This is one of my favorite issues of Green Lantern. "Peril in Plastic" is by Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams, and Bernie Wrightson and lord, are those Wrightson inks wonderful to see. The rich, silky smoothness it adds to Neal's pencils made me wish they had done a lot more work together than they did. Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris enjoy a romantic three weeks together, after revealing his secret identity to her. However, eventually, she explains that she plans to go to the company town of Piper's Dell by herself to see if Dr. Wilbur Palm, the mayor, can cure the paralysis of her legs. Later, Hal visits his friend Oliver Queen for some relationship advice, but they soon hear word that Piper's Dell is being threatened by floods caused by bombs around the town.
Green Lantern manages to save the town from destruction, but Dr. Palm insists that he stay, slapping a Kaluta (isn't that wonderful!) onto his breast, a small toy/conversation piece/personal decoration that sprays perfume into his face at intervals. As they walk about the ground shakes with the sound Ka-Looo'Ta!, created by the punch press that makes the devices.
As Mayor, he gives Lantern the key to the city, which is plastic and breaks in his hands. When GL says he needs to leave and fly home he finds he can no longer concentrate enough to fly, and Palm sends a number of men in suits to attack him. Eventually he is defeated, falling though the cheap plastic wall of a house. With his last thoughts before falling unconscious, Green Lantern sends his Green Lantern Ring to Star City to find Oliver.
When Green Lantern comes to, he finds that Dr. Wilbur Palm is in fact his old nemesis the Black Hand in disguise. Black Hand reveals that he has used the town's manufacturing facilities to create a system of brainwashing the townspeople, and that his invitation to Carol Ferris was a ploy to bring Green Lantern there. He has Carol brought in in her wheelchair and allows a still powerless Green Lantern and Carol to escape, knowing that the brainwashed citizens will attack them.
However, in the meantime, Oliver and Black Canary have got into an argument and returning to his apartment Oliver finds the ring, and going to Hal's hotel room, he charges the ring. He then takes a boat to Piper's Dell and returns the ring to Hal with one of his arrows just in time for GL to defeat the citizens. Green Lantern detains the citizens in energy constructs, and then uses his ring to entrap the Black Hand within a case of molten plastic.
The heroes make good their escape, and later, while Christmas shopping, Carol wonders why the people in Piper's Dell would give up so much freedom so easily for a plastic world. Green Arrow seeing plastic Christmas trees for sale wonders if they were so different from everyone else. This classic tale has been reprinted in DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #16 (1981), Green Lantern/Green Arrow #5 (1984), Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection Vol. 2 TPB (1993), Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection HC (2001), Green Lantern/Green Arrow Vol. 2 TPB (2004), Showcase Presents: Green Lantern Vol. 5 TPB (2011), Green Lantern/Green Arrow TPB (2012), and Absolute Green Lantern/Green Arrow HC (2016).
Edited by Julius Schwartz.
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