ACW #601 – Green Lantern

Action Comics Weekly #601 – Green Lantern
“… And the Pain Shall Leave My Heart”
Story – James Owsley
Art – Gil Kane
Letters – Albert DeGuzman
Colors – Anthony Tollin
Editor – Denny O’Neil

Alright gang… today starts a whole new adventure for us!  It is the first installment of Action Comics Daily… and we’re starting with a chapter that I feel I know inside and out.

This is the story where many “reading project” attempts began… and, was the first part of a nearly six-hour long podcast series we did last Fall!

If you’re interested in that, give the pic a click!

Without further delay… let’s take our first steps on this journey together.

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We open with Star Sapphire having a space battle with a (rather goofy-looking) construct of Hal Jordan.  She laments the fact that she once loved him… but now, there’s only hate.  Ya see, she blames him for the fact that her people have vanished… and she’s going to eventually want her pound of flesh.  Meanhwhile on Earth, Hal and his… girlfriend, Arisia are couchin’ it at John and Katma’s place.  It looks like this “living arrangement” might be a bit too close for comfort for the Stewarts.

Hal complains that he’s broke (what else is new?), and so John suggests he… get this… goes off and robs a South African Diamond Mine!  No joke… he actually suggests this.  At the same time, Katma is reaming out Arisia for hogging the shower.

John ensures Hal that the African Mine is closed down… so, it’ll just be a case of “finder’s keepers”, and so our man is Africa-bound.  One page later, he’s there picking up diamonds… and getting shot at!  He uses his ring to disarm the soldiers, and asks himself why he doesn’t feel all that bad about breaking the law.

Back in the City, Star Sapphire pays the Stewart apartment a visit… annnnnd kills Katma-Tui!  They’re not messing around here, folks.

We wrap up with Hal returning to the pad, only to find John Stewart hunched over the body of his now-dead wife.  Naturally, John blames Hal.

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Well, that’s what we in the biz call “hitting the ground running”!

With this opening chapter, it’s established right out the gate that we’re playing for keeps.  The Green Lantern feature is arguably/certainly the “headliner” for the first two-thirds of this weekly-run, and straight away we can see that this will be an important “chapter” of Green Lantern/Hal Jordan “lore” (or, at least it was intended to be at the time).

A little housekeeping and context.  Not too long ago, we read some of the tail end of Green Lantern Corps, featuring the Trial of Sinestro.  I’ll link to them here, so you can get caught up… and get a better sense as to why the Corps is no more, and how that ties into Star Sapphire being in a not-so-great mood.

All told, this was a chapter that would make fans of Green Lantern stand up and take notice.  Katma’s death is one that actually would stick for rather a long time… one of the few bits of Lantern-flavored Action Comics Weekly “legacy” that would continue past this run!

I haven’t figured out how we’re going to “wrap up” these piecemeal posts yet.  It feels weird to recommend a single story in an anthology… so, maybe we’ll save that for when we compile these pieces into the full-blown issue discussion.  I’ll also be sharing the “Interesting Ads” and Letters Pages for the “done in one” posts.  The Letters Pages will eventually get fun… as they poll the readers every week as to their favorite anthological offering of weeks’ past.  Those will likely be neat to contend with!

See ya tomorrow for some Wild Dog!