The first season of Green Lantern: The Animated Series continues to build upon the foundation built by earlier episodes as it pushes ever closer to the end of the first “mini-season” and the inevitable explosive conflict between the Red and Green Lanterns. “Flight Club” calls back to the prison planet run by Myglom and the Spider Guild in the series third episode, “Razer’s Edge”. While “Flight Club” maintains a lighter tone throughout there’s a sense of the dark days that are on the horizon for the crew of the Interceptor.
When Bleez, Veon and Skallox discover that the code they need to access the Lighthouse and open the gateway between Guardian space and the Forgotten Zone. Using the Lighthouse would allow the forces of Atrocitus to launch their attack on the Guardians months earlier, information that Appa Ali Apsa provides the Interceptor’s crew. The key to the Lighthouse code lies with a prisoner held on the previously visited asteroid and the race is on between the Green Lanterns and Red Lanterns to see who can get the information first and gain the upper hand.
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| Hal and Kilowog inspect the body of a fallen Green Lantern |
“Flight Club” succeeds in keeping us entertained with the characterization of the Thanagarian Byth Rok, a roguish thief who will stop at nothing to exploit a situation for personal gain. As a foil for Hal Byth is the perfect mirror image of Jordan and some of the episodes best moments spin out of how their similarities and differences play off of each other. Goggan returns as the prison’s reluctant warden and lends his own inky comedy relief which keeps the tone light when the stakes get higher. The defeat of the Thanagarian Bumpy at the hands of Hal also managed to end the action with a bit of humor as the big brute fell to the ground whimpering like a school girl. As a part of the final three episodes “Flight Club” serves as a perfect bridge between everything that’s come before and the impending conflict on the horizon.
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| Bumpy gets the better of Kilowog |
While it might be easy to overlook the non-humorous parts of the episode, I liked the fact that the writer used Myglom and his mental torture as the means of procuring the access code, alluding to the Spider Guild aligning themselves against the Guardians. Also well done were the twists and turns of not knowing how things would unfold with Byth’s constant deceit and it was a great use of yet another piece of comics history with Byth Rok being one of Hawkman’s rogue gallery. In the end Hal’s manipulation of Rok and seeing him a victim of his own nature was very satisfying and it will be interesting to see if he shows up again.
“Flight Club” is tremendously entertaining and is another great addition to the growing library of Green Lantern: The Animated Series episodes. The lighter tone makes this one a lot of fun and hopefully you can enjoy it without inking yourself! Five out of five lanterns.
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