Earth 2 #3
Written by James Robinson
Art by Nicola Scott, Trevor Scott, Alex Sinclair, and Pete Pantazis
The short of it:
It begins with what could be the end as a severely injured Alan Scott crawls through the wreckage of the train crash from last issue. Looking for his lover, he follows a green light that begins to speak to him. He thinks he’s hallucinating, that the pain is messing with his mind, but the pain fades. The light patches him back together, including replacing his eye. The light wants Alan to be the hero of Earth, not a hero, but the hero. It wants to empower him to save the world.
Meanwhile, in Poland, Jay Garrick meets Hawkgirl, as Fate has shown her the way to him. Unimpressed by his personality, she seeks to see if he’s at all capable with his new abilities and completely shows him up. What they see happening the countryside around them is their cliffhanger.
Back to Alan in China, fully healed, who receives the powers of the Green Lantern, to be a champion to save the world. He saves who he can from the train crash, but as he does his first foe rises from the ground in Washington seeking to kill him.
What I liked:
- I loved the entire sequence with Alan and the Green. From his accepting of his loss, to his body rebuilding itself, to him accepting his role as the guardian of the planet. Even the explanation for why his power is channeled through a ring was well handled.
- Jay’s first real attempt at superhuman combat comes up completely flat, and I like that. He has no proper combat training, and he’s fighting someone who does. He should get his ass beat.
- The Grey > The Rot
- Alan’s costume is awesome. Especially the former Kyle Rayner logo on his chest.
- The art is just one tremendous upside to this book. I’m so happy they held Nicola off for this because I get this feeling that it might be a good little while before we need a fill in artist (not counting the 0 issue).
- The allusions to Fate are really well put together.
What I didn’t like:
- Some of the dialog gets clunky. Like Jay yelling at Hawkgirl about why he should trust her when she didn’t ask him to, or random nameless people speaking in cliches during Alan’s debut.
- Jay is kind of an idiot. Just a little lot bit of one.
- So does Alan get a Lantern or not?
Final Thoughts:
So who is the avatar of the Red?
I love that there’s no alien space lantern made of magic to empower Alan. Cutting the Guardian ties clean away is the right way to go with his new origin as it creates the necessary split. Not to mention that given how DC has been treating their color named avatars, this is a bigger push than Swamp Thing.
Does that Hawk have real wings? Sweet!
Man, Alan’s redesign is a long time coming, a long time needed, and I’m a huge fan of it. Sure, the classic look is classic, but I wouldn’t be able to take someone dressed like that seriously. Baggy pants and shirt, giant cape, the whole thing was horribly dated. Especially the colors.
Man, the Rot is a lot faster to spread on Earth 2.
Great villain redesign on the last page.
Overall: 8.5/10
