Reilly2040's Blog

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.

Okay, I’ve got a tonne of comics posts waiting on me sorting them out, but given the massive news last night, I just felt I had to weigh in.

Okay, so for those that missed it, DC is relaunching its entire line of superhero comics at the end of August.  The end of Flashpoint is going to mark a reboot point for the DCU, featuring many of the characters with redesigned costumes, and some with tweaked or overhauled origins.  With this relaunch, DC are also going to make their entire line of superhero comics available digitally through Comixology on the same day as the print versions are released.

Wow.

Firstly, possibly the biggest game-changing part of this news, that may really impact the market is the announcement that all of DC’s main superhero books are going for a day-and-date digital release.  Frankly, that aspect really shocked me.

While DC have played with day-and-date digital releases on some of their titles, few of those books have been what I would call A-list.  I would have been surprised enough if DC had announced that something like Green Lantern would go digital, but for every book, its a massive step.  One no other company has come near.  And given that DC were pretty late to the digital comics market compared to the other publishers, its a real surprise to see them being the ones to make this move.

I’ve never made any bones about liking the digital format.  With the exchange rate it works out cheaper per-book for me, and means I can carry my comics with me on my phone, rather than worry about the increasingly non-existent storage space in my home for all these monthlies.  Now admittedly, there will probably be some books I continue to get the print versions of.  Most likely any GL books DC continue to put out.  However, I can also see me grabbing some books I otherwise might not have, since the lower cost of the digital books makes it easier for me to justify.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.  DC are obviously banking on the majority of current collectors sticking with print for the most part, while allowing new or more casual fans to grab the digital copies.  With the comics market having shrunk massively over the years, it’ll be interesting to see if this digital move opens it up again.  I can only assume DC were getting some very positive numbers from the digital sales of its current day-and-date books, like Batman Beyond.

If this does go well, I can only assume other companies will also make the jump, which might see me expanding the number of Marvel books I pick up again (their love of the $3.99 price point having made regularly collecting a number of Marvel books unsustainable for me).  Although how this will all impact the local comic shops will remain to be seen.

From a creative/continuity point of view, things still seem very much mixed for me.  Some aspects I’m ok with, others make me pretty wary.  Various details are slowly coming out now, but we’re far from a complete picture.

Green Lantern is going to continue pretty much unchanged.  Not really a surprise given the popularity of the franchise, and the fact that Geoff’s been steering it for years anyway.  Meanwhile there are rumours of Superman and Lois Lane’s marriage vanishing to make way for a Superman/Wonder Woman romance.  Hmmmm, not sure about that.   Such things are the realm of Elseworlds, and while I’ve got no major problems with Superman and Wonder Woman hooking up, cross-franchise relationships generally don’t tend to end that well (Kyle/Donna, Kyle/Jade, Green Arrow/Black Canary) as individual creative teams start to get constrained by them.  Also, Superman and Lois Lane is a classic DCU relationship.  Its ok in worlds like Kingdom Come, but I’m not sure at all about it in the main DCU.   We’ll see if this rumour turns out to be true or if its not quite what it sounds like.

Similarly the rumour that Batgirl is going to be returned to Barbara Gordon.  To be honest, she’s a character that’s far more interesting as Oracle, and fills in a vital role in the Bat-family.  Not to mention portraying an incredibly positive role model for disabled readers, one that has often been praised.  And to be honest, I’m a big fan of the Stephanie Batgirl (far more than I expected to be, given how much I liked Cassie in the role previously).  Its one of DC’s best books on a monthly basis with a great balance in characterisation and fun.  If this is true, then I’m not sure I can see me continuing to pick it up.   And with no Oracle, what does that mean for the Birds of Prey?

I am pleased to see the JLI back, and being under the stewardship of Dan Jurgens suggests to me this book may replace Booster Gold.  If so, that’s a shame, but if I still get Dan writing Booster on a monthly basis, I’ll be happy.  That said, the lack of Blue Beetle on the cover is a bit disappointing (unless he’s going to turn up in Teen Titans or somewhere else).   And Booster’s new costume looks pretty ugly in comparison to his current one.  Guy Gardner being back on the team should be good fun (although I wonder how that’ll tie in with him being on Oa over in GLC).

It is nice to see some of the new books giving lesser known characters a shot as well.  I’ve always liked the modern Mr Terrific from JSA, so it’ll be interesting to see what his book is like (another that I might’ve skipped in print, but will probably check out with the cheaper digital version).  Saying that, it doesn’t strike me as a book that will be a big seller, so I wonder how many of these relaunched books will stick around long term.

