By: Denny O’Neil (writer), Alex Saviuk & Dave Hunt (art), Ben Oda (letters) & Adrienne Roy (colors)
The Story: Hal Jordan, Green Arrow & Black Canary face off against the terrible might of the Crumbler!
What’s Good: For a reflection of how times have changed in the “business” of comics, consider the publication history of Green Lantern. I’m not a long term fan of GL, so in trying to figure out which publication volume this April 1979 issue came from I had to check a few online resources and found something funny that would never happen today. GL volume 1 ended in 1972 with issue #89 and GL volume 2 was relaunched in 1976 and they just restarted with issue #90. Ahhh… How naive those folks at DC were back then. I say this tongue-in-cheek, but they should have relaunched with a NEW #1 ISSUE and then renumbered the series back to its original numbering for the 100th ANNIVERSARY ISSUE!!!!!!!
Onto the story itself, this was a semi-random grab out of my LCS’s two dollar box specifically to get some material for these Flash Back reviews. I’m not a huge DC reader now, but have a passing familiarity with Green Lantern, so when I read a comic like this, it is always with an eye towards whether I will be tempted to start buying back issues.
Let’s just say that the unintentional comedy factor is pretty strong here as Hal and Oliver (with Canary in tow) fight some obscure villain called The Crumbler (so obscure that he has no Wikipedia page…..I checked) who has a special glove that can…….wait for it……”crumble” objects like bridges into dust. As the issue opens, Hal is running around with his head wrapped in white bandages like he’s wearing a white dew-rag or hair net. This is to let the reader know that our hero has a concussion! Gotta love that medical science of the 1970’s: “Wrap his head in a bandage! That’ll protect his brain just fine while it recovers from being bruised by being bashed against the inside of his skull.”
For me, though, the best unintentional comedy was when Arrow and Canary take off after the Crumbler in an orange 1970’s VW bus. Could a DC fan let me know if this was always Arrow’s ride of choice? And why did Canary’s parents let her hang out with a dude who drove a van (if you know what I mean)? A close second in terms of comedy is seeing the Crumbler flashing back to his childhood where his Dad destroys his science experiments and berates him for wasting his time with science because he should earn an honest living down at the construction site with Dad. And people wonder why China and India kick the US’s butt in science?
The ads are always a highlight in these old comics. On the same page where a boy could order “Real Foreign Money” for only 10 cents, is a half-page ad to “Be a Draftsperson”. How about that? Career advice in a comic. If a boy had taken this ad to heart and learned how to a draftsperson he could have followed in the footsteps of Ollie Cook of Ft. Worth, TX who claimed to have been promoted to “senior estimator with a 72% increase in salary”. Can’t argue with that… Until you get laid off in the last few years because you can’t use a computer. Lots of good career advice in this issue. Sigh…..
There’s also an illustrated Wonder Woman ad for Twinkies where in one panel she comments that she has stumbled into “A Booby Trap! A Juvenile Tactic!” Yes… It is.
The art is pretty typical of the era. Nice strong line work. Characters in proportion. Everyone is recognizable. I’m always especially impressed by the inking because with the flat coloring of the day, all of the texture of the object comes via inking. Nowadays the colorists add a lot of highlights and contours, but not in 1979.
What’s Not So Good: Well, it features a villain who has no Wikipedia page. So, unless Geoff Johns dusts off the Crumbler for some new story, this is not going to ever be a sought after issue.
The story just isn’t anything special either. You read this and you can kinda appreciate why Green Lantern has always struggled a little to keep his books in print before his most recent popularity. I mean, Hal drove an old beat up truck and Ollie drove a VW bus. Cool dudes, huh? A GL’s constructs in this issue consist of a big screw, a megaphone and a pillow. Heroic!
My only art quibble has to do with the backgrounds. Funny how many scenes without a detailed background has just a red, orange or purple mess back there. Weird…
Conclusion: Meh.I think you can keep your 1970’s Green Lantern. I’ll stick to the newer stuff, thank you. I can get unintentional comedy, bad career advice and sexist ads in any comic of the era.
Grade: D
– Dean Stell