Green Lantern #52 (June 1994)
Mongul, a.k.a. DC's answer to Thanos (a.k.a. Marvel's answer to Darkseid), demands a rematch with Green Lantern! The only problem is that this is a completely different Green Lantern from the one he fought last time (GL #46), but Mongul thinks all humans look alike and can't tell the difference. Does that make Mongul racist, or the opposite of racist?
Mongul has broken out of the hi-tech prison where he'd been serving time for destroying a whole city (and driving the previous Green Lantern insane), and now he wants revenge on the superheroes who put him there. The jetpack-wearing guard he interrogates doesn't know where Superman is (it's not like he's famously associated with one city), but he did see a news item about "Green Lantern" fighting a villain in LA, so Mongul steals his jetpack and flies there.
("Some guy"? Way to disrespect Ohm, DC's sensational character find of 1994.)
Meanwhile, the new, non-insane Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner, is taking care of the most important part of being a hero: taking publicity photos at the beach.
Once the photo session is over, Kyle and his girlfriend/PR person, Alex, try to find out what, exactly, his GL ring can do. As far as they can tell it has endless energy, because Kyle's been using it for days without issue and it's not like it came with a battery or something (certainly not one you activate by reciting a corny oath). Also, they already know Kyle is pretty good at flying with it, courtesy of his many hours daydreaming about that as an easily distracted child.
Alex asks Kyle to try to create something he's "intimately familiar with" to see if he can conjure something more elaborate than the simple objects he used during his fight with Ohm. Kyle, who is still a child, projects a 3D model of Alex in a revealing bikini and earns a smack in the head. Apparently, the best use Kyle can think of for his ring right now is "creepy deepfakes."
Within a few hours of practicing, Kyle seems to have mastered the three basic shapes of nature: babes, guns, and motorcycles. Just when Alex suggests giving the ring and Kyle's imagination a break, Mongul comes crashing down on them and easily breaks the green shield Kyle spent hours perfecting.
Mongul says he's gonna kill Kyle (and "his female," while at it) as revenge for "thwarting" him at Coast City, leaving Kyle very confused -- he probably doesn't even know what "thwarting" means.
(Or "raiment," for that matter.)
As Mongul slams Kyle's head into the ground, Doomsday-style, Alex desperately points out that they don't even know who he is. Mongul introduces himself as "The killer of Green Lantern... for there is NO ONE to save him!"
Next issue: SOMEONE arrives to save him!
Plotline-Watch:
I said on the post for GL #50 that I didn't remember if the homeless guy who was sleeping in the alley when Kyle got the ring ever showed up again. Well, he does show up in this issue... for the last time. His name is Joshua P. Turner, and he's seen talking to some agents at a shady government agency (literally shady, it's very dark in there) about what he saw that night. He also says it's his patriotic duty to give them something he found in the alley after Kyle left: some sort of glowing green rock that, as a kid, I assumed to be kryptonite. All he wants in return is a few bucks. Instead, the agents give him a shanking. RIP Joshua P. Turner, the greatest Green Lantern that never was.
Or at least I assume they killed him. We never see the body, so it's perfectly possible that they kidnapped Mr. Turner and ran experiments on him to turn him into a hyper-muscular supervillain. After all, we've already seen this particular agency turn a crippled man into a deranged super soldier...
Before escaping the Slab (the aforementioned hi-tech prison's Jersey Shore-like nickname), Mongul releases all the other prisoners to keep the guards occupied. These include Superman enemy the Atomic Skull, Booster Gold enemy Mindancer, Hawkman enemy Airstryke, and, most prominently, Captain Atom enemy Major Force, who was also seen last issue. Hmm, it's almost like they're telling us that guy is gonna do something important...
Oh yeah, there's also a Khund warrior show's been stuck on Earth since 1988's "Invasion!" crossover, who just wants to thank Mongul for freeing him and tell him he's a big fan of his work. Mongul kills him on the spot, just because he "never liked the Khund." (So Mongul IS racist. Sad.)
The guard that Mongul interrogates/robs mentions that Superman "wasn't seen for a while" (a reference to either "Death of Superman" or the more recent "Mini-Exile in Space" storyline) and then he came back, but there's been "trouble in Metropolis" so he doesn't know where he could be now (definitely a reference to the still ongoing "Fall of Metropolis" storyline, since there's even art of Superman fighting some Lex-Men). Not sure why the guard would think Superman would be anywhere but Metropolis if there was trouble there, though. I like the idea that was trying to protect Superman by playing dumb about his whereabouts, but didn't give a shit about Mongul finding Green Lantern.
This issue establishes that Kyle's GL ring doesn't have the "being charged every 24 hours" limitation, which doesn't mean it never has to be charged, as he'll soon find out. You might get the impression that the ring's weakness against the color yellow is still valid given how easily Mongul destroys Kyle's shield, but nope, that's just because Kyle's doing a terrible job right now.
If any Mongul fanboys from Khundia or elsewhere object to me calling him a Thanos ripoff, take it up with his co-creator, Jim Starlin, who once said: "I wanted to do my Thanos over at DC. But once I got in there, I wanted to do something different, so we got the whole Warworld in there." So he was "Thanos with a Death Star," basically. I wonder if Ron Marz didn't decide to include Mongul in these issues less because of the Hal Jordan connection and more because he was also writing Marvel's Silver Surfer at the same time, which featured Thanos as a villain/supporting character.
On a related subject, I always thought it was cool that, by destroying Coast City, DC's versions of Thanos and Mr. Fantastic (Hank "Cyborg Superman" Henshaw) kicked off a series of events that eventually led to the DC vs. Marvel crossover... which, sadly, didn't feature Thanos meeting Mongul (he has a staring contest with Darkseid instead). Fortunately Darryl Banks drew that scene anyway, for a Jim Starlin Kickstarter:
NEXT: Superman! But first, we find out where Hal Jordan's been hiding... (SPOILERS: in Guy Gardner: Warrior.)
