Dec. 1989: Now Comics' The Green Hornet, Volume 1, Issue #2 (part 2)

This continues our look into the second issue of Now Comics first volume of Green Hornet comics.

At about the halfway point of this issue, upon returning with Kato in the Black Beauty from breaking up a purchase of illegal guns, the Green Hornet thinks back to where it all began for this version of the character, in 1968.

There is a rather jarring change in the art department here. 

Nice touch here. The moment that the elder Britt refers to was described in diary entry in the previous issue. 

So the system works. Let's back pocket that for a few more pages as we travel to Japan to see how one Hayashi Kato is doing. 

An impressed father (named Ikano) approaches Hayashi as Hayashi concludes a sparring session with his brothers.

Hayashi is greeted warmly at the Reid estate where, inevitably, the conversation turns toward the possibility of restoring the Green Hornet / Kato duo. But the younger Britt remains opposed to the idea. 

Throughout this portion of the issue, we are shown young Britt as a television anchorman delivering some harsh news of the day, involving war in Vietnam and the murder of a civil rights activist in Alabama. But his faith in the system is finally broken following an incident closer to home.  

Shocked and bloodied, Britt returns home where Hayashi has been putting the engineering work towards refurbishing an old car with the elder Britt. He delivers the news of the assassination of his former roomie. 

And so rose the second generation of NOW's Green Hornet, clearly a labour of love from writer Ron Fortier.