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The other new title added to the Green Lantern stable with the new 52, replacing Emerald Knights, is The New Guardians. Providing a spotlight to the other Lantern Corps, and starring Kyle Rayner, this to me made a lot of sense for a new book.

I’ve talked before about how I didn’t really understand the decision to launch the Red Lanterns over the other Corps into their own book. Instead here, we get a member of each of the other Corps getting involved. I really like the idea that this book will allow a spotlight across the different Lanterns. What’s happened with the Blue Lanterns since they lost their Guardians? Likewise the Star Sapphires since their power source went kaboom?  That’s the kind of thing this book will hopefully address. I’ve also talked about how the Corps have slowly become less distinct in their powers since their introduction, and that’s also something Tony Bedard has talked about wanting to address here. There’s already a hint of it in the first issue, as Fatality’s constructs always appear to be made out of crystal rather than just energy.

And, of course, I think its great that Kyle’s the main star and Green Lantern of the title. To be honest, I’ve never particularly felt Kyle was left by the side once Hal came back, as many suggested (he’s never been close to the way Wally’s been airbrushed out of the Flash franchise) and enjoyed the Rann-Thanagar appearances, the Ion series and finally him being in Green Lantern Corps.

Now granted, I wasn’t necessarily a massive fan of how Kyle was used in Tony Bedard’s Green Lantern run. The combination of him and John Stewart was never one I particularly felt Bedard had a handle on, up until the final Aftermath issues, in which I really thought he did a great job on the characters. This series gets off a great start, with a nice recap of Kyle’s origin, showing long term readers how its been tweaked to compensate for the removal of the JSA from continuity. Rather than Alan appearing after Alex’s death to tell Kyle about the Corps, Ganthet is the one who gives Kyle a brief background to the ring and the Corps before he vanishes off.  Its a nice, logical tweak that I imagine will play in later to the run, as it establishes the relationship between Kyle and Ganthet nicely (one thing that I think has been ignored since Hal came back – so nice to see its use here).

The various Lanterns picked to fill out the cast work well too.  Bleez makes a lot of sense, as one of the most prominent Red Lanterns, and likewise Saint Walker is an obvious pick (although personally I prefer the character of Warth for Blue Lanterns).  I did really like in issue 2 how Tony Bedard started building up the relationship between Kyle and Walker, based on their mutual respect for Ganthet.  That was a really nice touch.  Arkillo is again, a good choice as possibly second only to Sinestro in terms of prominence in his Corps, and I loved the trick Tony Bedard uses with Arkillo’s ring having to speak for him.  Its nice to see his tongue being removed wasn’t forgotten or undone in the reboot.  Something I was really pleased to see, was Fatality being the Star Sapphire who turns up.  Characters introduced in Kyle’s run on GL have slowly been wiped out since Hal came back, whereas Fatality managed to hang around thanks to the John Stewart/Xanshi connection (although to be honest, that went kind’ve nowhere).   So the fact that a recurring foe from Kyle’s GL run is being used here is a great back nod to Kyle’s 10 years in the main role.

Tony Bedard’s direction for Kyle seems interesting as well, with him speaking in interviews about how he’s wanting to try and carve out a more unique role for Kyle within the franchise.  Hal is often held up as the best GL ever (as is common for whoever happens to be leading the book at the time – see The Flash and whoever is best with the Speedforce), Guy has his role as the premier troubleshooter in the GLC (and probably the main rival to Hal’s position).  How John fits into things is perhaps less distinct since his more thoughtful, introspective Mosiac-era persona has given way to his new Marine background, but the focus here is on Kyle.   And building on what Tony Bedard tried to do during War of the Green Lanterns, it seems the idea is for Kyle to be more generally adept across the emotional spectrum, rather than being an uber-GL or anything like that.  Its an interesting idea, and I’m keen to see how it works out.  Presumably we’re going to see Kyle using the other Corps rings more throughout the book.

There’s also the mystery of why all these rings are suddenly targetting Kyle.  And my guess is that this is where his relationship with Ganthet may come into play.   That background is being bigged up again, and the rings have just targetted Kyle, as the Guardians have forceably stripped Ganthet of his emotions and his personality (see my previous complaints about the Guardians being borderline villains in the franchise these days – and this act seems stunningly unforgivable even by their standards).  It would make sense to me that this is some sort of backup plan of Ganthet’s, although as to why, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Overall, despite my burnout on the other Corps towards the end of the last volume, I think having them in their own focused book is the right idea, and I look forward to Tony Bedard hopefully starting to play more with the differences between their powers, and how their rings affect them (I loved the out-of-control Miri stuff towards the end of his GLC run).  The Kyle focus was always going to be a big win for me, and so far Tony Bedard seems to be getting on better, with a singular main character as his focus.

The third Lantern book of the reboot, and the second returning title, Green Lantern Corps has none-the-less had things rejigged a bit, with Peter Tomasi and Guy returning to the book, while Kyle has exited to star in the New Guardians title.

While I criticised Green Lantern #1 for not coming across as much of a first issue, to me Green Lantern Corps manages to toe that line well, while also not feeling like its written solely for new readers.

From the off, a (presumably) new threat is established, when a pair of Lanterns (and their prisoner) in a sector house are slaughtered by someone who is largely kept off-panel.  Aside from a distinctive green glove, all we’re really left knowing is that they seem to be impervious to the power of a Green Lantern.

