After months of Parallax Hal Jordan cruising through the cosmos, he's finally come to Coast City and taking on an extremely powerful Hal Jordan.
For fans of the GREEN LANTERN series, this is the issue you've been waiting for. The creative team has been building towards the Parallax/Hal Jordan confrontation, and it truly pays off. Half of the issue is this epic fight sequence between the two characters, but the first half feels more geared towards newer readers: those not familiar with Parallax. Writer Robert Venditti does a fantastic job of introducing this character to readers, catching them up with who this character is and why Coast City means so much to him, and giving them a sense of his purpose. At the same time, readers who are familiar with the Green Lantern mythos won't feel like Venditti is trampling over well-tread ground. It's information fans know, but still feels new.
The action sequences within this issue look great and really work. There's an excellent flow, from panel to panel, as both Billy Tan and Vincente Cifuentes work on pencils, Mark Irwin, John Livesay, and Cifuentes on inks, and Alex Sinclair and Tony Avina on colors. While there's a lot of "chefs in the kitchen," their styles flow together extremely well. Sure, there's a few times where the reader can tell there's a change in the art; however, because of the flow and the fact these artist's styles are similar, it never becomes distracting. This team makes some beautiful looking battles. There's destruction, chaos, barnyard animals, and fully detailed sequences. What makes this really pop is Sinclair and Avina's colorwork. You need a strong colorist on a book like GREEN LANTERN, and this issue has a couple of the best that DC has to offer.
The action-packed issue does has its flaws though. It sacrifices some character development and plot progression in order to deliver a battle between these characters, and normally, that wouldn't be a problem. However, this is a super-sized issue, which means there's a lot more room to work with. There are 40 pages of story here, and while the issue is good, it just feels a tad thin at times.
This issue leaves Hal at a very peculiar place. Krona's gauntlets are changing him, and what happens to him is is pretty crazy at the end of the issue. The battle between Hal and Parallax isn't over, but now there's a battle for Hal to save himself. The issue leaves the reader wanting more.
GREEN LANTERN #50 may cost a little more, but you're getting a double-sized issue. This is the issue fans have been waiting for and it really delivers some great action sequences. On the downside, the issue does feel a little thin in the way of story and plot progression, but overall, this was a great read, and it's leading to something bigger.