The Daily Comic Book Coffee, number 27: Let’s make a return trip to Radu’s Coffee Shop in New York City. “Hard-Loving Heroes” is penciled by Jamal Igle, inked by Dan Davis, lettered by Kurt Hathaway, and colored by Tom McCraw, from Green Lantern Secret Files #3, published by DC Comics with a July 2002 cover date.
By this point in time Green Lantern Kyle Rayner was now dating Jade, the daughter of the original GL, Alan Scott. While Kyle is off fighting some nut in a giant knock-off Gundam suit, Jade is meeting with her alien friend Merayn for a cup of coffee at Radu’s. Jade is sharing her concerns with Meryan about dating Kyle who, while a basically decent guy, is still a little on the immature and unfocused side. Jade finds herself wondering if she might be nothing more than a replacement for Kyle’s dead girlfriend Alex.
This page is penciled by the incredible Jamal Igle, who really shows off his storytelling chops in this scene. He makes the conversation between Jade, Merayn and Radu interesting and animated.
Igle’s earliest professional work was eight years earlier, penciling several pages of Green Lantern #52 in 1994, followed by a fill-in issue of Kobalt for Milestone. Looking back, his work on those first couple jobs was pretty good, showing potential. You can then see continuous growth as he did pencils for various titles over the next several years. By the time we get to this story, Igle was doing really high-quality work. Igle subsequently had well-regarded runs on Firestorm and Supergirl at DC. He then made the decision to focus on creator-owned and independent projects. I’m looking forward to future installments of his series Molly Danger, the first volume of which was released by Action Lab Comics.
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