From there, its very much a shift, and one that works well as a reintroduction of the main characters.  We jump back to Earth, where both Guy and John are trying, and struggling to re-establish some kind of normal life outwith the Corps.   It was a nice move, to use their public identities in different ways.  Despite his normal bluster, Guy is actually the more reserved of the two, desperately trying to play down his role as a Green Lantern just so he can land a job interview as a high school coach (a nice nod to how the character started out).  Of course, he’s swarmed by the other candidates all desperate for pictures and hounding him with questions, which provides a neat outlet for Peter Tomasi to quickly establish the basic information any new reader needs about the setup of the Corps.

Eventually, Guy gets his interview, but is forced to concede that as a Green Lantern, he’d be too much of a trouble-magnet to risk being around the school kids.  Its a real gut-punch moment as the principle (who is pretty nice about the whole thing), forces Guy to acknowledge that he just can’t have a normal job and be a public Green Lantern.  John on the other hand, is quick to use his powers in his architecture job, using his ring to display designs of the building.  He’s also the one that flies off the handle a bit more readily.  When the clients complain about his building in safety measures that aren’t in the contract he’s suddenly flying them up into the air and accusing them of bribing for planning permission.  To be honest, I’ll admit that scene played a little weird to me.  John pulled the bribery angle out of nowhere.  That aside though, I did find the differences between the characters a bit interesting.  It played Guy very much against type, but I think in a good way.

Of course, its not long before both Guy and John are summoned back to Oa, and tasked to investigate the murders that opened the issue.  To be honest, at this point the story reminded me a lot of some of the one-shot issues of Emerald Warriors we had, with Guy (and John) putting together their team of kick ass Lanterns to go take out some interstellar threat when normal sector Lanterns just won’t cut it.  Not that that’s really a bad thing in this instance though, as it allows Peter Tomasi to reintroduce some Lanterns that are, of course, familiar to long term readers.  Especially with the cast being changed around again, with the book falling back into Tomasi’s hands.

Out of all the Green Lantern books in the new 52, I have to say this was undoubtledly my favourite of the four in its first issue.  It kept things firmly grounded on its two main characters, and the trick of having them trying to settle on Earth as a way to work in a primer to the GL Corps mythos worked really well.  Peter Tomasi has long been a safe pair of hands (aside from the initial Emerald Warriors storyline not clicking into place – and now seemingly abandoned anyway in the reboot), with his GLC run at times considered the superior book to Geoff Johns’ work on the main title.

That said, the second issue wasn’t quite as successful for me.  The mysterious enemies seem to be another group, trapped on a dead world after being wronged by the Guardians and are now out for revenge.  Something we’ve seen perhaps a bit too often lately, with all the focus Atrocitous has enjoyed.  The idea of them stealing elements from other worlds to restore their own though, was an interesting angle.  Less successful for me though, was the fact that much of the issue was essentially a fight scene, as Guy and John’s group attempt to intercept them at their next target.  For me, the art, and possibly more so the colouring started to let things down a bit, as the issue descended into a sea of green that started to make each panel seem like the last.  Granted, not having that happen, when you’ve got a bunch of Green Lanterns in a fight for their lives is pretty tricky, but in this issue it just lept out at me.

That said, I still feel this is probably the strongest of the four GL books coming out of the new 52.  New Guardians may grab my attention more as things go on, but Peter Tomasi bought a heck of a lot of good will off me, with a perfectly judged first issue.  And I’m really intrigued to see how he continues to handle John and Guy.  For me, Peter Tomasi has long been the GL writer who’s come across as having the best overall handle on the different Earth Lanterns (which is not to say Geoff hasn’t given them all some great moments over the last few years), and seeing how he tackles John and Guy working as a team, a pairing that’s perhaps one of the least explored out of the Earth Lanterns, is something that greatly intrigues me.

So, with the various other Corps getting a lot of attention during Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night, it made sense that eventually DC would create a book to capitalise on this.  However, to my mind, they went with the bizarre choice of a Red Lanterns ongoing title.  The rabid animals of the emotional spectrum, we’ve seen them more than happy to kill people in pursuit of their revenge.  From the announcement I was unsure about this book, worried that it would lead to a dilution of the initial concept of the Red Lanterns (and the emotional spectrum itself really).

And unfortunately on reading the book, I found little to change my mind.  This was probably my first “drop” of the books I’ve picked up in the new 52. As I feared, they’re diluting/tweaking the concept, so the influence of the rings, turning their bearers into rabid animals doesn’t seem as potent as it once was, with Atrocitus finds himself in a moral quandry after Krona’s death, as the target of his millenia-long vengeance is finally gone.  Given that the red ring is the only thing keeping him alive, I’d have thought that even if he did lose his rage, he’d end up dead as a result.   To me, having this introspective Atrocitus, eventually deciding to become and anti-hero, bringing justice to the oppressed just takes away from the Red Lanterns as a whole.   Here we have Atrocitus making cute one-liners about people hurting his cat. I also notice the redesign takes away some of his more monstrous features, making him more of a human-like alien.  In their original introduction, the Red Lanterns were nigh-unstoppable killers.  A force of nature, tearing through Sinestro Corps and Green Lanterns alike to get to Sinestro himself, with only the timely appearance of Saint Walker saving the lives of Hal, John, Kilowog and a bunch of others.  This nicely played into many of their origins, which saw them all as ordinary people, abused and tortured by life, only then to receive a ring that just enslaves them even more.  Underneath the rage, hate and killing, they all started out as tragic figures.   So having Atrocitus as some one-liner spouting bringing of justice just doesn’t seem as appealing in comparison.

