“Let me get you through the last part”
I came to an unsettling realization as I read Convergence: Green Lantern / Parallax #2 that made me sit back and really think about myself and how I’d respond in a dire situation like we see Hal and Kyle face as they are pitted against beings from Electropolis. I’m not a violent person but as I saw both sides forced to battle the other to the death I found that while I’d like to be as naive and idealistic as Kyle, when faced with a situation of having to kill or be killed I’d chose the Parallax View. It unnerves me a little but in the end if it comes down to protecting my own it’s not as difficult of a decision as I thought it should be.
Sadly that’s the only impression I was left with when I put the book down and it’s not the fault of Tony Bedard who ultimately has to serve the greater narrative by providing a “winner” and a “loser”. Against that backdrop the personal story of Kyle Rayner trying to help Hal Jordan snap out of the madness caused by being Parallax seems pointless because in the end when Hal seems to be more of himself he ultimately makes a decision that Kyle is unwilling to – to do the wrong thing in order to protect the defenseless. Kyle taking the high road and trying to negotiate peace, as noble as it sounds, doesn’t fit the narrative of the event that serves as the wrapper for all of DC’s limited series these past months. And if not for Hal’s decision Kyle would either be dead or forced to make the same choice he ultimately condemns his predecessor for.
There is, in fact, no real conclusion to this story as Kyle never gets a chance to confront Hal thanks to the intrusion of the main Convergence event as Hal Jordan disappears before there can be one final chance for the two characters to have another moment. Ultimately it’s the lack of any sort of satisfying conclusion that makes this story a fruitless exercise.
Ron Wagner does a good job once again with the artwork on the issue and he effectively portrays the conflict between Hal and Kyle and the action sequences have a classic feel about them that evokes the time period that Hal and Kyle are plucked from.
In the end Convergence: Green Lantern / Parallax #2 suffers from having to serve two masters, and in this case the two don’t mix well. While one wants to hope that Kyle Rayner can win out in the end the overarching weight of DC’s event forces his personal mission to take a backseat to the winner take all dome match. Despite some nice character moments this series seems rushed and lacking in anything memorable. Four out of ten lanterns.
