Green Lantern #31: Almost a Crime Comic

Green Lantern #31 reads more like Hal guest starring in a Flash adventure than Barry guest starring in Green Lantern. Part of this is that the information Adams provides to catch readers up on Barry Allen’s current situation creates curiosity for the Flash series. This works well, providing a nice break in the Green Lantern’s ongoing storyline in a way that even the Green Arrow and Batman appearances didn’t.

The issue opens on Barry, and it’s his internal monologue that drives the first two pages. Adams gives the character a distinct voice within the issue, and for those first two pages Green Lantern #31 feels like a crime story. When the issue switches to Hal’s point of view, the crime story vibe as conveyed by internal monologue and dialogue is immediately dropped, and the reader is at home with Hal’s usual voice. That said, the mob boss oriented story persists through the whole issue which is what gives it the quality of being a Barry oriented story.

Hal’s Book of Oa conundrum is discussed for the equivalent of about two pages. Barry offers a novel answer to the situation. Adams continues to do a good job making the Book of Oa the driving force for Hal’s actions without bogging any of these issues down with it. In that way Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps provide very different experiences with this book much more interested in Hal as a character while the other continues with the larger Lantern storylines. It’s a good way to justify the existence of two Green Lantern titles. And in truth, the heavy character focus is making Green Lantern particularly compelling.

Barry’s chief opponent in Green Lantern #31 is a mob boss that he’s testifying against, but the main antagonist in the fight is a big bruiser in a suit named Bruto. Readers familiar with Peter David’s Incredible Hulk run will likely see the character as a carbon copy of Joe Fixit. Regardless of whether Montos took inspiration from that classic version of the Hulk, Bruto’s design works very well. The pinstripe suit associates him with the organized crime world he’s an enforcer for, and his size makes Hal’s difficulty fighting him believable.

Montos’s art feels at home in the kind of crime story Barry’s internal monologue fleshed out. Excessive lines and shading make the buildings feel old and worn down. But once the fight with Bruto begins, specific backgrounds are replaced in panels with colored fill. Most panels showing all or part of Bruto in motion are filled with lines extending outward and forward from a central point behind Bruto, emphasizing the larger character’s speed and power.

Character closeups are usually heavily lined and shaded, accentuating not just their features but the darker setting they find themselves in. The overall result of all of Montos’s art is a rough edged atmosphere–the perfect world for a threatened witness, dirty cops, and a mob boss. 

Fajardo Jr.’s coloring is slightly restrained relative to much of his work. The issue is set at night which naturally lends itself to darker shades. But the color palette overall is limited and the contrast between colors is subdued. These choices feel at home with Montos’s shading style which employs patches of very thin, close together lines or cross hatches. The major exception to this is Hal’s green constructs which radiate a bright green closer to Fajardo Jr.’s typical style: vivid yet soft.

Sharpe’s lettering choices, specifically his sound effect work, are considerably more expressive than most issues he works on. The sound effect fonts are almost all rough hewn, seemingly scratched into the pages as though they were a hard surface. The sound effects themselves are huge, at times going across entire panels. They are also opaque and thus cover up the artwork in those panels. The vast majority of these sound effects come during the hand to hand fight with Bruto, and they serve to emphasize the physical power behind the blows he and Hal’s constructs are landing on each other.