The Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow run is the moment mainstream superhero comics decided they were allowed to be about something, and the setup that made it work was an argument between two men who could not stand each other’s politics.
Hal Jordan is an intergalactic police officer. He is used to clear threats, clean authority, and being right. Oliver Queen thinks that makes him a company man with a ring, and spends thirteen issues driving him around America showing him things his jurisdiction does not cover. Whether the run’s answers hold up is a fair question. That it asked the questions at all, in a Comics Code title, in 1970, is why people still read it.
Issue #81 takes on overpopulation, which in 1970 was not a fringe worry but a mainstream and rather feverish one, with bestsellers and television specials behind it. Black Canary guest-stars, as she does across much of the run.
Adams draws it, and the cover is the argument in one image: a wall of human figures packed edge to edge with no negative space anywhere, the two heroes falling through the middle of the crush, the logo itself having to fight for room. You feel the thesis before you read the caption.
This copy is graded 8.0, Very Fine, with off-white to white pages, in a PGX holder — certification number 501154798, graded January 2015. We note the grading company plainly; PGX is not CGC or CBCS and collectors price it accordingly.
The Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow run is the moment mainstream superhero comics decided they were allowed to be about something, and the setup that made it work was an argument between two men who could not stand each other’s politics.
Hal Jordan is an intergalactic police officer. He is used to clear threats, clean authority, and being right. Oliver Queen thinks that makes him a company man with a ring, and spends thirteen issues driving him around America showing him things his jurisdiction does not cover. Whether the run’s answers hold up is a fair question. That it asked the questions at all, in a Comics Code title, in 1970, is why people still read it.
Issue #81 takes on overpopulation, which in 1970 was not a fringe worry but a mainstream and rather feverish one, with bestsellers and television specials behind it. Black Canary guest-stars, as she does across much of the run.
Adams draws it, and the cover is the argument in one image: a wall of human figures packed edge to edge with no negative space anywhere, the two heroes falling through the middle of the crush, the logo itself having to fight for room. You feel the thesis before you read the caption.
This copy is graded 8.0, Very Fine, with off-white to white pages, in a PGX holder — certification number 501154798, graded January 2015. We note the grading company plainly; PGX is not CGC or CBCS and collectors price it accordingly.
