For its first three issues, Absolute Green Lantern made waves in the comic book communities by killing off beloved Green Lantern characters like Guy Gardner and John Stewart. When Guy died, most people were willing to believe it was to set the stage for the much darker, less hopeful Absolute Universe, but when John died, people started to wonder if anyone Abin Sur judged was really dead at all, especially considering that John had a smile on his face when he was blasted. Well, Absolute Green Lantern #4 reveals that these classic characters aren’t dead at all, but are instead being judged in the next stage of Abin Sur’s Green Lantern recruitment process. Unfortunately, after what happens immediately following that revelation, all of those characters and plenty of others might be lost for good, and it’s not Hal Jordan’s fault, as we were led to believe.
Abin Sur’s Judgement Doesn’t Kill
The last issue saw John Stewart discovering that the Green Light was weak to the color yellow, and more specifically gold. However, just after he told everyone that, Abin Sur arrived and judged him, making John disappear in green flames. Deciding that enough is enough, Hal crafted some gold-coated bullets to bring Abin Sur down once and for all. In the most recent issue, Hal and Jo are some of the last people left in Evergreen, and they plan to bring Abin Sur down once and for all. Side note, they name-dropped someone named Kyle, so that’s most likely Kyle Rayner. Anyways, Jo calls Abin Sur down, saying she wants to talk to their alien captor. Abin Sur descends from on high, and Hal readies to shoot him, but then Jo asks why Abin Sur killed everyone. Abin Sur says that he’s only killed two people. One was the biker who accidentally crashed into the barrier, and the other was a police officer who shot him, inadvertently killing another bystander, so Abin Sur killed her to prevent further death. Everyone else he has judged, and thus they are still alive. Instead of shooting, Hal lowers his gun and listens.
Abin Sur explains that the people he seemingly disintegrates are actually converted into pure light and taken to Oa, where they are undergoing the next stage of judgement. He must select an Ain Rao, Ain Sur, and Ain Aur to fight against the Weaponers of Qard, and warns Jo to fear them. Abin Sur then attempts to return to pure light, but wanting answers, Jo instinctively reaches out to him, accidentally putting her solid gold wedding ring into the ball of Green Light. With a flash, she absorbs the Green Light that powered Abin Sur, and has visions of other people, one of which is Sinestro. Now without power, Abin Sur calls her actions a chaotic anomaly, and with nothing to hold it aloft, the massive Green Lantern over the town crashes down from the sky. There is a massive explosion of energy, decimating the town. Judgement was interrupted, and it could have disastrous consequences for those still undering the process.
Jo Accidentally Unbalanced Everything
We don’t know exactly what happened after the explosion devastated Evergreen, but it seems that Jo and Hal are the only two survivors. Jo is still in possession of the Green Light she absorbed, and something about the explosion caused Hal to become the Black Hand. It’s possible that with the lantern falling like that, the darkness it held trapped within escaped and possessed Hal, who was a ball of fury and fear when it all happened. Still, what’s really dangerous and unknown is the fates of those still undergoing judgment when this happened. Abin Sur explained it as the people he judged being converted into pure light so they could continue with the process, but Jo just interrupted everything. Everyone was supposed to eventually come home, but Jo accidentally absorbing all of the energy from the Green Lantern itself might mean that they have no way to. It might even mean that she absorbed the people themselves as they were light at the time, or that they’re trapped inside of the powerless lantern.
Jo might have accidentally brought death to everybody from her hometown, or at the very least, made it very, very hard for them to return to their corporeal forms. Now Hal is possessed by a dark monster, and even worse yet, longtime Green Lantern villain Hector Hammond has taken the abandoned Green Lantern for himself, which means that if the people of Evergreen are still trapped inside of it, he might just have a whole town full of light-charged hostages to experiment on. Things are looking bad for the Absolute Green Lantern, and we should definitely be afraid of what comes next.
Absolute Green Lantern #4 is on sale now!
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