Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, Track 2: Green Lantern #0 Review
EDITOR’S NOTE: Comic Reader of Earth: You have the ability to overcome great spoilers.
The most obvious thing I can say about Green Lantern #0 is that new Green Lantern Simon Baz is the unluckiest son of a bitch in comics history.
If Simon Baz didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck at all. Black cats must go days without sleep in order to find him just to cross his path. The next time Spider-Man whimpers about “The ol’ Parker luck,” he need only look at Simon Baz to know that a dude with a high-paying engineering job who has banged a supermodel should really just learn to shut the fuck up; Spider-Man could have gotten his powers by being gang assaulted by radioactive lepers and still count himself luckier than Simon Baz.
His luck is so Goddamned bad that it stretches the bounds of logic. Which is the only downside to an origin issue, with a generally likable character, that is packed with character-building story points… even if a lot of those points require you to believe that the hero has luck so crappy that if he won the lottery, he’d die of a gangrenous paper cut from the winning ticket before he could collect.
So let’s talk about Simon Baz’s luck. First of all, he was born into a Muslim family and is alive, in the Midwestern United States, after September 11th, 2001. That’s two strikes right there, as writer Geoff Johns hammers home in a page-long montage where Simon gets harassed by strangers, schoolmates, and the TSA… although to be fair, Simon looks kinda cut, and rumor has it the TSA takes that into account when they choose who goes through the naked body scanners.
Anyway, we discover that Simon has been laid off from his job at an automobile manufacturer, which has reduced him to stealing cars, which he is apparently good at since we also learn that he has a history as a street racer… a history that got Simon’s brother-in-law killed in a wreck that Simon caused. Simon winds up stealing a van that just happens to have a giant terrorist bomb already ticking in the back. So, being in Detroit, Simon doesn’t want to be responsible for the destruction of valuable property that the city values, so he drives the bomb to, well, the newly-abandoned factory from which he was just laid off. And before you can say, “This only looks like jihad,” Simon gets an all-expenses paid trip to Cuba, where the ‘boarding does include water, but does not involve waves.
That’s a bad day. And it’s a bad day that accomplishes a couple of things, the first being to establish Simon’s bona fides as being able to overcome fear, making him qualified to be a Green Lantern. Johns uses the situation to lay the groundwork for a character whose been kicked in the teeth repeatedly by life, and who responds with more courage and grace than most would; God knows that the last time I got laid off, I got bombed… but let’s just say that C4 was not involved.
The story also shows Simon as not only courageous, but reckless. Johns establishes Simon’s history as a street racer who drives hard enough to get his brother-in-law killed. He has problems with authority; Simon fights soldiers in Guantanamo Bay even though he’s got no way of escape that doesn’t include a magic green ring, and he got a tattoo even though apparently his dad was a total dick about it. He drives a van with a bomb in it while talking on his cell phone – that’s illegal, buddy! So what we’ve got is a Green Lantern with an obsession for speedy machines tied to a personal tragedy, and a sneering attitude toward authority. I’m sure Simon and Hal Jordan will be pals, sometime after the inevitable ten-page fight scene.
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