Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #28 Review

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #28 Review

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #28 Review

The “Fall of the Gods” arc has been a good change of pace for Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. After the series has been dominated by the ongoing conflict between the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps we needed to get away from that. Now with “Fall of the Gods” we are able to see how the Green Lantern Corps does when dealing with other parts of the DC cosmic corner. The introduction of the New Gods has also helped give the Green Lantern Corps a brand new story that has not been told since these two groups haven’t interacted very much. That fresh pairing has made the interactions between Orion and the Green Lanterns standout event more than usual. Now with the rest of the New Gods primed to make their grand entrance anything can happen. Let’s see exactly what happens with Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #28.

Writer: Robert Venditti

Artist: Rafa Sandoval

Inker:  Jordi Tarragona

Colorist: Tomeu Morey

Story Rating: 3 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 5.5 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: Lightray leads Highfather across the galaxy just as Hal Jordan detects there exact location.

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #28 Review
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Hal exits his portal and uses his ring to construct a jet to make him fly faster towards Highfather and Lightray’s location. John reminds Hal to try to reach Highfather before the Nth Metal Golems reach them. Their communication cuts out due to the Omega Beams energy heading toward Highfather.

Hal tries to overtake the Omega Beams but can’t catch up. Just as he starts giving up hope the spirit of his father appears in the jet.

Hal thinks he is going crazy as he is starting to hallucinate. Hal’s father tells Hal how when he was flying he and his mother were always on his mind when flying. Hal’s father is happy to see that his son picked up his love for flying.

Hal says that flying was the way he learned who his dad was and gets reinvigorated to continue to reach Highfather.

Just as Hal is about to reach Highfather, his father reminds Hal to continue to push forward as no one can beat him.

Highfather tells Lightray that he is reaching his breaking point but Lightray says he can’t stop because of the Omega Beams.

Hal shows up to help them out. Lightray protests accepting help from a human but Highfather tells Lightray to rest and allow Hal to take on his burden. Lightray agrees.

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #28 Review
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Highfather quickly gets in Hal’s jet and they continue to race away from the Omega Beams.

As they fly through the galaxy Hal informs Highfather about Orion’s death. Highfather is deeply upset over that information being withheld from him.

Hal does not worry about Highfather’s anger and contacts John that he is on his way back with the Omega Beams still behind him. End of issue.

The Good: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #28 has minimal plot progression for the “Fall of the Gods” arc. Instead what we get is retread of the old “Hal Jordan finds inspiration in his father” plot device that we have seen many times before this. Though it is well written it did not help the actual story going on with the Green Lantern Corps and New Gods.

While not the main focus, the few instances that we got to see Lightray and Highfather did remind us of what is currently at stake. Seeing Lightray push his powers to the max in order to save Highfather from the Omega Beams got across how much is at stake right now in this story arc. This race also emphasized how important Highfather is and how much respect he garners from the New Gods that they will risk everything to save him.

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #28 Review
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Highfather telling Lightray to allow Hal to take him the rest of the way showed us what type of leader Highfather is. Highfather continuing to show concern for Lightray came off as a father telling his son not to go too far. That show of concern made Highfather’s reaction of Hal keeping the fact that Orion was killed by the Nth Metal Golems even more effective. This will be an intriguing sub-plot to follow up on in the next issue of this series.

Though light on action Rafa Sandoval makes Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #28 a great looking issue. Sandoval got over how little time Hal had to reach Highfather, even when the character was battling his own doubt. The artwork especially stood out whenever we got to see Lightray trying to get Highfather away from the incoming Omega Beams. There was a great sense of motion as Lightray raced through space.

The Bad: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern #28 quickly got lost in exploring Hal’s relationship with his father once again. With so much going on in “Fall of the Gods” this turned out to be a big distraction to the events unfolding and caused the entire story arc to hit a wall. Because Hal’s conversation with his father dominated this issue it made you forget what the mission Hal was on.

And after the events that just happened with Orion’s death that is not what this story arc needed. We needed to see an even greater sense of urgency, especially with Highfather at great risk of death. For all this self-doubt to suddenly pop up once again with Hal felt like a waste of time. There is so much that could’ve been done to develop Highfather and the New Gods in this issue after Orion’s death that didn’t happen.

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #28 Review
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It does not help that because of it dominating the issue, Hal’s conversation with his father quickly felt like rehashed storytelling. The domination of Hal’s past did not help the character at all since we have seen this part of Hal revisited plenty of times in the past. This domination of the issue hurt the overall pacing of the story arc and by the end it didn’t feel like much was added. The only thing that was accomplished was Hal reaching Highfather, which didn’t happen until the end.

This fact further hurt the dangerous situation the New Gods are in. With the Nth Metal Golems new character to the Green Lantern and New Gods’ mythos there should’ve at least been some sort of scene showing what they are doing. Without them around it was just Hal vs. the Omega Beams, which in turn makes it easy to forget who the really antagonists of the story is since we had so much focus on the former’s past.

Overall: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #28 provided minimal plot progression for the “Fall of the Gods” story arc. Robert Venditti sacrificed everything that has happened to make “Fall of the Gods” so intriguing to revisit an old character plot of Hal Jordan’s father means to him. Hopefully the next issue of this series can help the story turn around after hitting a massive wall that slowed everything that happened in this story down to a dead stop.