The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!
GREEN LANTERN: MOSAIC #3 - August 1992
Twenty-some years ago, in 1992, the Green Lantern titles were a little different from today's. The main title featured Hal Jordan who had just reclaimed the title of GL of Earth from Guy Gardner, forcing him out of the Corps and sending him down the road to become Warrior. Green Lantern Corps Quarterly was showcasing different GL's and mostly successfully, too. A little one-shot called Ganthet's Tale was published, introducing a very different Guardian who'd go on to have something of an effect on the whole stable of titles.
And John Stewart was on Oa, acting as supervisor of the Mosaic cities; entire environments brought from multiple planets by the mad Old Timer and forced to live next to each other.
John - as an architect - was intent on building a road to connect the cities, allowing free travel between them in the hopes of fostering better relations between the tense, frightened peoples. Trouble is, every day that the Mosaic inhabitants work on the road, their efforts are destroyed during the night by an unknown assailant. This and other factors seem to be driving John to distraction as he gets angrier and angrier until he realises that something's wrong.
He realises that he's the one that's been destroying the road though he has no memory of it and so investigates his power ring where he finds a familiar face waiting for him:
Sinestro - last seen being executed by the Corps at the end of the previous Green Lantern series - had managed to get his spirit to survive in the central power battery and had entered John's power ring when he'd charged it directly from it. He manages to take control of John temporarily and wreak havoc among the Mosaic citizens before visiting Rose, whom John has slowly been courting, and her son Toby. Realising something's wrong with John, Toby acts as any protective child would:
And the traditional bump on the head expels Sinestro's spirit, leaving John to pick up the pieces and apologise to everyone.
Mosaic was an odd series; part superhero story, part philosophical treatise as John tried desperately to get the various societies to work together by various means. That it was cancelled was no big surprise; that it lasted eighteen issues before that happened is the bigger surprise. It ended with John becoming a Guardian, an event which - as far as I know - was never referred to again as the issue where that happened was just a month or two before Gerard Jones, writer and guiding light on all things Lantern at that point, left (or was pushed out) and Ron Marz's Emerald Twilight ushered in a new era and, with Kyle Rayner, a new Green Lantern.
An odd series, as I say, but in no way a bad one.
Too bad the series didn't stay cannon for long. It seems like it was a really nice and original take on a day in the life of a GL. Hmm. Who knows, maybe if it was popular enough, it might've made a bigger, and more lasting impact. Still, at least someone dared to be different by writing outside the box.
ReplyDeleteAgreed; it was a different take on John Stewart and the Green Lantern titles as well, but sadly it didn't last. Although in these days where DC cancels a series after eight issues, lasting eighteen sounds impressive!
DeleteAlways fondly remember this series, so it's good to see someone else remembering it, too!
ReplyDeleteI think it's maybe treated as the red-headed step-child of the Lantern family but it certainly had its plus points, not least of which was the excellent art of Cully Hamner.
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