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The full and complete "Green Lantern's Oath" -- as solemnly intoned by Hal Jordan, whenever recharging his Power Ring -- went as follows:

"In brightest day,
In blackest night;
No evil shall
Escape my sight!
Let those who worship
Evil's might
Beware my power --
Green Lantern's Light!"

Each and every month, young readers by the tens of thousands would experience a pleasurable little vicarious thrill, upon reading those words in the course of the obligatory "charging up for battle" sequence.

There was something ineluctably grand and sweeping in such a pronouncement, so confidently asserted; an implied sense of high-minded purposefulness, backed by the iron resolve of maybe the only "grown-up" known to any comics reader of the day -- other than, perhaps, the relentless Batman, that is -- who actually seemed willing to live (and, perhaps -- it seemed possible, certainly -- die) by such an adamantine credo.

In short: he believed in it... and, so, we believed in it.

With the advent of GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW #76 -- the estimable Lantern, at that point, sharing cover co-billing with his erstwhile (and irascible) JUSTICE LEAGUE teammate, Green Arrow -- that belief was tested to destruction.

After the ring-wielding hero erred in siding with a venal and corrupt landlord over a dispute with the latter's soon-to-be-disenfranchised tenants, smug socio-political firebrand Arrow accuses the Lantern of being -- in so may words -- Sincere, But Misguided in his overall worldview. The scene's "capper" -- one of the most famous sequences in the Silver Age entire -- was the bit where one of said tenants confronts the Lantern with the following [see pictures, below]:

"I been readin' 'bout you... how you work for the blue skins... and how on a planet someplace you helped out the orange skins... and you done considerable for the purple skins! [NARRATOR'S NOTE: "... the purple skins"...?] Only there's skins you never bothered with... the black skins! I want to know... how come?! Answer me that, Mr. Green Lantern!"

Call me a grumpy and sarcastic old curmudgeon, if you will... but: had I been Green Lantern, at that precise nano-second... I would most likely have responded with:

"Wellllllllllll... lesse, now. Last week, I kept the entire freakin' planet from being blown up by an alien space armada... and... hmmmmm... oh, yeah! Week before that, I managed to keep myself busy with the usual assortment of muggers, rapists, serial killers, and the odd megalomaniacal super-villain or three. Meaning that you're still alive to try and whip a cheap'n'nasty 'guilt trip' on my head in the first place, now that I think of it. Why... what's your week been like, man...?"

That Mister Jordan, however, is/was more forbearing than Your Narrator is a "given," of course... and, so, he doesn't respond in any such wise. Rather: after a suitably ringing declaration from Green Arrow to the effect that "some hideous moral cancer is rotting our very souls!", our "fun couple" take it upon themselves to emulate Hopper and Fonda (circa EASY RIDER), and set off upon a cross-country trek to -- and I quote -- "find out for themselves if their country still has a soul." [See pictures, below]

Hey: if I lie... I die.

Now, all of this sounds painfully strained and earnest to modern-day ears, doubtless... but: the occasional bit of wretched excess aside ("Answer me that, Mr. Green Lantern!"), the series overall -- as written with both craft and conscientiousness by DC Comics uberscribe Dennis O'Neil, and rendered unto a fare-thee-well by master penciler Neal Adams -- was an accomplishment as literate and evocative as it proved (ultimately) trend-setting, ushering in the period of big-"R" Relevance already discussed in the DC COMICS IN THE 1970's section, elsewhere on this site (PAGE ONE: "Relevance" (GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW; John Stewart; Black Lightning; the Teen Titans)).

Quite simply: the mainstream American adventure comic had never even so much as dreamed of attempting to work such scary, "taboo" topics as racism; drug abuse; and social conformity (just to name the first three which pop most readily to mind, here) into the weave of their studiedly escapist storytelling soirees.

If such things seems markedly "old hat" and ho-humm to the modern- day reader... it should be remembered, nonetheless: Here Was Where the Rubicon Was First Crossed, content-wise.

