Reilly2040's Blog

Oops.  I never did get round to posting about GL #55.  The short version being, that I’m not much of a Lobo fan, so most of the issue didn’t do anything for me.  That said, I have been enjoying the Red Lantern stuff, and the reveal that Atrocitus had manipulated Hal and co was a good one.

So anyway, on to GL #56.  The story with the entities rumbles on as the mysterious figure frees Hector Hammond and Hal heads out to find Larfleeze to ask him how he managed to contain Ophidian (who is trapped in the Orange Lantern).

To be honest, the reveal that Larfleeze had captured Ophidian was a bit of a surprise, as I’d taken it from the previous Agent Orange story that Larfleeze had just inherited everything.  However thinking about it, while Larfleeze found the Orange Lantern and its temple, its possible Larfleeze later trapped Ophidian.  However there’s still backstory to the Orange Lantern that we’re waiting on being revealed.

Another thing I enjoyed about this issue was breaking up the Hal, Carol, Sinestro team.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been greatly enjoying the characters.  However for me Hal was starting to feel a bit like a guest star in his own book.  As a result, the Hal/Larfleeze scenes felt more paired down to me, in a good way.

It is also interesting to note that Larfleeze is right back to being a mostly comic relief character as well.  Any hint of menace from his initial appearance now is lost in his writing letters to Santa and the like.  Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, as it does help make him distinct amongst the raft of new characters.  If you want menace, then Atrocitus and the Red Lanterns have that in spades.

However it will be interesting to see where Sayd’s been sent…

The hunt for the entities remains at centre stage despite the shift in cast for this issue, and I must say it was very nice to see Saint Walker again.  The Blue Lanterns were a big hit for me when they first appeared, but since then, they haven’t really been explored much at all, unlike most of the other Lanterns (barring probably the Indigos).  Especially now they’ve lost both their Guardians, I remain keen to see more of the Blue Lanterns.  However, I’m not entirely convinced its going to happen outside of Saint Walker and the Blue Entity.

It was also good to see Hector Hammond’s previous appearances pay off in this issue.  He’s been a nice lingering threat throughout most of Johns’ run, with red herrings early on that he’d be linked to the Orange Lanterns (of course he wasn’t, that turned out to be Larfleeze).  So here we get to see that pay off, as he frees and joins with Ophidian.  Hammond’s been a successful character in this run, well done as a creepy threat and its nice to see him take centre stage for next issue.

Overall, this issue grabbed me a lot more than last month.  I still feel a little close to burn out with the various new Lanterns and Entities, but Hal felt less overshadowed this month to me and the mysterious figure (who appears to be hot on the trail of the Predator in Las Vegas) continues to be intriguing.

So its part 2 of the Spectre/Parallax showdown. And after being unsure about it last issue, how did it pan out?

Well, quite a bit happened here.  The actual Spectre/Parallax confrontation was pretty short.  Its unclear to me whether or not Johns actually intended to show Parallax as powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with the Spectre.  There’s the implication that the Black Lantern Spectre is actually a fake-out, with Parallax freeing the actual Spectre from inside the Black Lantern.  Presumably Black Lantern Spectre didn’t posses any of the actual Spectre’s power at all, which could explain Parallax standing up to him as opposed to getting squashed in short order.  Its a little unclear though, and I can’t remember if it’d contradict the Phantom Stranger tie-in or not, but going by Rebirth, it wouldn’t really make sense for Parallax to be able to take on the Spectre unaided.

With the Spectre freed, things quickly turn to freeing Hal from Parallax.  Here we see the Star Sapphires’ tethering powers come to the fore again, as Carol’s love allows her to tether to Hal and rip him free from Parallax.  We’ve seen these kinds of powers used a few times over in GLC, so to see it done here is a nice touch and adds to the links between the books to see the Star Sapphires used consistently like this.

