Green Lantern Filmation 3: Angry Birds!

When we last left Green Lantern, he’d fallen for the bait set by Sirena, Evil Empress ™, who’d kidnapped some pilot and Hal Jordan’s “Venusian helper”, Kairo, as part of plot to neutralize GL so she can invade Oa.

"Um... you do realize you have no hands, right?"

"Okay. Forget I said anything."

Sirena sends her All-Male Horde of Identical Freakish Yellow Bat-Creatures to attack GL. Meanwhile, Hal and Kairo prepare for battle by girding their loins…

with each other.

Whoa. Um… can I get a “Venusian helper”, please?

You know, this seems vaguely familiar; where have I seen this scene before?

Oh, yes; now, I remember:

Yes, thanks to me (and my good pal and faithful reader, Noah Van Google), you now know that the Ambiguously Gay Duo’s characteristic “flight pattern” is taken from Hal and Kairo fighting the Bat-Creatures of Planetoid Sargasso. You’re welcome. And when that wins you a Trivial Pursuit game, I expect you to thank me publicly.

But it’s okay. I mean, it’s not as if Hal could use his power ring to whip up any number of contraptions that he and Kairo could travel in, or as if he could just, you know, leave Kairo where he was. He has absolutely no choice but to have Kairo snugly ride his butt like that. I guess Sally’s right; GL butts are something special, after all.

Anyway, it turns out that the Identical Freakish Yellow Bat-Creatures can shoot frickin’ zappy beams from their horns; yikes! Score another one for Cartoon Evolution and its proclivity to generate unlikely beings after spending the afternoon at the airfield bar with Hal Jordan. PLUS, the dang things are YELLOW, meaning Hal’s power ring is powerless to affect them. Right?

WRONG! Because this is Filmation, baby; welcome to Earth-F.

Hal decides to show off for the Venusian helper riding his butt (because drunk people love being clever and because Kairo has long beautiful eyelashes), slurring “Wash me t*turn thayruh own beams againsht ‘um!”, and simply bends the freakish bat-creature’s horns back at them.

You just know that young Hal used grab Jim Jordan’s arm and make him punch himself in the face, repeating, “Why do you keep hitting yourself? Why do you keep hitting yourself?” Jerk.

Her freakish horde stymied, Sirena decides to deal with Green Lantern herself, shouting imperiously, “I’ll deal with Green Lantern myself!”. So she activates a miniature magnowave that tunes in on Hal’s brainwaves.

Honestly, that’s impressive enough; just being able to build a device that can detect Hal Jordan’s brainwaves should get her a Nobel Prize, 'cuz that's harder than finding FTL neutrinos.

But then, it gets even better. While Hal stands around smugly preening for his Venusian helper...

“Didja see how I handled those Freakish Bat-Creature? Pretty cool, huh?”

...she takes an outré tack by launching an Angry Bird ™ at him.

...and...

"Stop that pigeon, NOW!"

Thud.

Make sure you watch the actual video; the sound effect alone is worth it. You need to know what the sound of a space owl hitting Hal Jordan in the head is.

You know, all of the millions of times Hal’s been hit in the head? This is pretty much at the top of that list. It doesn’t get better than watching Hal Jordan get hit in the head by an Angry Bird ™. In fact, I’d love to have that little sequence as a GIF that I could use in my sidebar, or in my online forum signatures, or as an image on my digital flicker ring. It would soothe my soul in times of crisis.

Also, props to Sirena for having the presence of mind to develop a radar-guided space-owl cannon for just such an occasion. Ordinarily, I’m a foe of surrealism in superhero media, but nothing provides the element of surprise like a radar-guided space-owl cannon. This is the kind of stuff Grant Morrison has been doing drugs for decades trying to write; back in the day, thin-tied Manhattanites like George Kashdan used to bang this stuff out every day before noon, before they'd even had their fourth martini of the day. Score at halftime: George Kashdan 8, Grant Morrison 0.

With Hal characteristically unconscious…

Dude! I was so wasted last night. I don’t remember a thing we did…!

Sirena’s Freakish Yellow Bat-Minions swoop in and remove his ring.

Without hands.

Somehow.

“Without his ring, he’s powerless!” Sirena exults.

Oh, silly Sirena! Sure, he’s superpowerless…

EXCEPT FROM THE WAIST DOWN.

Never forget that.

NEXT UP: Kairo and the Angry Bird ™ versus Sargassonian architecture!