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Green Lantern
Green Lantern: Legacy: The Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan
Tom Kalmaku, Hal's mechanic and confidant through his career as the Green Lantern, felt betrayed after Hal's fall from grace, but he is now left to deal with a young boy claiming to be Hal's son and who also has a connection to one of the universe's greatest powers. A Graphic Novel.
106 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
2 people are currently reading
131 people want to read
About the author
Joe Kelly
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There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
November 4, 2017
An heart-felt and touching tribute to the life and (temporary) death of Hal Jordan and superheroes' "sidekicks", well made with reverence and respect, and maybe just best story made from comics author Joe Kelly.
Really loved almost everything here, the Green Arrow/Green Lantern flashback from The Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection, Vol. 1 was a real blast and the wonderful artworks by Brent Anderson and Bill Sienkiewicz (always a fan favourite artist of mine) fully rised final vote to 5 stars.
My quest on reading old Green Lantern comics after casually purchased final 3 volumes of Geoff Johns's run last summer is really giving me very nice surprises.
August 12, 2023
Art was decent, but the story was a bit all over the place. It's post-Zero Hour, if you know what that even was. The story went out of print a long time ago. Hal Jordan gets taken over by Parallax, a Guardian gone bad, and...anyway, I never read that, but this takes place after that as sort of an epilogue.
It's about moving on from the destruction Hal caused as Parallax and who will replace him, or who will try to live up to him. I wasn't familiar with the Pie character, having only read Geoff John's run on GL, but he's the main character the story focuses on trying to move on from Hal. I imagine he was often a character from the original GL run or around the time this book was released. Originally, the story was going to be released in 2001, but after 9/11, they had to postpone until the next year.
I'm sure I would have enjoyed this a lot more if I had read Zero Hour, but for now, it just remains a decent story about moving on. Not my favorite though.
It's about moving on from the destruction Hal caused as Parallax and who will replace him, or who will try to live up to him. I wasn't familiar with the Pie character, having only read Geoff John's run on GL, but he's the main character the story focuses on trying to move on from Hal. I imagine he was often a character from the original GL run or around the time this book was released. Originally, the story was going to be released in 2001, but after 9/11, they had to postpone until the next year.
I'm sure I would have enjoyed this a lot more if I had read Zero Hour, but for now, it just remains a decent story about moving on. Not my favorite though.
May 18, 2021
Five years previous to Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan, DC published a similar graphic novel for another then-editorially-retired Silver Age icon, Barry Allen. Mark Waid's The Life Story of the Flash likewise had a sweet leather binding beneath the dust jacket, but more importantly it was also a love letter that helped encapsulate a legacy. For fans who have struggled to appreciate the relevance of Waid's Flash material, which otherwise featured Wally West, Life Story is a great place to look. And it's, like Last Will, a must-read for anyone who appreciates superhero comics and their unique ability to reflect on their lineages (which, to be clear, is a distinct sentiment from my earlier comment about legacy; one is about character history, the other publishing).
But where Waid got to talk about a saint, Joe Kelly tackles a devil. In 2002, when Last Will was originally published, Hal Jordan was a year away from Geoff Johns' Green Lantern: Rebirth. He was about a decade into an infamous fall from grace, begun in "Emerald Twilight," a storyline that spun out from the "Death of Superman" suite, in which Hal's hometown of Coast City is destroyed, leading him to embrace fear for the first time. In Johns' comics, this came to have a different understanding, but at the time it was taken at face value. He had turned into the villainous Parallax, the big threat of 1994's Zero Hour. By 1996, DC was starting to have second thoughts about his fate, so in the criminally overlooked Final Night, he went out in a blaze of glory, once again a hero. In 1999's Day of Judgment, Johns had his first pass at Hal's redemption by transforming him into the new host for the Spectre. That's the role Kelly finds him in, but Last Will focuses on other things.
