Review: Absolute Green Lantern Vol. 2: Sojourner hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

In comparison to the Absolute Big Three plus Absolute Martian Manhunter, I rated Al Ewing’s Absolute Green Lantern Vol. 1 among my least favorite of the Absolute books. I wondered whether manga-forward artist Jahnoy Lindsay was the right fit for Ewing’s story; also Ewing’s flashback-structure tale often told us too much what we already knew and not enough what we didn’t. There was a strong Stephen King-esque tale of aliens and apocalypse there, something like James Tynion’s Nice House on the Lake trying to peek through, but it ultimately got lost among some standard superheroic fisticuffs.

Absolute Green Lantern Vol. 2: Sojourner is highly redemptive. At least twice Ewing delivers the kind of rare pulse-pounding sequences that most comics writers only dream of. I love how many fronts there are, enemies upon enemies and conflicts upon conflicts, the Absolute book most like a TV show and the one most likely to take a few seasons to get to everything that’s here.

At times when I began to bounce off Absolute Green Lantern again, a lot of it was how different these characters are — one in particular — from their mainstream DC Universe counterparts. The Absolute Big Three have differences, but they’re essentially recognizable in personality as their doppelgängers; not so much in Lantern. But too, were this an Image comic that fell in my lap, the characters all brand new, I’d probably be really into it.

[Review contains spoilers]

Hal Jordan spends most of this book unconscious, and when he does wake up, he’s a floppy-haired dude in a T-shirt with a shaggy beard, more Yorick Brown than fearless test pilot Hal Jordan. That gave me pause, as mentioned; though Ewing teases a jet plane, there’s really nothing of “our” Hal in this Hal, which you couldn’t say about the Absolute Jimmy Olsen or Etta Candy or Selina Kyle or what have you.

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I held that for a moment and then let it go, and this book that I was already enjoying opened up a little farther for me. I have no great connection to the mainstream Hal, finding him increasingly the stodgiest and least interesting of the Lanterns, and if I don’t balk at Absolute’s different Guy Gardner, why be bothered by Hal? I think Ewing erred in making Hal the first character we met in this series, but clearly the book’s star is Jo Mullein; if I didn’t know these characters, Hal would be the plucky comitragic sidekick, and understanding that removed a stumbling block.

Indeed, I was already in it at that point. We’ve got here some great multi-layered spy stuff — Jo goes to ex-wife and DEO agent Cameron Chase for help, and Chase agrees really because she’s sidelined at work and looking for some leverage. There’s interpersonal baggage, questions of emotions and love and rings, but then also Chase uncovering facts through Jo’s story of the Lantern and her inconsistencies — some of the best Chase material we’ve had in a while.

But then — Ewing’s Absolute Green Lantern #10 is a banger, its own issue-long thriller with Jo shot and bleeding on Chase’s floor and the assassin Goldface stalking her into the kitchen while Jo struggles to pull gold bullets out of her body with pliers. It is completely blood-soaked, again the line between Absolute and the mainstream, with artist Sid Kotian drawing rictal faces like something out of Neal Adams. There’s no question really that Jo’s going to make it, but it’s so intense — plus agents Simon Baz and Kari Limbo arriving right after — that I was never totally sure anyone was safe.

And then — Ewing does it again. Our cast is gathered at a safe house — Jo, Hal, Chase, Kari, and Simon; Kari gets a psychic vision that fills in more of the mythos gaps, at least for the audience; and then the monstrous Obsidian barges in, killing her. That’s the death the book has been preparing us for, but it’s shocking nonetheless — Kari could have easily remained a supporting character — followed by another thriller chase through a warehouse with a monster at the group’s heels. Another pulse-pounding sequence, Ewing having reminded us that no character is guaranteed, and all of the sudden Absolute Green Lantern’s found its footing to stand with the other books.

It does appear we’re headed to space with the next volume, unless Tomar Re should get involved with the doings on Earth. The weakest part of this book for me was the first chapter, a detour to a pitched space battle that could as easily have been an issue of the regular Green Lantern title. Ewing does fine here giving answers from the villains' perspective, so the philosophies are nicely backward and require some translation. But guest artist Jason Howard can’t accomplish the “alienness” that Lindsay conveyed to Abin Sur, so we get a Black Star Kilowog that looks basically like “our” Kilowog and others who come off comical rather than threatening.

That’s worrisome, because so far Absolute Green Lantern has reasonably held its own (better now) with the action all terrestrial. Space and evil planets and something like a “corps” is inevitable, but here in a volume where Ewing’s riding high, the part where Absolute Green Lantern looks like the same old thing is exactly where we’re going. If this book is about to launch itself, I’m concerned whether it can stick the landing.

Al Ewing’s Absolute Green Lantern Vol. 2: Sojourner didn’t make the top of my reading pile when it arrived, but it’ll be a different story when the third volume is published in December. Suspense is hard in comics — the audience controls their own reading pace, the sound effects are all in your head, most of the characters are protected as intellectual property. When a book surmounts all that, it’s worth watching; as someone who was tentative about Absolute Green Lantern Vol. 1, I’ll say this book is worth another shot with volume two.

[Includes original and variant covers]

Rating 3.0