Monday, June 1, 2009
Bring On the Back-Ups: Green Lantern in "Let There Be Darkness!"
Y'know, a lot of folks think that when Green Lantern/Green Arrow #89 hit the stands on that fateful day in January, 1972, our two favorite Emerald Crusaders lingered in limbo until GL/GA was revived with ish #90 in May, 1976. Well, that's just not so! From May,1972 to May,1976, Green Lantern ran as the regular back-up (or an occasional guest-star in the lead story) in Flash (issues 217-243), while Green Arrow (along with Black Canary) was a semi-regular back-up in Action Comics during that same time period. So, here's a special treat that ya might not have even known existed! From Flash #237 (August 1975), here's a neat GL story by Denny O'Neil and Mike Grell called "Let There Be Darkness!"
One might also note that the backup stories in Flash #217-219 were not merely Green Lantern tales but in fact a final three-part Green Lantern/Green Arrow/Black Canary story by the team of Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams...and one of the very best stories that creative team did with those characters, making a particularly nice capstone to their brief run.
ReplyDeleteI remember loving this as a one-month year old baby. Grandad!
ReplyDeleteIf RAB above is referring to the story, "What can One Man Do?" he's right about its excellence but surprisingly it was NOT a Denny O'Neil story but rather a very early hit the ground running story by Elliot S! Maggin.
ReplyDeleteNot quite, Steve! Elliot Maggin's spectacular debut "What Can One Man Do?" appeared in Green Lantern #87. I refer instead to "The Killing Of An Archer" / "Green Arrow Is Dead" / "The Fate of the Archer" which ran as a backup in the aforementioned issues of The Flash. In this three-part story, Ollie is so horrified when he accidentally kills someone with an arrow that he smashes his bow and retreats to a zen monastery, vowing never to return to the outside world...but Hal needs to find him in order to save Dinah's life.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I remember it now! In fact, I remember tearing all three parts out of the FLASH comic and stapling them together to try to make an actual "issue" of GL/GA! Sorry I got mixed up but boy, Maggin's was good, too!
ReplyDeleteActually, I liked Mr. Grell initially when I read the first few issues of GL/GA's return in '76, but soon grew tired of his character drawing.
ReplyDeleteI must have been spoiled by Neil Adams.., but the stories were nice.