So sadly, I found little to really keep me on this book.  I’ll certainly keep up on it via forums and the like to see what direction it goes in and see if I want to go back and start picking up other issues, but for now, this just isn’t for me.  I do note online that there are plenty of people that do enjoy the Red Lanterns in that anti-hero role, so I hope the book does well, but for me, its just not the direction I would’ve really liked to have seen them used in, and as I say worries me that the emotional spectrum as a concept is becoming diluted into just differently coloured Green Lanterns.  My take on this book would have probably been more of a Green Lantern entrant into the “Dark” side of the DCU.  More horror-themed tales of abusers getting their comeuppance as their victims are turned into unstoppable killers.

In addition to trying out lots of new titles from the new 52 I am, of course, continuing to pick up the Green Lantern titles, which, much like the Bat-franchise have emerged from this reboot with tweaks to some of the earlier continuity, but their ongoing storylines unscathed.

As a result, I did have some issues with this first issue of the relaunched Green Lantern.  Namely that it didn’t really come across as a number 1 at all. There was little real sense of it being a jumping on point, with it following on so many plot points directly from the previous run.  Given accessibility is the name of the game with this whole “new 52″ push, I felt Geoff Johns missed a bit of a trick here.  While we knew Green Lantern’s immediate continuity would be largely unaffected by the reboot, there still should’ve been more of an attempt to hook new readers with this first issue.  Instead what we got was very much issue #68 of volume 4 as if nothing had changed.

However, I’m not a new reader.  I’m an ongoing reader, and one who’s been a bit wary of Geoff’s run on this title over the last year or so.  And as an ongoing reader, this issue hit a lot of the right buttons for me.

It was not without its flaws.  Once again we have a reliance on the Guardians being unlikeable idiots spouting mysterious stuff to tease the next big event.  Frankly this is something we’ve seen far, far too often during Johns’ run on the title, and its really time to get away from it.  One day the Guardians will get some characterisation rather than just being an obstacle to be overcome by the GLs.  But not in this reboot.  It felt very much like things were having to be put into place, just so Geoff could explore Sinestro being a GL again.  There’s no real logic to the Guardians’ reasoning for letting him go, it just serves the larger plot.

With that done however, I found a lot to like about the issue.  One of my complaints for a while has been Hal Jordan’s guest star status in his own book.  And while he may not have the ring or the title anymore (or even the cover), he’s very much the star of this book, as Johns tries to reconnect us to Hal’s character, as he finds himself jobless, broke and eventually homeless.  Hal’s attempts to reconnect with Earth and Carol was nice to see, and I liked how he was mature enough to accept the desk job she was offering him (something I’m not convinced earlier incarnations of this character could’ve done).  Of course, that goes wrong and Carol eventually refuses to have anything to do with him (admittedly another example of characters acting in a way to push the plot along, but nevermind).  I liked seeing Hal stripped of everything, and the desolation when he reaches home after angering Carol, only to find he’s been evicted ontop of everything else was nicely done and a good payoff to the downward spiral Hal had been in throughout the issue.  Its very much Geoff Johns’ take on Hal.  He’s nothing without the GL ring.

On the flipside, once freed of the Guardians and his imprisonment, Sinestro’s story goes quite differently.  He heads straight back to Korugar, only to find the population suffering under the whims of the Sinestro Corps.  For some reason, the fact that leaving a big society of killers in charge of the planet being a bad idea had never occurred to Sinestro, and he’s appalled that they’ve not obeyed his orders to stay away from the citizens.

In general terms, while its all a bit forced, I am onboard for seeing how Sinestro reacts to being a Green Lantern once again though.  A recurring theme is that he’s always viewed his actions as a deliberate way to strengthen the Corps against coming threats, and he believes in the Corps, but not the Guardians (similar to Hal and any other GL worth listening to).  This is even nicely captured when he tells the Guardians he doesn’t need redemption.  He sees everything he’s done as necessary, with the ends ultimately justifying the means.

So to put him back into that role of a GL is an interesting move, and one I’m intrigued to see explored.  But how can he be seriously surprised by what’s happened on Korugar?  My concern is that Geoff’s leaning towards the yellow ring influencing him, which I hope is not the case.  Sinestro’s not a character who should be redeemed, especially after his actions in volume 4.   So I’m a little warier of this aspect of the storyline, but it does lead to the nice surprise conclusion at the end of the book, where Sinestro appears on Earth to confront Hal and offer him a chance to get his ring back.   An action that is exactly in line with Sinestro’s character.  He knows that Hal feels the same as himself with regards to the Corps and the Guardians, so in many ways, its in Sinestro’s best interests to ensure Hal gets his ring back.   Although, with the Guardians having fired him out of fear of his willpower, if Sinestro does help Hal get his ring back, I wonder if this will lead to Hal going rogue as was prophesied earlier in the run?

From the view of accessibility I wonder if it would’ve been better reducing Sinestro’s role and focusing solely on Hal’s attempts to get used to life on Earth again, only for Sinestro to then turn up at the end of the issue.  Issue 2 then could’ve been from Sinestro’s perspective and filled in the Guardians letting him go, his discovery on Korugar etc.  It would’ve kept the main story beats in tact, but reordered things slightly just to make things that bit more new-reader friendly.

