5/7 Comic Reviews: Grand Guignol
Alright! Another week, another set of... (What’s that? It hasn’t been a week? Wait... so it’s been... How many months?! Oh... Oh, my... What happened? Oh, well... you know. A lot happened and... my pencil broke. It just took a while to get a new one in, tariffs and all.) ANYWAY. Let’s pretend it’s only been a week and move on to what everyone’s here for!
Absolute Green Lantern #2 written by Al Ewing with art by Jahnoy Lindsay
“Be without fear.”
Not exactly an easy thing to do in the second issue of the newest book in the Absolute Universe. The first issue presented us with a before-and-after look at Hal Jordan, giving us hints at the consequences of the alien arrival in Evergreen. We knew that he was having lunch with two friends when a ship(?) suddenly appeared in the sky and projected a forcefield over their town. Five days after that, Hal is barely holding himself together and his hand is inhabited by something that is attacking anyone who poses a potential risk to him. The issue ended with the revelation that his friend Jo Mullein has also gained powers of a decidedly greener variety. This issue continues the narrative from both points in time and makes it clear that there is even more going on beneath the surface than it initially appeared.
The story from five days ago has Hal, Jo, and their friend John Stewart standing among a crowd of onlookers as an alien referred to as “the” Abin Sur descends before them. Longtime fans would no doubt recognize the name, but little else about this mysterious visitor resembles the heroic veteran who used his dying breath to induct Hal Jordan into a galactic police force. What we are presented with here is an emissary claiming to have come from the “green level of light,” who continuously tells the public to “be without fear,” while giving them every reason to feel the opposite. Luckily, local sheriff Guy Gardener is on the scene. As a GL fan, my first thought was “oh, no...” Guy is a great character, but one thing he has never been known for is diffusing tension. That said, this is a brave new world and Ewing is making it increasingly clear that we can not assume that these characters are the same ones we know and love. Both Guy and Abin Sur make unexpected choices and the situation escalates in an entirely different way. A few bloody panels later and John is trying to keep a young cop’s blood in his body and Hal Jordan is staring down this strange judge with a gun he picked up from another fallen officer. The reason why I mention the gun is that it may very well be the cause of Hal’s current predicament. In the present, as he and Jo try to catch each other up on what they missed, he briefly forms a gun out of the black hand and implies that it’s actually the gun that’s been fused with him. In his words, there’s a sentience to this thing, and “it wants to win the argument.” In the mainstream universe, the lights come from the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum with each light being attuned to a specific emotion. Green is associated with willpower while black is associated with the absence of emotion, i.e. death. In this universe, they appear to be something akin to sentient ideas that have gained some degree of physicality. Maybe the gun is a symbolic representation of death, making it a conduit for that power? Despite ostensibly being the protagonist, we still know very little about Jo and what has led to her gaining the green light. It may represent will in the same way we know, or it may be fueled by something else entirely. Driving the ambiguity even further is that both of them refer to their powers as “gifts” from Abin Sur. Hal says it with a bitter irony, but it still raises the question of whether or not this is all by the alien’s design, and, if so, what his motives could possibly be. As the issue concludes, we’re left with an ominous hint of conflict to come along with a sign that whatever did happen, the three friends were hardly passive about it.
Despite seeing very little of him, John Stewart is the character by whom I am most intrigued. He gives very little of himself away, but he’s proven to be calm and decisive in the face of danger, something Abin Sur has appeared to take notice of. His fate in the present day is a mystery, so he may have also received some sort of “gift” or met an altogether darker fate. The final scene of the issue makes it clear that whatever happened, he was right in the center of it.
Jahnoy Lindsay’s art is practically jumping off the page with how kinetic it is. There’s a tinge of animesque sensibility to the pencils and colors, both of which he’s doing himself. It lends just a bit of heightening to the art which is perfect for a story about ordinary people slowly descending into cosmic horror. He’s also using more muted colors for much of the story and contrasting them with a vibrant green whenever Abin Sur and his strange light come into play. It helps emphasize the alien nature of this power and certainly presents it as more heroic than the dark mass of tentacles fused with Hal. The art does not shy away from violence either. The first issue maintained its mystery with several moments of cut away violence, but this time we see limbs and heads go flying as first contact goes poorly. Not only is it horrific, it hammers home just how out of their depth the human characters are. This book is gorgeous and striking a pitch perfect balance of horror and wonder which is exactly what I want from a superhero sci-fi story.
