Green Lantern #31

Oh yes oh yes oh hell yes!!!!!!!

Loved it. Absolutely loved it! It's part 3 of Secret Origin (what is this, a six parter? probably) and Hal lands on Oa to commence his training as one of the newest Green Lanterns. Bad ass! Just a fun, fun issue as Hal learns to deal with his ring and basically runs around starting shit and having his ass handed to him. First guy he pisses off is Kilowag. Hal nails him with a giant boxing glove only to be totally humiliated by Kilowag's greater skill. And on it goes. The joy that just comes out of the page is palpable. It's probably an easy kind of issue to do, brash new hero gets schooled and becomes awesome, that's a tale that's been told a thousand times but it's not a sure thing. Johns' clearly has the best possible time writing Hal Jordan and putting him through his paces. Honestly, I was never much of a Hal Jordan fan prior to reading Green Lantern, but Geoff Johns certainly made a fan out of me. I mean I always got Hal Jordan, I knew what the character was about, but for me Geoff Johns made him a character really worth cheering for. That's something I never really thought would happen. I was really more into Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner as Green Lanterns. Definitely a Hal Jordan fan now. Definitely.

Not a whole lot to say about this issue as it's a quick, breezy read. We're given a peek into the next issue's events when Sinestro comes in to the picture. We see that the prisoner Abin Sur was transporting is still alive and we see that the guy passing himself off as Carol Ferris's man is, in fact, not. Excellent! Clearly, the story being told is intended for collection. That means that I can suppose that this story is about five or six issues long. I wish they would just say on the cover or interior (though looking at Comixology I can surmise that it is in fact seven parts). Ah well, it's gotta go on long enough that it doesn't interfere so much with Final Crisis I suppose. Who cares, great story overall.

If you haven't been following this story I say start finding back issues because this issue, this story, this friggin series is highly recommended.