I do like the current direction though, but I wish Geoff would step away from storyline building for a while. I really don’t need the Guardians being mysterious idiots for the umpteenth time since he took over as writer. Especially since they never show any development after they get blind-sided by the near-destruction of everything, again.  However while I may come across a bit negative, I definitely enjoyed this issue a lot more than anything in the New Guardians story arc.  Hal getting the much-needed focus was great, and I look forward to even more during this storyline.  The Sinestro as a GL is an interesting hook as well, along with the mystery of why he’s got a ring that can’t be removed, and while we have to assume Sinestro will eventually end up with a yellow ring once more, I’m intrigued to see how things get to that point.

Well, there’s really one big news story dominating comics at the moment.  At somepoint I’ll come back to talk about Flashpoint, but it has long been overshadowed by the reboot that’s finally arrived after several months of hype.  And relaunching the DC Universe falls to the obvious title, with the new volume of Justice League introducing the new timeline, and more suspicious DCU.

The premise is pretty straight-forward.  For the first few story lines, Justice League is set some 5 years behind the rest of the new books (barring Action Comics, which is set earlier than Justice League), and will chart the emergence of the superheroes from myth into public life.  Focusing on Green Lantern and Batman for this first issue, we see how the authorities are suspicious, if not outright hostile, in a manner all too familiar to fans of Batman.  However, this time rather than just Batman, its all superheroes that they’re gunning for.  However, over the course of the next few story arcs, as Justice League catches up to the present day, we’ll see the League forming, and the public acceptance to superheroes growing, until we reach a more familiar DCU.  Presumably.

Choosing to focus this initial issue on Green Lantern and Batman made a lot of sense to me, and while its a decision that, along with the slow burn approach, has garnered some complaints online, for me it worked.  Green Lantern and Batman are two of DC’s hottest properties at the moment (at least within comics) however, ironically it means the two heroes ushering in this new universe are the two whose continuity seems to be most intact from what we can tell.  But while the slow burn approach may be getting criticised, its one that’s proven effective in the past where you’re reintroducing characters readers will already have some degree of familiarity with (most notably in Ultimate Spider-Man).

Geoff Johns also has a lot of fun here, playing off these two characters, building on the idea of Hal being the light to Batman’s darkness that he introduced back as far as Rebirth.  Here its magnified though, along with the difference in the two personalities.  Where Bruce is shown as driven and controlled, Hal’s cockiness is played up to the Nth degree.  Hal’s got the most powerful weapon in the universe on his finger, and he’s not been afraid to let that power go to his head.  Seeing himself as that powerful, he’s arrogant in the extreme, and I found it a fun take on the character, especially with the way it played up the ring’s strength in a way that we’ve not seen in the main Green Lantern title for a while now.  I suspect Geoff’s also planning for the way he’s going to take the character in the ongoing title, having now been stripped of the ring.  We see here a Hal that’s pretty much defining himself by his power, and even pre-reboot there was a character point about how long he’d had the ring on and had cut himself off from Earth.  This characterisation just seems to reinforce the idea that Hal’s going to struggle to reinvent himself stripped of his powers.

About the only thing that didn’t really work for me, was the introduction of Vic Stone, the soon-to-be Cyborg.  His scenes stuck out an awful lot amongst all the super heroics, and while established readers have the benefit of knowing what’s going to happen to him, I still found they slowed things down a bit too much.  However, that said, I’m also still unconvinced by the big push Cyborg is getting both here and in Flashpoint.  He’s very much a B-list character, and tying him into the formation of the Justice League in this way to me stinks of something similar to how Black Canary replaced Wonder Woman in an earlier iteration of the League’s foundation.  Its  a change that stuck out and niggled fans for years, and I can’t see Cyborg being crowbarred in fairing an awful lot better.  That said, he’s not replacing any of the A-listers like Dinah did.

So all in all, I have to say I found this a strong first issue.  While not flawless, the Batman and Green Lantern pairing was a strong one to launch things with, and I enjoyed Jim Lee’s art (apart from the weird redesign of Hal’s shoulders, which changed from panel-to-panel – but then I could rant about the over-designed new costumes quite a lot more, and some weird story-telling issues with a Parademon where some panels didn’t quite work).  The promise of Superman versus Batman does leave me, as an established reader, a bit cold for next issue, as its a conflict that’s pretty much cliché, however from the perspective of enticing new readers, I think its a strong cliffhanger to leave the book on.

*sigh* I’ve gotten so bad at keeping up with my blogging.  Anyway, War of the Green Lanterns is over, and Tony Bedard has been firmly handed the keys to the car while Geoff’s away plotting the reboot.  While Peter Tomasi’s Emerald Warriors has shifted to one-and-done issues featuring Guy, Green Lantern Corps picks up the pieces of War of the Green Lanterns, along with the dedicated 2-part series, Aftermath.

Overall, I have to say, I’ve been really pleased with the aftermath.  The only rough spot possibly being the split between Soranik and Kyle, however that was made worse, by the issue of GLC it happened in coming out before Aftermath #2, which played a big part in their relationship breaking down, as Kyle stepped in to stop Soranik killing Sinestro.  That said, I did really enjoy that issue for the way it tied up old plot threads relating to them, and the reappearance of Miri.  I also really enjoyed seeing her being apparently overwhelmed by the power of her Sapphire ring.  Its something we haven’t really seen before and yet we should have, since its on the far end of the spectrum, like the red rings.

