Yup, its yet another cracking issue of Green Lantern Corps by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason. Are people getting bored reading me constantly gushing over this title?
Picking up on events from last issue, Red Lantern Vice is tearing through the Sciencells, much to the delight of the Sinestro Corps as Green Lantern Voz gets in his way. However, their delight soon changes when he turns on them.
Scar meanwhile releases the captured Sinestro Corps rings which fly back to their owners, as the rest of the Lanterns on Oa are alerted to the emergency and are led into the middle of the riot by Kyle, Guy and Kilowog.
Arisia and Sodam Yat arrive at Daxam, and quickly meet up with the refugees from Mongul’s takeover, led by Sodam’s father. As we’d expect from his exchange with his mother last issue, Sodam’s not thrilled to be there, and wastes no time laying into his father and trying to kick the Daxamites into action.
There’s a heck of a lot to love in this issue. The opening jailbreak sequence is action packed, and the art helps give it a real sense of urgency, with the red lantern running amok through the Sciencells as the rest of the GL’s rush in to try and contain things before they get out of hand. We also learn that these events are taking place during the Agent Orange arc, as its noted that the Guardians are off-planet in the Vega System.
Which makes Scar’s appearance interesting. Since she wasn’t with the other Guardians, does she get found out during the course of Agent Orange and end up in hiding from the other Guardians? Potentially interesting developments afoot there I think.
Sodam Yat’s story also continues to be good. I have to take my hat off to Peter Tomasi, as he’s really making me like the character now, whereas before I felt his introduction and promotion to Ion was far too rushed. We’re still not seeing much impressive about his power however, despite him being Ion, and perhaps there’s some dialogue needed to address this? Its easily explained that he’s not as experienced with the ring as Kyle is, or somesuch. As it stands though, he’s really coming across as a standard GL.
However it was nice to see that panel of him swooping down on Daxam, with the green energy wings, and his heat vision burning through the various Sinestro Corps members. Sodam Yat should be very powerful and scary, and I feel this panel actually acknowledged that.
There’s also an interesting spin being put on the Arisia/Sodam relationship. Previous issues really felt (to me) like they were being pitched as a couple, however in this storyline Arisia’s being confronted with a much harsher side to Sodam, and one she obviously doesn’t like. From his hardline dealings with the Daxamites (which I can’t really blame him for in fairness), to his admission that he’d have blown Zamarron apart just because a Guardian asked him to, Arisia seems to me to be a bit more afraid of Sodam in this issue.
The Sinestro Corps really shine here as well. With Arkillo still smarting from his beatdown last issue, and eventually killing another Corps member just for mentioning Mongul’s name. And the giant Sinestro Corps serpent encircling Daxam. All great moments and imagery. Tomasi’s obviously having a lot of fun expanding on the Sinestro Corps.
The final revelation in the book, is one a lot of people guessed, which kind of robs it of its power. Soranik being Sinestro’s daughter was widely speculated after Rage of the Red Lanterns, however it does put Sinestro’s actions towards her during Sinestro Corps War into a new light, which I like. It’ll be interesting to see where they go with this. Soranik finding out Korugar’s greatest villain is her father is going to cause some issues.
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