Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #29 Review

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #29 Review

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #29 Review

The “Fall of the Gods” arc had a strong start with some real big consequences that tide back to what is currently going on with the Dark Nights: Metal event. That start was derailed to an extent by the last issue of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, which shifted focus away from the Green Lantern Corps and New Gods in order to spotlight Hal and his father’s relationship. It was a spotlight we have seen countless times since Hal made his full return to the DCU as a Green Lantern. Because of that, it was unfortunate that character exploration ended up overshadowing the entire “Fall of the Gods” arc. Now hopefully “Fall of the Gods” can end strong with Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #29. Let’s find out if that is the case now.

Writer: Robert Venditti

Artist: Rafa Sandoval

Inker: Jordi Tarragona

Colorist: Tomeu Morey

Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: As they outrun the Omega Beams after them Highfather is upset that Hal Jordan wants him to stay calm after learning Orion has died. Hal reveals that they took Orion’s heart out of his chest to make it look like he is dead to the Metal Golem but are doing everything to keep him alive as a part of John Stewart’s plan.

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #29 Review
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In Mogo, everyone tells John that they are concerned about Kyle going over 27 hours without rest or nutrition in order to keep Orion heart healthy. John tells everyone they must figure out what the Metal Golem’s new objective is. Two-Lobe finally finds something in Orion’s mind, the words “Yuga-Khan.” John knows what that is. He goes to wake Guy up and orders the Attack Platoon to assemble for a new mission.

At the Source Wall the three Metal Golems are trying to break Yuga Khan out of the wall. The Green Lantern Corps arrive and stop the Metal Golems before they finish breaking Yuga Khan out.

As the Metal Golems begin to overwhelm the Green Lantern Corps, Hall arrives with Highfather. Hal fires a missile from his energy jet. The Omega Beams follow the missile and it destroys the red Metal Golem.

John sees that the core on the Metal Golems chest is a weak spot and has all the Green Lanterns focus on them. With their numbers the Green Lantern Corps are able to destroy the blue and yellow Metal Golems.

The final Metal Golem shows up. Highfather and John team-up with Highfather charging at the Metal Golem. Highfather launches an energy attack at the Metal Golem and John uses the spot Highfather made weaker to snipe it with his sniper rifle construct, destroying the Metal Golem in the process.  

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Highfather goes up to where Yuga-Khan is on the Source Wall and says that Yuga-Khan’s eternity in prison is not over.

Over on Mogo, Highfather and the GLC are there to see Orion wake up after getting his heart returned to him. Thaava tells Orion that Kyle did all the work in keeping him alive.

Orion goes over to Kyle, who has passed out after losing all his strength, and thanks Kyle for keeping him alive. End of issue.

The Good: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #29 is a great ending to the “Fall of the Gods” arc. Robert Venditti is able to give the entire cast a of this series a focus and show how the Green Lantern Corps are strongest together rather than apart. In doing so Venditti was able to spotlight the key strength of this series.

My major complaint with the previous issue was the fact that it completely forgot the cast of this series to once again spotlight Hal Jordan. That complaint is quickly wiped away with Venditti establishing how everyone in the Green Lantern Corps would be necessary to defeat the Metal Golems. Seeing John being able to quickly assemble the Green Lantern Corps and launch an all out assault was impressive sight to see. It definitely delivered on all the crazy space action we have come to expect from this series.

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John is particularly strong in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #29. It’s been a join to read and watch how John has fully embraced his role as the leader of the Green Lantern Corps since Venditti started this series. His turn at leadership started off rough but we have been able to witness how John has been able to take his strategic mind to be a leader that everyone follows. It was particularly enjoyable to see how he was able to quickly identify the weakest point Highfather created in the last Metal Golem and hit the finishing shot with his sniper rifle.

Venditti also did a great job with how he characterized Highfather in this issue. With the knowledge of Orion near death’s door we got to see an uncharacteristically emotional Highfather. Venditti did a good job highlighting why Highfather would act like this. It made his final words to Yuga-Khan hit on an emotional level and elevated the lesser known villain in the eyes of those who aren’t familiar with the New Gods.

What will be interesting from here is if we see the Green Lantern Corps and New Gods fight with the Metal Golems relate to what is going on with the Dark Nights: Metal event. There wasn’t a clear connection between this story and Metal. Though there is an opening that whatever is happening with Metal is connected to the Source Wall. The Source Wall is one of those place in the DC Universe that is rarely seen, giving it a sense of specialty whenever it does show up in a comic. Since we saw the Metal Golems almost break Yuga-Khan out it may mean that the Source Wall got slightly weaker, leaving it open for the Dark Knights of the Multiverse to use it for their own plans.

While he didn’t have any lines Kyle Rayner was able to get his own moment to shine as he was responsible for keeping Orion alive. It was a different way to show how strong Kyle is with how long he was able to keep his construct going to maintain the safety of Orion’s heart. This was definitely something Kyle needed after the last few arcs where it seemed that he just ended up doing something that did not make him look great.

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Rafa Sandoval once again provided great artwork for Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #29. Sandoval has really come into his own with his artwork delivering that big event feel to all the action between the Green Lantern Corps and Metal Golems. Even when there were a lot of characters on the page Sandoval never lost a sense of how to frame his art to make sure the greatest amount of impact was delivered.

The Bad: Nothing.

Overall: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #29 is a strong ending to the “Fall of the Gods” story arc. Robert Venditti and Rafa Sandoval combined to deliver a lot of strong action that showed the Green Lantern at their best while taking on the Metal Golems. John Stewart and Kyle Rayner in particular came out looking even better than they did before this arc. That is going to be needed with the exciting things coming down the line for this series.