Chiefly, Tom Kalmaku. Tom became a problematic element of Hal's legacy, one Johns never really touched in his long years writing Hal's adventures, thanks to his nickname, Pieface, which unfortunately is a racial slur against Asians. Tom is Inuit (which itself has replaced Eskimo as a more culturally sensitive term). He actually appears in the much-maligned (for reasons other than its actual quality, or so I assume, as I happen to love it) 2011 Green Lantern movie, in his more-or-less traditional capacity as Hal's best friend, and he's played by Taiki Waititi, the New Zealand director who later appeared in (and directed) a much more fan-friendly superhero flick, Thor: Ragnarok.
The graphic novel is called Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan but it's in fact centered on Tom. Even in the fifty issues of the particular Green Lantern series Hal went rogue in during the '90s, Tom was already all but retired. Yet as sidekicks in comics go, Tom remains significant enough to have appeared as a supporting character in the first-ever Green Lantern movie, as I've detailed above. When Bucky Barnes did it, insiders knew it was because the character, like Barry Allen and Hal Jordan but many years longer, despite having been dead for a significant period of time, had finally had a spectacular comeback, and sure enough he appears in all three Captain America movies, two of them directly reflecting that comeback. Clearly Tom didn't have that kind of fate, but he still made it into a movie, and he absolutely deserved to.
So what does Tom do in Last Will? He grapples with Hal's legacy, sure, but also with his own. No, not about the nickname, but what his adventures with Hal ultimately meant. For most of the story, he considers himself a huge failure, mostly because of Hal's fall from grace. Instead of remembering all the good times, he wallows in despair. He's like a lot of us. We tend to struggle when good memories are tainted. Suddenly we act like the good memories never happened at all. I'm talking about a lot of things here, some as simple as watching a loved one die. Sometimes our grief overwhelms us. In a way, that's what Tom is really struggling with, and that's what this story is about. For all intents and purposes, the title of the comic is pretty literal. DC thought, probably until Johns proposed it, that Hal's adventures as a traditional superhero were over. That's why he was given one more makeover, and another legacy entirely. Fans wouldn't let him go away, but there was no reason to believe that he was ever going to be Green Lantern again.
Well, times change. Last Will actually begins some of the groundwork for that. First, there's the return of Kilowog, the Green Lantern drill sergeant Hal killed toward the end of "Emerald Twilight." Granted, he's in altered form, but it's enough excuse for later writers to ignore Hal's rather definitive actions. It's also a great way to close the book on Hal's fall from grace itself without belaboring the point, why Johns could just let Hal be Hal, for the most part, and let fictional observers worry about his past.
But again, it's really about Tom. I'm glad that if this was done at all, it was done this way, and that Kelly didn't replicate Waid's format, didn't turn the bulk of his comic into a facsimile of a book, despite the fact that Tom talks about writing one, and was famous for keeping a journal of Hal's exploits. Waid's comic was written that way, after all, because Waid was always talking about Iris West (Barry's widow, at the time) and her biography of the fallen Flash. The whole thing is ostensibly Iris's book, after all. But Kelly just lets the story tell itself, and it follows superhero logic, and it lets Tom be human, with enough of his entirely separate story that it still has a compelling hook all its own. Tom's story isn't Hal's. He's called to "fix it," something Hal asked of him many times in a previous life, and it turns out not to be Hal's problem, but Tom's. Tom's life. His inability to move on. It would be a great healing tool, I think, even for readers who have never read a Green Lantern comic before.
The art is from Brent Anderson, best known for his Astro City comics with Kurt Busiek. He brings an added dose of humanity, to complement Tom's perspective, even as he ably captures the cosmic Green Lantern aspects as well.
