GL's flight log

Even Hal has to admit, things aren't going well.

It didn't look good from the start, but when Superman went down, captured in one of the aliens' first maneuvers, the Justice League knew they were in for a fight.

Then the reports started pouring in: the Metal Men, Johnny Quick, Doctor Midnight, a roll call of Earth's heroes, captured and detained in high security facilities going up all over the planet.

So when Hal found himself getting hurled right through the giant, iconic globe at the top of the Daily Planet, it just seemed like one more sign of how bad things were going. Not that they really needed another one by then.

It takes a while to make it out to Star City, but by the time Hal gets there, his mood hasn't improved. Not even a little. Considering the Flash actually slowed down, making an effort to be sociable along the way, and got only silence for his trouble, his attitude isn't much better by the time they reach Star City's harbor.

The Flash could also do without GL barking one order after another. The search for the missing meteorite is going nowhere, and Lantern's gruffness finally gets the Flash riled enough to start a waterspout in the hope of stirring something up. He succeeds--except what he gets is a furious Aquaman.

Hal tells Aquaman he's really to blame and apologizes--well, by his standards, anyway--and then goes right back to bossing them around. "Maybe it landed on the coast. I need you two to check anything larger than a pebble. And hustle!"

The Flash is ready to tell the Lantern just where he can go--fast--when another voice interrupts.

[After this.]
 
Hal is still partly stunned by what happened out on the streets, but inside the headquarters of the Doom Patrol, things are not getting much easier to digest. Whoever this Niles Caulder is, the tech he uses includes things Hal hasn't even seen on Oa. And considering how twisted a lot of it seems, GL is very glad of that.

And yet... as Hal watches Caulder grafting a bizarre metal arm to his shoulder, he wonders if they really have much choice but to depend on the man if they hope to make things right again. Even Caulder seems to think so:

"Cliff's spare Robotman parts are a poor substitute, but I'm making do."

When told he should be glad his sensory nerves aren't part of the graft, he figures Caulder is probably right. But at least operating the arm depends on willpower. Hal has plenty of experience with that. Provided he can keep the arm's energy blast from killing them all.

By now Hal wouldn’t give up the ring for anything, but it’s still a relief to touch down back on the tarmac at Ferris and switch back to his flight suit. His real flight suit. It feels so long since he’s worn it, he isn’t even sure what test flight he’s supposed to be--. Oh that’s right. They’re scheduled for an FAA inspection.

Damn.

Pie is already there, naturally. He gives Hal an absent-minded wave as he keeps working on the left turbine of the X-99, Carol’s latest experimental baby. Normally inspections drive Hal up the wall, but if this one today will get him a big step closer to being able to take that pretty bird up into the sky, then bring it on.

He turns at the sound of a car driving up to the hanger, and gets his game face on (as if he doesn't always have it on already) and waits for the investigator to step out.

Oh, hey now. Speaking of pretty birds.... He was expecting another old guy in a suit. When did the FAA start hiring people like her?

Five minutes later, Hal is finishing the second of his favorite stories about ‘How Hal Jordan narrowly avoided horrible death through sheer awesomeness.’ (There are so many, after all.): “Don’t let anyone tell you test-piloting isn’t the toughest job we do here at Ferris Aircraft.”

“Least of all the mechanic,” Pie snarks in the background.

Hal pushes his dazzling smile up several notches. “You’ve met my friend, Pie, of course. Pay him no heed.” Better get her distracted before Pie says something she actually does hear. He makes a grab for something on a nearby table.

“Here. You’re an FAA investigator. Investigate this helmet.”

Slightly startled, she starts to take it, then lets him put it over her head. “What does it do?”

She jerks a little as the readout display comes on, but Hal is right there to steady her. Because he’s thoughtful that way.

“Quite the lightshow, isn’t it? It gathers sensory data which helps the ground crew.”

“Yeah,” Pie smirks. “It tells us where he’s gonna crash. This time.”

“Not much for the eject button, Mr. Jordan?” she asks.

“What can I tell you? I like to ride hard and ride long.”

