Cover: Neal Adams

Green Lantern #88

Feb 1972 · DC · 0.25 USD

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About this Issue

Green Lantern #88 occupies a genuinely unusual corner of Bronze Age DC history: it is the only issue in the O'Neil–Adams run that steps entirely outside that run's continuity, serving instead as a bridge between two eras of the character. Its crown jewel is the publication of 'The Menace of the Marching Toys!', a Golden Age Alan Scott adventure pencilled by Carmine Infantino and inked by Bernard Sachs that had been completed circa 1949 but sat unpublished for over two decades after the original Golden Age Green Lantern series was cancelled before it could reach issue #39. By finally printing that story, editor Julius Schwartz gave readers a genuine piece of comics archaeology — a window into what DC's late-Golden Age production pipeline looked like — that no other issue of the title could offer. The issue also sits one step before the title's own cancellation, making it a quiet, retrospective capstone to the Silver Age Hal Jordan solo run before the series went dark for four years.

Contains 3 stories

Summons from Space!

12.7 pp · Superhero

Green Lantern [Hal Jordan] (brief origin)Carol FerrisA Venusian PterodactylVenusians

The Menace of the Marching Toys!

12 pp · Superhero

Green Lantern [also appears as Alan Scott]Tin Soldier [Eric Knowles]Molly Maynne

The Origin of Green Lantern's Oath!

9.67 pp · Superhero

Green Lantern [Hal Jordan]Pieface [Thomas Kalmaku]Carol FerrisMr. Burbank (banker)Hank (bank robber)Mr. Davis (jet mechanic)Hank (safe-cracker)

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (Fine) $27

CGC 9.8 · 3 in census $1,162*

CGC 9.6 · 12 in census $383*

CGC 9.4 · 27 in census $304

CGC 9.2 · 31 in census $151

CGC 9.0 · 19 in census $139

CGC 8.5 · 30 in census $91

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CGC 8.0 · 16 in census $91*

CGC 7.5 · 25 in census $81

CGC 7.0 · 12 in census $74*

CGC 6.5 · 13 in census $63

CGC 6.0 · 5 in census $60*

CGC 5.5 · 6 in census $50*

CGC 5.0 · 7 in census $50*

CGC 4.5 · 2 in census $46

CGC 4.0 · 3 in census $44*

CGC 3.5 none in existence

CGC 3.0 none in existence

CGC 2.5 none in existence

CGC 2.0 · 1 in census $24*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

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History

The issue was edited by Julius Schwartz, the architect of both the Silver Age Green Lantern revival and the celebrated O'Neil–Adams socially conscious run. By late 1971, that run's sales had never been strong enough to sustain the title, and DC shifted #88 into a 52-page 'Special Surprise Issue' reprint format — a common Bronze Age cost-management strategy — rather than produce new O'Neil–Adams material. The sole new Adams contribution was the cover (a montage spotlighting both Green Lanterns, Hal Jordan and Alan Scott) and a single interior page reproducing his rough pencil sketch for the cover of the following issue #89, likely included as a promotional teaser. The Infantino/Sachs Golden Age story had been held in DC's files since the original Green Lantern Vol. 1 ended with issue #38 in 1949, and Schwartz chose this farewell-to-the-Silver-Age package as its long-overdue vehicle for publication.

Trivia · 8 facts

Cover date: March 1972; published February 1972 by DC Comics. Billed on its cover as a 'Special Surprise Issue.'
Cover art by Neal Adams, depicting both the Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott) and Silver Age Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) in a montage composition.
Contains the world-premiere publication of 'The Menace of the Marching Toys!', a Golden Age Alan Scott story originally slated for Green Lantern Vol. 1 #39 (1949) — a issue that was never published because the series was cancelled with #38. The story had remained unprinted for over 20 years.
'The Menace of the Marching Toys!' features pencils by Carmine Infantino and inks by Bernard Sachs; it introduces the villain Tin Soldier (Eric Knowles), a disgruntled toymaker who commands an army of mechanical toys to commit theft, with Molly Maynne also appearing.
The Silver Age reprint 'Summons from Space!' (script by John Broome, pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Joe Giella) was sourced from Showcase #23, one of the earliest Silver Age Hal Jordan appearances.
A third story, 'The Origin of Green Lantern's Oath!', with pencils by Gil Kane and inks by Murphy Anderson, rounds out the package; editor Julius Schwartz is credited as script contributor for that feature.
Neal Adams's only original interior contribution is a single page reproducing his rough pencil sketch for the cover of the immediately following issue, Green Lantern #89 — functioning as an in-book preview.
Issue #88 is one of the last two issues before the series went on hiatus; the Grand Comics Database records a four-year publication gap between #89 (April–May 1972) and #90 (August–September 1976), at which point Green Arrow was not co-featured and the O'Neil–Adams era had fully concluded.