Action Comics Weekly #634: Four serials reach their end, but maybe not the right ones

This week: Green Lantern, Phantom Stranger, Black Canary, Superman, Nightwing and Speedy, and Blackhawk

With the next issue featuring an extra-long tale in the place of four serials, that means this issue has a lot of ground to cover to close out the current storylines. Only Green Lantern and Superman return for the next issue, which also marks Green Lantern’s last as a regular feature as well (though he’ll be back for the full-length final issue.)

Unfortunately, that means the current arc of Green Lantern continues to stretch onward. Let’s dive in.

Art by George Freeman. Owned by DC Comics and used for review purposes.

“Total War” by James Owsley (Christopher Priest), M.D. Bright, and Romeo Tanghal

Malvolio rants about being a child of Earth and this sector as well as killing his alien father to take his ring. He does this as he’s beating Green Lantern in the space station that he murdered everyone inside of at the end of the last story. This gives Hal a couple of moments to recuperate. He ends up beating on Malvolio quite a bit, seemingly overcoming him. Malvolio pulls out a gun and shoots a yellow energy blast at Hal’s ring, destroying it. This leaves an all-too-human Hal to face off with the huge Malvolio and his power ring as the story concludes next week.

I’m terribly unclear as to what direction Priest wanted to take this storyline or even Hal in general. He put a lot of work into setting up Hal in a new job, only to ignore it for most of this book’s second half. Editorial interference might ultimately be at fault, as the character’s upcoming series would vanish for a yea,r and Priest would be quickly replaced after the first issue of the upcoming Emerald Dawn mini-series. It’s just a shame that a team as legendary as Priest and Bright were producing something this average for a character who would be revived quite well by his next set of creatives.

“Cat and Mouse Chapter Four” by Paul Kupperberg and Fred Carrillo

The last chapter made it feel like they were stretching out this story, but this one feels rushed. The monster attacks the Stranger, fueled by the power of both Tannarak and Tala. Doctor Thirteen arrives with the police, but only he dares enter the building as electricity surges through it.

Thirteen pushes Tannarak away and trips the monster, causing it to fall off the Empire State Building just as it seemed poised to kill the Stranger. The Stranger uses judo to throw Tannarak’s off after his creature, apparently killing him and ending his connection to chaos. Tala disappears in the aftermath, leaving the Stranger to open a portal and retrieve the captured Cassandra Craft, reuniting with her for real as the story ends.

It’s a very quick conclusion to the tale, but the Stranger isn’t quite done with this book. We will see if any of these characters return in the two remaining shorts for the character.