The fact that some of these books seem to be including Wildstorm titles is interesting.  Granted, I’ve got almost no investment in that line, but I’d be tempted by a new Authority book.  That said, how the Wildstorm characters interact with the wider DCU will be interesting.  I just can’t see the Authority and the JLA sharing a universe…

There’s obviously a very mixed reaction in fandom to this announcement, however I’m cautiously optimistic about it.  While there are definitely aspects I’m not immediately keen on (and bare in mind quite a lot of our information is still technically rumours from Bleeding Cool, with DC only slowly releasing official info like the GL titles), there’s no denying the boldness of this move to try and reinvigorate DC’s books in the market.  If the digital sales pay off, DC could get a substantial number of new readers, who this is obviously targetting.  I just hope though that they’re careful about how they handle these tweaks and changes for regular readers.  Some characters sound like they’re getting substantially altered, and DC’s track record on these reboots is wobbly.  While Green Lantern is the smash hit everyone will invariably bring up, the Barry Allen Flash series has had a much shakier start.  I just hope that as more confirmed details about characters and books come out, it reassures readers (including myself), that this isn’t just about Barbara Gordon Batgirl or some silver age-agenda (as DC have been accused of in the past), and instead there is a concrete, long-term plan in place here for the future of these characters.

After two issues I would describe as incredibly enjoyable, but not really packing many surprises, Peter Tomasi gets some very nice stuff to play with. While Kyle and John are still struggling with their rings, Hal and Guy quickly take charge to cover their escape to the lower-levels of Oa.

To an extent it could be argued that this issue covers some similar ground to the previous issue of Green Lantern Corps, with the GLs facing overwhelming odds using unfamiliar rings again a major part of the issue, although for me it worked slightly better here.  Perhaps down to Tomasi’s more seasoned grasp of the characters, but he also starts to play with the ring’s effects on their wearers which is something I’d hoped we’d see, since its previously been made a point that only the Green Rings can really be used without them affecting their wearers at all.  Here, Guy is very much bullish and blunter than normal, chiding John who is still trying to get his ring to work, but more through willpower than compassion.  Meanwhile Kyle is obviously under the blue ring’s influence, as its hope is keeping him clearer-headed than the other Earth Lanterns, and he finds himself trying to be a mediating influence as they argue over the best course of action.

To be honest, the speed that this event is progressing has really surprised me, with us now well over the halfway mark.  I can’t help but feel that there was potentially a longer story that could have been had here with the Earth Lanterns and their new rings, and things could’ve been extended by another month or two.   Its very apparent towards the end, when John announces he’s suddenly figured out the Indigo’s teleportation power.  Not bad for a guy who could barely use the ring a few pages previously.  Geoff previously examined the difficulties in using the rings of the other Corps through his Rage of the Red Lanterns and Agent Orange story arcs, and its something that could easily have been interesting to examine in more detail, and a chance to explore the individual characters of the Earth Lanterns as they sought to understand the different powers of the other Corps.

For me though, the real fun of this issue is when the Earth Lanterns stumble across the Foundry.   Last seen in Green Lantern Corps when Ganthet forged his own ring, Hal is quick to comment about how ancient and largley forgotten the area far below Oa’s surface is.   And its here where Peter Tomasi gets to pick up on a couple of  seemingly-throwaway moments in Geoff’s issues. The first being the discovery of the prototype Green Lantern gauntlet we last saw in the flashback issue being used by Krona.  The fact this has turned up again really took me by surprise, and we see Guy happily equiping it, noting that since it pre-dates the Central Power battery, its the only unaffected ring.  I guess this nicely makes sense, since Guy’s red ring is also the most unpredictable of the rings the Earth Lanterns are using, so this green ring will hopefully help to compensate for it.  It’ll be interesting to see what larger role this gauntlet plays though.  Perhaps it will provide a means for Hal to go solo without the Guardians?

We also discover the Green Lantern who guards the Gauntlet and the Foundry, with an inscription linking it all back to the first Lantern, hinted at by Geoff in a throwaway line some months ago.  Obviously again this first Lantern is something that is going to either play into immediate events, or is a setup for the next story arc, but given the way Geoff is enjoying exploring the history of the Corps (retcon or otherwise), I’m very interested to see where this is going.   Its also nice to see this all being brought up in Emerald Warriors, rather than it all being saved for the main book.

And so the book closes out with Kyle and John off to attempt to free Mogo, while Guy and Hal find themselves under attack by the entity-possessed Guardians as they try to reach the Central Power Battery.   I’ll be honest, in that I thought this was the only weak element of the book.  While they do try to put across a reasonable point for freeing Mogo (since he would up their power levels significantly versus a Corps of brainwashed Lanterns), I can’t help but feel that its just dividing them for dramatic reasons, and technically, Hal’s plan to tackle the problem at the source makes more sense.

