Green Lantern #87 (April, 1997)

Green Lantern Kyle Rayner can't believe that he's seated in a meeting with the new Justice League of America inside their new lunar base. Electric Blue Superman doesn't look the part, but he's still the Man of Steel, while Wonder Woman is the ultimate warrior he'd met in Gateway City. The Flash is closest to Kyle's age, but has many more years of experience, and never hesitates to remind Rayner of it. Batman barely shows up to these things and the tragic loner Aquaman barely more so. "Batman... gives me the creeps. He could probably wipe up the floor with the lot of us... J'Onn J'Onzz, the Martian Manhunter. He spooks me even more than Batman... Aquaman's surly if he's in a good mood, and Batman's just plain frightening. But at least they're both human. At least I think Batman's human. J'Onn's... not. And the green skin and that brow aren't what's alien about him. He seems so detached... cold. That Martian mind meld or whatever it was when we fought Know Man, that wasn't a lot of fun either. Don't get me wrong, I respect J'Onn. Incredible strength, shape-changing, invisibility, telepathy. He's really the next best thing to Superman, and he's been a hero forever. He just gives me the willies, that's all."

Green Lantern was stuck at the Watchtower after everyone else left to receive orientation from the Manhunter on facility operations. "Man, how much am I not looking forward to this?" Kyle tries to make awkward conversation, but "What do you say to a Martian?" Bringing up that he's a Martian? "I believe we're both aware of my heritage." Kyle figured J'Onn thought he was a dolt and entered a shame spiral that was blessedly relieved by the triggering of a long range scanner. A space craft larger than the island of Manhattan had dropped out of warp and begun firing a beam at Earth. Kyle initially didn't want to drag the rest of the just-departed JLA back, but the matter was rendered moot when communications were jammed. The ship was terraforming Southern California, where Kyle's mother lived, so he was in a hurry to address the ship. Likewise, the ship swiftly zapped the pair of interlopers.

"Maybe I'm a little more comfortable around Wally or even Supes, but being paired up with J'Onn has its advantages. His telepathy is better than AT&T in this void." The heroes' uncoordinated attacks dealt only incidental damage, so J'Onn recommended a more strategic approach. "Your ring allows you to be more adaptable than I. You concentrate on getting inside the ship... I'll provide what distraction I can. Listen to me. The last time I trusted a Green Lantern, an entire world died. Don't fail." Kyle refused to allow another Xanshi to happen, though where his confidence that he could avert one when John Stewart couldn't comes from, I'd rather not guess. The Green Lantern made his way into the ship expecting to confront an alien horde, and so is unnerved to find a single long dead extraterrestrial, seemingly by its own hand.

Startled when he was soon joined by the Sleuth from Outer Space, it was determined that the ship was entirely automated, and Green Lantern intended to blast the control panel with a replica machine gun before being physically deterred by the Manhunter. "...We don't know what effects disabling the ship's systems would have. Neither am I in the habit of destroying what I don't understand... And as you said, there seems to be as much organic component to this system as there is mechanical." The Martian Marvel was able to telepathically communicate with that element, learning the the ship was an ark carrying the seeding material to recreate the civilization that had perished on the long journey to find an appropriate substitute world. Luckily, John Stewart had told Kyle about a more suitable planet than Earth... called Mogo. "So what do you say, J'Onn? Not a bad first mission for the last Green Lantern and the last Green Martian." The Alien Atlas concurred, "In fact... quite fitting."

"Last of Their Kind" was by Ron Marz, Tom Grindberg, and Romeo Tanghal. I had to check several times to make sure that I hadn't written about this comic for the Idol-Head blog. I did a post linking to the late Shawn Engel's Just One of the Guys Podcast Episode #87, and I know I did a brief synopsis on my old WebTV page, but somehow never here. This was another early instance of my buying a comic book specifically for the Martian Manhunter logo on the cover, but it had more resonance than his slightly earlier Aquaman appearance. Arthur had used his long time association with J'Onn as a utility or plot device, where this story was specifically about how rookie hero Kyle Rayner related to the veteran J'Onn J'Onzz while trying to settle into his new team situation (having briefly served with The New Titans.) Despite having read Justice League titles off & on since the JLI period, including the final couple years of the previous incarnation, I very much appreciated the story's embrace of the new. For the first time, I felt like I was reading a "real" Justice League series, and despite being a young and not entirely accepted legacy, that "last" Green Lantern represented an icon that belonged in a revived comic book pantheon pantheon that included the Manhunter from Mars. Since the Detroit years, J'Onn had been treated as a mentor to younger heroes, so it made sense for Kyle to be shown under his watch. Kyle represented a revitalization of the Green Lantern brand that was legitimized by association with the JLA, while restoring his connection to both the icons and a more commercial newer hero allowed the Manhunter to gain a relevancy not really seen for him before. The story itself wasn't anything special, but it indicated a direction of welcome renewal for the World's Greatest Super-Heroes.