He can almost hear Pie’s eyes rolling in his head at that one. When will the guy ever learn subtlety gets you nowher--?

“Hey lady!” Pie starts. “You wanna hear the real--!?”

And that’s when a bright green muzzle smacks right over his kisser. Hal’s not about to let him finish that sentence.

“Let’s get this off you. You look so much better without it,” Hal moves on, gently taking off the helmet just in time to see a gust of wind send her blonde hair into a perfect wave.

“Are you flirting with me, Mr. Jordan? That’s dangerous territory.”

“Call me courageous,” Hal grins. “How about dinner?”

She’s putting up a fight, of course. But that just makes it more fun. He’s just about got her convinced when--.

“HAL JORDAN!”

Uh-oh.

The investigator’s eyes go wide. “Here comes the boss. I’ll just be over here.”

“WHERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?!?”

Great. Carol Ferris could even scare FAA investigators. It takes him a moment or two to work out what she’s shouting at him, but when he hears the part about “delivering the X-99 pilot specs to the Pentagon brass,” he feels his stomach sink.

“Oh. That.”

“I had to talk rings around them to keep them calm!” she goes on. Then gives him a point by point report of just how much this has screwed up the project. He's always been impressed by how she’s able to shout like this and never lose her voice. Carol’s always had some serious lungs on her.

Ah, shut up, Jordan. You really messed up here. Admit it.

“It’s been brutal enough to keep track of you these past few months. But these last few weeks...! I demand to know where you were last night!”

Damn. Carol’s the boss. She has a right to ask. And there’s not a thing he can tell her. He always was the world’s worst liar.

“I--. I was busy elsewhere.”

Man, do things go downhill fast from there.

By the time Carol has calmed down even a little from that, the investigator has practically edged backward right off the tarmac. So much for that evening. But an ever-so-slight softening in Carol’s voice snaps his attention back to her.

“Please, Hal. I don’t want to suspend you. Give me something to work with here.”

He tries. He really does try to come up with something. But other people somehow manage to come up with stories. Hal’s never been able to.

"...I can’t.”

Her eyes flare again. “Fine! Whatever’s been taking up so much of your time lately? Enjoy it! You, mister, are GROUNDED!”

Hal manages to catch the expression on the investigator’s face right before she gets in her car and drives off. It sure doesn’t make him feel too heroic.

 
[Inspired by Secret Origins #32 (1988)]
 
Short, blue Guardians of the Universe. An entire Corps of Green Lanterns. The Oath. Hal has a lot to think about on the way back from his first visit to Oa. Which is why he doesn’t really pay much attention to the meteor at first.

It’s on a trajectory for Earth orbit, but that doesn’t bother him much. Most meteors never make it through the mesosphere, and if this one does, Hal isn’t going to have any problem diverting it away from a populated area. So he goes back to being pre-occupied by the last few days.

By the time he notices it again, the meteor is already well through the stratosphere, but it hasn’t lost any mass at all. Startled, Hal moves to intercept before it slams into somewhere in Africa. Hal would have the ring tell him where, but he’s still learning how to do that and—say, is that meteor speeding up?

OK, Hal thinks. This is going to be interesting.

And that’s even before the meteor craters into the earth—far from the nearest town, fortunately—and hatches into a giant bird.

Hal has never had a problem with birds. Not unless they were getting sucked into the intake of whatever jet engine he was using to keep himself forty thousand feet up in the air, anyway.

But even back before he had the ring, a giant bird would have been something he could do without. And these days, a giant yellow bird would count as a problem if Hal ever admitted to himself he could have one.

So, ok, giant yellow bird. Fine. Is it hostile?

Well, judging by the beams it’s starting to shoot from its eyes, turning every nearby animal into a rampaging beast with wings, Hal would have to say, Yes. And, oh look, they’re turning into yellow beasts with wings.

Hal wonders whether he should be taking this all this personally.

“It had to be yellow, right?,” he grumbles.

