Green Lantern (1960) 76

Green Lantern (1960) 76

Apr 1970

No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!

by Denny O’Neill, Neal Adams, John Costanza, Julius Schwartz

Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) defends Jubal Slade, a slum lord, and finds himself on the receiving end of a lot of hate from the man’s tenants. Green Lantern doesn’t understand why he is suddenly so unpopular. Green Arrow helps him see the error of his ways.

Green Lantern confronts Slade about the way he treats his tenants. The meeting gets heated. Hal’s about ready to punch the slum lord when he gets a summons from the Guardians of the Universe. They disapprove of the way he was treating Slade and send him off on a mission far from Earth. They tell him not to return to Earth until he hears from them. 

Green Arrow confronts Slade while Green Lantern is gone. He tries to get evidence that will put Slade in prison but his plan doesn’t work out. Green Lantern returns from space before hearing from the Guardians. He is angry about the way the Guardians responded to his second meeting with the slum lord. He can’t stop thinking about a question one of the landlord’s tenants asked him. 

Green Lantern and Green Arrow team up with Star City District Attorney Jeremy Tine. Together they get the evidence needed to prosecute Jubal Slade. 

The Guardians contact Green Lantern once again. They are displeased with him for not follow their instructions. Green Arrow speaks up and throws their anger back in their faces. He talks about the cancer that is infecting America. He brings up the deaths of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. He calls the Guardians out for ignoring the problems that America faces. 

The Guardians think about what Green Arrow has to say. A week later they send one of their own to Earth to hang with Hal and Ollie. He is there to evaluate the situation in the United States. The three men embark on a trip across the country in a pickup truck. 

Notes

I do not own the original issues of this run of comics. I am reading this run from the reprint series Green Lantern/Green Arrow (1983). I don’t think I have ever read this run before although I have seen bits and pieces of it reposted here and there online. The half-page ads that appeared in the original comics are replaced in the reprint series by ads for Omega Men (1983) 7, Vigilante (1983), and Camelot 3000 (1982) 9.

See my post from 2019 on Green Lantern/Green Arrow for information on the 1983 reprint series and the publication history of the two characters as a team in the 1970s. 

Thoughts

The quote that introduces this story in the Hard Traveling Heros trade paperback is "How Many Times Can a Man Turn His Head and Pretend That He Just Doesn't See?" from Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan. 

This isn’t groundbreaking stuff by today’s standards but it really stands out if you compare it to any other comic book from 1970. I’m not sure what I can say about this story that hasn’t been said by someone else before. The page where the Black man asks Green Lantern why he helps purple skinned people but not black skinned people shows up fairly frequently on the internet. I’ve seen it lots of times before but it’s still a powerful moment. The power is both in the question as well as Hal’s reaction.

There is also something to be said about Hal pushing back at the Guardians authority. He uses his new found awareness of suffering to take his bosses to task. It feels very much like a reflection of the time in which the book was created. 

I’m curious to see what the subsequent issues in the O’Neill and Adams bring to the table, how they mesh with this story. On the whole I think this is a good read. I will reserve judgment as to how essential it is until I have read the entirety of this run of Green Lantern (co-starring Green Arrow).