Green Lantern: The Road Back by Gerard Jones was designed to handle DC Comics Green Lantern problem. Gerard Jones (author of The Comic Book Heroes) had to handle a situation that had three people who could lay claim to the same super hero name and a mythology that had been torn to shreds. So Jones went back to the basics (but not the beginning like another bad reboot that had been tried) and brought the history and legend of Green Lantern together and launched a new age for Green Lantern with defined roles for all three heroes.

Once upon a Silver Age, Hal Jordan was the Green Lantern. He was brave and fearless and worked with the Guardians and other Green Lanterns to keep Earth and the galaxy safe. But Hal was kinda boring, especially when Marvel comics started having heroes with problems that were becoming more popular. So, in a great idea, Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams combined Green Lantern with Green Arrow (another character that was having similar problems) and took them on a road trip. Green Arrow was thrown over to the side of the counter-culture, with Green Lantern as a representative of “The Man” and they were joined by a Guardian. The series tried to bring modern 1970s real-life issues into the comic book series. It was successful in doing so, but it only lasted for a year (and was collected in twovolumes).

Along the way they had brought in Guy Gardner as a temporary replacement for Hal Jordan and John Stewart was brought in as another temporary replacement. All three characters wandered around for most of the 70s and early 80s until Keith Giffen brought Guy Gardner into his Justice League series and gave him a personality of a jerk and a blowhard. But Hal Jordan was still a plain vanilla good guy and John Stewart was left hanging with nothing to do. The mini-series Emerald Dawn was supposed to re-invigorate Hal Jordan by giving him a drinking problem before he became Green Lantern. But it didn’t help Hal’s problem (nor did the sequel). We were left with three Green Lanterns and the Guardians had left the galaxy leaving one behind to watch OA (the one who had been on the trip with Green Lantern and Green Arrow).

So Gerard Jones came in to this mess and started cutting back to the beginning. Hal Jordan decided he had enough of being a hero and decided to give it up temporarily and go on a road trip. Guy Gardner takes it as an insult and harasses Hal every chance he gets. Meanwhile John Stewart decides to go to OA. John comes across the remaining Guardian and realizes that the Guardian has gone insane. The Guardian starts grabbing cities he has visited across the galaxy and transporting them to OA. Hal realizes what is going on when the cities he had visited on Earth with the Guardian start disappearing and heads out to OA. He brings Guy Gardner into it as well and all three remaining Green Lanterns have to fight the remaining Guardian and save all the cities as well.

Jones does a wonderful job of keeping all our characters interesting and fresh with a different take on each of them. He brings in aspects from the past and present for all the characters, but doesn’t let that overwhelm the story.  The ending of the story sets up a three Green Lanterns in different and distinct roles that logically follow from the story and the characters. The art from Pat Broderick is well done and serves the story well. The collected series has some coloring problems on a couple pages. Highly recommended.