Mogo Doesn't Socialize

Green Lantern (1960) (Single Issues)

by Alan Moore

After revealing his Green Lantern identity, John Stewart battles Sonar. And in the backup tale, legendary writer Alan Moore and Tomar Re tell a tall tale to a gullible recruit. Or do they? Featuring the first appearance of Mogo, a major Green Lantern character!

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics

6 pages, Unknown Binding

Published May 1, 1985

About the author

Alan Moore is an English writer most famous for his influential work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He has also written a novel, Voice of the Fire, and performs "workings" (one-off performance art/spoken word pieces) with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.

As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.

Reviews

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was originally only going to read the second story within this comic however, I realised (by actually looking at the cover) the first story involves John’s secret identity being revealed!

I did read the first few pages; how exactly his identity was exposed and some of the reactions to the news.
But the fight with the bad guy held little interest for me so I skipped to the second story.

The second story includes the first appearance of Mogo! If you don’t know, Mogo is a Green Lantern who also happens to be a living planet!
I’m not sure exactly why this was on my reading list but it was kinda funny to see Bolphunga freak out when he realised who Mogo was.

[itchy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This John Stewart's got balls revealing his identity like that.

[Nicolas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steve Englehart's run begins in this issue. (This is my stand-in for issues 188-193) Parts of this run remain uncollected, but this is where we see John Stewart begin to take the lead as Hal struggles to adapt to being powerless and Guy remains in a vegetative state. It's a transitional period for the title, but there's no waste. Good stuff. I jumped on here because of the author, but it's making me consider a deep dive into classic GL.

Even though it was meant to be a Batman episode, I couldn't help but talk Green Lantern when interviewing Steve Englehart for the All the Books Show: https://soundcloud.com/allthebooks/in...

[Jared Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons had created the Planet-sized Green Lantern Mogo in a one shot before they got together to create Watchmen. What I didn't realize was that it was only 6 pages.

Despite it's brevity, it does a great job at telling a funny and totally creative story. Alan Moore has always been such a genius at the ideas behind his comics. The idea to create a planetary-sized green lantern, and have an overconfident meathead named "Bolphunga" challenge Mogo, without doing his homework, is likewise genius.

Alan and Dave have such a knack for embodying such creative and original ideas into a story that feels familiar and classic. The GLC creates a massive world-building palette for their creativity to work it's magic. It's no wonder that Mogo became such an iconic Green Lantern, used throughout Geoff John's Green Lantern run.

[Andrew Robertson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amusing, but no plot to the story at all.