Green Lantern #7 Part 2: The Day 100,000 Of My Brain Cells Vanished

Back in the 1950's and 60's, it was not uncommon for a comic book to not contain a "feature length" story, but rather a number of shorter stories in one issue. This was most common in comics that didn't cater to just one particular character, but it bled into the super hero books that were slowly retaking the market at the time. This particular issue of Green Lantern is no exception as it contains two different stories. The first story entitled "The Day That 100,000 People Vanished" features the first appearance of one of GL's longest running foes: Sinestro. Unfortunately for poor Sinestro is that much like just about every character in this era of comic books that was published under the DC Comics banner, he suffered from being in a fucking stupid introduction story. But I'm getting ahead of myself, how about we start from the beginning. "The Day That 100,000 People Vanished" doesn't start off all that bad for a comic book for it's time. I'll give it that to go with, but things change right quick. Our tale starts off with the entire population of

... On the list of peoples bedrooms he's going to view from that powerful telescope of his.

the city of Valdale disappear (all 100,000 of them) without a single trace. This baffles Green Lantern who was supposed to visit the town to appear at the opening ceremony for a new Boys Settlement House, except for he couldn't make it on time because he had to "finish another case" (which probably involved sexually harassing his boss and trying to get her to go on a date with him)

Oh and for those of you who don't know what a boys settlement home is, it's a place for kids from troubled/abusive families go to develop their "needs". I suppose in this case, the "needs" they develop are Jesus, alcohol, and welfare cheques. But hey, this isn't a social commentary....

While Pieface is astonished by this fact (because apparently all an ethnic characters can do is shout exclamations and totally kiss ass to the cracker super-hero they sidekick for) Green Lantern feels dizzy for a moment.

What happens is his "astral form" is transported to the planet Oa, home of his masters the Guardians, who are warning them of a grave threat. See, the Guardians are the Green Lanterns employer. What they like to do is fuck with the poor fucker by sending his astral form to their home planet get info from him and then send it back to his body at the moment it left (don't expect me to try and explain the physics of that to you) they usually send him back with no memory of what they told him either.

Anyway, the Guardians warn Green Lantern of a possible threat, coming from a guy named Sinestro. See, Sinestro was chosen to be the Green Lantern of the planet Korugar, and was given his very own Green Lantern uniform, power ring and power battery. However, the Guardians made a mistake in picking Sinestro because he soon became corrupt with his newfound power (don't you hate it when that happens?) and soon Sinestro took over his home world and turned it into a dictatorship with him as the ruler.

Of course, the Guardians don't like people who fuck around with the power they bestow upon people and so when they found out what Sinestro was up to they brought him to Oa, stripped him of his powers and shot the fucker into the anti-matter world of Qward. Qward by-the-way is a world in an anti-matter universe where being evil is good and being good is evil. In all appearances, Qward looks like a planet that is populated entirely by bald pedophiles. I think the moral of the story is to never give a guy named Sinestro super-human powers and expect them to do good. Anyway, the Guardians must not be too bright because the planet they sent Sinestro to in the Anti-Matter universe is one who's inhabitancies have been trying to capture Green Lantern's power batter for the last while and being general a pain in the ass for GL. You know for universal Guardian's, these guys aren't all that bright are they? Well if that isn't bad enough (And I believe this is where the story starts it's decent into utter stupidity) is that the Guardians can

After kicking Sinestro out of the Green Lantern Corps. The Guardians made a new rule that future candidates for the Green Lantern title cannot have extreme widdows peaks.

monitor what Sinestro is up to on Qward. Now for whatever reasons, the people of Qward have let Sinestro barge into their planet and make a bunch of demands and then boldly states that he's going to destroy Earth's Green Lantern (apparently doing this will apparently assist him in reconquoring his home planet of Korugar. I can't think of a good reason how, but apparently I don't think in DC Comics crazy logic. I got a distinct feeling this is what Ted Turners mind is like.)

Anyway, his plan involved building a weapon that would make the Green Lantern and all the people of the town he was visiting disappear from the Earth and appear on the planet of Qward so they can defeat the Lantern. So at least we have a follow up on what happened on page 2 of the story.

So with this story recounted for GL, the Guardians inform him that they don't have any jurisdiction in the anti-matter world of Qward. But apparently one of their rank novice Green Lantern's is able to go over there and knock some heads around. My contention that the Guardians are probably really retarded gets more validity with each passing moment.

With their warning made, the Guardians then return GL to his body, but allow him to retain the memory of his encounter. So now the story laps itself back to where Pieface is asking Green Lantern if he's okay. GL flies off without talking to Pieface to try and get Sinestro to capture him.