Kyle’s attempt to stop the Lanterns killing Sinestro perhaps continues the trend of ignoring the history between Kyle and Sinestro (knowing that he’s the guy that engineering his mother’s death, would Kyle *really* be that eager to defend Sinestro?).  I liked how Kyle was fighting to stop the other Lanterns stooping to Sinestro’s level though, especially Soranik, and his smack down on Vath was a great moment (seriously, did these guys forget they were facing down an Honour Guard Lantern?  Kyle should be able to hold his own against the group).

John faired well in the aftermath as well.  His destruction of Mogo playing a big part of things, as he finds himself a target for his fellow Lanterns.  Kyle’s attempt to reach out to him was nice to see, and I liked the way John shot him down.  Its clear to me that John’s dealing with the guilt for what he did in his own way, and seeing this more introspective John really reminded me of the character I enjoyed reading about in the past, versus his more recent “I was a marine!” appearances.  The single issue that saw him teaming up with one of the Lanterns recruited while Krona was controlling the Corps was possibly one of my favourite issues of GLC in a while.  I suspect not having to share the issue with Kyle allowed Bedard to write a more balanced John Stewart, and its perhaps a shame we’re only getting to see this, as Bedard is finishing up his run.

The scenes with Ganthet weren’t a big part of the story, but still very nice to see.  Again, it was nice to see Bedard picking up on dangling plot threads, with Sayd’s absence being brought up which has been badly needed for a while now.  We may not know what’s happened to her, but at least she’s not been totally forgotten about.  The final cliffhanger was quite chilling, so it’ll be interesting to see what’s happened to Ganthet.  After the scenes in Aftermath 1 and 2, I can’t help but wonder if the Guardians are going to have forcibly removed his emotions.

Between the cliffhanger with Ganthet, and the short scenes with Sinestro (which confirm that the GL ring is somehow unable to be removed from his finger) there was a bit of setup for the next storyline, but thankfully it was kept at a minimum to allow Bedard to really look at the reactions of the Green Lanterns to recent events.  Something that was especially welcome given the tendancy of big events to focus more on setting up the next big thing over the last few years.

And so, despite the delays, the finale of War of the Green Lanterns finally arrives with some big shocks in store as Geoff Johns plants the seeds for the next storylines as Krona is being defeated.

But did anyone else think it all felt a bit rushed?

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the issue, however certain aspects of it seemed to come out of nowhere and could’ve been better laid out, and perhaps its just because of the delays I’m seeing things that aren’t really there, but in places Doug Mahnke’s art (which really shone in the splash pages) did leave me wondering how much time he’d been left to do the book in.  That said, the man is a master of producing great stuff at short notice, as proven by the way he bailed out Final Crisis a few years ago, and I’ll take his rushed art over some of the other work out there any day, but that being said, when he’s had time to properly work on a book, it shows.

As I say, I enjoyed this issue.  It picks up right where things left off, with the freshly-restored GLC about to face down Krona and the entity-possessed Guardians.  But Geoff Johns does some interesting things in this finale which while I don’t dislike them, I perhaps disliked their execution, and again it all adds to that rushed feeling.

Firstly, there’s Krona’s eventual defeat.  Early in the issue, Hal makes an off-the-cuff remark that their rings can’t kill Guardians.  Guess someone should’ve mentioned that to Scar back in Blackest Night.  Sadly, this line is pivotal for what happens next, and its a plot point that is totally brought out of nowhere when it could’ve easily been introduced sooner and made more significant.  As Hal faces off against Krona, he ultimately ends up shooting and killing him with a blast from his ring.  Its incredibly sudden and results in the then-freed Guardians immediately discharging Hal from the Corps for killing a Guardian and hanging around with the other Corps.

The Guardians being idiots is nothing new for this run.  In fact, its a hallmark of Green Lantern at the moment that no matter how many giant, epic events seem tailored to show the Guardians the error of their ways, they still display no character development and carry on being complete idiots, no matter how many times the Corps is nearly destroyed through their idiocy, only to be saved by Hal Jordan.  I’d say its getting frustrating, but to be honest, its past that now.  The Guardians are just an obstacle to be ignored or overcome in Green Lantern now.  Again though, its the rushed nature of things that doesn’t quite sit well.  Hal’s shooting Krona comes out of nowhere, with little indication that this is going to be something big.  It needed more foreshadowing, like I said with this new inability of the rings to kill Guardians.  You can’t just introduce a plot element like that in the final issue and expect the audience to care about it.  Likewise, Hal’s dismissal from the Corps is done far too quickly.   With two aftermath issues still to come before the reboot I can’t help but think those would’ve been the better place for Hal’s punishment to have happened in.  Then it could’ve been made into a bigger deal, and again built up to.  Either that, or this final issue needed to be a longer book.  Not necessarily a big double sized finale, but a few more pages to allow these pretty big developments some room to breathe.

The other thing that didn’t really work for me, was Sinestro’s reintroduction into the Green Lantern Corps.  Granted, there’s an important line where Kyle wonders if this is a direct result of the ring AI no longer having Mogo’s influence, however overall the sequence doesn’t really work for me, with Sinestro, freshly freed from the Book of the Black, listening to Hal confronting Krona, and apparently having an epiphany from listening to Hal’s impassioned speech about how he stands up for the values of the Corps, and couldn’t really give a stuff about the Guardians.

