In brightest day\In blackest night...

The hobby of comic book collecting has been quite the passion of mine for many years now. In fact, I have deep, close friendships that haven't lasted as long as my love for comic books (scary...). The art, the stories, the characters, all of it; I can't get enough of the good stuff. In amongst my collection is an unremarkable issue of Tales of the Green Lantern Corps. It is not a number one issue, there was no new or breakthrough characters introduced (at least not for roughly two decades...); it's just a standard 80's comic and it's one of my most cherished. I've had it forever and it shows. Let's have a read...

Here we have it; Tales of the Green Lantern Corps No. 3 for a mere 50 cents 25 years (or so...) ago. Long before Paralax Hal Jordan, decades before Spectre Hal Jordan, we just had plain old GL Hal Jordan, an everyman leader of the GL Corps. He's a brave warrior who wants nothing more than to serve like the rest of the Corps (not original, but we buy it...). This was back when Hal walked the line between badass space warrior and silly hero who creates boxing gloves with his power ring. In this particular issue, there is definitely more of the badass Hal going on. We start with part of the Corps returning to Oa and finding the other half of the Corps recently trounced by an evil Gaurdian of the Universe and an army of pseudo-undead. After a short convalessence, the remaining Corps members (realizing they have very little of their 24 hour ring charge left...), fly off to fight their enemy head on...

Along with the evil Guardian, Krona, is a personification of death known as Nekron. He wants to enter the world of the living and make it more deathlike, I suppose (also not terribly new, but always a popular villain goal...). He returns the rogue Guardians mortal form to him and, in return, Krona leads the undead army into the land of the living in a bid to take over the universe. Here's the readers digest version (ask me to borrow the issue some time...): the Corps shows up to stop the undead army, some die in combat. Realizing that Nekron has near limitless forces to send out, Hal wants to shut down the portal to Nekron's realm, so the rest of the Corps charge Hal up with extra power and he jets into the dead realm. Instead of just blasting the crap out of Nekron (too easy a jump...), Hal reactivates all dead GLs in Nekron's realm, who distract him while the good Guardians finish shutting the portal. The spirit of Hal's ring's previous owner (wrap your head around that one...) pushes Hal out and the day is won...

This piece of a comic book is great. It's everything I want in most comic books, a clearly defined good and evil, virtuous heroes, dedicated villains, colorful art (a definite influence on my CosMick story...) and a generally happy ending. It's very contained within one or two issues and it doesn't cross over with any other books/characters needlessly. If you ever see my copy of it, the pages have grown slightly yellowed and soft due to years of reading over and over. It's a very solid issue and I never get tired of flipping through it...

Grade: A...