Most interesting was what happened to Parallax, as he promptly vanishes as if pulled away, and there’s a cut to Hector Hammond who comments that someone has managed to capture Parallax.  It sounds like there’s another party involved in things who’s after the entities (who we know will play a part in the story).  It’ll be interesting to see who this turns out to be.  With only two issues left, introducing another party into things may not flow that well (similar to Mandrakk suddenly turning up in Final Crisis #7).

Another thought is that with Sodam Yat and Ion currently in Daxam’s sun, will this turn of events mean that Ion is also brought back into things?  And will that presumably also mean the return of Sodam Yat and the Daxamites depowered once again (surely a good thing for everyone).  Personally I hope so, although I’d hope that Peter Tomasi gets to address it in GLC in some way.  Since we’ve seen Yat as the last Guardian in Legion of 3 Worlds, the current Daxam situation is one I find myself just sitting waiting to see the conclusion to.  To be honest, I’d expected Sodam to make a dramatic return to help defend Oa from the Black Lanterns, and I’m slightly surprised his situations not been addressed yet.

However before all this, came probably my favourite part of the book.  I’m still very much undecided on the “DC characters with power rings” concept.  The Flash as a blue Lantern has had a lot of focus, and its really not working for me.  However more successful I think are the villains.  So the opening of this issue focusing on Larfleeze and Luthor I really liked.  The pairing of them both with the orange light is quite a fun idea, with both desperate to possess it in its entirety.

It also provides a non-comedic moment for Larfleeze where he threatens Lex and points out that he gave up his birthright for the Orange light.  Firstly, I’m intrigued to know if that birthright is going to be significant, however its also nice as Larfleeze has frequently been the comedy relief since his initial Agent Orange arc, so its nice to see him being back to being portrayed as a threat briefly again.  There’s also though the nice character beat (and setup for the upcoming New Guardians arc) that sees Larfleeze realise that Earth can be quite a greedy place, and might be worth his interest.

The teasing doesn’t end there either.  Atrocitous decides the Spectre should be the new red entity, and attempts to convert him into a Red Lantern.  The Spectre shrugs this off however, but does point out that he’s met the red entity, and warns Atrocitous against trying to find it.  And interesting hint, and the Spectre’s warning echoes the fear of the Zamarrons that the Predator (also an entity from the far end of the emotional spectrum) would be freed.  With the way things are going, its surely only a matter of time before we see what the Spectre was talking about.

Also nice this issue was to see  Nekron step up.  Since he turned up, he hasn’t actually done an awful lot.  So to see him step in against the Spectre was very gratifying.  With all the buildup to 100% in the first half of Blackest Night, Nekron hasn’t really done much worth talking about.  Of course it can be argued that “Spectre jobs to the villain” is a bit of a cliche in DC Comics to establish a big threat, however I can overlook it here as it at least gave Nekron something to do.   However with Blackest Night #7 due out, I suspect Nekron is going to feature a lot more heavily in that.

So, despite my feeling unsure about Green Lantern #50, I thought this issue delivered well.  The story didn’t necessarily move on much (I think its arguable that Blackest Night hit a holding pattern due to the January skip month being introduced), however there are a few interesting pieces of groundwork in place for the main series, or future GL issues to pick up on.

Since the two are closely linked, I’ll start by covering Green Lantern #48 which finishes filling in the story of how the Corps leaders get together, as Atrocitus and Larfleeze are saved from the Black Lanterns on Okaraa by the timely arrival of Hal, Sinestro, Carol, Indigo-1 and Saint Walker (with Ganthet and Sayd along for the ride). There’s some interesting ground covered in this issue, which focuses entirely on the group getting together.  Particularly interesting is the idea that the Guardians are actually responsible for the War of Light.  Of course, we know that Scar pushed them into challenging Larfleeze directly, although it was the Guardians themselves who were willing to sell out Ganthet and his Blue Lanterns.  When Hal hears this he’s none-too-impressed, vowing that once the Blackest Night is over, he’ll never work for the Guardians again.  How Johns plans on tackling this post-Blackest Night will be interesting indeed.

