Hourman: Kyle Rayner, Green Lantern appears in a blast of green light to save the day in the way that Green Lanterns do.

Supergirl: Well that was… weird.
Power Girl: Yeah. Bam and gone. Worse than my dating history.

Alan Scott, the JSA’s Green Lantern, has been possessed by the  Starheart, the ancient artefact/asteroid that originally gave him his powers. The presence of the Starheart near the Earth is wreaking havok with weather systems and to people with magical powers. The JSA/JLA have teamed up to take the fight to the Starheart’s lunar prison.

The Guardians of the Universe are aware of the Starheart’s activity and have dispatched Green Lantern Kyle Rayner to stop with Starheart. Kyle argues with Jade that he’s there to help, but she panics when he tells her that he’s authorised to use any means necessary to stop the Starheart. A moment of indecision is enough for Obsidian to touch Jade’s hand causing them to merge into a combined entity that speaks with both their voices. The possessed Jade/Obsidian then starts attacking Batman’s JLA/JSA team.

In the Starheart’s throne room Faust has deduced that they are just talking to a construct and that the Starheart/Alan Scott’s primary body is elsewhere. This is why it needs Doctor Fate’s power to hold them captive. Doctor Mid-Nite overhears their conversation and pulls Fate’s helmet off of Kent Nelson’s head disrupting Fate’s spells. Wildcat shatters the Scott construct leaving Mid-Nite free to rush Starman’s crystal back to him.

The real Starheart/Alan Scott is on Earth having fun fighting Supergirl and Power Girl, but he teleports away when he senses the destruction of his double on the moon. Mister Terrific then summons Power Girl and Supergirl to help him at the Watchtower. Back on the Moon, Jade/Obsidian are rapidly draining Kyle’s ring as a new round of constructs attack the heroes. It looks like Doctor Fate’s arrival may shift the balance in their favour, but that’s instantly countered by the arrival of Starheart/Alan Scott.

• Lightning of the JSA and Congo Bill of the JLA do no appear in this issue.
• White Lantern Hawkman appears on Ryan Sook’s Brightest Day variant cover, but he does not appear in this crossover. His only “appearance” is as a lantern construct created by the Starheart.

[I'll admit that I've become rather behind with these reviews so I've had time to read the last part where as other, more timely reviewers may not have. I'm itching to get writing up the finale so this may be a little brief. ]

Ah, the penultimate part of an arc – the bit where they have the twist, that sets up the big issue long battle, that sets up the twist that leads into the real final big battle next issue. And here we have it. Jade and Obsidian merging into one of the strangest brother/sister hybrids outside of a certain type of Japanese comic book. The Doom Patrol’s Rebis somehow managed to be cool with it, but the Jade and Obsidian (“Jadesidian? Obsisade?” as The Mighty Monarch ponders at Comic Vine) merger is just odd. At least they didn’t go with a breasted Obsidian. If there is one thing that fell flat for me in this issue it was Kyle Rayner’s appearance. He’s a great character and I avidly followed his original title, but the way he almost falls a part in this issue doesn’t seem right to me.

This title had gotten even reviews with Comic Vine, CBR, and iFanboy all giving it about 3.5 out of 5 stars. The biggest variance came from Matthew Peterson at Major Spoilers who only gave it one star. He finishes his review with a general comment on the entire crossover…

So, the long and short of it breaks down to the problems of putting this many characters in a crossover like this, only to add MORE people.  I literally cannot even COUNT the number of heroes that appear in these pages, with everyone from Stargirl to Congorilla putting in an appearance, reminding me of an old-school X-Men crossover.  At least the key action involves Flash and Wildcat, actual JSA members, but there’s not a whole lot of coherence to be had here.  Most egregiously, this issue comes right after Bill Willingham’s exuberant exposition by Obsidian that he’ll never let himself by controlled again.  Sigh…

The point about the multiple characters is justified, but (as he notes) Robinson had been fairly careful to focus on particular characters on particular times. For example, the two JSA issues have focused more on the JSA members. Mark Bagley is good on the art, but this crossover could really have done with either George Perez or Phil Jimenez. Doug at CBR notes the comparison between JSA #41 – where the art was universally agreed to have been Bagley’s best so far on a JLA book – and this issue:

I mentioned the previous issue felt like Bagley’s highpoint. His work here is every bit as confidence-boosting, and in some spots, where inker Norm Rapmund exerts a heavier influence, I have to do a double-take, as the art seemed more like it came from the drawing board Dan Jurgens than Mark Bagley. This is especially evident when Power Girl and Supergirl battle Alan Scott.

