There is a lot happening in Jeremy Adams' Green Lantern Vol. 5: Fractured Spectrum, to the point where the book might even be too zany and madcap.

But there aren’t a lot of other titles running distinct A-plots and B-plots — even in addition to the companion Green Lantern Corps title that’s meant to take care of Green Lantern’s supporting cast — so I tend to give Adams some grace on this one, a Green Lantern title that’s all over the place but having a lot of fun doing so.

[Review contains spoilers]

Again, I credit Adams for a book with an overarching storyline but that feels episodic issue to issue, such that you could pick up an issue off the newsstands and not feel like you’re reading part three of six. It’s only that that makes for some wild shifts as you’re reading this as a trade — Green Lantern Hal Jordan’s in space; no, he’s on Earth; no, he’s gone to Hell; no, he’s on Earth again. Also, at least twice, Hal and Star Sapphire Carol Ferris just happen to run into greater threats in the course of routine superheroics; this can feel forced, but I don’t necessarily mind when the result is an earthbound Green Lantern story, exceedingly rare, up against GL rogue Hector Hammond.

Hal’s supposed to be out in space with Kyle Rayner tracking down clues to the problem du jour with the Lantern battery, but Adams allows him to split off with relative ease. For Kyle’s part, he’s leading a “super-team” consisting of Superboy Kon-El, Odyssey the Time Bandit (related, surely, to Adams' Gold Beetle), and eventually former Blue Beetle Dan Garett, now in the guise of Silver Scarab. There’s a ton to unpack there, from what brought Adams to use Kon-El — I’m not complaining, but Kon-El as a supporting character in a Green Lantern book is weird — to that Dan Garrett was dead (I think?) and that he’s now using the name of a junior superhero who arrived many years after him.

It’s enough to fill an entire separate title — Kyle Rayner and the Ravers, maybe? — and instead Adams mashes it together with Hal Jordan’s own adventures, never pausing to explain the whos and whats and wheres. It’s not wholly seamless — there’s a sense in the book of the various pages screaming over one another, constantly — but I also know there’s other writers who would handle this less well, more ponderously, and I appreciate a book that zips by so fast I’m never bored.

Gender plays a funny role in Adams' work, as I’ve mentioned before, whether Wally West impregnating his wife with super-powers or Hal stalking the engaged Carol in Green Lantern Vol. 1: Back in Action. That worked out well for Hal, though, when Carol left her fiance and joined Hal in both romance and superheroics. Adams' Hal still reads like a clunky throwback, the guy you don’t want to meet at a bar (“Hey good lookin' … what you got cookin'?” Hal quips when he arrives in this book, with no sense of irony), and I’m still not sure how seriously we’re meant to take Hal doting on Carol and the fact that she’s clearly smitten.

We see here Carol having a civilizing effect on Hal; he belittles Dove Dawn Granger, inexplicably, and when he talks about coming in to save the day, Carol interjects, “Not that [Dove will] need it” and Hal repeats it. Good that Hal’s listening to Carol; worrisome that Hal was dismissive of Dove in the first place; and I’m not sure what Adams means for us to take from it. Later in the book, we see Carol apologizing for all the times she was mad Hal was off saving the universe instead of spending time with her, which, yes, was probably bad “girlfriends just don’t understand” writing on the part of others, but also I question Adams' instinct to have Carol apologize to Hal when most assuredly Hal has been the constant bad actor in their relationship.

I do appreciate Adams' Green Lantern as feeling an active part of the DC Universe; I’m curious what Adams might do given the reigns of Justice League Unlimited, for instance. As far flung as the characters already mentioned, we also see Mr. Terrific, Director Bones, Agent Liberty Ben Lockwood(!), Nightshade (last seen running Quark’s on the Deep Space Watchtower in Alex Segura’s Question miniseries), the Phantom Stranger, Zauriel, and Aya (of animated Green Lantern fame); and G’nort pops up, having apparently been bumming around Hell for a while. Again, a lot of it rather stretches what makes sense for a Green Lantern title, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Variant covers are a market all in themselves, one I don’t pay much mind to, but it is astounding to see thumbnails of 12 variants in addition to what’s in the main of the book; you know variants are big when Green Lantern gets this many. Mirko Colak’s stuck out to me here specifically, with an almost zombified Starbreaker that underscore the character’s “space vampire” origins. Art in the book by Xermanico is strong as usual, and Fernando Pasarin is a fine fill-in. I have liked Jack Herbert’s resemblance to DC artists of the 1990s, though here I felt his Starbreaker was more silly than scary.

I’m enthusiastic about Green Lantern right now, going straight from Green Lantern Vol. 5: Fractured Spectrum to the new Green Lantern Corps title and then to the Starbreaker Supremacy crossover, and that’ll do it until after DC K.O. Clearly, with Odyssey, with Gold Beetle, with other recurring elements across Jeremy Adams' works, he’s got a grand plan for his corner of the DCU; I don’t know where that’s meant to manifest, but I’m eager to see it.

[Includes original and variant covers]