Green Lantern #80

Green Lantern #80 (On Sale: August 25, 1970) has an interesting duo-tone cover by Neal Adams, making a play on a planet's yellow journalism with its coloring.

In the 22-page tale "Even an Immortal Can Die" Denny O'Neil tackles more societal ills than you can shake a stick at. As such, the story gets sort of lost along the way. I've read that the story is meant to evoke the trials of the "Chicago Eight," particularly the binding and gagging of Bobby Seale.

After messing around with a number of inkers on the book, we pretty much settle down now to Neal Adams' pencils being handled by Dick Giordano (with an assist here and there this issue from Mike Peppe), which is a good thing I think.

After crashing their truck into the water, Green lantern, Green Arrow and the Guardian they call the Old-Timer are rescued by a passing ship carrying barrels of toxic waste. They arrive on board just in time for the ship's boiler to over-heat. Before the Lantern can do anything to stop it, it explodes and GL is seriously injured.

The Old-Timer has the same powers as Green Lantern, but being on Earth for so long has weakened them. He can either save Green Lantern's life or save the ship. He chooses to save the life of his friend.

In order to keep the toxic waste from igniting and blowing up the ship, the crew, with Green Arrow's assist, dump it into the water. This gives Green Arrow a chance to moralize on the greed of those who make such waste in the first place.
 
Green lantern, green Arrow and the Old-Timer are summoned to OA by the Guardians of the Universe. There they are told that for putting the welfare of Green Lantern ahead of the ecological welfare of the planet Earth, the Old-Timer will be sent to the planet Gallo to be judged by the Tribune. Green lantern says he and Arrow wish to accompany their friend as witnesses, and Lantern says how his respect for the Guardians is greatly diminished.

When they arrive on Gallo, they are all muzzled and the Old-Timer is judged guilty without trial. The heroes realize that something is terribly wrong. They discover that the real Tribune have been replaced by their mechanic who, with his robotic forces, has taken control.  The Green ones must then fight to restore the proper process of justice and save the life of the Old-Timer.

Not the best of stories, so many ills Denny is trying to hit on in a single story, but still, hell, it is 22 pages of Neal doing the Green ones. Why complain? This has been reprinted in Green Lantern/Green Arrow #3, Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection Vol. 1 TPB, Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection HC, Green Lantern/Green Arrow Vol. 1 TPB, Showcase Presents: Green Lantern Vol. 5 TPB and Green Lantern/Green Arrow TPB.

Edited by Julius Schwartz.