Parallax

Over the years, a lot’s been done to the character of Hal Jordan, especially since his transformation into a mass-murdering villain in “Green Lantern” #48-50. Most notably, the revelation that he’d been possessed by an entity named Parallax during that time period rolled in, allowing his eventual restoration to hero status. So, with that in mind, it’s curious to see Tony Bedard, Ron Wagner and Bill Reinhold’s take on the character in “Convergence: Green Lantern/Parallax” #2, which is not only set soon after that original “Green Lantern” storyline, but cheerfully ignores all the additional information that was mixed in after the fact. In short, “Convergence: Green Lantern/Parallax” #2 seems to go with the original party line: Hal Jordan simply went crazy. There’s no possession here, just madness brought on by the sheer power of holding so many of the Green Lantern rings. So, with that in mind, what are we left with? Not much, as it turns out. Bedard’s story can be boiled down to Hal

Before Telos’ dome encapsulated the city, a depowered Hal Jordan sat in a jail cell at a police precinct in Metropolis after flipping out as the megalomaniacal Parallax a year earlier. As luck would have it, Kyle Rayner also happened to be in Metropolis when the dome appeared and is therefore similarly depowered. Tony Bedard, Ron Wagner and Bill Reinhold’s “Convergence: Green Lantern/Parallax” #1 relies on happy coincidences like these in order to tell the kind of story that the main “Convergence” title demands, further stretching the credibility of an idea already full of contrivances. The ticket this issue is Metropolis vs. Electropolis but, by the time this battle unfolds, readers don’t really have much reason to stick around for the action. As with other tie-ins to this event, seemingly random characters from seemingly random eras in DC Comics’ history are just as randomly placed in locations other than their home turf. Entire cities are imprisoned with technology that all-too-c