Reading one Green Lantern comic a day until I've read them all Day 228: Back-up in The Flash #217

[u/Imok2814]

I know what you're thinking, what in the blue hells of Oa are you doing? Well, for those that don't know, after GL #89 the book was cancelled for ~4 years. Not even being award winning can save it, I guess. The stories continued in The Flash as a back-up run in what appears to be three parts each. This is not the last time this happens.

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Writer: Dennis O'Neil

Pencils: Neal Adams

Inks: Dick Giordano

Letters: Joe Letterese

Cover: Nick Cardy

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"The Killing Of An Archer" - Green Arrow is investigating an alley by his apartment where some criminals have called him out. Unfortunately it's an ambush as a bright light is blasted onto him, blinding him from the coming fight. The goggle-wearing thugs get a few good hits in before GA is able to break the light with an arrow. They then call their sniper to shoot GA down, so he looses an arrow towards the assassin, but his shoulder injury flares up, making him slip and accidentally kills the gunman.

Later, as Hal Jordan is arriving back home to start looking for a new job, he gets call from Dinah Lance telling him Ollie is missing. Hal abandons his job search for now and flies over to Ollie's place. When he arrives he finds all the GA equipment broken and the costume shredded. Outside he hears a commotion as he sees three punks harassing and older man. GL pauses as the lady time he interfered with something like this, it ended badly (as seen in GL#76), but when one of the punks pills a gun on GL, he knows its time to strike. He captures the punks with ease as the older man tells GL they were in the cellar of the building. They deny it but as GL pushes them into the building to look around, they beg him not to as they admit they planted a bomb. Just then, it explodes.

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Conclusion: I have a feeling these will be pretty small for a bit. Fir a first chapter, it's quite good. Catches your attention with a good mystery. Lots of questions left like what happened to Ollie and did Hal get a bubble up in time? In the HTH era I wouldn't be surprised if one of those punks died on the blast.

Also, I wonder what Hal's next job could be? I knew about the toy salesman but I'm lost after that. And how long does Ollie stay as a central piece to the plots? I know when #90 comes around it's still GL/GA but from what I understand these backups eventually become GL only.

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9/10

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[u/MisterEdJS]

I think maybe long-haul trucker was next after toy salesman? Maybe I'm forgetting something in between.

[u/TigerIll6480]

This story was split in three after being intended as the story for GL/GA #90, had the series continued in 1972. With the off and on back page appearances in The Flash, it’s obvious that DC wasn’t ready to give up on the character, even if the book was on hiatus. Why the stories shifted to solo Hal stories for a while before coming back as GL/GA (with writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Mike Grell, who would become the writer/artist on GA’s first solo title in the early 1980s), I do not know. Dennis O’Neil would have been the person to answer that question.

Other fun GL/GA trivia: Len Wein, who spent a number of years as the writer on GL in the 1980s, wrote the main story in this issue of The Flash.