The Stop Button

I’ve avoided Ron Marz’s Green Lantern comics. I’ve always assumed Kyle Rayner is a tool and the comics would be bad.

If this Retroactive is any indication, I’ve been right all along. Though it’s mildly amusing to think about what Marz does with the character–he’s turned an eighties Spider-Man comic (a poorly written one) into a DC space hero comic book. If it weren’t terribly written, it might be sort of fun.

But Marz’s big problem in this issue is Kyle’s first person narration. He talks to the reader, explaining the events on the page. One time it works to good effect, the rest it’s annoying. Marz spends half the narration explaining why Green Lantern is just like “you,” which is idiotic. Or he’s making fun of the Green Lantern mythology. In a Green Lantern comic.

The ending–presumably unintentionally–reveals Kyle to be a power-mad fascist.

CREDITS

Hothead; writer, Ron Marz; penciller, Darryl Banks; inker, Terry Austin; colorist, Allen Passalaqua; letterer, Wes Abbott; editor, Ben Abernathy; publisher, DC Comics.