This week brings us a bumper week, with the next three parts of the story all hitting at the same time, so I can’t wait to see what happens, especially given my last post discussing how well DC seem to be keeping things under wraps.    This event’s done a great job of keeping the pace up, and its not often I say these storylines could be longer, but I honestly believe War of the Green Lanterns could’ve probably handled another 2 or 3 parts without much bother.

The August solicits for DC are now out, and the Green Lantern ones bring a few surprises.

Most importantly, is the appearance of Kyle Rayner on the cover of Green Lantern Corps.  His absence in the previous months solicits had not gone unnoticed, leading to the popular theory that Kyle was the Green Lantern that was going to be left out in the cold, either dying or becoming a Blue Lantern (the later being a theory I was particularly happy with).

However, that’s all out of the window now.  Unless one of the covers is a misdirection (and its not like DC haven’t messed with solicited covers before to throw people off the trail) we now have covers showing Kyle, Guy and John are still Green Lanterns.  But what about Hal?

Well, Hal’s nowhere to be seen.  For the second month in a row, Green Lantern is entirely absent from the solicits.  Is the book taking two months off (being replaced by the War of the Green Lanterns Aftermath title)?  Looks like it.  And its a nice way to hide the status quo of the book until War of the Green Lanterns wraps up.

But is Hal really likely to not be a Green Lantern anymore?  The flash-forward a few months back seemed to suggest he would be.  And lets be honest, there’s a major Hollywood Green Lantern movie coming out next month starring the character.  There’s no way he’s not going to be a Green Lantern.  But does this mean he perhaps goes rogue somehow?

And what of all the teases with only 3 Green Lantern rings?  Again, its now not looking likely that that’s the case.  Its feasible Hal could end up with an internalised power source (which would ironically make events play out similarly to the original Emerald Twilight proposal) however again, I can’t see him not having the same powers he does in the movie.  So does this mean the 3 rings teases were more symbolic in nature, suggesting one of the GLs would leave the Corps, while not necessarily losing his ring.  I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Again, all assuming there’s not something sneaky going on with these covers.  I do like how DC are manipulating the solicits to keep us guessing, as opposed to having everything ruined months in advance.

I also note the Emerald Warriors solicit, has Guy back on Earth dealing with a Waynetech satellite and teaming up with Batman (I’m assuming its Bruce).  So what happened to the original direction of Emerald Warriors, and all the stuff with the unknown sectors?  Very intriguing.

Fresh from the events in Emerald Warriors, Green Lantern finds the now powerless Hal and Guy wandering the frozen wastes of their emergency planet.

As Hal restates their need to keep their rings off to avoid Parallax’s influence (presumably for anyone who didn’t read Emerald Warriors, in which case those people must be really, really confused) they eventually find what they’re looking for.  A secret base, set up underground in case of emergencies, revealing this base is actually the Green House and not the planet itself,  and it includes a space ship Hal had rebuilt for just such an occasion (actually this is nice planning, given how often these guys have seen the Corps fall apart).  They quickly zoom off to Oa to rendezvous with Kyle and John, where we get the anticipated scene where Hal offers each of them one of the New Guardians’ rings.

The action then moves on to GLC with the four Earth GLs attempting to get to grips with their rings while rescuing Ganthet.

I’ll be honest in that I decided to combine both these books into one post as both felt like very quick reads. Its not just the GL titles that have been suffering from it though, and I can’t help but think the writers at DC are still getting used to having lost two story pages per issue. Hopefully its a symptom we’ll see lessen as the writers adjust to the new format.

For Green Lantern I have to say I think this issue really shined. Despite being in the middle of the story, Geoff Johns had a nice chance to write some great little character scenes between Guy and Hal. Its exactly the kind of thing I’ve felt has been missing for a while and having Hal get to do his hotshot pilot routine with their spaceship was great fun. Its a pity its not something we’ve seen more of and I really hope its a side of Hal Geoff brings back out more, as its one of the more interesting and defining aspects of the character that he played up in Rebirth, that since got lost and made Hal less of a character as a result.

We then get to the various Lanterns picking their rings and there weren’t too many surprises. Hal going yellow plays with his relationship with both Sinestro and Parallax, while Guy picking the red ring again is drawing on plot threads that have been around for a while.

Kyle picking blue was something I’d hoped to see (pardon the expression). Over in GLC Tony Bedard adds a nice layer onto this, with Kyle referencing Ganthet’s comments to him in last month’s issue. Its nice to see him trying to weave in that bit of fore-shadowing and again, with Ganthet’s comments to Kyle this issue about not yet being ready, there’s a real feeling there’s a story arc being developed around Kyle and the Blue Lanterns. At least I hope so.

The big surprise was John’s initial choice of orange. Its not a ring I’d have thought any of them would’ve wanted to pick, although I guess Hal has the more experience with Larfleeze and the ring’s influence than any other Lantern there. Indigo does make more sense for John, although as many have already, I do feel his bizarre indigo camouflage outfit just looks really weird. Not really sure what the thinking was there.