I also enjoyed the way Larfleeze was convinced to join up with the group.  Seeing Ganthet and Sayd, he automatically gets jealous about how the other Corps have Guardians and his doesn’t.  This leads to Sayd making a deal whereby she’ll be the Orange Guardian if he helps them out.  Again it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the long term and whether Sayd will have to uphold her side of the deal (I can see her potentially getting out of it, as Larfleeze tends to be easily distracted by anything else new that turns up).

And with the leaders of the various Corps all together, they’re in place for the start of Blackest Night #5…

With last issue being focused on the Flash and co trying to keep their heads above water while Hal assembled the various Corps together, this issue brings all the Lanterns together in a big way.  Starting out straight away with a role call of all the main Lanterns reciting their oathes, the Lanterns are quickly teleported to Coast City having discovered the Black Battery is no longer on Ryut.

And its just in time to help the various assembled heroes.  I have to say, there’s some great dialogue in this issue.  The interactions between Hal and the various Corps (with Hal’s dialogue revelling in the inherent silliness of the multi-coloured Lanterns) and with the Flashes was great.  Line of the issue for me was undoubtedly Barry and Kid Flash’s exchange regarding Bart calling Barry “Grandpa”.  Although the Captain Planet wink to the readers from Carol comes very close.

It was nice to see Wally turn up in this issue having previously only been referred to in the series.  And in his new costume no less.  With the delays to Flash: Rebirth I have to wonder what would’ve happened to Blackest Night had Rebirth #5 had slipped any further.  Would Blackest Night also have slipped, or would DC just have accepted Wally’s new costume premiering in Blackest Night?  Also, I notice than Ivan Reis has also picked up Ethan’s version of Bart’s Kid Flash costume and is drawing the boots as the simplified Flash-style boots as opposed to Bart’s more stylised pair.  I wonder if this is another running change that will stick.  On one hand I hope not as they were part of what made Bart’s outfit distinctive, although realistically they’d probably be a pain to run in.

With all the players in place, Geoff then successfully turns everything on its head, as the Corps combine their rings to create the white light of life, only to find it actually makes Nekron more powerful, not destroying him as they’d thought.  And its here that the plot revelations start hitting, with Black Lantern Batman making a brief appearance, and Nekron’s use of “Bruce Wayne” in quotes adding fire to the theory that the skeleton isn’t actually Bruce’s (although the fact the heroes believe it to be is obviously enough for it to act as the emotional tether for the Black Lanterns).

Nekron then explains exactly why there’s been a revolving door to death in the DCU, as its actually been him preventing the heroes from moving on fully, and setting them up to be resurrected, and further along his preparation for the Blackest Night.

There’s a lot been made of how this series would address death and resurrection in the DCU and lay out the rules going forward, and this is obviously the start of that.  I must admit, I really like the idea that there’s been a wider explanation behind all the DCU resurrections.  Okay, so its being retrofitted in, but it does make all the resurrections easier to swallow.   The only thing I’m not entirely sure about is how this actually works.  For example, Ollie was clearly seen in heaven, having passed into the afterlife in the Quiver storyline.  Although so was Barry and we know he was also in the Speedforce (clearly there must be some overlap between the Speedforce and Heaven in the DCU, both are versions of the afterlife, so I think it kinda works if you squint at it for long enough).  How Ollie being happy in Heaven works alongside Nekron’s revelation that he was preventing the deceased characters being judged I’m not quite sure.  Although I guess there’s always the fact that Quiver was pre-New Earth as well.

That’s fanboy nitpicking though, and ignoring it, this explanation feels right.  With Nekron’s comments about souls being judged and moving on beyond his grasp as well, we’re perhaps seeing the wider hints for how death/resurrection will work post-Blackest Night.

