4 out of 5

Yeah man.  Keith Giffen alone – gets goofy.  Gerard Jones alone – gets wandering.  Combine them, and you somehow come out with this perfect combination of super hero antics and realism.  Emerald Dawn 1 (which, sue me, as of this writing I don’t have all the issues) purported to tell a Hal Jordan origin story, sorta how he came around to understanding what it means to be a GL.  But that series ends with him accepting some Earthly responsibility of jail-time… and I don’t know if this was planned at that point or not, but aren’t we interested to know just what a guy with the power to bust out of jail every night did in the slammer for 90 days?  I mean, assuming it wasn’t just hang around and poo his pants.  (That’s what I’d do.)

No, turns out that it’s an opportune time for a year one for Sinestro, as Emerald Dawn 2 starts with our Guardians needing a trainer for the still-rookie Jordan, and as the regular trainer (Kilowog) is busy, let’s send “the lantern with the most orderly sector,” Sinestro.  And so over the course of six issues, Hal learns a thing or two about order, and Sinestro… well, finds a reason to turn evil.  But y’know what?  It works.  It makes sense.  I don’t know the whole GL history, I don’t know if this story was a retcon, but it reads like something to fill in the details.  A lot of times those stories are interesting on their own, and generally tie in to some upcoming event, but read years later, they feel out of place.  I’m reading ED2 post Blackest Night, like more than a decade after it was written, and it still works.  This was the Hal I grew up with – I wasn’t understanding of the difference between an ongoing series and the mini-series when I was a kid, meaning I just assumed they were all going on at the same time, so this more humble version of Hal was what I recognized as GL, not the ultimate will-powered, more arrogant version that would come about later.  And with Jones leaving Giffen to the plotting, it lets him focus on some perfectly paced dialogue.  The banter between Sinestro and Hal is especially fascinating for a comic about alien super heroes with candy rings, as Gerard somehow boils the relationship and interaction down into a believable struggle between drill sargent and student, as well as the attempt Hal puts forth later on at not throwing his teacher under the bus.

Whatevs.  This isn’t something you’d give a casual reader, as it’s still firmly in the realm of comic booky, but this is one of those rare series that elevates the genre while staying firmly rooted in the whole tights biz at the same time.