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Green Lantern #44 - Emergency Stop

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Hal and Trapper head to a planet to get some help, but someone else has seized control!

Hal and Trapper head to the planet Gallun to try and get the dying Virgo some help from the locals. However, a band of Thangarians has the port on lockdown, as they're raiding anything that flies into the city.

What's problematic about this issue is something that really works for it. Since the start of the New 52, Hal Jordan has been involved in a plethora of monolithic events and stories where it seems like there's no way out for the Green Lantern Corps. As cool as some of these stories seem, readers eventually get event fatigued. GREEN LANTERN #44 is a one-shot, and one that hearkens back to silver age stories of the hero going to a new world/city/land and having to save the people from the gang in town. This is very much a Wild West story where the Thanagarians are rough riders in town, and writer Robert Venditti pieces it together nicely.

The issue also delivers a fantastic fight scene that brings Hal and Trapper together, as a team, which believe it or not, really works well in the issue. Readers haven't seen a great fight scene like this, in the GREEN LANTERN series, in a while. It takes place on solid ground and has a very wild west feel to it. Plus, we're getting to know more about Trapper, whom has been a bit flat in past issues as a criminal Hal is trying to bring in. This team-up makes the book feel a bit fuller, since it's been pretty lonely for Hal since Convergence, even though he's been surrounded by people the entire time.

Here's the thing, while the story itself is a ton of fun, it feels like it interrupts the flow of an even better story, the one where Black Hand is turning everything into the Source Wall. Fans of the series get a good story but are going to feel let down with this "pit stop" issue which plays a bit like filler as it moves forward.

The only other problematic thing about this issue is that there's two different artists on the book, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. This is a case where it's down the middle and becomes more of a distraction than anything else as Billy Tan and Martin Coccolo split pencil duties. Hal Jordan looks different between the two artists, which is where the problem lies. On their own, they are both extremely talented artists, but there's some meshing problems here.

GREEN LANTERN #44 is a pit stop that breaks up the main story; however, it's done exceptionally well and reminds the reader that a Green Lantern's duty is more than blasting ships in the middle of space. A grounded story gives the book a nice break, even if it is a bummer that it's interrupting the main story. The issue is full of fun, bright action and is overall a ton of fun to read.