And then the kicker.  As Nekron was the one who prevented them passing over, he still holds power over all the resurrected heroes, as he proves by sending the Black Rings to convert them fully into Black Lanterns.  Clearly Donna’s infection over in the Titans special was a tease that the resurrected heroes were still bound to Nekron, and the payoff here, with Diana, Donna, Clark etc all instantly turned into Black Lanterns is chilling.  The only two left trying to escape the Black Rings are Barry and Hal.

And that to me is something really nice about this mini series.  Its not about the “Trinity” of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.  This is a Hal and Barry story that everyone else has just happened to get caught up in, and this cliff hanger positions the series to continue building on that partnership the way the first three issues did.  It does make sense, since this is the first big event since both Hal and Barry have been re-established in the DCU to put the focus on them working together again.  Of course it helps that they’re written so well by Geoff Johns, who’s clearly having the time of his life working with them both.

The next issue looks to be a real corker.  With the majority of the DCU’s heavy hitters now Black Lanterns, and Barry and Hal desperately trying to escape the same fate there’s a real “how will they get out of this one” been built up.  Interesting should be the development with Atom and Mera, who’ve been dragged into Black Lantern Damage’s ring by Black Lantern Jean Loring.  With Atom and Mera being the other significant pairing of this series, I can’t help but think that being shrunk down inside one of the rings is going to put them in a key position to help out in the next issue or two.

After two years of buildup, Blackest Night has finally arrived.

As Ganthet predicted during the Sinestro Corps War, the other Corps have risen and the War of Light is now in full swing, with the Alpha Lanterns attacking the Red Lanterns on Ysmault, Ganthet’s own Blue Lanterns under seige from Larfleeze and the Orange Lanterns, and the Green Lanterns and Star Saphires fighting the Sinestro Corps on various fronts.  But now, the Black Lanterns are rising.

This is an exceptional first issue.  After two years of hype, and a PR blitz by DC over the last few months with previews, action figures and interviews, it would’ve been so easy for this issue to disappoint even if it had been good.  But it doesn’t.  Not by a long shot.  This is Geoff Johns finally being able to tell the story he’s been building to.   Unlike Final Crisis there’s no slow buildup here.  We’ve had the buildup, and now its straight into the main event as the black rings seek out various prominent characters from across the DCU.

There’s real horror in the reveal of the Black Lanterns who are rising, especially on Oa where the entire crypt of deceased Green Lanterns is brought back to confront the GLs.  Line of the issue has to be Guy’s “What the #@$%?”.

Ivan Reis is at the top of his game here as well.  He’s always been my favourite Green Lantern artist, but here he takes things to another level.  He’s dealing with some fairly horrific visuals which are apart from the space opera stuff we’ve usually seen him do, and he handles it beautifully.  There’s various splash pages throughout that just caused me to stop and actually look at the detail, and appreciate them fully, be it Hal showing Barry images of all the heroes who’ve died while he was gone, the Black Lantern reveal on Oa, or the reveal of Ralph and Sue as Black Lanterns.  Its astounding work.

And having mentioned Barry, here Ivan reinforces something I felt while reading the Blackest Night #0 preview, that Ivan draws one of the best interpretations of Barry I’ve seen.  He really captures the feel of speed in the character in a way I don’t think any other artist has done for me.  I just love it.

One of my big worries was when Blackest Night got moved from being a Green Lantern event to a DCU-wide event.  With it being the third part in Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern trilogy, and with all the build up to the War of Light being very Green Lantern-centric, I was really worried that this would prove to be a poor pay off to the dangling Green Lantern plot threads.  I needn’t have worried though, as Geoff manages to do a sterling job of making this feel like the natural continuation of the Green Lantern storylines while interweaving the larger DC universe.  He features the Green Lanterns, while also paying attention to other characters throughout the DCU, and it all gells together wonderfully.   My only worry would really be that anyone not following Green Lantern for a while may get a bit lost by some of what’s going on.

This was a cracking start to DC’s big summer event.  This felt like it had all the impact of Secret Invasion #1 and there promises to be a lot of good stuff to come.  Roll on the next issues of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps.