It just didn’t feel in character for Sinestro at all.  Sinestro’s always been about control, and making the Green Lantern Corps the bearers of that control.  The entire Sinestro Corps War was something he instigated just to get the Guardians to enable lethal force and make the GLC more formidable.  Sinestro has consistently shown a loyalty to the Green Lantern Corps through his motivations in this run, even if it is a twisted one.  The idea that he’d need some kind of epiphany from Hal in order to do the right thing and defeat Krona is beyond me.  Especially since I’d assume Krona’s intention to replace the Guardians would actually probably mesh up with Sinestro’s own aims.

While I like the idea of Sinestro ending up a GL again, and the storylines that’ll surround it, I wasn’t at all convinced by how it happened.  Sinestro getting a ring because of Mogo’s death absolutely makes sense, but how his character was portrayed just didn’t sit right for me.  Rather than confusion over being a GL again, I’d expect him to be triumphant.  Again, I have to wonder what difference an extra page or two would’ve made to this sequence.   That said, I did like the way Hal ignored the issue of Sinestro being a GL, and just got him to help.  That’s been very consistent for Hal in this run, with the way he remains focused on the main problem, and will deal with others later once the main threat is passed.

Overall, I did enjoy this storyline.  I’ve made no secret for my dislike of a lot of what was happening in the Green Lantern books before this storyline, and while it perhaps didn’t hit the highs of the Sinestro Corps War, it was a return to the more action packed stories we got at that time, and rattled through its 10 issues at a fair old pace.  This final issue might’ve felt a bit like Geoff Johns was just working off of a checklist of things that had to happen, but by the end of it, I was still happy that this storyline had had a decent conclusion, with some interesting storybeats set up for the next ark that will hopefully mean Geoff is going to spend some time investing in Hal’s character again, something that’s been badly neglected since the start of the War of Light.

War of the Green Lanterns is over.  Err, well.  Sort of.  In the pages of Emerald Warriors at least.

This month’s issue is a bit of an odd beast.  The solicits for Emerald Warriors had clearly marked its last two issues as being to do with the aftermath of War of the Green Lanterns.   Instead that’s not what we’ve got, and I have to wonder if those plans changed in light of the reboot announcement and the imminent end of this book (and Guy moving back to GLC).

So its now post-War of the GLs in Emerald Warriors, but this issue’s story doesn’t spoil things at all, instead giving us a simple one-shot tale, as Guy’s time off is interrupted by what should be a quick save of an ambassador’s ship.  Of course, nothing’s ever easy, especially when the ambassador turns out to be a particularly attractive woman and catches Guy’s eye.

Its hard to understate how much I enjoyed this storyline.  The entire Green Lantern franchise has been in event mode ever since the Sinestro Corps War, either building up Blackest Night, or War of the Green Lanterns.   To finally have an issue that shunned larger event-driven antics just to give us 20 pages of Guy doing what he does best was a heck of a lot of fun.  It was a remarkably simple story that turned its nose up at all the recent events to just let Guy really shine.  Utterly brilliant, and a great tonic after all the build up and padding of the last few years.  More like this please DC.

Although, there is still a weirdness to this issue.  Taken on its own its great fun, however when you stop to look at the solicits, its obvious that the delays to Green Lantern are only part of the story.   The original solicitations for the post-War of the GLs issues of Emerald Warriors seemed to make it clear they’d be dealing with the aftermath.  Instead we’ve now got this (admittedly great fun) one-shot story, and it sounds like there’s going to be another next month (which will wrap up this series as its being replaced by The New Guardians in DCNu).  It does make me wonder just how last minute a lot of changes are as a result of this reboot.  It certainly manages to give the impression of being less than well planned out in advance (especially with the various costume tweaks etc we’re still seeing in the reboot solicitations versus preview materials).

That being said, I enjoyed this issue so much, I’m actually pretty happy circumstances obviously changed, and I can’t wait for next month’s issue.  Its just a pity we’re only getting these kinds of stories because everything is wrapping up for the reboot.

So, after all the trailers, I finally got the chance to see the hotly-anticipated Green Lantern movie last weekend.  But in the face of a critical mauling, what did I actually think of it?   Beware, as I’m not going to be shy about spoilers in the following discussion.

Well, in a nutshell, I enjoyed it, but also felt it was a bit of a missed opportunity.  Many aspects were well done.  While occasionally the CGI didn’t quite hold up, the costume I’d been very sceptical of did look brilliant on the big screen.  I did love the way the green energy underneath it would flare up as Hal focused his willpower into the ring.  That did look really neat.   Likewise the way the constructs were realised looked nice, although with the things like flamethrowers and the gattling gun, I’d have preferred the fire, or shell casings to be energy as well (maybe they tried it and it didn’t look right?).

All the stuff on Oa we got glimpses of in the trailers looked brilliant.  I loved all the weird and wonderful alien Lanterns we got, and as a fan of the comics, there was a lot of fun to be had seeing who I could recognise.   The training scene with Hal, Tomar Re, Kilowog and Sinestro was a real high point of the film.  My only real complaint was the Oa stuff we saw in the trailer was pretty much all there really was in the film.

Blake Lively as Carol Ferris really impressed me as well.  To me she seemed to have jumped straight out of the comics, and loved her interactions with Hal.  It really makes me hope we get a sequel with a sapphire ring at one point so we can really build on her character.

