Well, I'm at the end of this short but confusing event. It's been a tough ride, but it's about to be over. Today's issues are Zero Hour #0 and Green Lantern #0. The creative team for this last issue is still Jurgens and Ordway. For the Green Lantern issue, Ron Marz is writing, Daryl Banks is pencilling, and Romeo Thangal is inking. ZH #0 was the other issue that I used to own back in the day. Unfortunately, it got torn up eventually. I do remember seeing a page or two around the room before it got thrown away. I never owned the GL issue. The only reason I recently got it was to see what happened to our new GL and former GL. Since it literally continues from this event book, I thought I would talk about it here today.
Well, without further adue (?), let's see if Zero Hour #0 and Green Lantern #0 is worth it.
Zero Hour #0
The story starts out with a monologue from Parallax. He tells Guy Gardener (Warrior), Alpha Centurian, Batgirl, Trimuph (some random hero who isn't supposed to exist or something), and Extant about why he has done this. He tells them about what happened in the "Emerald Twilight" storyline. He also asks them to join his cause in rewriting the universe. Guy doesn't believe he has the power to do that, but Hal tells him he can and then exposits on how he destroyed all of existence. I will tell you this... "Wibbly wobbly, Timey wimey"! Basically, he found the remaining from the old Crisis, he absorbed it, and he then creates the rupture. He also tells them that he was able to save his younger self from issue 4.
Elsewhere, Waverider was able to save a few heroes and teleports them to Vanishing Point. He has brought these heroes for certain reasons. We have Superman, Hawkman, Donna Troy (Darkstar), GL Kyle Rayner, Damage, Green Arrow, Ray, the de-aged Atom, and Captain Atom. Some believe it's a hopeless cause since Hal has gone "All-Deity" on them. Still, Waverider has got a plan, so they go do their thing.
Back in... the Ether (?), Parallax tries to sway his "captives" over to his side. Alpha Centurion and Batgirl are tempted because their worlds don't exist, and even Guy is swayed a little. Then, Hal gives one of the most obviously evil faces I have ever seen. Yeah, I definitely want this guy to be over all existence. I hope you note the sarcasm there. Suddenly, Parallax falls to the... floor (it's weird) as Waverider and the heroes come to kick some mighty butt. AC and Batgirl fight the heroes alongside Parallax while Guy says "screw it" and starts to beat up Extant. All right, Guy! Elsewhere, Triumph does nothing and stares at the action with his Mark-Paul Gossaler-looking self.
Yeah... I'd put my trust in this guy!
Parallax is able to get the upper hand on all of the heroes when suddenly, the Spectre comes in and start to kick some butt. He really is kicking butt for the Lord, ain't he? During all of this, Green Arrow fights Batgirl and Superman fights AC. Superman is able to knock out AC but Ollie is having trouble convincing Batgirl that Parallax is no good. Parallax is able to eventually defeat the Spirit of Vengeance. Waverider then puts his plan into action. He has some of the heroes absorb Hal's leftover energy. Then, he tells them to give all of the energy to Damage, who is basically a living A-bomb.
Parallax sees what their doing and tries to stop it, but Kyle gets to him first. He knocks out Kyle and is about to kill Damage when Batgirl comes to her senses and jumps in front of the blast. This ends up killing Batgirl and Green Arrow is outraged. He takes his bow and shoots his former best friend in the chest. Kyle was holding onto Hal when it happened and they both disappear into... something. At that moment, Damage goes critical and... we have a new Big Bang.
Liri-Lee watches at Vanishing Point as the universe is destroyed then recreated in front her eyes. Waverider and everyone else are in the midst of seeing all of this while they're protected in a time bubble. Waverider was unable to get Hal and Kyle in the bubble though. As they see the universe get recreated, Batgirl and Alpha Centurion disappear from the timestream. The heroes are all shocked (well, most of them) as they see history unfold. Extant telelports out of there and goes off somewhere.
I just love the looks on their faces. A lot are in awe, Ollie is depressed, Damage is like"Dude!!! I did that!", and Extant is peeved. Extant always looks peeved.
They then reach the point where the universe ended. Waverider's plan is to to merge the heroes with their other selves. He had a point where he could have snagged Kyle and Parallax, but it all happened too soon. The merging is a success and the universe is saved once again. Kyle and Hal are presumed dead and it also turns out that Power Girl has had her baby. Ollie goes off somewhere to grieve, Waverider heads back to Vanishing Point, and there is a new Time Trapper. THE END.