Its another cracking finale to a Green Lantern arc, this time offering a little more closure than the Rage of the Red Lanterns arc, which followed much more directly into Agent Orange.

The resolution to last issue’s cliffhanger caught me by surprise, but made complete sense given what we’d previously seen of the blue rings.  However, it was also a slight disappointment, probably in part due to having seen the exact same trick pulled off by Paul Cornell’s Captain Britain and MI13 last week.

Talking of Hal’s Blue ring, we finally got the reveal of his hope which activated the ring, and it was a great moment.  Whereas most had been speculating about his Dad’s final words or something, instead it turned out to be something fairly inconsequential that activated the ring.  A throwaway thought.   Again, its something that rang very true.  However, we also see that the ring shows Hal a glimpse of the future (suggesting that’s his true hope), and aside from the glimpse of Sinestro we saw, I have to wonder what else might be revealled that he’s seen later down the line.

Hal specifically glimpsing Sinestro saying they need to work together may also provide some insight into Hal’s hopes.   We know from Secret Origin that prior to his fall, Sinestro and Hal were friends as well as mentor and student, so perhaps this also hints that Hal still secretly hopes Sinestro can be redeemed one day and he can have his friend back (although granted this flies in the face of his “KILLKILLKILL” Red Lantern moment).

There are various other nice moments as well.  We get a good character piece with Fatality and John Stewart where she tells him he must forgive himself for Xanshi, but also interestingly hints that Xanshi wasn’t as innocent as he might’ve believed when it comes to the war of light.  Intriguing, and obviously Geoff must have a plan in this direction.

The ending of the issue also gives us two big moments.  The Guardians sell out the Blue Lanterns by telling Larfleeze where Odym is and we see the Blue Lanterns about to come under attack.  Of course, this is very bad, as despite the blue light’s effectiveness over the orange, we know that beyond basic life support and flight, blue rings are inactive unless there’s a GL in range.  Wonder if we’ll see Hal or Kyle get an SOS from Ganthet.   Of course, we also know that Atrocious was last seen leading his Red Lanterns to Odym as well.  Since Larfleeze has a love of new, shiney things, I imagine he’ll be wanting a red ring as well as a blue, so that may buy the Blue Lanterns a chance.

You do wonder what’s going to happen with the Guardians after Blackest Night.  Really their actions in recent issues have been unforgivable.  Kyle’s going to be regretting resurrecting them after the damage they’re doing.

And the final pages of the book give us a great lead-in to Blackest Night.  I loved how they picked up directly from events in GLC with Ash and Saarek.  Sadly it looks like these are another two classic GL casualties, but the giant arms reaching out to grab them was a great scene.  Again, we’re also given a tantalising hint, as the ring identifies the planet with the Black Lantern as “Classified”.  So its definitely charted by the Guardians.  Do they already know of the planet’s significance and are hushing it up from the Corps?  Or has Scar quietly classified it without the other Guardians knowing?

While Hal still struggles with his blue ring, and the rest of the Corps and Guardians struggle against Larfleeze’s Orange Lanterns, we find out of the truth behind the ban on the Vega System.

This is very much a talking issue.  Aside from (as predicted) Fatality flying in to rescue John from the Orange Lanterns, the issue is largely occupied with Hal and Larfleeze.  Captured and unable to fight back due to his conflicting rings, and Larfleeze’s raw power, Hal needs to stall for time until the Corps gets there.  Fortunately for him, Larfleeze is entranced by the blue ring.  Its something new that he hasn’t seen before, and he wants it.

Hal (knowing the Guardians have been holding out on them), uses this and agrees to give Larfleeze the ring in exchange for the truth behind his deal with the Guardians.  We discover that Larfleeze and his gang stole various items from the Guardians back when they were still on Maltus, including a map and a mysterious box that the Guardians were keen to get back.   

