Green Lantern/Green Arrow #116, May 1979. "My Ring... My Enemy!" Written by Denny O'Neill, pencilled by Alex Saviuk, inked by Dave Hunt, lettered by Ben Oda, colored by Adrienne Roy, edited by Jack C. Harris, cover by Savuik and Dick Giordano

Green Lantern streaks down out of the sky over Star City as Green Arrow launches an arrow towards what appears to be a flying eye over the city. GA's arrows don't do any good, so GL tries his power ring, but the beam circles back at him, crushing him before throwing him aisde.

In an Arctic retreat run by Professor Ojo (inventor of the eye) and his assistent Minching, the duo discuss what happened. Ojo had nothing to do with the Lantern's ring malfunctioning, but feels it indicates Star City will be good for his plan.

Meanwhile, Green Arrow helps Green Lantern to his feet. GL thinks either his head injury (from issue #114) has wrecked his concentration, or something's wrong with his ring... either way, he has to go to the Guardians of Oa. Ollie isn't thrilled over the idea, but Hal's mind is made. Hal streaks into space and retrieves his battery from his truck (which he's left in orbit in a power ring bubble), and drops it off at Ollie's apartment.

The following morning, Ollie plans on surprising Hal with "Eggs a la' Ollie" for breakfast, but when he enters Hal's room, he sees his partner recharging his ring... but suddenly, something goes wrong! Streaks of energy exit the battery and shatter GL before he finally vanishes. Ollie's upset about this, but he's interrupted by a voice asking if he's Oliver Queen. The person asking is Guy Gardner, and he's going to be the new Green Lantern!

Rather, he'll sub for Hal until he returns from Oa. Ollie's heard Hal speak of Guy, but last he'd heard Guy was laid up, and John Stewart was the sub, but Guy says he's recovered, and that Stewart his his backup. Guy dons the uniform and charges his own ring, and they're set to go after Ollie changes to Green Arrow. The two go off to search for the flying eye, Ollie worried about what he'd seen before Guy showed up.

In space, Hal approaches a space warp near Uranus which is supposed to take him to Oa, but instead, it takes him to a desert... stranded and alone.

In Star City, night begins to fall, and Ollie and Guy discover the flyng eye. Ollie tries an arrow at it, but it doesn't do any good, as it did before. It responds by flashing a ray at Ollie, but Guy pushes him aside with the power ring. Guy then tries to hit it with a power beam, but the beam goes off-course. Ollie tries to convince Guy he'll do better next time.

Meanwhile, Hal walks the desert looking for some trace of life when suddenly the sand opens beneath him, where the Guardians await him below the surface. They'd neutralized Hal's ring and sent him to the desert side of the planet when their scanners indicated something was wrong with Hal's ring. They examine the ring more closely, and discover that the ring is fine... but the energy is not working properly... some commands may not work. A further effect, they warn, may be a time distortion. The difficulty is in Hal's battery (which Hal figures went screwy when the Crumbler's glove got near it last issue), so the Guardians give him a replacment one, and warn him to destroy the original, as it may be extremely dangerous. Hal takes the battery and heads back to Earth.

Back on Earth, Guy's being "treated" to a bowl of Ollie's five-alarm chili (which Dinah Drake Lance - Black Canary - seems sympathetic towards Guy, as she's aware of how hot it is). When he finishes eating, Guy goes off looking for the eye again. He's in luck, and spots it almost immediately, and blasts it quickly with a beam, destroying it. In the Arctic, Professor Ojo's unhappy, but is determined his plan will still succeed.

Back at Ollie's place, Hal arrives and tells Ollie and Dinah it was the battery causing the foul-ups. Ollie tells Hal about what he'd seen earlier, but figures now it was a dream, but Hal asks if Ollie's sure it was him. Hal recalls the warning about time distortion, and asks where Guy is. Hal blasts a hole into the room Guy's in, just in time to see Guy charging his ring... followed by an energy discharge, shattering Guy before vanishing. The worst part for Hal is that there's nobody to blame... nobody to hate.

On to the ads! Here's one for a pair of Batman and Robin Mego figures most collectors don't remember... with magnetic hands and feet! Now, I recall my younger brother had these (I was getting too old for such things... or so I thought) and he thought they were cool. The art is vaguely Infantino-ish, but it could be redrawings of original stuff.

Here's another of those perennial comics ads... for American Seed Co. Do you know how many times I was tempted to send in this coupon? Thank goodness I didn't, because I would've been terrible at selling seeds!

Of the "prizes" listed in ths ad, I would've been most interested in the junior guitars, model rocketry, and chemistry set.

I dunno... did any of you fair readers ever try this? I'd love to hear your stories about this, as well as about the magnetic Batman and Robin above. Just e-mail me at waffyjon@execpc.com and if you've got a picture scanned of the stuff you won or of the figures, I'll be glad to get that, too... I'll put 'em up on the site and your story can be shared with the masses!