Broken Frontier

There’s something that lurks within the coastal waters of Coast City and it’s up to Green Lantern to put a stop to the carnage before it gets out of hand.

The creative trio responsible for reviving Hal Jordon in last summer’s Rebirth series reunites once again to chart his adventures. Instead of being in space, Green Lantern is probing a mystery close to home, as he examines the coastal waters right underneath his nose. This tale is as good as it gets, and it’s nice to see Hal strut his stuff in a horrific story told by a pair of DC’s best storytellers.

Both Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver are having a field day chronicling the emerald ring-slinger’s adventures, and it obviously shows here. The story opens with the infamous Black Hand (minus the hand) on a plane, who suddenly finding himself attacked by a group of alien-looking gremlins. It’s just a quick scene but it sets up an intriguing plot thread for later on in the story. In the meantime, General Stone summons Hal to his office to inform him of some recent gruesome events taking place down near the coast. Hal is reluctant at first, but he quickly changes to Green Lantern and flies out to the beach to look into the matter more closely.

Once out there, he immediately recognizes the gruesome handiwork of the Shark and heads out into the waters to bring him out of hiding. Then in a surprising turn of events, the Shark takes the bait and lunges out into the open. He’s changed so much physically since the man-fish last tangled with GL, and now he appears more mutated and insanely savage. While he struggles with the Shark, the scene shifts momentarily back to poor Black Hand who was last seen being accosted by the alien/gremlin creatures. Now they have taken him to Palmdale where he undergoes a startling transformation, and this is just the start of things to come. Just check out the ending to this issue, and I am sure you will come back for more.

I know I will be picking up the next issue, and I can’t wait to see how the creative duo of Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver follow up this issue. I really enjoyed the story Johns decided to tell about the Shark, and he’s obviously been updated here from his original incarnation. If I did have one minor complaint though about the story it would have been how elusive the alien/gremlins were portrayed in this issue. I had a hard time understanding the context into which they were being put into, but I am sure all will be explained about them in future issues.

The art was top notch here and I thought artist Ethan Van Sciver was right on the money with many of his panels. His layout was competent and he had a couple of really nice pages of fight scenes that made this issue a real treat to read through. I do have a feeling though that some fans might find Ethan’s work getting to be a bit predictable now since you’ve seen this before from him, but I beg to differ. His work rocks and it’s great to see him fill in here on the regular series as well.

So if you’re still feeling the lingering effects of Rebirth and want more of the same magic that made that series great, then I suggest picking up this issue. I read this story and found myself feeling some of that magic return again in a big way. Maybe you’ll feel the same way.