In a series that has been full of cosmic opera of a Jim Starlin sort punctuated by whimsical weirdness comes the most Grant Morrisoneque story yet with issue seven: Emerald Sands. Hal Jordan’s latest adventure plays out as a bizarre fairytale wrapped in an enigma if this issue is your starting point. Fortunately by the end all is revealed bit by bit as you go along building towards the conclusion. It’s a surreally clever bit of storytelling to go from a bit of space cop, superhero adventure one issue and into a fantasyland with parallels to the Wizard of Oz. Morrison deftly shifts gears in a turn of tale telling in a move worthy of Alan Moore he goes way off the path thoroughly beaten by usual comic book convention to engage Hal in a unexpectedly quixotic quest.
Morrison weaves a dreamlike tale reflective of the situation that our hero finds himself in to great effect building upon past continuity but bringing something startlingly new to the table, an idea and scenario that to my knowledge had not been explored in such a way before. This particular story is quite trippy in an Alice In Wonderland sort of way and purposely so given the setting of a subconscious reality. I really don’t want to say to much about the plot as that would spoil the experience for anyone who hasn’t read this issue but this is one of the strangest and most interesting adventures our Lantern has gone on in my memory of the character and better still it lays the foundation of a myriad of future stories to be built upon to add to the mythology of not just Hal Jordan but to the Green Lantern corps and even the Guardians themselves. It will be fascinating to see where this idea might go in the future whether in Morrison’s own hands or some other author in down emerald brick road.
ART
Liam Sharp must be exhausted, having to do triple duty this issue providing pencils, inks and now colors. Yes colors as well! This task is made slightly easier and yet more difficult by the same degrees as the overwhelming palette of this book has to be rendered in shades of green and complementing cool colors. This could have easily gone horribly wrong and would have left the reader with a comic full of muddled, muddy and murky art but Sharp (who I’ve never seen color a comic before) does an admirable job of keeping characters and background elements distinguishable while using a limited color scheme.
This is also accomplished by the artist keeping the backgrounds either simple or creating images and characters that cannot be misconstrued for one another. His rendering of the surreal world and denizens that Hal encounters reminds me of the bizarre originality of Steve Dikto’s run on Dr Strange’s journey’s into astral dimensions and is equally weird but very uniquely Sharp’s own.
This inks do come across as a bit rushed to me but given herculean workload he took on this month I think that can be easily forgiven.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A rather bizarre jaunt out of the normal territory of a Green Lantern book and into something more akin to the works of Terry Gilliam but still I found myself well entertained by both this comic and the prospect of what might come of it later. 5 out of 5!
[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
(W) Grant Morrison (A) Liam Sharp (CA) Emanuela Lupacchino
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