This is the type of graphic novel that maybe will most appeal to fans, but is also ideal in making fans, giving them a good idea of what it's all really about. Outsiders tend to see only what the most common fans do, the flashy superhero veneer. But, these are most often, at their best, stories of real heart. That's how Jeph Loeb made a name for himself, and why his name was eventually tarnished, because Marvel tends to rely more on the flashy superhero veneer than the heart, despite the traditional notion that its heroes are more human. He's been working with Marvel for the last decade or so, but made his name at DC. He never did get around to writing a Green Lantern story. But if he ever did, it would look something like this. If you know Loeb's best-regarded work, that ought to be the best endorsement I can give you.
But where Waid got to talk about a saint, Joe Kelly tackles a devil. In 2002, when Last Will was originally published, Hal Jordan was a year away from Geoff Johns' Green Lantern: Rebirth. He was about a decade into an infamous fall from grace, begun in "Emerald Twilight," a storyline that spun out from the "Death of Superman" suite, in which Hal's hometown of Coast City is destroyed, leading him to embrace fear for the first time. In Johns' comics, this came to have a different understanding, but at the time it was taken at face value. He had turned into the villainous Parallax, the big threat of 1994's Zero Hour. By 1996, DC was starting to have second thoughts about his fate, so in the criminally overlooked Final Night, he went out in a blaze of glory, once again a hero. In 1999's Day of Judgment, Johns had his first pass at Hal's redemption by transforming him into the new host for the Spectre. That's the role Kelly finds him in, but Last Will focuses on other things.
Chiefly, Tom Kalmaku. Tom became a problematic element of Hal's legacy, one Johns never really touched in his long years writing Hal's adventures, thanks to his nickname, Pieface, which unfortunately is a racial slur against Asians. Tom is Inuit (which itself has replaced Eskimo as a more culturally sensitive term). He actually appears in the much-maligned (for reasons other than its actual quality, or so I assume, as I happen to love it) 2011 Green Lantern movie, in his more-or-less traditional capacity as Hal's best friend, and he's played by Taiki Waititi, the New Zealand director who later appeared in (and directed) a much more fan-friendly superhero flick, Thor: Ragnarok.
The graphic novel is called Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan but it's in fact centered on Tom. Even in the fifty issues of the particular Green Lantern series Hal went rogue in during the '90s, Tom was already all but retired. Yet as sidekicks in comics go, Tom remains significant enough to have appeared as a supporting character in the first-ever Green Lantern movie, as I've detailed above. When Bucky Barnes did it, insiders knew it was because the character, like Barry Allen and Hal Jordan but many years longer, despite having been dead for a significant period of time, had finally had a spectacular comeback, and sure enough he appears in all three Captain America movies, two of them directly reflecting that comeback. Clearly Tom didn't have that kind of fate, but he still made it into a movie, and he absolutely deserved to.
So what does Tom do in Last Will? He grapples with Hal's legacy, sure, but also with his own. No, not about the nickname, but what his adventures with Hal ultimately meant. For most of the story, he considers himself a huge failure, mostly because of Hal's fall from grace. Instead of remembering all the good times, he wallows in despair. He's like a lot of us. We tend to struggle when good memories are tainted. Suddenly we act like the good memories never happened at all. I'm talking about a lot of things here, some as simple as watching a loved one die. Sometimes our grief overwhelms us. In a way, that's what Tom is really struggling with, and that's what this story is about. For all intents and purposes, the title of the comic is pretty literal. DC thought, probably until Johns proposed it, that Hal's adventures as a traditional superhero were over. That's why he was given one more makeover, and another legacy entirely. Fans wouldn't let him go away, but there was no reason to believe that he was ever going to be Green Lantern again.
Well, times change. Last Will actually begins some of the groundwork for that. First, there's the return of Kilowog, the Green Lantern drill sergeant Hal killed toward the end of "Emerald Twilight." Granted, he's in altered form, but it's enough excuse for later writers to ignore Hal's rather definitive actions. It's also a great way to close the book on Hal's fall from grace itself without belaboring the point, why Johns could just let Hal be Hal, for the most part, and let fictional observers worry about his past.