For an added bonus. the back cover of the comic book folds out to six pages (front and back) and they detail the DCU's pivotal moments in history. We go from the beginning of time to the end of time.
Instead of giving my opinion now, I'll save it for the bottom. Now, let's see what happened to 'Ole Kyle and Swingin' Hal...
Green Lantern #0
The issue starts out as Kyle and Hal fight each other in some sort of vortex. I like how the arrow is still embedded in Hal's chest and he's still putting up a fight. The two eventually land on Oa, former headquarters of the Green Lantern Corps, and it still looks decimated. There are dead bodies all over. See... read "Emerald Twilight" and you'll understand. Basically, Hal decimated the GLC, so they had to look for a new champion. That champion was Kyle Rayner and he is now the only GL in the universe. On the decimated Oa, the two go at it with Kyle going a little Obi-Wan on us:
I feel like yelling "You were the chosen one!" for some reason.
Kyle is able to knock out the demigod and Hal sees Kilowog's remains and starts to grieve over what he's done. He exposits to Kyle that he only wanted to make things better. This makes Kyle lower his defense and the two talk about what they lost. We also get a recap on Kyle's origin up to this point. Kyle then gets a strange idea: give Hal his old ring back. Remember that Kyle just recently got his ring, so he's not the brightest right now. Hal puts it on and his original suit comes back.
Who knew that Geoff Johns would take what Kyle say to heart 10 years later?
Then the crazy man starts to ramble about how he will absorb Oa's energy and start trying to recreate the universe again. Now Kyle realizes he made a mistake. Kyle asks for his ring back but Hal won't give it to him. Kyle then tells Hal off and Hal decides to start blasting at Kyle.Kyle ends up falling underground in to the Corps' memorial cemetery. Kyle is able to distract Hal and get his ring back. The two go back to fighting but Hal is able to win because of his experience.
Hal then tries to sway Kyle by showing him a construct of Alex, his dead girlfriend. The construct even starts talking to Kyle. For a moment, Kyle is swayed by this offer, but he knows it wouldn't be real. He then starts to do what Ganthet told him to do when he got the ring: destroy Oa. Hal tries to stop him, but even he can't stop this. The planet blows up. In the debris, a single person flies out: Kyle Rayner - Green Lantern. I guess Hal was like "Screw it! I'm gone!" or something.
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And that ends this event. Let's look at the issues first and then do a overall look at the event itself.
The last issue of this event was pretty good. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. As usual, the artwork is still pretty decent. It's not as great here as it was in previous issues, but it's still good. I like that the issue was to the point and pretty focused on what's going on. I even liked the really weird stuff... a new Big Bang? That's just something that looks like it came out of Doctor Who or something. There isn't much about it I don't like. I do think that it felt like it just ended with little resolution. The thing I thought was most cool about this issue was the 6-page foldout at the end. It's a somewhat-detailed layout of the history of the DCU. If only the New 52 had something like that...
The Green Lantern issue was actually pretty entertaining. I liked that it literally spun out of the last issue to this event. We have what some consider the greatest Green Lantern going up against a rookie. Hal comes off a little more sympathetic here than in the event. Here, he wants to correct mistakes and have another chance. The problem with that, of course, is the fact that means destroying all of time and space. That's not a good thing. I also like how Hal comes off a little crazy here. What he says when Kyle is trying to get the ring back is one example.
I also like how Kyle is presented here. He doesn't have experience in these situations and it shows a lot. Yeah, he was stupid for giving the ring to Hal, but Kyle really went through some stuff when he got that ring. The issue is definitely a jumping on point for this version of Kyle if one wants to see about this cool replacement. I thought the artwork was pretty good. It had dark feel to it all and that makes sense because they are basically fighting on a graveyard. It kinda makes me want to check out some more of this Rayner guy.
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Overall, this is a pretty decent event. The main series had some problems because there were points where I didn't know what was going on. The main story was fine, but there were other subplots that made little sense. The LoS subplot was an example. Heck, the Hawkman subplot actually made more sense than that! Anyway, while this "Crisis" event is not my favorite, it still had some good moments. In a way, I liked the Superman tie-ins that were part of this event a little more. There was a lot of fun to be had with them. The first two tie-ins were pretty cool. The third one wasn't that good but it did provide some laughs because of the bad artwork. The last one was pretty cool as well.
Well, that's all I got on this event. It was cool to finally look at this event through older, experienced eyes. If you want to look at some 90's weirdness, check out the event. Peace out and God Bless.
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