Ok, fine, yellow or not, the ring’s only limit is his own willpower, and Hal has plenty of that. If he can’t stop the bird directly, a giant magnifying lens appearing in the sky right above it on a bright sunny day ought to get its attention.

Yup. It sure does.

Hal had been hoping for more of an effect than a few singed feathers, but at least that’s made it stop changing the animals. He falls into a steep dive as the bird comes after him. Maybe he can tire the bird out a little.

Whoa, that thing is fast! Better do a quick turn before--.

Hal feels the claws snap around him before he even sees the bird closing in. No real bird that size could have pulled off that hard a turn. What the hell is this thing?

Hal struggles hard to break the grip. No good. And the ring isn’t going to be any help at prying open those yellow claws. If he’s going to get out of this--arggh, he gasps as they squeeze harder—he’s going to need something radical.

The bird is moving fast now. Hal has no idea what it plans to do with him, but he’s damn sure he won’t like it. There has to be something, something---there. A raincloud.

If he had a moment to think about it, he probably would have talked himself out of the crazy idea, but once Hal is focused on a problem, there’s no distracting him. A green burst shoots out from the ring and expands, ballooning out around the cloud until it engulfs the whole thing. Hal grimaces, half from the still squeezing claws, but more from exerting the will for the next part: forcing the base temperature of the cloud to drop. A rainstorm is good. But a snowstorm, that’s better.

Hal concentrates his will, forcing himself to ignore the bite of the claws as he draws the cloud over to them. The bird is picking up speed, and that isn’t helping, but now that he has a clearer idea of what to do, the ring is making it easier to pull off. The cloud steadily draws closer as Hal pulls.

With another burst of will, Hal snaps the construct, and the cloud lurches forward, directly ahead of the bird. With a triumphant grin, Hal lets go, and the green balloon evaporates. The bird flies right into a wall of snow and hail.

OK, good news: the snow is giving that bird a serious chill. Bad news: I’m getting the same treatment.

But it works. Thrown off by the pelting snow, the bird loosenes its grip just a bit, enough for Hal to shove back on the claws and fall away. A second later, he’s back in action, after getting hammered by a few hailstones himself.

That could have gone better. Still getting the hang of this stuff.

And now he has another problem. Whatever that bird is, being in its grip is having the same effect on him that the beams from its eyes had on those animals. He can feel yellow feathers starting to erupt all along his arms.

Ok, this is just weird.

The bird has recovered too, though, and it’s already diving after him again, its claws poised for another grip. Hal has a feeling this time it’s just going for the kill, and there isn’t another storm cloud nearby. But maybe what he needs is a different kind of water. Like that waterfall right below.

Still smirking, Hal drops like a stone, which is harder now that he has yellow feathers up and down his arms. But he can still outpace the bird, and with a 45 degree dive he bets that Aquaman guy would appreciate, Hal plunges right into the waterfall.

Hal is already braking and turning before the bird follows him in. He didn’t expect it to go full speed through it and into the cliff behind, but he was hoping momentum would keep it going, and by the time he’s back out of the falls, sure enough, he was right. The bird is flailing around in the water, pushing back against the cliff wall with its great claws while it tries to keep the force of the water from blasting it down to the rocks below.

So Hal decides to give it some help by freezing the water.

Ok, maybe ‘helping’ it wasn’t what he had in mind.

He’s not even sure how he gets the ring to drop the temperature again this time. He just thinks about what he wants, and the ring does the rest. But that ends up taking a lot out of him, and he’s glad to see the bird is well trapped inside the frozen waterfall.

“HA!” Hal yells. “Got you!”

Looks like he’s going to have to practice doing all kinds of things with the ring. He can’t afford to have it draining him like that every time he tries something a little different.

And he isn’t sure what to do now about that frozen waterfall, much less the giant bird inside it. But he figures they should stay put long enough for him to get the transformed animals to the nearby zoo in Livingstone. Those yellow wings might be gone now—his are too—now that he had the bird in a deep freeze, but for all he knows there might be after-effects. And while the vets are checking out the animals, maybe Hal can have the ring give him an exam too.