The Green Lantern Season 2 #1: And Now For Something Extremely Different…

Morrison reunites with Liam Sharp to set off the second season of the innovative (if somewhat convoluted) The Green Lantern. Sharp is predictably… sharp with gorgeous details and avant garde layouts throughout this first issue of a twelve issue run. Each page feels like an adventure unto itself and in many ways, they really are.

This issue flows in a series of stops and starts creating a stunted sense of pacing that can be jarring for readers new to Morrison’s sense of narrative structure. The sequence where Hal is supposed to be meeting with various other police forces from across the universe seems to start abruptly and end the same way. The main mission in this issue, the retrieval of the Young Guardians from Maltus, was also structured in an almost maddening way. Each time the reader feels like the scenario is starting to make sense, there is a sharp left turn into Wonderland, chasing an invisible white rabbit further down the spiral.

This madness is the beauty and the trap of reading a mainstream superhero narrative written by a man who operates in a very non-linear sort of way. Until the series is finished and wrapped up in trade dress, there is a distinct possibility that none of the happenings here will make very much sense. Even then, you run the risk of never quite grasping what Morrison is laying before you. As a reader, you need to decide for yourself if that is okay for you.

The promise of The Green Lantern in the structure of a police procedural seems like it may have been more of a red herring although the end of this issue does return Hal to Earth for a good, old fashioned stake-out (which I’m certain will not resemble anything like a good, old-fashioned stake-out). It will be interesting to see what direction Season 2 will take as an overarching narrative but the introduction of the Young Guardians, who will supposedly live, love and die, should make for an interesting direction for the Corps in the near future, if not a lasting impact on the Green Lantern lore.