Among the Absolute Power regular series tie-in volumes, Green Lantern Vol. 3: Power of Will ranks up there. I’m not sure what writer Jeremy Adams is given to work with in terms of Absolute Power is any better or worse than what other writers get, but the book is bolstered by Adams flipping through the perspectives of a variety of this title’s characters, and it also benefits from Adams' talent for using DC’s properties quirky and obscure.

And that’s just Power of Will’s three main issues. In all the weird ways DC has padded their Absolute Power tie-in volumes (see Superman Vol. 3: The Dark Path for another), the Green Lantern book includes not only all of these issues' backup stories and not only a related issue of Absolute Power: Task Force VII, but also the Sinister Sons lead-in story from some previous issues and the Zero Hour 30th Anniversary Special by Dan Jurgens and Ron Marz. It is nonsense, base padding out of this book, and it is also wonderful.

[Review contains spoilers]

Adams leverages his Green Lantern title’s supporting cast exceptionally well. I could very simply say, “Adams uses cutscenes,” and that might not seem like much, though it’s more of an accomplishment than you might expect. Any number of writers might’ve made the main three issues just Hal fighting his way through Amanda Waller’s Absolute Power base, just a plotless action tale (looking at you, Batman Absolute Power tie-in issues). Instead, in the first two issues, Adams and artist extraordinaire Fernando Pasarin flit between Hal Jordan, Jessica Cruz, Sinestro, Alan Scott, new villain Sorrow, the United Planets' Thaaros, Carol Ferris, and on, often with similar lead-in panels; some of these “shorts” read like monologues or one-act plays.

In Adams limiting himself to about two to five pages per scene, Power of Will feels packed and forward-moving, and doesn’t suffer from the full stop that Absolute Power brings to other titles. For entertainment value, it helps too to have the kind of nutso callbacks that have punctuated Adams' Future State and Flash books, too — Blue Devil’s staff and Condiment King’s guns and Javelin’s javelins and Major Force, and then of all the heroes Star Sapphire Carol Ferris could encounter on the street, it’s Dove Dawn Granger (I’d buy Adams' Hawk and Dove book in an instant). And that’s besides that Adams delivers actually gripping action sequences, Hal launching a Batmobile at the Hall of Order and speed-chanting the Green Lantern oath before he falls to his death.

Elevating this as well are two strong backup stories by Marc Guggenheim. In the first, we see Thaaros’s hard upbringing and potential insanity as he tortures prisoners; in the second, one of the interim “Shadow Lanterns” realizes their corruption and sacrifices himself to try to foil Thaaros’s plot. Both of these are dark and brilliantly self-contained, backup shorts in the best sense, and they lend Adams' issues extra gravitas.

I was sorry to see that Hal’s Flash team-up here is with Wally, not Barry — I guess I misunderstood what was leading in and out of Absolute Power, but I thought we’d have a “Brave and the Bold” reunion. Also, insofar as the ins and outs of Absolute Power are hard to follow anyway, the collections editors really waste an opportunity including Adams' related Task Force VII story here but not slotting it between Green Lantern #13 and #14 where it’s supposed to go.

Again, this all gives way to Peter Tomasi and David Lafuente’s “Wayward Son,” leading in to their Sinister Sons miniseries. Oddly that book has not been solicited for collection yet, a bit worrisome, though to see “Wayward Son” here offers a bit of hope. The abuse Korg (aka “Sinson”) suffers is affecting though the story’s four parts get repetitive (Korg’s various failed heists); it was interesting to see how Korg both worships and in some ways misunderstands the Sinestro Corps the way others might deify the Green Lanterns.

And finally, the Zero Hour 30th Anniversary Special. An editor’s note positions Jurgens and Marz’s story within Adams’s Green Lantern; charitably, that’s about the only reason for including it here unless Adams follows up on the book’s epilogue, though I don’t see that on the horizon.

There was a Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special a couple years back that took place on the in-story anniversary of Superman’s death; that is, it was very centered on “Death of Superman.” The events of the Zero Hour Special do eventually come around to intersect with Zero Hour itself, but it takes a shockingly long time; ahead of that, it’s just Kyle Rayner in a pocket dimension trying to convince legacy heroes he’s a good guy. To an extent the story seems secondary to what the back of the book describes as art by “DC’s most acclaimed talents from the '90s,” though I don’t think this was as impressive as they hoped — it is not as though Dan Jurgens, Paul Pelletier, Howard Porter, Kelley Jones, and Jerry Ordway aren’t artists we see around with at least semi-regularity.

It was fun to have emphasis on 1990s characters — Azrael, Connor Hawke, the Ray, and Guy Gardner in his short-lived suit of armor. Starman Jack Knight, too, though I’m not sure the writers quite got his voice. And I’m always down for Waverider and his rainbow stripes by Jurgens and Brett Breeding. But there’s a lot of fight-and-team-up (or just plain “fight”) and head-scratching moments: why Invisible Kid to represent the Legion? Why not use Zero Hour’s Batgirl instead of just a random, other Batgirl? No Extant? Plus coloring mistakes and Porter getting Batgirl’s costume quite wrong.

But indeed I’d been wondering where the collection of the Zero Hour 30th Anniversary Special was, and just that DC sees fit to celebrate 30 years since Zero Hour warms my 1990s heart. Putting it in Jeremy Adams’s Green Lantern Vol. 3: Power of Will is weird — this is a weirdly padded-out book — but I love it, and I love it a lot more than when they retroactively stuck the Knight Terrors tie-ins into the Superman book.

[Includes original and variant covers]