To do this apparently the smartest thing is to go to a large city and turn all it's inhabitancies invisible so that Sinestro cannot make them disappear and be able to spot him. Now I find a few things wrong with this idea. 1.) What the fuck is he thinking? Wouldn't turning an entire city full of people invisible cause a massive panic and untold loss of lives and untold amounts of accidents? Talk about incompetent. 2.) Now how would turning the people invisible make it impossible for Sinestro to teleport

"Hrm, how can I put these people in a sudden state of panic? I know, I'll turn them all invisible without any notice!"

these people to Qward? I mean, unless his device has such a glairing flaw that he can only capture people who are visible, I don't think turning people invisible would have been all that effective. The guy already previously made an entire city full of people disappear, and I bet you he didn't have to see all of them to teleport them to his planet.

3.) What the fuck is Green Lantern thinking going to a city populated with people to get captured? I mean, if the whole point was to be noticed by Sinestro, why the fuck didn't hey stand in the middle of the desert? Wouldn't that have made more sense? Why go through that effort and put another city full of people at potential risk of being captured just so you can get noticed? I'm convinced that Green Lantern is a fucking retard.

Anyway, somehow this plan works, Green Lantern is the only person who is captured by Sinestro and nobody in the town (especially the people driving cars) weren't put into some sort of panic by being suddenly turned invisible and changed back after Green Lantern was captured. When GL appears on the planet Qward the Qwardian's and Sinestro attack him with wall mounted blasters -- even though they all know that while Green Lantern's ring is charged he cannot be mortally harmed (Sinestro even says "I know that your green beam will automatically protect you from all harm as long as you are conscious!") -- GL of course seals himself in a green dome to protect himself from any sort of harm. Sinestro of course tells Green Lantern that if he doesn't surrender to them that he will kill the population of the town of Valdale, Lantern of course tells him he wont surrender until the people are safely returned to their home world When Sinestro complies they seal Green Lantern in a yellow bubble. Okay, if Green Lantern's powers can't work on anything yellow, why the hell did they listen to his demands? Why didn't they just seal him in a yellow bubble anyway? It's not like his shield would have stopped the yellow bubble from capturing him. And hey, while we're on that note, if they could create a yellow energy bubble to trap him in, why didn't they just build yellow lasers to shoot him with? Anyway, Sinestro then reveals his master plan, he plans on keeping Green Lantern in the bubble until the 24 hour time period for the

Sinestro, it's not polite to talk about your Sac.

charge in his ring to run out, then when he isn't protected by it, they would destroy him. They even go so far as to mount an analog clock on the wall so they can keep track of this time.

When the clock apparently runs out and Sinestro attempts to kill Green Lantern, it turns out that Green Lantern still has power left in his ring. When he knocks down Sinestro, he explains that he used his ring to propel Carbon Dioxide subparticles at the clock. Apparently his breath could penetrate the yellow bubble, and somehow he could super speed his breath to push the clock faster. How this could work, I have no idea, but it is

The Fuck?

possibly one of the most absurd things I've ever heard.

So Lantern still has more power in his ring, which he uses to pin Sinestro to a wall and then uses it to make a giant tidal wave to wash away all the Qwardians. When this is done, Sinestro laughs at the Green Lantern because of the Lantern code to never kill an opponent if they can help it. In response to this Lantern then seals Sinestro in an impenetrable green bubble forever.

Uh, so apparently the Lantern code prevents you from out right killing someone, but sealing them in a bubble where they'll starve to death is perfectly okay. Sounds like the Green Lantern's got advice on how to treat prisoners from [Insert current country that violates human rights in order to complete this topical political joke. Choose wisely because the country you choose will decide if your political joke is funny, or if a bunch of religious extremists blow some more shit up in outrage.]

Of course with seconds left to spare, Green Lantern uses the last of his rings power to return back to Earth where he recharges his power ring. The next day Green Lantern goes to the Valdale Boys Settlement House to give a presentation to the boys that live there

Green Lantern parts company with the boys with this bit of advice "...And remember this, boys, when right is on your side, you will always overcome evil no matter where you find it!" I'm sure these boys will keep that advice in mind the next time their dad goes 10 rounds with their face the next time he goes through a bottle of whiskey. I think the sad thing about this is that most of these kids probably ended up growing up and behind drafted in Vietnam. And with that, we end our story. Like I said, it starts off okay, then gets really stupid, but you haven't read anything yet because if you thought this story was bad, wait until you read about the next one!

I'm sure most of these boys usually find evil at the recieving end of their dad's fist.