Review – The Green Lantern Season 2 #3: Terror in the Skies

The Green Lantern: Season 2 #3 – Grant Morrison, Writer; Liam Sharp, Artist

Ratings:

Ray – 9.5/10

Ray: It’s amazing how much difference a colorist can make in an artist’s style. While regular colorist Steve Oliff is perfect for a hyper-detailed, surrealist approach that Morrison and Sharp normally bring to The Green Lantern Season 2, when Liam Sharp does the colors on an issue himself, it usually means something special.

That’s the case with The Green Lantern Season 2 #3, which sends Hal on one of his most dangerous missions yet. Back on Earth – and now tailed by a litter of cute little griffin-like creatures after the last issue – Hal returns to his old flying grounds to investigate the disappearance of his old friend Cowgirl along with two of her copilots and an experimental plane. This coincides with the arrival of a mysterious purple cloud over a small mountain town, with weird psychological effects on the resident. It’s an incredibly strange and dreamlike issue, with smooth and photorealistic art that makes it feel very different from the other issues.

Morrison has a very good grasp of Hal’s psychology as a hero, maybe even better than Geoff Johns’ run. While Johns’ Hal was more of an epic space hero, Morrison’s is almost self-destructive and dangerous at times, as we see with his insistence on abandoning his ring when he’s flying. The ring itself isn’t happy with this, but Hal heads off alone and soon winds up in an extremely dangerous situation with Cowgirl. But there’s also a great twist ending involving what this cloud is and why it’s arrived on the town, and Morrison seems to have a better understanding of what being a space cop truly means than most writers.

Hal isn’t a soldier, he’s a peacekeeper, and the end of this issue drives that home nicely. While The Green Lantern Season 2 #3 doesn’t involve many of the cosmic elements of the previous ones, it’s no less ambitious and gives us a great look at exactly what’s going into Hal’s new role stationed on Earth. Thank Mogo this was expanded back to twelve issues!

To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.

Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.