Green Lantern #1 (2018) Review

Writer: Grant Morrison

Artist: Liam Sharp

Colorist: Steve Oliff

Letterer: Tom Orzechowski

Published by: DC

Green Lantern is one of those series that I hope in and out of over the series depending on my mood and who is writing it. I joined back up a decade-plus ago when Geoff Johns revitalized the character of Hal Jordan was on the ride when Vendetti began and from there would check out the odd story arc. With this latest relaunch, Hall gets a new handler in the form of the venerable Grant Morrison. What new aspect will Morrison bring to Hal? It’s too early to tell, but you can see the seed of what he wants to do.

The pitch for this series was to bring Hal Jordan back to his roots as a space cop solving those space crimes. And in that regard, you can see that Morrison meant what he pitched.

Without revealing too much, let’s just say that Jordan, as the issue implies, has been benched by the Guardians and it is only because of a major case is he brought back into the fray. But the case isn’t galaxy threatening (yet) and revolves around a gang of thugs and a lucky dial.

The other emphasis of the book is to not only concentrate on Jordan, but the rest of the Green Lantern Corps as well and once again, Morrison makes sure to showcase this by introducing some new members and actually concentrating on them for the first third of the issue.

On the art front, Liam Sharp takes the helm with colours by Steve Oliff and for those who have been following Sharp since his reintroduction to DC a few years back, maybe slightly taken aback by the style. It’s a lot less Wonder Woman this go around and a lot more like his Judge Dredd. It’s a style I’ve come to associate over the years as being very European and more precisely, British. It’s what I see when I check out books like 2000 A.D. and Heavy Metal. And it’s amazing. It’s grittier, darker but still colourful, and highly detailed. Each scene has something going on in it and is not, like way too many comics these days, simple bland backgrounds.

If this first issue is any indication, this new version of Green Lantern will be exactly the type of comic you’ll want to read to get that space-faring fix. And with Morrison in the lead and Sharp on art, you just know it’s going to get weird!