Five Goofiest Moments in Green Lantern #31-35

Every week, I'll examine the five goofiest moments from a five-issue stretch of a particular comic book series. Here is a list of the moments featured so far.

This week, we look at Green Lantern #31-35, written by John Broome (#31), Gardner Fox (#32-35), penciled by Gil Kane and inked by Sid Greene.

As always, this is all in good fun. I don't mean any of this as a serious criticism of the comics in question. Not only were these writers certainly never imagining people still reading these comics decades after they were written, great comics often have goofy moments (Kirby/Lee's Fantastic Four is one of the best comic book runs of all-time and there were TONS of goofy stuff in those 100 plus issues!).

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Just like last week, we see a super-villain waaaay too confident, to a hilarious degree...

"I don't need to see him actually hit the ground. I'm sure I've won."

I love how they explain that Green Lantern couldn't milk an injury for attention, but Hal Jordancould!!

The Silver Age was known for its characters getting excessive powers out of nowhere, but Hector Hammond CREATES AN ACTUAL DUPLICATE OF A GUARDIAN to fight Hal Jordan!!!

Gardner Fox at least plays with the idea a bit in the end of the issue when it occurs to Hammond that hey, why not use these powers to get myself out of the chair (and the reason it doesn't work is really quite clever. Honestly, Fox's stories are awesome)?

The way Hal escapes the Guardian is pretty funny. Fox had just recently began to heavily push the Earth-2 concept, but here, we see Hal use it as an escape route!!

In Green Lantern #32's secondary story, Hal travels to another world, where a bad guy takes control of his ring through telepathy...

And I love he escapes the control...

I like that Fox even hangs a lantern on the concept - "it just so happens that the telepathy was in a straight line so that the yellow leaf worked to block it."

This bit just amused me because while we all know Schwartz (and Fox) loved to sneak real facts into comics, extensive footnotes in back-to-back panels just seemed a bit too much...

Also, Fox breaks out some awesome pseudo-science in this bit from #35...

Speaking of that alien world where Hal used the yellow leaf to bail himself out, I love the list of the heroes of that world that Hal tried to save.

"Strong Girl"? For serious?

Even for Hal "I smash my head into things all the time" Jordan, losing the power setting of his ring is particularly embarrassing...

I didn't even know that the rings HAD a setting!

In the lead story from #35, Hal decides to use his fists instead of his ring. However, Hal's fists are apparently enough to knock a dude THROUGH A BRICK WALL!!!

By the way, that dude Hal is hitting? Wait until you see his origin...

So he's a clown who invented devices to allow him to walk on air so that he could impress an aerialist who dies when she gets hit by lightning during a show?!? Awesome.

I've already spotlighted the weird story that John Broome did about the reporter who is convinced that Hal's brother, Jim, is Green Lantern. In their wedding in #31, Broome takes it to a whole other level...