They followed the map to Okarra, where they found the orange power battery in the temple, just as the Guardians arrived.  The gang’s numbers dwindled until there was only two of them left, and eventually, unable to combat the orange light, the Guardians made a deal.  They’d allow one of them to have the Vega System to himself, in return for the box they stole.   Larfleeze agreed and killed his remaining partner to become the sole owner of the Orange Lantern, and reveals to Hal that the box he’d stolen contained Parallax. 

Having told his story, he goes to get the blue ring from Hal but, of course, it can’t be removed.  Screaming that Hal is a welcher, Larfleeze then just cuts Hal’s hand off to claim the ring for himself.

Another good issue, marred slightly by having several different art teams throughout the book.  Each team actually produced really nice work, however the jump between the teams was a bit distracting in places, reminding me of one of the later GLC issues during the Sinestro War which had had similar problems.

Phillip Tan’s art again shines during the introductory scenes, with Hal held captive as Larfleeze is guzzling down his feast.  Tan really shines at these creepy, monstrous scenes.  

Geoff’s really excelling in creating these various Corps and making them all feel different, and I really enjoyed the backstory into how Larfleeze became Agent Orange.  However, there’s obviously more to this story, as Larfleeze stumbled upon the orange lantern in its temple.  Who created the Lantern and the Temple?  And he suggests that the Guardians had encountered the Orange Light before.   I wonder if this will be explained or hinted to in the final part of the story?

The only other thing I really found jarring was the small scene with Sinestro where he discusses attacking the Star Saphires.  Now we know from the Blackest Night solicits, that this is what’s going to happen, but the last time we saw Sinestro was in the last issue of GLC, where he leaves to go confront Mongul.  Now, this might get explained in the next issue of GLC (Sinestro turns up, beats down Mongul and reclaims leadership), but given both storylines are supposed to be happening at the same time, it threw me a bit.

With this Blackest Night buildup Geoff’s really firing on all cylanders.   I’m looking forward to the conclusion of this arc where it’ll be interesting to see how exactly they contain Larfleeze (or are they just going to end up legging it and hope he doesn’t come after them?), and what Hal’s hope is (and how his hand gets reattached).   I’m hoping for a bit more John and Fatality as well.  Aside from the odd page here and there, he’s not really had much to do, and the John/Fatality relationship is one that deserves some focus as it was built up really well during Kyle’s run.

Picking up from the preview from earlier in this week, the GLC and Guardians are cleaning up the Vega System while the head to Okaraa to confront Larfleeze and the Orange Lanterns.

This issue is very much focused on introducing the nature of the Orange Lanterns, which is unlike any other Corps we’ve encountered. As many suspected from last issue, the Orange Lanterns are revealed to be constructs, created after the original being has been killed and consumed by the orange light.

The real loss in this issue is the nomad Green Lantern, Gretti.   Once again, Geoff Johns has brought back a classic Green Lantern, only for them to be brutally killed.   I appreciate death would be a big part of the GLC, given the War of Light and the dangers they face, but unfortunately I think this is becoming cliche.  I’m still not completely sure what the point was in resurrecting the Lost Lanterns for example.  Sure, it completely exonerated Hal of their deaths (although that was Parallax anyway – now established as a separate entity), but since they reappeared all they’ve done is get killed off.   All save Arisia, who’s been thankfully moved to the GLC title and paired with Sodam Yat.

In this case especially, it feels like a real waste of an interesting character.   I was very much enjoying the idea of a nomadic GL, barred from entering his own sector and now forced to go against his nature and beliefs and return to it.

Interestingly while The Guardians are in the Vega system, Scar has remained behind, thanks to her illness.  I’m guessing the Guardians keep this quiet though, as none of the GLs on Oa seem to know she’s still there, as they think in GLC that all the Guardians are off-planet.   We, of course, know she’s stayed behind to cause the Sciencell riot, after stirring things up sending the other Guardians after Agent Orange.  It nicely explains how she appeared separately from the other Guardians during last months issue of GLC.

