The Green Lantern #8: Hard Traveling Heroes from Dimension Zero!!!!!

A callback laden issue that has some heart and some deep cut references. Xeen Arrow? Really? Besides a one off appearance from 1958 in Adventure Comics 253 and his giant arrow being in the Arrow Cave pre crisis he has pretty much not been seen in decades, to have the protector of Dimension Zero here is a strange call in that it’s odd to get a Green Arrow super deep reference in the Green Lantern book, but that’s Morrison for ya. I liked the multiple callbacks to the original hard traveling hero days, including some Neil Adams references, an Arrow Plane joke and more..

All of this is well and good but it’s seeming less and less likely we’re going to get a continuation or satisfying resolution from issue #6’s cliffhanger, and without that the first arc falls pretty flat on it’s face. I don’t know why Morrison decided to completely blow off the Blackstar story without properly finishing it seemingly. Not to say it can’t come back around but seeing the solicits for the next couple issues if it does it’ll be in a few more months and that is frankly bull****.

The art by Liam Sharp is excellent as always he does his best Neil Adams impression on some of the Green Arrow panels and it’s so dang good! I loved the panel with Ollie on the flying horse construct and they see the giant arrow. The scale of the giant arrow is really cool when they’re flying above it and I love the way it’s rendered.

The story was bookended by some devil looking hitmen doing stuff, resulting in a big time villain reveal. I do hope this villain reveal leads to a return in the police procedural that we moved away from last issue and are somewhat toeing the line of this issue. Although this issue does involve drug busts and such Hal is on leave so he’s more like an off duty cop hanging out with his buddy who’s a security guard and they pull their guns and pistol whip a guy for a while. It’s… less good when you try and define it. and that’s a pretty good way to summarize Morrison’s Green Lantern.