Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag. My name is Raymond Tate. I review comic books. The good, the bad and the ugly. This week I look at a book that comes as a complete surprise.
Who knew? Right? The Zero Hour is a mostly forgotten DC crossover. The series attempted to repair some of the blunders that evolved from convoluted writing from the previous comic book era. The one-shot doesn’t actually go into any of these details and neither shall I. Most such fixes are so old that they lack even a scent of pertinence.
Books in the vein of this one-shot usually operate under the conceit that they are retrofitted chapters or actual sequels. The 30th Anniversary Special doesn’t follow the same game. Plain and simple, this is a guest-packed Green Lantern adventure.
I’ve always found Kyle Rayner to be one of the better earth Lanterns. He was never smug about wielding the ring. He always considered it a gas and/or a privilege.
Kyle is a nineties creation by Ron Marz and Darryl Banks. These creators combine forces once again to bring Kyle to life. The result is throughly enjoyable.
On the whole, I found most of the Zero Hour one-shot a rewarding experience. Especially when not thinking too hard about multiverses, plural, and the implications of the same. You’ll also be better off if you actually know the characters, but it’s not an absolute necessity.
Most of the time the writers spotlight the most familiar players from pop culture such as our star Green Lantern, a slightly altered Batgirl, Supergirl, Donna Troy and Fatal Five classic.
The artwork from the Zero Hour 30th is uniformly pleasing. Even fashion whipping boy Azrael wears his least alarming costume.
The story begins in New 52 continuity proper.
Relocated from earth, Kyle Rayner is surprised when his historical old pal and Justice League colleague Wally West shows up.
Even more surprising, Wally doesn’t know him.
Kyle investigates the conflict, and he finds himself smack-dab in a bubble universe created by Parallax, who escaped the original multiverse-trimming Zero Hour.
You may consider this a spoiler, but it really isn’t. On the other hand you may be asking yourself what’s a Parallax.
Parallax is the ultimate evil version of Silver Age Green Lantern Hal Jordan. He shouldn’t really pertain to the start-from-scratch New 52 universe. Yeah. Comic book terminology can be complicated.
The Big Bad reveal isn’t one because Parallax is a copy of a copy of a copy.
Kyle suggests that in the New 52 Hal Jordan briefly became a version of Parallax, but not this one. Much of Parallax’s written history, like Hal Jordan’s, simply could not survive the transition of multiverses.
That’s because all the heroes returned younger. One of the necessities of DC’s multiverse. Batman and the Batman Family can only age a certain amount. Superman is an alien. Wonder Woman an immortal. You can fudge a certain amount of aging through science fiction or magic, but Batman is supposed to be a mortal man. Tied to him are Batgirl, who must at least be five years younger than Batman and all the Robins.
As I said, better not to think too hard about it. I used this phrase as my mantra while reading the Zero Hour one-shot. Stressing the comic book part.
Anyway. Parallax is the Big Bad. He created a bubble universe, presumably somewhere and when in the interim between multiverse generation. This area is also a locus in time and space that’s navigable. Yep. Just don’t go there.
The Fatal Five also managed to escape the multiverse-trimming Zero Hour.
Parallax quickly found a use for them. Unfortunately for Kyle.
The Fatal Five, created in the Silver Age of comic book history, became so powerful an idea that the band of villains withstood transition mostly intact to the Bronze and Platinum eras of comic books. The Emerald Empress furthermore faced off against the modern age Supergirl. So, the Fatal Five concept is still very much alive in the New 52.
Kyle soon realizes that he’s not in Kansas anymore. This realization catalyzes the introduction of the alternate versions of the nevertheless familiar co-stars. Batgirl comes onto the scene first.
As familiar readers of the POBB may expect, her presence predicated my buying the Zero Hour 30th Anniversary Special in the first place. Blue eyes a bonus.
Batgirl was still crippled during the Zero Hour. In Hal Jordan’s Bubble Universe, she apparently never had been. Batman on the other hand never recovered from the damage done by Bane. So Batgirl took over the family business.
After meeting Batgirl, Kyle reacquaints with Supergirl.
The original Supergirl sacrificed herself to save Superman and the multiverse during The Crisis on Infinite Earths.
As she died, she ripped the Anti-Monitor a new one.
The Zero Hour version of Supergirl appears to be based on the classic model. Parallax shouldn’t be aware of her. During the Zero Hour, Supergirl was the last survivor of another bubble universe created by the Legion of Super-Heroes’ villain the Time Trapper via comic book architect John Byrne.
By now, you must be scratching your heads. Given these question marks regarding origins, given this shaky multiverse piling, you may be wondering why on earth I’m recommending the Zero Hour 30th Anniversary Special. Why am, I once considered one of the harshest critics on the Internet, why am I willing to forgive?
It’s the art. It’s the characterization. It’s the fun of the whole exercise independent of the multiverse musings. It’s the surprises that actually make sense. These facets give the book wind for the sails.
Green Lantern and the Flash met during the Grant Morrison era of the Justice League. I don’t know if that era exists in the New 52. The friendship between Wally and Kyle survives, and Kyle would race into the unknown for his friend.
It’s a kick to see Batgirl and Supergirl deck Kyle. As I said I like all three of them, but the duet of the World’s Finest overcoming the Green Lantern ring’s defenses and surprising Kyle is pretty damn hilarious.
The one-shot doesn’t explain what happened to Wonder Woman. Numerous possibilities given her nineties run of comics. Suffice to say, it makes perfect sense that Donna Troy would be next in line to bear the Magic Lasso. It’s power to force anyone bound to speak the truth is the most logical means to end the fight.
What impresses me most is that the writers make Donna’s and Kyle’s history together more than just a tactic and/or plot device. Instead their interaction a combination of dialogue and beautifully expressed, subtle emotion genuinely touched me.
Then there’s the authenticity in these analogues. Their conviction makes them more than mere ciphers.
Sincerity in heroism is one of the main reasons why I read comic books.
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