“My son will not make my name the laughingstock of a planet! In a few minutes it will be as if I never had a son!”
-Evyrt (Symon’s Father)
Green Lantern #169 (1983)
“Off on a Tanjent!”
Writer: Joey Cavalieri
Art: Howard Simpson (pencils), Gary Martin (inks), S.Ball (letterer), and G. D’angelo (colors)
“Sun-Fall: Part Two of the Lysandra Saga”
Writer: Jack C. Harris
Art: Jerome Moore (pencils), Sal Trampani (inks), Philip Felix (letterer), and Jeanine Casey (colors)
Framing sequence Art: Jose Delbo
Editor: Ernie Colon
I will never forget the first time I saw this cover!
The great Gil Kane! To this day one of my favorite covers of all time and my favorite Green Lantern artist. I wanted to read it. I knew who Green Lantern was from the Super Friends cartoons but really knew hardly anything about him. I traded some baseball cards in elementary school for this comic. I was an avid baseball fan growing up. I don’t have any baseball cards left. I turned them all into comics. I do sometimes wish I’d have kept all my illustrated Diamond Kings cards.
So the framing sequence is all we get of Hal Jordan in this story. And he is under a weird psychodrama mental test. Pretty much he is asleep essentially the whole issue. I remember as a kid flipping this open and thinking, huh? Needless to say I learned next to nothing about the greatest Green Lantern of that era. However I learned so much about what it means to be a Green Lantern. This comic is why I love the GL Corp to the day.
I grew up without ever knowing my birth father. I’ve never even seen him. He abandoned my Mom and me when I was very young. This first story called “Off on a Tanjent!” really pulled me in and I’ve never forgotten it. It’s why I’m including this comic on my blog. The art is good and introduced me to an Inker who would influence my art for years and years to come. I am talking about Gary Martin. Still my favorite comic book inker to this day.
But the story by Joey Cavalieri is the real star of this issue. A young boy named Symon is essentially sent away from his planet Superman style. Not because his planet is doomed, not because his safety is a priority, but because his father does not want him. You see Symon isn't like the other kids. He returns some time later to his planet as their new protector the Green Lantern. Guess you can see why I really identified with and enjoyed this great story. Lots of interesting twists make this a great comic for any GL fan. I highly recommend it for this story alone.
“Sun-Fall” is also good but you need to read part one to appreciate it. A great sci-fi, almost Star Trek worthy, commentary on religion and science by writer Jack C. Harris. While obviously written for a young audience it examines and challenges some concepts about religion both good and bad. Yet it uniquely neither condemns nor applauds it. A worthy addition to this issue as both examines what it takes to be a Green Lantern.
This is a great comic and really focused on the sci-fi nature of Green Lantern and also comments on both the world of the 80’s and still holds some relevance to the modern day. This comic deserves a spot in any serious GL fans collection in my opinion. You can get a good reader copy cheap and it's totally worth getting a copy.