Generally, the two title heroes played their chosen roles issue in and issue out. Green Lantern was the cautious, by-the-books pragmatist; Green Arrow, the fiery iconoclast. [See pictures, above] Their mano y mano bickering and squabbling had all the ritual formalism of kabuki theatre. true... but: it also carried with it the sort of primal immediacy and potency that you sure as heck weren't likely to find in, say, the arthritic pun-swapping between Batman and Robin, over in their magazine.

In any event: the burden of providing "the shock of the new" fell upon the heroic shoulders of the aforementioned Mr. Adams, as well as his writing partner's... and wherever the latter might occasionally "stumble," the former was always up to the challenge of performing as the penciling equivalent of both safety net and trampoline.

By way of example: note, in the accompanying selection, below, how the Mandatory EvilBadGuy for this issue's morality play is rendered so as to bear a marked resemblance to then-Vice President Spiro Agnew.

Given that the subtext to this particular story offering was the inherent malignity of blind, unswerving societal conformity -- and bearing in mind the jackbooted Nixonian mentality which suffused the Oval Office of the day -- it was (and remains) an effective little extra "gimme" which almost certainly would never have occurred to a less intuitive artist.

The series took impressive chances, as well, re: the mindset and expectations of its readership. In GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW #85, for instance, the (normally) preternaturally competent and unflappable Arrow is -- while making fast, efficient work of a trio of wholly amateurish muggers -- shot in the chest, point blank... with a discarded bow and arrow! [See pictures, below]

This served as the opening sequence in the two-part story arc for which the O'Neil/Adams run on GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW is most widely (and justifiably) recalled, decades after the fact: "Snowbirds Don't Fly" (Part One)/"They Say It'll Kill Me, But They Won't Say When" (Part Two).

Such rarefied status within the genre is perfectly understandable, really. It isn't every day, after all, that an established, long-time super-hero is revealed to be a heroin addict.

Said addict, in this case, was one Roy Harper: eternally-youthful teen sidekick "Speedy" to his legal guardian, Green Arrow (and a member in good standing of the squeaky-clean Teen Titans, to boot -- !).

As seen in the accompanying page reproduction, below: the haunted- eyed and nearly skeletal Roy (cripes... you half expect to see a needle and syringe jutting out of one arm, don't you...?) attempts -- in roundabout fashion -- to explain the Whys and Wherefores of how a young man might possibly topple over into such a fell and bottomless pit, without actually coming right out and bluntly stating: "Hey, guys...? Guess who's on the hard stuff...?" )

Take especial notice, if you will, of artist Adams' masterful usage of body language and character placement in this scene; both he and writer O'Neil won every award the industry had to offer for this little gem of a story (as well as winning coverage of DC's integrity and forthrightness for publishing same, in such venues as NEWSWEEK; PLAYBOY; and all three network evening news outlets).

By the time the series wound its way towards a reluctant sort of closure, with issue #89 -- due, by and large, to sporadic sales in parts of the country where distributors and rack jobbers objected mightily to having to stock such "commie pinko faggot subversive" works, and -- correspondingly -- often refused to display various issues, outright -- the two heroes had been well and truly changed as a result of their cross-country trek. Green Arrow (in the wake of Speedy's startling revelation) was no longer quite so much the the arrogant bantam... and, as for Green Lantern...

... well: as the accompanying page reproduction, above, makes manifestly evident... the stolid, reliable "Gary Cooper" of the super-hero sethad finally metamorphosed into -- if not precisely a laughing, devil-may-care Errol Flynn -- at least a somewhat less repressed Jimmy Stewart. )

Green Lantern: PAGE ONE
Green Lantern: PAGE THREE

Classic Heroes of the Silver Age: PAGE TWO

DC Comics In the 1970's: PAGE ONE

Golden Age DC Heroes In the Silver Age: PAGE ONE

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