About Heroes

Holy crap - Omar's posting so much, and he's such a Marvel zombie (in the old-fashioned, good-natured way, not in the Siver Surfer head-eating way), that I need to get to work on some DC posts to even the scales!

My mildly spoilerish review:

Bruce and Hal finally meet to settle old differences and do some old-fashioned crime-fighting. The Tattooed Man, whose, uh, tattoos can come to life (and this is actually Tattooed Man II - apparently the concept is good enough that two guys felt the need to carry its mantle) is terrorizing folks around Gotham - murdering them and writing their 'sins' (such as "Rude to Waiters") on their chests. Apparently, Bruce decides that a man whose tattoos come to life is right up Hal's alley, so he has Ollie call him up.

That's right, Batman asks Green Arrow to call Green Lantern, because he doesn't want to call Hal himself. This can go two ways: either Batman is just being a jerk, or he realizes that after their last meeting, a direct call might not go so well. Remember, the last time Hal and Bruce talked, Bruce tried to rope Hal with a batarang and Hal decked him for it.

Batman, never being one to tiptoe around an issue, is all business in the cave. He essentially tells Hal about the TM's rampage, and tells him to go deal with it. Hal protests. Bruce decks him (see panel at left for the aftermath of that). Evidently, this was all that was needed to clear the air, so they go together.

Summing up the rest of the issue very quickly: Green Lantern and Batman take down the Tattooed Man, who gets a little bit of interesting exposition in the meantime, by using some good, old-fashioned teamwork (in other words, one plays the decoy, and one takes the guy out). This done, Bruce and Hal have a final exchange, where Hal gives Bruce the ring.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen: Bat-Lantern!

But not for long; just enough for Bruce to recognize the gift that Hal has tried to give him by allowing him to give his thoughts substance, to possibly reach out and touch the one thing he'll never be able to get back, and to realize that he's not ready to do so. Not yet.

This issue comes on the heels of the "softening" of the Batman in the pages of Infinite Crisis 3 and 4. Pre-IC Batman, the "I am a dick to everyone" Batman, couldn't have had this exchange with Hal Jordan. While it's not clear when exactly this occurs vis-a-vis IC, it works along the lines being developed for Batman in that book extremely well. This Batman is human; he has emotional needs, such as anger, that need to be sated before he can move on, but he's willing to spend effort to rebuild relationships that seemed permanently broken.

It's unfortunate that this Batman isn't showing up much in the books with "Bat" in the title, but that's a seperate issue altogether.

This issue also has a great GL moment at the beginning - apparently, someone remembers that Hal wiped out the Corps singlehandedly. About damn time. And it's also perfectly in line with Hal Jordan to not particularly give a damn that some of the new lanterns might be gunning for him.

Ethan van Sciver's art in this issue is almost perfect - he puts some distractingly pointy noses on cowls and masks, but other than that, I just love it.

The only thing this issue needs to make it a perfect Hal Jordan story is a panel like this:

... "other person's"? I guess grammar was just different back in the Silver Age.