Alan Scott: The Green Lantern #4 – Tim Sheridan, Writer; Cian Tormey, Penciller; Jordi Tarragona, Raul Fernandez, John Livesay, Inker; Matt Herms, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: From the first issue, hanging over this series has been the fate of Alan’s first love—the sailor Johnny Ladd, who seemingly perished in the search for the Cosmic Flame in the years before World War 2. But in reality, Johnny survived and became the Red Lantern, an agent of the Soviet Union who has now come back to haunt Alan. But this isn’t a tragic tale of someone like Bucky Barnes from the competition, who was transformed into a killer against his will. Instead, this issue reveals that Johnny was never Johnny at all—he was always Vlad, a spy who grew up in the hinterlands of Belarus and was entrusted with a key mission to infiltrate the search for the flame—by any means necessary. And that led him to Alan as his way in, raising the awful prospect that everything about their relationship was a lie—or was it? Sheridan keeps us guessing about when the lie may have become the truth.
The flashbacks are very strong, and in the present day, much of this issue is almost a two-character play. The emotion echoes off the page in every scene as Alan pours out his pain—and rage—on the person he knew as Johnny. Vlad may have slipped back into his old role, having put his spy days long behind him, but his speech sounds all too much like so many people who forced themselves back in the closet. There is also some very interesting material about how these early Lanterns work, how they’re powered—and what happens when they cross. The long credits surprised me, with three inkers on Tormey’s work this issue, but I couldn’t tell any difference. The art is strong as always, and Sheridan’s deft, emotional script manages to perfectly capture the time period and make this feel like one of the most personal superhero tales on the stands.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