As for villains, I was surprised by the liberties taken with Parallax, and yet it really worked for me as a way to bring him to the big screen.  Despite never being named in the film, the rogue Guardian Krona being infected by the yellow energy to become Parallax worked well (and isn’t too far from assuming he was just possessed by the yellow space bug of the comics).  When Parallax would open his giant mouth full of razor sharp teeth it really reminded me of when he would do the same thing in the comics.   While many will no doubt have issues with him becoming a Galactus-esque giant space cloud, I personally thought it worked much better here than in the Fantastic 4, as Parallax still had a face and voice, and therefore more of a personality as a villain (even if that personality does largely consist of “Rar!  Kill Green Lanterns! Rar!”).  Hector Hammond, while again getting a bit of a pasting in the online reviews, I quite enjoyed.

Although its with Hector that one of my big problems of the film comes forward.  I just think it was trying to do too much.  Honestly, I felt there was some good stuff in the film, and yet it all got a bit muddled.   For me, and possibly this is just as a fan of the comics, I felt the film was strongest during Hal’s trip to Oa, with its weird aliens and embracing the Corps, it brought something different to the glut of Superhero movies we’ve had, and if it had continued down this path into something Star Wars-esque it could’ve been brilliant.  Instead, Hal’s on Oa for at most half an hour, before deciding to quit the Corps in a scene that didn’t quite click.  After seeing some of the trailers focus on this segment in the film over the last month or two, I suspect the studio probably realised this was the strongest segment as well, and its a real missed opportunity that it wasn’t expanded and the threat of Parallax to Earth just dropped in favour of him heading straight to Oa.

While I can understand that there may have been the desire to keep the film grounded on Earth, I can’t help but feel it resulted in the two aspects of the film fighting and both being less as a result.   I could’ve equally been happy with the film focusing on Hal getting the ring, and then the threat of Hector Hammond.  It would’ve allowed them to delve further into the relationship between Hector, Hal and Carol and the aspect of rivalry between Hector and Hal that’s only hinted at in the film.   The larger threat of Parallax and the reveal of the Corps and Oa, could’ve then been the basis of a sequel.  Or focus on Parallax and Oa, while planting the threat of Hammond for the sequel.  Instead, we get Parallax built up as the most evil unstoppable thing ever, before being beaten by Hal, on his own, in about five minutes.   It just could’ve been so much more if it hadn’t been trying to juggle the two villains and settings.

Sinestro likewise, is frustrating.   Mark Strong absolutely nails the part of Sinestro from the current run of the comics, but again because the time spent on Oa is so brief, he doesn’t get any kind of chance to build up a relationship with Hal.  He gets a few good scenes, but its a waste of a brilliant character and actor when again, he could’ve been used so much more.  Even if he’d turned up on Earth to help Hal with Parallax after he’d left Oa, that could’ve worked well.  Allowing him to continue Hal’s training and aid him in the final battle.   It also would have allowed them to sow more seeds for his eventual fall.  Instead we get a brief scene during the end credits of Sinestro donning a yellow ring, for no reason whatsoever.  Throughout the whole film he’s played as loyal to the Corps, and only wanting the ring as a more effective weapon against Parallax.  Hal then goes on to prove Willpower is superior (again, beating Parallax solo in about 5 minutes).  So what’s Sinestro’s reason for taking the ring?   If there is a sequel film, it has a lot of ground to cover to make this make sense.  Something this first film should have been doing.   Sinestro’s turn as a villain would have a lot more impact if he and Hal actually had built up a relationship first.  Again the film just trying to do too much, instead of being focused.

All of which is sounding incredibly negative, and I suppose it is.  But it does all boil down to the film being a missed opportunity.   There were lots of different things being juggled, and the result was none of them being done particular justice.  However on a basic summer blockbuster level the film worked.  The CGI looked incredibly good.  Ryan Reynolds, as expected, was great as Hal Jordan and there was enough action to keep me entertained throughout.   I just wish the film had been able to rise up that extra level.  Especially in a summer that’s already given us Thor and X-Men First Class, both of which I’d probably rate higher than Green Lantern.  X-Men First Class I absolutely adored, and in my opinion absolutely deserves all the high ratings and critical acclaim its been garnering.  Thor meanwhile, juggled similar concepts to Green Lantern in the form of Asgard and Earth, and managed to do it with a focus and heart that Green Lantern lacked.  Thor’s script had that extra sparkle in the humour and the way it balanced its ideas that Green Lantern couldn’t really match.  Perhaps again by being a bit more focused in its villains, rather than trying to setup too much at once.

At the end of the day, I did come out of the film happy.  And recent news would have the studio still continuing with plans for a sequel which I’m very happy about, as I feel a sequel really could try and do something special with this franchise.  It was a shame the film didn’t quite live up to its potential but it was still fun, and it was nice to see the Corps on the big screen.

Ok, still playing catch up here, but thankfully the last part of War of the Green Lanterns has been pushed back to July giving me a chance. However, despite this, I can’t help but have a problem with the entire GL main line of books skipping a month, especially when we’re only one issue from the end of a major storyline, never mind the fact this is a month that should be huge for GL, with the movie coming out.

Anyway, while the storyline may be skipping a month, there’s no denying big things happened in these final parts, leaving me assuming that the final part will be a typical book of halves for Geoff Johns, probably quickly wrapping up the threat, and then planting the next storylines, similar to what we’ve seen in his last few big events.

Out of the three books, Green Lantern itself is probably the quickest to skip over.  Attacked by the Entity-possessed Guardians, Hal and Guy are quickly captured and then Krona explains his plan is to make the Earthmen the new Guardians as they are more balanced in the emotional spectrum.  It felt pretty much like an exposition issue, in place to purely lay out what Krona’s plan actually is.  Although how this ties up with destroying the good name of the GLC slightly escapes me.  Presumably Krona’s plan would’ve been to appear alongside his new Guardians and “save” the universe from the apparent threat of the old.