But again, it's really about Tom. I'm glad that if this was done at all, it was done this way, and that Kelly didn't replicate Waid's format, didn't turn the bulk of his comic into a facsimile of a book, despite the fact that Tom talks about writing one, and was famous for keeping a journal of Hal's exploits. Waid's comic was written that way, after all, because Waid was always talking about Iris West (Barry's widow, at the time) and her biography of the fallen Flash. The whole thing is ostensibly Iris's book, after all. But Kelly just lets the story tell itself, and it follows superhero logic, and it lets Tom be human, with enough of his entirely separate story that it still has a compelling hook all its own. Tom's story isn't Hal's. He's called to "fix it," something Hal asked of him many times in a previous life, and it turns out not to be Hal's problem, but Tom's. Tom's life. His inability to move on. It would be a great healing tool, I think, even for readers who have never read a Green Lantern comic before.
The art is from Brent Anderson, best known for his Astro City comics with Kurt Busiek. He brings an added dose of humanity, to complement Tom's perspective, even as he ably captures the cosmic Green Lantern aspects as well.
This is the type of graphic novel that maybe will most appeal to fans, but is also ideal in making fans, giving them a good idea of what it's all really about. Outsiders tend to see only what the most common fans do, the flashy superhero veneer. But, these are most often, at their best, stories of real heart. That's how Jeph Loeb made a name for himself, and why his name was eventually tarnished, because Marvel tends to rely more on the flashy superhero veneer than the heart, despite the traditional notion that its heroes are more human. He's been working with Marvel for the last decade or so, but made his name at DC. He never did get around to writing a Green Lantern story. But if he ever did, it would look something like this. If you know Loeb's best-regarded work, that ought to be the best endorsement I can give you.
March 7, 2008
While the title of this book has Hal Jordan's name in it, the story is really about Thomas Kalmaku, a minor character in the Silver Age stories of Green Lantern who grew up to be a major player in the DC Universe in the aftermath of the Millennium storyline in 1988. Since then, Thomas led a group of heroes in a short-lived series called The New Guardians, and has spent the interval living on an island with them, hoping to lead mankind into a new and more peaceful future. No wonder his book was canceled.
The story here takes place after Hal Jordan has "died," and before he was brought back as The Spectre in the early 2000's. For fans of GL, there are some great cannon references, and it's good to see Thomas try to pull his shit together. But the timing of this book was terrible; at a time when GL fans are most angry about Hal Jordan being dead, this book goes out of the way to remind us that he is, in fact, still dead, and probably not coming back, either. (We know that would not be the case, and his recent return to his own title only makes this book look that much more of a failure with hindsight.)
Still, there are many moments here that are worth reading for a fan. The return of Kilowog was a huge deal for those of us who were frustrated with his lame death as seen in Emerald Twilight, and on the whole it was nice to see Thomas in action again. But the high-cost made it frustrating, and the fake-out promotion that someone "returns from the dead" only made the fact that Hal Jordan was still dead that much more annoying. While it pains me to say this about anything GL, this one is for completists only.
The story here takes place after Hal Jordan has "died," and before he was brought back as The Spectre in the early 2000's. For fans of GL, there are some great cannon references, and it's good to see Thomas try to pull his shit together. But the timing of this book was terrible; at a time when GL fans are most angry about Hal Jordan being dead, this book goes out of the way to remind us that he is, in fact, still dead, and probably not coming back, either. (We know that would not be the case, and his recent return to his own title only makes this book look that much more of a failure with hindsight.)
Still, there are many moments here that are worth reading for a fan. The return of Kilowog was a huge deal for those of us who were frustrated with his lame death as seen in Emerald Twilight, and on the whole it was nice to see Thomas in action again. But the high-cost made it frustrating, and the fake-out promotion that someone "returns from the dead" only made the fact that Hal Jordan was still dead that much more annoying. While it pains me to say this about anything GL, this one is for completists only.
