“Being magic-dragon food ain’t in the cards today”

For the second half of Convergence: Green Lantern Corps the creative team of David Gallaher and Steve Ellis let convention sit in the back seat in favor of letting fun taking the wheel to drive their story towards its conclusion.  Need proof?  Well in this issue Guy Gardner takes on a dragon with nothing more than a baseball bat and a motorcycle and then arm wrestles Hercules (and wins) for his armor!  Knowing that nothing here has any ramifications in the larger Convergence story, Gallaher and Ellis give us an over the top conclusion to a fun limited series.

Guy Gardner clearly continues as the focal character of this tale and his antics here fall in line with what a reader might expect from a book printed back in the era that this story fits into.  A man without  a ring, Gardner doesn’t let this get in his way of grabbing a bat and heading out in search of Hal Jordan and John Stewart after we learn that the Anti-God has defeated the two Green Lanterns.  Guy’s journey leads to the encounter with a dragon which he fells with one blow.

I almost wondered if the tale we were seeing was all in Guy’s head due to the preposterous level of adventure and the dubious feats of greatness that his accomplishes.  I mean, Guy arm wrestles Hercules to a stalemate for a considerable length of time before deciding to channel Sylvester Stallone’s Over the Top for a victory.  It’s hard to believe that Guy could pull it off considering the strength level of Hercules and I wonder how many more Tall Tales we might have seen if there were more pages in this issue.  Imagined or real despite the improbability it’s a fun ride if you can suspend your disbelief a bit more than usual.

The final battle against the Anti-God is not as important as seeing Guy, Hal and John unite and charge their rings as a team.  Once they’ve vanquished their foe the pretense of being a part of Convergence is ignored as neither city is declared victor by Telos.  Instead the three amigos head off to help people as one would expect Green Lanterns to do – and that’s fine by me.

While Guy’s match against Hercules is entertaining it ultimately ends up having no bearing on the story beyond being a character piece as the magic armor that’s impervious to the Anti-God Guy cons Hercules out of is never used at all.  A minor quibble to be sure if the reader is already willing to accept the rest of the antics in this issue.

Steve Ellis’ artwork really compliments the issue both in terms of tone and staying true to the early ’80’s vibe that this series harkens back to.  One of my pet peeves is seeing a Green Lantern’s eyes through the mask holes and there’s a lot of back and forth between seeing the eyes and not which, I’ll be honest, had me twitching a little!  But, again, I approached this book for what it is and did my best to try to look past it.

Convergence: Green Lantern Corps #2 is a joyful romp through early 1980’s era comics that favors a light story and action over melodrama.  If you’re a Guy Gardner fan you’ll enjoy seeing him true to  his roots in this story, but readers who are looking for serious character studies or a plot that ties back to the main Convergence event will likely be less enthused.  Either way it’s probably the most fun you’ll have reading one of the event’s tie-in series.  Six out of ten lanterns.