Things get a bit more down to Earth for the planet’s first Green Lantern
The DC Universe Infinite app does an excellent job of making a bunch of older comics easier to read, including numerous comics that have never been reprinted in any other format. Tens of thousands of titles are all at a reader’s fingertips. But there’s decidedly a few holes. One of the most glaring for 1987 is the lack of the final issues of Green Lantern Corps. The series ends on the site with last month’s #215 and the last nine months of the title have never appeared in digital format ever. It seems like a strange hole until you consider that this year’s major crossover event — Millennium — is also absent from the site.
I have no idea of the reason for the break, although I know the crossover and some controversy afterward spelled the end for Englehart at DC for about five years.
Issue 216 opens with a war of words between the duo of Hal and Arisia and the duo of John Stewart and Katma Tui. John isn’t happy that they’ve lost two of their members: Ch’p and Salaak. Hal recaps the events of the last few issues, but John insists that their squad works best as a seven-member team. He decides they will fly out into space to find other Green Lanterns and see if they also wish to return to Earth.
Hal says he won’t go as he has a secret identity to maintain. They decide one of them would have had to stay anyway, so Hal is chosen to watch Earth where the rest of the team is gone.
He heads into his job at Ferris Aircraft. He meets Thomas Kalmaku there. They have a bit of a chat before the arrival of Mister Smith, Ferris’s new head and perhaps the model for the similarly named Matrix character. Smith immediately fires Jordan despite all of Hal’s protestations.
The airbase is attacked by Carl Ferris, who strafes it with their own experimental jet. Smith offers to let Hal keep his job if he helps protect them. Hal declines but does disappear quickly in order to return as Green Lantern.
It doesn’t take a lot for Hal to stop Carl once he’s slinging green energy with his ring. Ultimately, he has to save him, as Ferris sends a ground-to-air missile to shoot him…