March 11, 2012
Post the death of Hal Jordan this has to be the most moving and sentimental ode to the "The First green Lantern". It starts at Hal's Funeral and ends on such a moving note that readers who were loyal fans of Hal may get days of depression. Switch to current day when Hal has been reborn in the pages of DC, the return of Hal was that much more of a triumph after books such as Legacy.
The Artwork is unique and non-gimmicky, and lends a feel of nostalgia ad whimsical fantasy. You are drawn in and out as the story sends you into flashbacks courtesy of Kalmaku, Hal's best friend (so badly trashed in the trashcan movie starring ryan reynolds)
Simply put this is one of the most under-rated titles in all of comics. beautifully written, masterfully drawn. a must-have for every Green Lantern believer.
The Artwork is unique and non-gimmicky, and lends a feel of nostalgia ad whimsical fantasy. You are drawn in and out as the story sends you into flashbacks courtesy of Kalmaku, Hal's best friend (so badly trashed in the trashcan movie starring ryan reynolds)
Simply put this is one of the most under-rated titles in all of comics. beautifully written, masterfully drawn. a must-have for every Green Lantern believer.
May 22, 2015
When an executor shows up on Tom Kalmaku's doorstep"," with a child and a bequest from Hal Jordan"," Tom doesn't know what to do. Since the death of his friend"," Earth's first Green Lantern"," Tom has been estranged from his own family. He can't even care for his own children"," let alone someone else's. When Marty Jordan turns out to be carrying Hal's Power Ring"," and the Justice League of America gets involved"," Tom realizes his problems are more serious than he thought.I thought I was an adult"," that I no longer cared about the DC superheroes. Turns out I was wrong.
April 22, 2016
A me Kelly piace proprio, come scrittore, sia alla Marvel sia alla DC.
Qui si cimenta con l'eredità di Jordan, con tutto quello che si è lasciato alle spalle dopo la sua morte.
Il volume si legge d'un fiato, migliorando pagina dopo pagina.
I disegni non sono memorabili, secondo me, ma comunque è un ottimo fumetto.
Qui si cimenta con l'eredità di Jordan, con tutto quello che si è lasciato alle spalle dopo la sua morte.
Il volume si legge d'un fiato, migliorando pagina dopo pagina.
I disegni non sono memorabili, secondo me, ma comunque è un ottimo fumetto.
September 4, 2015
This is one of my favorite non Geoff Johns Green Lanterns. Love this idea & execution
August 25, 2016
This was pretty nonsensical.
February 9, 2018
Wow, what the hell happened to Hal Jordan.
So Hal is dead and everybody is glad because he was a real ass during his last days. He killed off a bunch of Green Lanterns and hurt a lot of people including his friends. Tom, his best friend and sidekick, gets drunk and curses Hals name. He blames the late lantern for everything wrong in his life. The executor of Hals will informs Tom that Hal left him something. We learn that Hal left Tom his son and asked him to "fix it". At first Tom tries to get rid of the kid but is forced to protect him when a scary guy from outer space comes to kill off Hals offspring. The kid has a Green Lantern ring and they use it to stay a couple steps ahead of the assassin. The JLA wants to control the kid and his ring but Tom protects him again. Soon Tom discovers that the ring is in fact Hals ring in human form. With the help of the ring Tom recertifies a lot of Hals mistakes and discovers that even though he spent his life on the sidelines he had the power to do great things as well. He is inspired to quit drinking and return to his wife and family.
I got kinda confused near the end, I couldn't figure out whether the ring changed time and saved all the Green Lanterns?? But all in all an amazing story. It was hard to see a super hero turn evil and the pain that ones decisions can cause on those around you. I appreciated how they didn't try to rationalize or explain away Hals bad behavior. He did evil things even though he was a good guy and that's true for real people as well.