The interesting thing about this issue for me was the misdirection with Krona’s gauntlet.  When Guy fires it up to combat the Guardians, he comments on how powerful it is, but its almost immediately taken out of things.   Its interesting as its been previously brought up as significant artifact to almost immediately get taken out of the running as a red herring.  But while the gauntlet may now be out of this storyline, I can’t help but assume Geoff has plans for it down the road.  Likewise I did like how Geoff wrote the yellow ring as affecting Hal’s personality.  We’ve previously had the obvious affect of the red ring on Guy over the last 3 or 4 issues, and similarly the blue ring affecting Kyle was hinted at last month, so it was nice to finally see Hal start to succumb to the effects of the yellow ring.

However, the big event of the month belonged to Green Lantern Corps.  Kyle and John continue on their mission to free Mogo, but it all doesn’t go according to plan.

To be honest, again Bedard’s grasp of the characters lets the issue down.  He’s stuck in this “John Stewart: Marine, Kyle Rayner: Rookie” routine that’s just not the case.  Here John has to tell Kyle about Mogo’s centre (Kyle’s been there before, John hasn’t), John tells Kyle about Mogo’s spare rings (Kyle’s been assigned to Oa way longer than John in the current run), and so on.  Its a dynamic that doesn’t really help either character, making Kyle seem weak, and John overly bossy (I far preferred their more relaxed friendship in volume 3, of which there is no sign in this current series).  It also felt like a fairly clumsy way of handling all the exposition to me, as both characters who should know all this have to explain everything for the audience.  I couldn’t help but feel the same information could’ve been written in a neater way.

However, once they arrive at Mogo’s core, it all goes badly wrong, ending up with John deciding to channel the Black Lantern energy through his Indigo ring, and kill Mogo.   Its a shocking turn of events, as Mogo’s been a massive prescence in the series since it came back, and his death should have mammoth repercussions.  Hopefully, mostly in the interaction of the various characters, as John’s decision seemed hard to justify, and he seemed to easily jump to the most extreme solution to me.  There’s no denying the danger the Parallax-possesed Mogo faced, but Kyle’s blue ring had already successfully cured one Green Lantern.  It should’ve been possible to contain the situation more, allowing Kyle the chance to try again to break the hold on Mogo.   However, whether John was right or wrong,  I just hope this moment is properly questioned within the books going forward as it should be.  Was he being influenced by the black Lantern energy?  Was he right?  How do the other Lanterns react to Mogo’s death?  Was this a sign of the Indigo ring’s influence (in their introduction we saw Indigo-1 kill someone rather than help them)?  These are all massive questions, and I hope the Aftermath issues, and Tomasi’s upcoming GLC relaunch tackle them head on.  I just wish Kyle and John’s mission to Mogo had had a little more time spent on it, as handling this massive turn of events in a single issue made it seem too rushed to me.

It was nice to see those issues touched upon in Tomasi’s Emerald Warriors almost immediately, albeit incredibly briefly.  I guess this lays the groundwork for splitting Kyle and John in the reboot, as Kyle is appalled by what John’s done.  However the action quickly moves on, as Mogo’s destruction provides Hal and Guy the perfect opportunity to escape.

I did like how the group meeting up was played out though.  Kyle can obviously barely stand to be around John after what he did, and Guy is furious over it, while Hal is rightly shelving the issue until after the immediate threat is dealt with.  Its a nice quick piece of character work, again with all the Lanterns obviously being affected by their rings (especially Kyle and Guy).   Its unfortunate though that there’s a plot inconsistency that creeps into things, with John claiming to have been in psychic contact with Mogo (which might’ve made more sense), when in fact it was shown as Krona he was talking to in the previous issue.

With everyone distracted by Mogo’s death, the group then quickly turns their attention to getting Parallax out of the battery.  I have to admit, this sequence ended up surprising me.  Despite the fact that it happens in Guy’s book, I was still surprised at Guy turning out to be the pivotal character in breaking through the Lantern.  As Hal and Guy end up wearing two rings each to try and cover the entire emotional spectrum in their efforts, it eventually boils down to Guy, wearing the two rings from each extreme end of the spectrum, while the others try to fend off the recovering Green Lanterns.

As I say, I found this quite a pleasant surprise.  I really expected it to be a team effort, or come down to Hal (especially after Blackest Night).  The fact that Guy was allowed to take centre stage like this was a nice mark of respect to the character, and the fact that he taps into his love of the Corps in order to fully use the sapphire ring I found worked well, given that Guy was the one going on about how he didn’t need a ring back in Rebirth.  A nice sense of the character coming full circle there.

And with Parallax freed, the Corps released from his control, the stage is set for the entire Corps to face off against Krona and his entity-possessed Guardians in the final issue.  However, we’ve still got the big question of the 3 rings tease from the start of this story.  Especially with all four GLs still in play, and looking at the solicitations ahead.  Which leaves me wondering what exactly is going to happen to Hal in this final issue.  He’s the only GL conspicuous by his absence in the solicits (barring the rebooted JLA, which is set several years in the past).   There’s no way I can see him not being a Green Lantern by the end of this story, but I have to wonder if we are going to see him parting from the Corps.  It’ll be very interesting to see what exactly happens once part ten finally comes out.