Green Lantern #52
Green Lantern #52 delivers only the second solo-title team-up between Silver Age Hal Jordan and Golden Age Alan Scott — a pairing that was still novel enough in 1967 to feel like a genuine event, cementing the Earth-One/Earth-Two crossover tradition that John Broome and Julius Schwartz had been carefully cultivating since Green Lantern #40. The main story folds Sinestro, Doiby Dickles, and a supporting cast of named Green Lantern Corps members — Katma Tui, Tomar-Re, Stel, Medphyll, and NautKeLoi — into a single adventure, giving the Corps its most populous Silver Age showcase up to that point. Its cover, Gil Kane's dynamic Sinestro-versus-Hal composition, proved so resonant that DC reused it for the cover of Showcase Presents: Green Lantern Vol. 3 decades later. The issue also carries a sly pop-culture joke embedded in its title — a wink at the then-recent, short-lived sitcom My Mother the Car — signaling how attuned Broome's scripts were to the surrounding media landscape.
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Writer John Broome and penciller/inker Gil Kane produced the lead story 'Our Mastermind, the Car!' under editor Julius Schwartz, whose meticulous editorial records — later provided to DC — confirm the credits for script, pencils, and inks on both stories in the issue. A separate short backup story, 'The Sinister Sinestro!', was pencilled by Kane with inks by Murphy Anderson, the same Kane-Anderson cover team. Schwartz had been orchestrating Earth-Two guest appearances across the Silver Age GL title since 1965, and issue #52 represents his team's third visit to that well in Hal Jordan's own book, building continuity threads that would eventually feed into Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published April 1967 (on-sale February 23, 1967); Vol. 2 of the ongoing Green Lantern series; edited by Julius Schwartz.
- Lead story 'Our Mastermind, the Car!' is written by John Broome with pencils and inks by Gil Kane, lettered by Gaspar Saladino — credits confirmed from Schwartz's editorial records.
- Backup story 'The Sinister Sinestro!' features pencils by Gil Kane and inks by Murphy Anderson (lettered by Ira Schnapp); cover also by Kane and Anderson.
- The main story is framed as a 'previously untold' adventure narrated by Pieface (Thomas Kalmaku) from his Green Lantern case book, bringing Alan Scott (Earth-Two Green Lantern) to Earth-One to recover Doiby Dickles's beloved taxi Goitrude.
- Sinestro is revealed to have been secretly controlling Goitrude, disguising himself as a sentient lifeform inside the car; his scheme is to steal the Central Power Battery from the Guardians on Oa.
- The issue features a cameo appearance by multiple named Green Lantern Corps members — Katma Tui, Tomar-Re, Stel, Medphyll, and NautKeLoi — one of the largest Corps ensemble appearances in the Silver Age run.
- The story's title, 'Our Mastermind the Car!', is a direct cultural reference to the 1965–1966 NBC sitcom My Mother the Car.
- The issue has been reprinted four times: in Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups Vol. 2 (2007), Showcase Presents: Green Lantern Vol. 3 (2008, in black-and-white), The Green Lantern Archives Vol. 7 (2012), and Green Lantern: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 2 (2018).
Cast · 9 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
The Green Lanterns of Earth-1 and Earth-2 are baffled when Doiby Dickles' old taxi Goitrude takes up crime and becomes the leader of a gang. They discover that Sinestro was controlling the cab with his mind, and that he plans to steal the Central Power Battery from the Guardians.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).