GREEN LANTERN Season Two
Back Down To Earth
RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC Comics
Writer Grant Morrison
Artist Liam Sharp
Grant Morrison’s superhero comics come in one of two forms. Some, like All-Star Superman or his run on Batman, strike a balance between comic book heroics and his more esoteric inclinations. Others, like this absolutely bananas run on Green Lantern, now in its second season, plunge fully off the deep end into cosmic madness.
Space cop Hal Jordan is having a blast exploring the galaxy, when he’s pulled onto a stake-out duty. Unfortunately it’s on the one planet where he has no desire to be right now: Earth.
Still, it’s far from a boring mission. While there he has to contend with a race of giant birds, a Lovecraftian weather god and a deadly married couple. We also meet a new Lantern, Ryk, who is made entirely out of salt.
Morrison and artist Liam Sharp take an episodic approach, with each issue having its own different style and (mostly) self-contained adventure. Some, like #2’s giant bird rumble, are as brainbendingly odd as anything in Morrison’s Vertigo work; cool, weird and full of pithy dialogue (for example: “Lucky for you I’m an advocate of space-age Wiccan polyamory"). Others, like the encounter with weather god Ummiu, are comparatively straightforward tales, though still rendered in striking fashion by Sharp. He swerves away from his usual intricate work for a more painterly style reminiscent of Simon Bisley here, and into vivid pop art with #5.
You’ll scratch your head in bafflement from time to time, but the collaboration of this writer, this artist and colourist Steve Oliff is a boundlessly creative joy.
Will Salmon
Salt Lantern Ryk was inspired by a panel in a 1971 Strange Adventures, featuring crystal beings from the planet Karalyx.