Again in GLC, as before, I still can’t really get into Bedard’s take on John. As with previous months, his “I was a marine” dialogue just feels forced to me, and this outfit just added to it.

We do get the various Lanterns struggling with their rings as I’d hoped we’d see, Kyle disasterously so when his blue ring starts super-charging attacking Green Lanterns. Kyle probably comes off a little weak in these sequences which is a shame, but John fairs little better, coming across a bit of a know-it-all before similarly failing with the Indigo ring.

To be honest, the concept of the Earth Lanterns all having to use other rings is probably something that could make up several story arcs, rather than just this one event.   We saw something similar previously when Hal struggled with the Blue Ring during Agent Orange (and was briefly a Red Lantern during Rage of the Red Lanterns), and its something that it would’ve been nice to donate a bit of time too, to really get into the characters of Kyle and John as they get to grips with their rings.  Instead I feel these initial stumbling blocks will probably be overcome fairly quickly in order to progress the story which is a shame (unless Kyle does become a permanent Blue Lantern).

Overall, these two issues, despite being quick reads individually, moved things along well.  As it had quickly been obvious that the direction things were taking with the other rings last month, it was nice to see that point reached quickly rather than dragged out, and the initial problems using those rings were nice to see.  All in all, I’m feeling this story is nicely keeping its pace up.  Although its a bit scary to think we’re already halfway through, yet it feels like we’ve just finished the setup phase.

With June approaching, hopefully this trailer will signify the advertising campaign for Green Lantern stepping up a gear.  It certainly seems that as an effects-heavy film, its hurt the marketing a little as they rush to finish off the CGI in enough scenes to build trailers around.

As with the Wondercon footage, this is a massive step up from that first trailer, again playing on the sci-fi epic nature of the Corps, which is really helping this film stand out.  There’s also a few fantastic glimpses for fans, with the Sinestro Corps logo making an appearance (although presumably more in its general role as a symbol of fear), and our first look at a Guardian.  We also get a little more of the plot teased, with Hal being specifically chosen in order to defeat Parallax, and a better tease of the Hector Hammond plot.

I really can’t wait for this now.

With Green Lantern Corps having handled the Kyle versus John fight, Emerald Warriors serves a very similar function. Only this time its Hal versus Guy.

In many ways this issue of Emerald Warriors echoes the previous Green Lantern Corps incredibly strongly. Hitting a basic bullet point list:

1. Introduce its regular characters to the threat of the possessed Corps.
2. Remove non-Earth GL from play (Ganthet and Kilowog).
3. Two Earth Green Lanterns fight under Parallax before removing their rings.

In that sense Peter Tomasi has a very difficult job to make his issue stand out, although the fact both are so similar seems to suggest DC will assume all Green Lantern fans will pick up the main book, but are allowing for readers only picking up one of the spin off books and so need to re-introduce everything again.

Fortunately Peter Tomasi also has the more interesting fight. While I commented before about the forced nature of the Kyle/John conflict (even under Parallax’s influence), Hal and Guy have a long-standing rivalry that has seen them come to blows several times before (to my mind, most notably in Green Lantern vol 3 #25). While these characters may be friends now it still makes their fight under Parallax’s influence much meatier stuff.

Peter Tomasi also uses it as a nice example to highlight the similarities between the two. While Hal is appalled at Guy making a deal with Atrocitous, Guy is quick to point out that Hal’s been working with all the New Guardians including Atrocitous. Both Green Lanterns have been going behind the Corps back to do what they thought was right.

There’s also a nice feeling of how isolated Hal’s been from the others for the last while. While the secret pact has been the subject of conversation for a few months in the spin-off books, Hal is completely ignorant of it and Guy’s vision. He brings his news of Krona’s involvement to Guy, but all the other main Green Lanterns we’ve been following have known about the threat for months without Hal’s help. Its a moment that makes nice use of Hal’s isolation during the New Guardians, while underlining to me how much I hope we see Hal interacting with the other Green Lanterns more once this storyline wraps up.

I think its definitely a testament to Tomasi’s writing that he took an issue that could’ve been so similar to part 2 and still made it compelling.  Given the long-standing rivalry between Hal and Guy, and how little its been used in the current run, it was nice to see it making the most of the opportunity with Parallax’s influence.  As with last issue, we’re left with our main characters powerless, which sets up the next part (in Green Lantern) to turn to the rings of the other Corps for a solution.  And as with parts 1 and 2, I’m thoroughly enjoying this storyline so far.  I think this opportunity to focus  the franchise on its four main characters has been much-needed overall and I hope it can continue to deliver the great stuff we’ve had in this first third of the story.