Posted in: Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: dark days: metal, dc comics, ethan van sciver, green lanten, Green Lantern Corps, guy gardner, Hal Jordan, hal jordan and the green lantern corps, HRL, john stewart, kyle rayner, liam sharp, rebirth, robert venditti

Hal Jordan And The GL Corps #32 Review: Cool Battle, Little Plot Advancement

*Ties into the Dark Days: Metal crossover

Hal Jordan is squaring off with the Dawnbreaker Batman alone in a Batcave deep under his hometown of Coast City. The Dawnbreaker's ring can absorb all light, so Hal has to get particularly creative to even be able to fight this Nightmare Batman.

One significant problem with the 'Bats Out of Hell' tie-ins to Metal is that they fall into the trap of not advancing the plot of the characters or the overall crossover in any significant manner. Unfortunately, Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #32 continues this trend with a story that really doesn't have much to offer Metal beyond one or two pages of specifying what you likely already guessed.

(Spoilers) As such, the vast majority of the runtime of this comic is Hal Jordan fighting a battle he won't win and being captured along with the rest of the Justice League.

That's not to say that this comic doesn't have anything to offer the reader. Hal Jordan presents his trademark cockiness and determination, and the opening pages present a nice little moment between Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, and John Stewart, as well as between Hal Jordan, his niece, and his nephew.

As you would expect, Hal fights to the bitter end against the Dawnbreaker. Unfortunately, you don't get to see the bitter end. The Dawnbreaker brings down the Green Lantern off panel, and the comic ends with Hal being brought to the Anti-Monitor's Cosmic Tuning Fork with other heroes by the Nightmare Batmen.

This also means you don't get to see exactly how the remainder of the Justice League fall this issue, either, leaving it to the next issue of Justice League to hopefully give us something of significance to the story.

Ethan van Sciver takes over the art for this issue, and it's mostly pretty good. However, in some pages, his flaws really show. He likes his figures particularly muscular, and, at times, his love of bulky torsos creates a weird contrast in the distance when the arms and legs shrink more than the torso. As a result, some have big bodies and little limbs like a T-Rex that has tiny legs to match its arms. That's not to say the art is all bad, but some panels do look a little goofy.

Jason Wright's color art does hold up all the way through. Admittedly, a lot of the panels are pitch black with the exception of whatever construct or blast Hal is creating. However, he does well when he needs to, and some scenes do pop off the page thanks to the coloring.

This is still a fun issue of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, even if it doesn't do much for the overall plot of Metal. Hal is still a badass, and the fight is cool. While the ending to the last entry of 'Bats Out of Hell' implied that Hal Jordan would do something of significance here, this issue is still a good action comic. I can recommend it to followers of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. However, followers of Metal hoping for something of interest to the story to happen would be severely disappointed.

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