Zero Hour 30th-Anniversary Special #1 review

It feels like just yesterday I was at a Walgreens with my parents and asked if they could buy a comic for me. The comic I wanted was Green Lantern (Vol. 3) #48. As soon as I saw that cover and the story title at the top, I knew I had to get it;  if the Death of Superman and Knightfall taught me anything, it was not to miss these crazy story arcs from DC Comics. Yet, the title of this special I’m reviewing reminds me that it has been 30 years. Wow! Time is a wild concept, and Zero Hour: Crisis in Time made for a massive event in the mid-’90s. So, what have Ron Marz and Dan Jurgens planned for us with this revisit? 

Once you get past those beautiful covers and open the issue, you’ll see quite the talent list, and it is so awesome to see them return to the comics page. When you get into the actual pages, it is so cool to see Kyle Rayner in action again as a GL with Darryl Banks as the artist. It totally takes me back. The opener has quite the drawl with a Flash coming through a portal and asking for help. It seems like a Crisis is looming, but for some, it will turn out to be. Rayner gets swept into a splinter dimension where things are familiar but not entirely what we’re used to. Yet, if you’re a fan of the ’90s, you’ll love the characters who run into Rayner. 

There are some wild twists, like Superman and Batman not returning from their respective situations, or that in this splinter dimension, no one knows of a Green Lantern. I can see the characters not knowing Rayner, but the idea of a GL is very lost on them, which makes sense as to why they rally behind Parallax. Things do heat up when the Oblivion Effects start popping up, and what an interesting name for those, as they do have a history with Kyle Rayner. Something else pretty wild about this Anniversary Special is that it is supposed to take place before Green Lantern (Vol. 7) #8…I knew that the clock on the cover had a connection! 

Overall, this special is a little hard to read, but its ’90s character callbacks make for a fun adventure. I pulled all my Emerald Twilight and Zero Hour comics and was ready to place this Anniversary special with them, but I probably won’t do that as it didn’t seem too connected outside of the name. Instead, I will put this with the current Green Lantern series by Jeremy Adams, Xermanico, and others, as there is some fallout from the special that I hope makes its way to the series. I hope they use that element wisely when dealing with what is happening to the Emotional Spectrum. Now I need my “Spider-Man Clone Saga 30th Anniversary Special” to hit, or I can check out Chasm: Curse of Kaine. Ah, nostalgia!