Throughout Absolute Green Lantern #12, I was reminded how hard it’s been for me to read the Absolute books. Not because they’re bad, far from it—I think each title is an incredible comic with superhero tendencies and should be on everyone’s pull list. The difficulty stems from separating what I know about DC history and lore from what I’m seeing. The Green Lantern book from 2005 in particular was one of the first books that got me to return to a comic shop every month. I need to forget everything I know when I read an Absolute book because I haven’t read anything like this before.
More than any of the other books in the line, Absolute Green Lantern might be the most divorced from its main continuity counterpart, but that makes every issue an exciting, unusual read that genuinely presents something new.
DC
Hector Hammond is an exceptional villain, truly the most punchable person you’ll find in a book on the stands today. Controlling his darkness-powered spider, he is zeroing in on Jo, Hal, Chase, and Simon with a relentless, otherworldly terror, all the while clearly losing control of himself. It’s hard to not think of current tech leaders, using technology they barely seem to understand to achieve a goal normal people wouldn’t dream of reaching for.
This constant menace he creates puts Jo, Hal, and Chase in an unenviable position of rising up to the occasion. Jo manages this in a traditional, satisfying superhero way, and Hal does so in an unexpected way that adds yet another wrinkle to this revamped mythology.
Which is both cool and, frankly, a little confusing. Of all the Absolute titles, I find this one the hardest to follow, since every issue there’s a new and fascinating detail exposed that hangs in the air until it goes off like a bomb. This title asks the most of its readers compared to the others in the line, but it might be the most rewarding as well because of this.
DC
The art continues to do a great job of balancing a realistic looking world while still retaining flourishes that help sell all this excitement. The colors, while muted, pop against the drab, often-blurred and rare backgrounds. The character work is great, but so much of where this issue in particular takes place, it feels like they’re sort of floating in this weird, ethereal place. They’re fighting on a rooftop, sure— but there is rarely any building nearby to orient yourself and establish where each character is in relation to the other.
I think that’s actually a pretty apt way to describe the series. All these characters are near each other and we know what they mean to the others, but we’re slowly learning what they really are in relation to each other. What their goals are, what their potential is, and what they can accomplish in this fantastical world they keep falling deeper into.
Absolute Green Lantern #12 takes the baton from last issue and continues to build excitement, then turn everything you know about Green Lantern on its head. New interpretations of once seemingly familiar characters are constantly being pushed to their limits in interesting ways and the mystery at the center of them all continues to drive the momentum of this book. The central villain is terrifying and clumsy, and this issue gave a moment that makes me question where he really stands in the pecking order of things. It’s a true periodical that way, giving enough of a story each month to get me excited for the next issue, while telling it with a complexity that has me constantly revisiting old issues to see if I missed a dot I should’ve connected sooner.
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