Obvious things that don’t appear in this issue but we know must happen sometime: White Lantern flashes. Jade is due one just like the one that Maxwell Lord got in Justice League: Generation Lost #7. That’s coming in the finale.

The Verdict

Page 1 - Kyle Rayner and Alan Scott - At one point Kyle Rayner was the only Green Lantern left. The short version of the story is that Hal Jordan went bad, became a super villain called Parallax, and destroyed the Green Lantern Corps. Only Ganthet, one of the original Guardians of the Universe survived. He created a new ring and gave it to the first human he found. That happened to he a young artist called Kyle Rayner. Kyle became the last of the Green Lanterns. To emphasise the point DC changed Alan Scott’s code name to Sentinel so that he wasn’t also called Green Lantern. Kyle started dating Donna Troy, but the Wonder Woman office wanted to use her character for something else so the Green Lantern writers improvised and switched her out for Jade.

Kyle Rayner and Alan Scott have history. As mentioned, when Kyle first got his ring the Green Lantern Corps were defunct and Ganthet didn’t give him the manual. So it was Alan Scott who explained to Kyle the background to the rings and what he was getting himself into. Alan was Kyle’s mentor and touchstone during those early years.

Kyle has helped Jade, Obsidian, and Alan battle the Starheart before in a mini-series called Green Lantern and Sentinel: Heart of Darkness. In it Jade vanishes and Kyle calls Alan for help. At first they suspect Brainwave Junior (another Infinity Inc member), but it eventually turns out that the Starheart had kidnapped Jade. It had gained sentience and had pulled Jade into another dimension that it had created. This JSA/JLA crossover, The Dark Things, is a sort-of sequel to Heart of Darkness where the Starheart finally reaches normal space. In the original Alan and Kyle confronted the Starheart in its own dimension and defeat it. However, there is something rather familiar about that series. Take this scene :

Not a 100 million miles away from the current crossover.

The “Origins and Omens” features ran in most DC titles just prior to the Blackest Night crossover and showcased hints of the future. A panel from Green Lantern (vol 4.) #38 showed various aspects of the Blackest Night including Hal Jordan and Sinestro surrounded and Black Hand. However, it also showed the Guardians of the Universe apparently passing judgement on Mordu, Tormquemada, and Alan Scott – three magic users.

The exact details of that scene haven’t been played out, but it could be a hint to events in this story where the Starheart had gone rogue.

Page 7 – Doctor Mid-Nite’s vision is so sensitive that it is almost reversed to that of normal people. He can see in almost total darkness, but is blinded by the bright light of the day. He uses blackout bombs to blanket an area with darkness which lets him see, but blocks normal people’s vision.

Page 8-9 - Faust: “Great and Mighty Oz” – a reference to the Wizard of Oz, they are after all in the Emerald City. I find it interesting that the Starheart can’t influence Faust. In many ways he’s a John Constantine like character. The exact limit of his magical abilities haven’t really been defined, but he’s better known for being willing and able to get his hands dirty in ways that most heroes – particularly the old JSA members – would find aberrant.

Page 14-15 - The Starheart possessed Power Girl and forced her to fight Supergirl in Justice League of America (vol 2.) #45.

Page 16-17 - Constructs include the originals of the Spectre, Hawkman, Solomon Grundy, Starman, Ultra-Humanite, Atom, Ragdoll, Thunderbolt, Sandman, Black Canary, Doctor Mid-Nite, and Psycho Pirate. Donna’s lasso can compel people, but Jade/Obsidian seem to be immune to it.

Page 18-19 – A long time after the Heart of Darkness series (see above) Jade was still dating Kyle. A good friend of theirs was beaten up by a gang in a homophobic attack. It was the last straw for Kyle, he had lost faith in humanity and was pretty sickened with Earth people at that point so he decided to undertake a long patrol of Oa and outer space. Jade joined him at first as another Green Lantern (she’d lost her powers when Alan and Kyle defeated the Starheart), but she eventually got home sick and returned to Earth.

Kyle kinda assumed Jade wait for him, but in Green Lantern (vol 3.) #176 he returned to their/his apartment to discovered another man stepping out of the shower. Jade explained (show below) that she had tried to wait, but she couldn’t cope with Kyle’s protracted soul searching.

That storyline was a coda to the end of Kyle solo time as Green Lantern and was followed by Green Lantern: Rebirth which reintroduced Hal Jordan as a Green Lantern.