I’d Gladly Pay You Tuesday
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Liam Sharp
Colorist: Steve Oliff
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski
Cover: Liam Sharp & Steve Oliff
Variant Cover: Jae Lee & June Chung
Associate Editor: Jessica Chen
Editor: Brian Cunningham
Cover Price: $3.99
On Sale Date: January 9, 2019
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE
BOTTOM**
This is the galaxy. I work here. I carry a ring. The Green Lantern #3. Read my review.
You might learn something that could save your skin.
Explain
It!
It turns out that planet Earth didn’t vanish last
issue, it was merely shrunken to a more portable size, at the expense of
planetary integrity and billions of lives. The bulk of the thing is still
intact, however, and so it’s fine to be auctioned by that Dhorian slaver, who
takes bids from several Dominators and Steppenwolf himself, before handing
Earth over to the Shepherd, a gigantic Galactus-sized being that looks exactly
like Moses from The Ten Commandments.
Once the payoff is made, the Green Lanterns, led by Hal Jordan, strike!
They swarm in and start taking down Blackstars, which
are Darkstars with Evil Star’s Star Band technology added, so that they cast
bolts that sap one’s will. I don’t really get it, either. They have a brief
cool down period after blasting, so the Green Lanterns just have to be patient
before taking them down easily. Meanwhile, Hal takes off after the Shepherd and
attempts to put him under arrest, but the old coot swears he’s a completely
benevolent collector of planets. He puts them in a paradise where everyone has
super powers and gets fattened up and oh yeah then he consumes the planet. And
he looks like the cockroach alien from Men
in Black, in his true form.
And the people of Earth…are pretty okay with it.
Seems they’ll have a thousand years of super-powered paradise, so they trade
the lives of their great-great-grandchildren in favor of being able to curl
steel girders around their biceps. Hal is incredulous, and tapes off the Earth
as a crime scene before knocking the Shepherd for a loop. Pissed off, he
returns to the auction to knock out the remaining Blackstars and face this
Dhorian slaver, who thinks he’s protected under Intergalactic Law—but not from
a furious Hal Jordan, who skewers him with several construct spikes! And then
expects his colleagues to cover his butt!
There was a lot that I enjoyed in this issue. For one
thing, the idea of a planet of people choosing a thousand years of
super-powered luxury over keeping their terra firma is really interesting.
Like, with those powers, they could do incredible things, and ostensibly leave
that orb entirely within the time allotted. I also liked the Shepherd and the
whole concept of auctioning planets as slave worlds. It really showed me that
while Hal Jordan is the star of this series, his homeworld is not—at least, not
necessarily. This was a pretty simple story, with some brief character moments
among other members of the GL Corps that were cool, if incidental. I also found
the artwork a little more intelligible in this issue, which made for an easier
read. I don’t know if this comic book is quite worth the cover price, but it is
close to the Green Lantern comic book I’ve wished we had for a while now.
Bits and
Pieces:
The fate of the Earth is sealed! And most of its inhabitants seem cool with it. Hal Jordan's by-the-books police technique might not jibe with every sleep-n-eat and ne'er-do-well, but by gum there's going to be law and order in this galaxy, if he has to arrest bug-eyed slacker to do it!
8/10
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