With this Green Hornet adventure, writer Scott Lobdell proves he remains (mostly) inept
Created as a masked vigilante for a radio program in 1936, the masked vigilant Green Hornet has appeared in pulp magazines, TV, film, and comics. He’s being published since 2010 by Dynamite Entertainment in various series written by talents like Matt Wagner, creator of Grendel; Mark Waid, of Kingdom Come fame; and filmmaker Kevin Smith, among others. In 2021, the publisher released a new miniseries written by Scott Lobdell, famous in the 1990s for chronicling the fates of the X-Men (at Marvel) and later for writing some story arcs for DC’s Superman.
And he remains inept as always.
In this five-issue black-and-white series, millionaire Britt Reid and his assistant, Kato, investigate the disappearance of a reporter from the newspaper run by Reid, The Daily Sentinel. Adopting their identities as the Green Hornet and Kato (no one finds it odd that Reid’s assistant and the Green Hornet’s assistant share the same name?), they discover that the girl stumbled upon an alien baby that arrived on Earth and is being hunted by the military, who plan to use his incredible powers as a weapon. The heroes infiltrate a secret base where the baby and the reporter are held captive and manage to escape, only to be pursued by the military, who surround them and plan to kill them. How will they get out of this? By this point, honestly, the reader will hardly care.
By reading the quick synopsis above, it might seem like the comic isn’t that bad. But it is. The events in the script stumble over each other without the slightest logic, veering into near-stupidity at times. An enemy skilled in martial arts appears out of nowhere to face Kato, but her presence and backstory make no sense, while another superpowered villain is persuaded to abandon his revenge after a flimsy pep talk. Midway through the plot, there’s a sequence set 30 years in the future for no apparent reason, in an interlude that doesn’t remotely fit with the rest of the story. The alien baby is an obvious nod to Superman, but the purpose of it isn’t clear. And the conclusion borders on idiocy, with a mix of cliché and deus ex machina that will be studied in the future as an example of how not to end a comic book story.
What’s left is the stylized art by penciler Anthony Marques, whose style, on most pages, resembles that of the great, late Darwyn Cooke. Marques seems very versatile: the aforementioned interlude is drawn in a style that effectively mimics superstar Jim Lee — it is obviouys Marques deserves a better project to showcase his talent. The covers by veteran Lee Weeks, known for several Batman issues, are also strong, as are some variant covers by other artists included in the trade paperback. But it’s not enough to make any of this memorable.
In the end, even the character’s movie starring Seth Rogen manages to be better. And that is saying a lot.
Green Hornet: Sky Lights (2020, Dynamite Entertainment)
By Scott Lobdell e Anthony Marques
120 pages
Rating: 4 Nerds (out of 10) 😎😎 😎😎