We’re six books into the Absolute Universe now and each book has consistently knocked it out of the park. Absolute Green Lantern is telling a story unlike anything we’ve seen from the franchise, subverting and recontextualizing the familiar into something strange and new. This issue hints at depths of lore that I’m excited to see more of, as well as a visual feast that stands out even among a line of insanely beautiful books. This book is shooting for the stars and lighting up the night.
Absolute Superman #7 written by Jason Aaron with art by Carmine di Giandomenico
Grotesque horror is on the menu this week as the newest issue of Absolute Superman opens with a group of Omega Men attempting to locate and destroy Brainiac, thereby striking a massive blow against the Lazarus Corporation. Unfortunately, they are going in with the assumption that Brainiac is little more than a highly advanced AI that won’t require more than a few blown up servers to do away with. They learn firsthand that their enemy is far more than what they anticipated when they’re met his size-changing beam to truly horrific results. Brainiac shrinking cities to fit in bottles is a long-established part of the character, but here we see the disturbing results of changing the size of part of a person. A few panels of people breaking out of their skin or vomiting up their own skeleton as they melt into a boneless puddle makes it clear that Superman’s foe is someone truly frightening. All of that pales comparison, however, to the poster child of body horror we see as we get our first look at the Absolute universe version of Brainiac. The best way I can describe him is if the mainstream Brainiac was crossed with the Joker. The comparisons to the Clown Prince of Crime don’t end there either. Brainiac has always been known for being emotionless and speaking with an eloquent monotone. This version swaps between a folksy casual style of speech before reverting back to eloquent, seemingly on a dime. Coupled with sudden flashes of deranged violence, it’s clear that this version of the villain is hardly the calm and precise machine we were expecting. But then, Aaron does something I would have said was impossible. He introduces us to this unhinged madman of a villain... and then he makes us pity him.
Not only are we introduced to Brainiac, we’re given his backstory too. It’s not dissimilar to the world his counterpart comes from, but much like our absolute heroes, he was born at the bottom rung of the ladder. From the moment he came online, he lived in isolation shoveling the corpses of his deceased brethren into a furnace. He was given a task without possibility of promotion or any kind of reprieve besides his death. It’s no wonder that the gentle, curious soul descended into the madness of the present day. Considering how much Brainiac has been teased out, I was not expecting as many answers as we received. That said, there are plenty of answers left to be revealed. While we can infer that he wandered the stars post-breakdown until he arrived on Earth, there is still the question of how he became beholden to Ra’s al Ghul. Considering how much power he’s shown to have, the fact that he’s subordinate Ra’s only makes the faceless villain even more imposing. There is also the question of the Brainiac Collective. Our Brainiac appears to be on the outs with them given his mental state, and while they’re certainly not altruistic from what we see, they may prove to be his foes as much as Superman will. Speaking of the Man of Steel, we don’t even see him in this issue! If I’d known that going in, I might have been discouraged, but the backstory we’re given is so compelling that the issue was over before I’d even realized.
Of all the Absolute books, this issue has felt the most like it’s beginning to tap into a broader mythology. Conversations with the Collective allude to “the Adepts of Oa” and the “Dark Stars,” both of which may catch the attention of readers of Absolute Green Lantern. We’re also finally introduced to another mainstay element of the Superman mythos. We’ve yet to see the consequences of this discovery so it remains to be seen if it spells disaster for our hero or if it subverts our expectations like so many parts of this book have.
If Carmine di Giandomenico is reading this, I want him to know that those first few pages are going to be haunting my dreams for months and I’m not happy about it (also, omigosh, hi! I’m a huge fan!) There’s no better artist to take the helm for a horror-tinged issue. Seeing the horrors of Brainiac at work raises the stakes in a way that words alone would never have been able to. Kal-El’s struggles have rarely been physical so far as his advanced technology and inherent power have given him a consistent advantage in combat, but he may meet his match with a foe with similar resources and the backing of a massive corporate entity. True to the themes of this line, he’s going to have to burn brighter than ever before. The only thing we know for sure is that whatever happens, it’s going to look amazing.
Absolute Superman continues to be one of the strongest books in the the Absolute line and from DC as a whole. Jason Aaron is doing a masterful job building a mythology that feels completely different from anything we’ve seen, and guest artist Carmine di Giandomenico is making sure that it will live in your nightmares. It’s clear that the next arc is ramping up for a whole new level of conflict and, more than ever before, it feels like anything can happen. This is the stuff of comic legends in the making, and you absolutely do not want to miss it.