This is the first chapter of a fill-in/crossover story with Green Lantern. The first chapter of "Black Circle: Urban Knights" delivers an intriguing, fun super-hero team-up story, and Charlie Adlard's fill-in artwork maintains the same dark, mature atmosphere we've come to expect on this title thanks to the Phil Hester/Ande Parks run on the book. What's missing, though, is a reflective, character-driven script.
Gangbangers and druggies are pulling some odd capers. Green Arrow foils one getaway attempt in Star City, only to discover that the cargo the criminals were transporting wasn't at all what he expected. And in New York, Green Lantern ends up in the middle of a dispute between some punks and some highly unusual gangsters. GL follows their trail to Star City, where he, not surprisingly, gets in the elder hero's way. Tempers flare and fists fly as two generations of Justice Leaguers clash.
While Adlard's dark and simple style helps to maintain a consistency in the visuals for the series as a whole, he doesn't just sit back and imitate the Hester style either. Adlard's own unique, gritty artwork is on display here, and it suits the urban, filthy quality of the plot and Green Arrow's world. The eerie glow of Green Lantern's powers are appropriately out of place in that context, though, and it provides a visual parallel to the conflict between the main characters.
Raab offers up a rather typical super-hero team story. The villains have a foot in each of the two different worlds of the two different heroes. The good guys fight each before getting down to business. And plot doesn't seem to have the potential to affect the protagonists' lives in any real, long-lasting way. The conflict between Arrow and Lantern is a forced one. The animosity between the two just doesn't make a lot of sense, because we're not given any context for it, aside from a brief reference to Hal Jordan, ex-Green Lantern and one-time best friend to the title character.
Despite the shortcomings in the plotting, though, I have to admit that there's some fun to be had here. I'm reminded of simpler stories from The Brave and the Bold and DC Comics Presents in the 1980s. Raab also provides some solid laughs in the form of bimbo models, acquaintances that with whom Lantern and his girlfriend chum around. And the mystery of the antaongists and their purpose has piqued my curiosity a little.