So Hal is dead and everybody is glad because he was a real ass during his last days. He killed off a bunch of Green Lanterns and hurt a lot of people including his friends. Tom, his best friend and sidekick, gets drunk and curses Hals name. He blames the late lantern for everything wrong in his life. The executor of Hals will informs Tom that Hal left him something. We learn that Hal left Tom his son and asked him to "fix it". At first Tom tries to get rid of the kid but is forced to protect him when a scary guy from outer space comes to kill off Hals offspring. The kid has a Green Lantern ring and they use it to stay a couple steps ahead of the assassin. The JLA wants to control the kid and his ring but Tom protects him again. Soon Tom discovers that the ring is in fact Hals ring in human form. With the help of the ring Tom recertifies a lot of Hals mistakes and discovers that even though he spent his life on the sidelines he had the power to do great things as well. He is inspired to quit drinking and return to his wife and family.
I got kinda confused near the end, I couldn't figure out whether the ring changed time and saved all the Green Lanterns?? But all in all an amazing story. It was hard to see a super hero turn evil and the pain that ones decisions can cause on those around you. I appreciated how they didn't try to rationalize or explain away Hals bad behavior. He did evil things even though he was a good guy and that's true for real people as well.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2017
I am not familiar with Silver Age GL before Hal went bad. I know the basics, but as I wasn’t reading it back then, this particular character they choose to focus on means less than nothing to me. Tom Kalmaku is unlikeable in the extreme. His character was borderline absurd. He’s far too whiny, even for a drunk, and the chip in his shoulder is big enough to fill Coast City. Continual shirking of responsibility, continual whining about responsibility, and his personality in general, make this a mediocre read at best. He’s basically the useless sidekick, who longs for the old days before things went bad. He’s so self-centered that he can’t even see that there were people that were done a lot more damage than him. Overall, this graphic novel was a huge disappointment to me.
Do yourselves a favor. Start with Green Lantern: Rebirth and go from there. Skip straight to the brilliant writing.
Do yourselves a favor. Start with Green Lantern: Rebirth and go from there. Skip straight to the brilliant writing.
February 2, 2018
Another random pick up from my son, this turned out to be a pretty good story. I've never read any Green Lantern comics before, but I enjoyed it. Very nice story about redemption and someone turning their life around.
July 27, 2021
Tom is such a sad sack in this book, it was almost unbearable.
But this is a heartwarming story of overcoming grief, and the power you hold once you accept reality and stop feeling sorry for yourself.
But this is a heartwarming story of overcoming grief, and the power you hold once you accept reality and stop feeling sorry for yourself.
November 17, 2018
Maybe too dense and impossible to read for those people didn't read the Hal Jordan's big drama.
March 2, 2021
One of the darkest and depression comics I have read.
June 1, 2021
A satisfying conclusion to the Hal Jordan evil turn and death storyline, but I can't imagine anyone without good knowledge of the Green Lantern mythos would get much out of it.
July 22, 2021
Yeah, not bad
December 13, 2023
All over the place, as usual.
December 13, 2015
Joe Kelly looks back on the life and death of Hal Jordon with his graphic novel love-letter to former sidekick Tom "Pieface" Kalmaku. Tom is a broken man; heavy drinking has cost him a wife, children, and now a job. Blaming the former Green Lantern for his current troubles, Hal's secret will and testament leave Kalmaku with an unexpected surprise. Left with a simple note reading "Fix it," Tom is now guardian to Hal's only son Marty. Initially refusing the responsibility, Marty's possession of a power ring complicates the situation. The JLA demands the ring to be removed from play, a group of butchered Lanterns seeks to use the boy for revenge, a Dark Lantern Kilowog wants to exterminate the last legacy of Hal Jordan, and the former Lanterns of Earth just want Tom to step up and be a man. Faced with battles on all sides, Tom Kalmaku must face his own fears in order to set things right. While the idea is admirable, the overall tale falls victim to DC's reliance on legacy. What could have been a unique look at what happen to those left behind in the wake of a superhuman tragedy becomes a jumbled look into the DC editorial mandate to remove Hal Jordan. Serving as a reminder of the fallible Silver Age and the forced jump into the modern comics era, this book is but an epitaph for the tragic legacy of Green Lantern's death.
