GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW

I'll be the first to admit that I can be curmudgeon in some ways; I'm a guy who generally doesn't like to see social issues as the primary raison d'etre for any comic book story. I don't mind when nods to society's ills are slipped into a tale that's otherwise about something else entirely (see Storm discovering her childhood home is now a junkie-infested slum in UNCANNY X-MEN 122 or Wolverine scaring Kitty Pryde off smoking in issue 196), but I really don't get why anyone, child or adult, would want to read an entire superhero story about drugs or homelessness or whatever.

So now I'm about to cover a beloved run by two legendary comic superstars, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, dedicated to just that premise.

I've owned the GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW trade for about four or five years now, but I've never quite been able to bring myself to read it. I've grabbed it off the shelf about three or four times over that span with the full intention of doing so, but just haven't found the will to crack it open -- and I think the main reason is that I love O'Neil and Adams on Batman. L-O-V-E. They crafted some of the most definitive and enjoyable Batman tales of all time. And because of that, I've had trouble jumping into what I'm pretty sure would quickly devolve into a "hate-read" of their other legendary run together.

Make no mistake -- I'm going into this thing with an agenda. I don't want to have one, but it's not like I can just force it out of my head. I'll do my best to be even-handed, but I fully expect to dislike the non-stop bleeding heart fest I'm about to cover for the next several weeks. Hopefully I don't scare anyone away in the process because I think I've got some pretty fun stuff planned after this run is over!