First question to cross my mind when I recently received a review copy of the revived DC superhero title, The Brave and the Bold, was, "So which Green Lantern is this on the front cover?" Last time this writer ventured very deeply into the current state of Green Lantern, the ring of power was in the hands of a young cartoonist named Kyle, while Hal Jordan – the Silver Age GL of my youth – was apparently serving time as the Spectre for some major cosmic crime.
The figure on the cover of The Brave and the Bold #1, flying over a Batman who appears to be ducking back from a power ring shot, looked like Hal Jordan, but I lived through the first Spider Clone Saga. I've learned not to take this stuff for granted.
Fortunately for me, writer Mark Waid obviously recognizes I'm not the only returning reader who might be a fuzzy on the GL front, so he establishes things quickly without being too openly expository: we see two GLs—the black Green Lantern John Stewart, played by talented voiceman Phil LaMarr of Justice League cartoons, and his white compeer—as they're flying through space, reminiscing about great team-ups past.
As they prepare to soar their separate ways, the white GL advises John to check out planet Wondil-8: "I hear Green Lanterns eat free," he sez. "I'll tell 'em Hal Jordan sent me," John replies as he swoops off. Well, that answers that question.
On his way back to Earth, Hal happens upon a corpse floating in space. The discovery is not, we suspect, happenstance, since Hal himself has already told us he regularly takes this particular flight path ("I could find my apartment blindfolded, I've made this approach so many times.").
He rings up Gotham City, where it turns out the Batman is also looking at an identical dead guy on the floor of the Batcave. It's a mystery, all right, so naturally you do a "quick consult" with the guy who used to be billed as the World's Greatest Detective long before it was decided that Dark Knight was a sexier title. GL heads for the Batcave where one—or both?—of the bodies prove to have a playing card from the Kismet casino in their shirt pockets.
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