Art By: Ron Wagner, Bill Reinhold, Paul Mounts
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: May 13, 2015
It Ain't Easy Being Green
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Who's ready to go back in time to an era when Hal Jordan was a power mad god known as Parallax? Well, I don't really care if you're ready or not because like I've said a hundred times before, I love this era because it's when I began reading Green Lantern and fell in love hard with it. In the last issue, we saw that during the year without powers, Hal Jordan spent his time being mopey about all the horrible things he did as Parallax, only to go all power nutso again once the dome disappeared and after Princess Fern from Electropolis fired on Kyle Rayner, Hal was hellbent on making sure that hurting Kyle was the last thing that the people of that city ever do. Let's jump into this issue and see if Parallax has left anyone in Electropolis alive and if Kyle will be able to talk him down from his rage fueled fury. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our story begins with Kyle coming to and him and us realizing that Hal didn't completely destroy Princess Fern and her forces and not wanting to leave the people of Electropolis helpless, Kyle decides to skip the fight and try and stop Hal from genocide. Kyle goes to Electropolis and has a pretty smart move in creating a truce with Electropolis and telling them that he'll stop Parallax if they call back Princess Fern and her attack on the Zero Hour Metropolis............. Which seems to work at first, until one of the government tell Princess Fern to straight up attack Metropolis to avenge them. Kyle can't catch a break and man is it only going to get worse.
After the would be deal is struck, Kyle goes and confronts Hal and tries to talk some sense in him, but that only led to Hal blasting Kyle and saying that he'll raze this city to the ground to get Telos' attention because that's the only way to get the people of Metropolis out of this. Kyle isn't the only protection against Parallax though, the people of Electropolis seem to have "lightning rays" that Kyle, through narration tells us is a really good weapon to have since it takes a lot of concentration to wield the green light of willpower and electricity scrambles the brain enough that concentration is thrown right out the window. After Hal is brought down, Kyle tries to reach his friend again and for a brief second it seems like Hal is willing to give in, but it was all a ruse and Parallax creates a rocket construct around Kyle and blasts him off back to Metropolis so that Hal can finish his business uninterrupted. So at least Kyle is out of harm's way right? No, Princess Fern is on the attack trying to make everyone pay for Parallax's attack on her city and after Kyle puts a smack down on her and her troops for being so stupid to attack his city instead of helping him save theirs, we get an announcement that Parallax has destroyed Electropolis and Princess Fern and her troops evaporate away screaming........... Holy shit!
In the end, Kyle tries to use his ring to find out where Hal is, but it says that Hal is no longer on the planet........ whatever that means and Kyle laments on the fact that the good man that Hal Jordan once was is completely gone and all that's left is an unrelenting monster known as Parallax.
That's it for this issue of Convergence: Green Lantern/Parallax and even though I was a bit pissed in the first issue that Kyle Rayner was barely featured, I see now what Tony Bedard was going for with having Parallax being mostly featured in the first issue and Kyle being the main focus here. Like the first issue though, there isn't much going on here except for "Parallax Smash" and while that might seem dull, it was still pretty enjoyable and seeing Kyle trying to reach his predecessor during all of that was sweet and pretty freaking sad when he failed. One thing that I can say is that this comic is truly unique from the rest of the Convergence titles that I've read so far because we actually see a city defeated and as tragic and terrible as that is, it was really cool to see and I really appreciate it. So yeah, some fun Zero Hour era Green Lantern stuff told with excellent art and I really appreciated the distinction between Hal and Kyle's constructs because as unimportant as that might be to some, it's kind of a big deal to Lantern fans.
Bits and Pieces:
While this title won't blow you away with it's Convergence story, it will show you the lengths that a hero will go to do the right thing and isn't that why we read superhero stories in the first place? Really though, this is a good issue and while it gives us mostly fighting and destruction, it does manage to give us something a bit different than any other Convergence title so far. So yeah, all you Zero Hour era fans better be picking this one up.
7.5/10
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