Green Lantern #16 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Doug Mahnke (art), Christian Alamy, Keith Champagne, Tom Nguyen, Mark Irwin (inks), Tony Avina & Alex Sinclair (colors)

The Story: It’s a rough day when you get talked down on by an overgrown chipmunk.

The Review: If there’s a reason to be skeptical about Simon Baz as the new Green Lantern, it’s the natural assumption that he’ll prove meaningless and redundant once Hal Jordan returns and retakes his ring.  Let’s be frank, here.  For decades, it looked as if Kyle Rayner and Wally West would be the default Green Lantern and Flash forever, and then over a few years, both got dethroned by their predecessors.  What makes us think Simon will fare any better?

Perhaps because the architect of Kyle and Wally’s dethroning is the same guy who created Simon.  And this issue makes it pretty clear that whatever happens when Hal inevitably returns, the hand of fate is on our rookie Lantern.  By allowing Simon to accomplish something neither Hal nor even Sinestro (and I do find it interesting that B’dg considers it more amazing Simon can one-up Sinestro rather than Hal), Johns encourages us to put our confidence in the new guy.