Geoff Johns – Writer
Ethan Van Sciver – Pencils issues 1-6, Inker for issues 1 and 6
Prentis Rollins – Inker issues 2-5
Mick Gray – Inker issues 5-6
Marlo Alquizo – Inker issue 6
Moose Baumann – Colorist issues 1-6
Ethan Van Sciver – Pencils issues 1-6, Inker for issues 1 and 6
Prentis Rollins – Inker issues 2-5
Mick Gray – Inker issues 5-6
Marlo Alquizo – Inker issue 6
Moose Baumann – Colorist issues 1-6
In the early to mid-90s DC Comics decided they wanted to freshen things up for some of their titles one of which being Green Lantern. At the time the main Green Lantern was Hal Jordan. They decided it was time to put a new character in the spotlight as Green Lantern but there was a hard decision to make. How do you make this one most impactful? There have been Green Lanterns before who had taken over the title only to be quickly replaced by Hal Jordan once again.
So it was decided to do a storyline that tied into the Reign of the Supermen story where Cyborg Superman and a villain named Mongul nuked Hal Jordan’s home city of Coast City killing everyone presently there. After establishing that key secondary characters in the GL series were out of town at the time they started a controversial story known as “Emerald Twilight” which involved a grief stricken Hal Jordan to have a mental breakdown which led to the killing of many Green Lanterns and most of the Guardians before he became the villain known as Parallax. Ganthet the lone surviving Guardian ended up making one last ring to give to artist Kyle Rayner. A few years later DC ended up killing off Hal Jordan altogether in the story “The Final Night” which was meant to be a final moment of redemption for the former Green Lantern.
Over the course of the next decade Kyle was leading the title and Hal Jordan’s spirit was bonded to the hero The Spectre. Finally in 2004 it was decided to bring Green Lantern back to it’s roots which included giving Guy Gardner his Green Lantern ring back and bringing back the Green Lantern Corps. The biggest part of this was that they would be bringing Hal Jordan back to life. How would this be possible though? And why would he be accepted as a hero after all the blood on his hands from his time as Parallax?
Thankfully for us the writer for this story was Geoff Johns. The first order of business was to make a reasonable explanation for what Hal did that would acknowledge that he did what he did but also clear his name from it. He did this with the revelation that Parallax was the name of an entity that was possessing him through his ring with the aid of the newly returned Sinestro(Parallax is the entity of fear and was why the ring couldn’t affect anything Yellow).
Sinestro decided he wanted to get back at Hal Jordan for exposing his abuse of power when Sinestro was part of the GLC. His way of doing so was having Parallax influence Hal through his ring to make him more prone to fear so when a big enough moment happened he would snap which is what ended up happening.
This leads to a fight between Hal and Sinestro that while not that long is a nice moment for fans of the Green Lantern mythos.
Also of note is Batman being overly suspicious of Hal which shouldn’t be considered much a shock after “Emerald Twilight” and “Zero Hour”. Even when Hal was resurrected in this he tried to apprehend Hal which led to one of the funniest moments of the whole mini-series…
It leads to a final battle that is well written and thanks to Geoff Johns’ MO of leaving hints for future storylines ends up setting up parts for a storyline as far as 6 years later. It involves all 4 earth lanterns Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner(the one from Batman: The Brave and the Bold), and John Stewart(the black one from Justice League Unlimited), and alien GL Kilowog facing a Parallax possed Guardian…
The strongest part of this mini-series is the writing of Geoff Johns. While he already was starting to get a really good reputation in the industry for his work on The Avengers and Teen Titans it was Green Lantern: Rebirth and his subsequent run on Green Lantern that has made him a star in the industry. He writes captivating stories and does events and miniseries as if they were an epic summer blockbuster. He isn’t afraid to give the artist splash pages to showcase their ability. As a matter of fact Geoff Johns loves the use of the splash page which leads to some beautifully drawn moments in Rebirth. He also is not afraid to do retcons to help his storyline. While this ends up pissing off a good portion of fanboys I find no problem in this especially considering the amount of times continuity has been changed company-wide in comics. Another great aspect of the writing is the pacing here. It doesn’t feel like the story drags on at all and every big moment ends up being a huge payoff.
All in all not bad for a writer who originally considered comic writing as “something to do on the side” while writing TV and movie screenplays.
Ethan Van Sciver(also known for his work alongside Grant Morrison on New X-Men) did a really good job with the art here. Though at times the art looked odd those moments never got distracting.
Overall I will rate this story a 5 out of 5 based on spectacular writing and really good art. I strongly suggest you read this and Sinestro Corps War..
Written By: Mike Falcone
Twitter: @BrainstuFalcone