September 4, 2014
I think a lot of how you feel about this GN will depend on how deeply immersed you are in the history and lore of Green Lantern. It relies heavily on knowing minute details of Hal's relationships from comics based in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1990's, which, of course, culminated in Hal's turning into Parralax and destroying the GL Corps. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, this isn't the book for you.) Strangely, none of this is considered spoilers, since the book ASSUMES you know all of this stuff. The story by Joe Kelly is well-done, and does a nice job of exploring Hal's life and psyche, with a bit of his trademark surrealism. The art, by Brent Anderson, is amazing and evocative, which is almost always the case for him.
I liked it a lot, but I'm a huge GL fan!
I liked it a lot, but I'm a huge GL fan!
October 17, 2018
Very good.
Didn’t know what I was getting into reading this story, but basically everyone since the death of Hal Jordan has been grieving in their own way for their love, brother, and friend Hal Jordan.
But in this case we see the pain and suffering of Thomas Kalmaku, the old mechanic friend of Hal Jordan who saw only the good man that respected him and entrusted him with his secret identity as the man behind the mask of the first human Green Lantern.
It’s a heart wrenching seeing how much Tom felt about Hal’s corruption and death and as others attempt to help him. But in the end it’s a message from beyond the grave that helps Tom move on.
Really nice story, but sort of ironic given what’s going to happen soon. C+
Didn’t know what I was getting into reading this story, but basically everyone since the death of Hal Jordan has been grieving in their own way for their love, brother, and friend Hal Jordan.
But in this case we see the pain and suffering of Thomas Kalmaku, the old mechanic friend of Hal Jordan who saw only the good man that respected him and entrusted him with his secret identity as the man behind the mask of the first human Green Lantern.
It’s a heart wrenching seeing how much Tom felt about Hal’s corruption and death and as others attempt to help him. But in the end it’s a message from beyond the grave that helps Tom move on.
Really nice story, but sort of ironic given what’s going to happen soon. C+
February 25, 2013
What about Tom? That's a question many people were asking after Hal Jordan went insane due to Parallax. Here we find out what former sidekick/best friend Tom Kalmaku has been up to and his feelings for Hal. Needless to say Tom's life has gone downhill and he blames Hal. Then wackiness ensues. It was weird, confusing, and often unremarkable. I like the idea here but it was a little too metaphysical. The art by Brent Anderson was decent but there was no change in style or art for the flashbacks it was hard to tell they were taking place at times. This basically is a solid idea without a payoff. Skip it.
October 16, 2012
Green Lantern: Legacy is a major disappointment – disjointed, jumbled and lacking sympathetic characters. Structurally, it is a mess. Emotionally, it runs at a constant screeching pitch, but I didn't care about those doing the screaming. Some ideas are left half-explored while others are rehashed ad nauseum. The protagonist is whiny, he's stuck with a whiny kid sidekick, the conflict is poorly defined, and the goals are undefined. The art is decent-enough, which brings the score up by a star, but it's hardly mind-blowing. Blah.
December 8, 2010
Despite having his name in the title, Hal Jordan barely surfaces in this story. Rather, a close friend of his is partnered with Marty Jordan in an effort to reverse the damage the deceased Green Lantern left behind. Storywise, it felt somewhat disjointed and sparse. There were some moments that strove for a little more, but others that left me groaning. It ends being a bit disappointing as the artwork is amongst some of my recent favorites.
March 4, 2009
I never got into the Green Lantern series, just read a few issues as a kid... maybe I would've liked this better if I had followed the series.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews