Black Hand by slicing off his new hand.  Hal then takes the spaceship and transports it back to outer space and hands it over to new Green Lanterns, who place the Gremlins under arrest.  Meanwhile, Hector Hammond is being kept in Hangar 44 at Edwards Air Force Base, but he says the Gremlins did more experiments and “things are a little different now.”

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Oh, Ethan Van Sciver, I miss your work very, very much.  I could not, even after a second reading, get into Simone Bianchi’s art.  It is dark and muddled and I really had trouble getting through this issue.  Don’t get me wrong, she’s good, but there were moments I was confused, but some of that comes from Johns’ story.  I also felt the story was rushed (not the art, the story) to reach a conclusion when I think it would have been helped by another issue.  There seemed to be a lot going on that if the story had been able to breathe, it might have worked better.  I liked Black Hand’s condemnation that Hal does not deserve a second chance but I really think this could have been explored further.  A lot of it has to do with the flashback scenes.  It is nice to finally understand why Hal punched Colonel Stone to get out of the Air Force and what the issue had been with his mother.  But I really think this could have been explored more and in depth; I would have liked to seen more, especially a flashback to why Hal joined the Air Force to begin with and when his mother found out.  As it is the story went right from his promise to his mother’s death.

I can’t decide if I like the explanation for why the Gremlins were speaking German.  It has a “cuteness” factor to it. However, that brief scene with the other Green Lantern continue to firmly establish the opinion of other races that Earth is a primitive, backwater planet.

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