Hal meanwhile continues to struggle with the blue ring.   There’s a nice laugh when he tries to think of things he can hope in, tries world peace and the ring responds “Insincerity detected”.   The ring keeps throwing him off, and results in him crashing to Okaraa.  Here Gretti meets Hal (prior to his death) and is shocked to find his GL ring’s power being boosted (so we know that blue rings will also provide GL power boosts without being activated).   The interesting thing here is the way the Guardians warn him to stay away from “the blue lantern”.   They’re clearly washing their hands of Hal as long as he wears the ring, and Hal himself comments that they’ve only brought him along as they’re curious to see a blue ring in action and gauge its power.

Of course, as they approach Larfleeze’s forrest, it doesn’t take long before he sends his Orange Lanterns to act the GLs, and the GLs and Guardians are quickly overmatched, as the orange light just absorbs their constructs, showing exactly how the orange light gave the Guardians and the Corps so many problems in the past before the truce was signed.  Of course, Hal and John don’t let it go unnoticed that the Guardians had known about the Orange light all along and kept it quiet.

Gretti quickly becomes a cropper to one of the Orange Lanterns, and John finds himself facing off against the Orange Lantern version of Gretti.  While I may complain about the death of veteran GLs becoming cliche, there’s no denying its an effective scene, when the new, more monstrous-looking version of Gretti appears.

The ending of this part I really enjoyed as well, with Hal’s blue ring continuing to cause him problems, however this time its because Larfleeze detects it as something new and different, and so, obviously, he wants it, grabbing Hal and dragging him down to face him.  Of course, it seems pretty obvious that Hal’s going to manage to trigger the blue ring next month, and it’ll be key to driving off the Orange Lanterns, but I really love the way its been used so far, and you really have a strong feeling for how much its screwing up Hal, who’s usually in his element as long as he’s got his GL ring on his finger.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is Fatality.  Her appearance is pretty much a cameo, but it reminded me very much of Miri over in GLC, who also made various cameo appearances before turning up in the last issue of Ring Quest to tip the balance against Mongul and Mother Mercy.  Here I’m willing to bet that the combination of her appearance and Hal’s blue ring will be what tips things against Larfleeze.  How her appearance affects John is something I’m very much looking forward to, but after her appearance being pretty much a cameo here, I’m not expecting a lot of page time to be given to it next issue.  Really I’d like to have an issue dedicated to John and Fatality, similar to what we got during Winnick’s Kyle run, but I can’t see it happening here, especially with Blackest Night about to kick off.  Hopefully they’ll get some focus during the event though.

The issue closes out with a nice “Tales of the Orange Lanterns” story.  It helps reinforce the points made about the nature of the Orange Lanterns in this issue, and is a fun throwaway story.  I’d have perhaps rather seen the pages go to John and Fatality though, especially given their focus on the varient cover.

IGN have put up a preview of this week’s issue #40, and it looks great

Philip Tan’s artwork continues to shine in this storyline, and I love the scenes of the GLC arriving to clean up the Vega System, now that its no longer off limits.   The implications this will have with the Spider Guild should be interesting to see, although its now being made clear (Geoffconed) that the Spider Guild were just a cover for the real reason the GLC was staying out of the Vega System.

This is the really interesting aspect of this story arc.  We now know that the reason the GLC have stayed out of the Vega System is because its home to Larfleeze and the Orange Light.  Infact, in these preview pages one of the Guardians makes it clear that the reason this happened, is because the GLC were delivered a sound beating the last time they encountered the Orange Lanterns, before coming to the truce.

This is a very interesting statement to me.  That the Orange Lanterns are potentially that much more powerful than the Green Lanterns.   We know that the Guardians themselves also go to Okaraa, presumably to add extra firepower rather than just let the GLs get slaughtered again.   I’m guessing this is going to be where Hal’s blue ring will be vital as well.  Presumably once they meet up with Larfleeze, the fight is going to be pretty one-sided until Hal eventually finds his hope, activates the ring, and all the GLs in the area suddenly find their power boosted.   

Whether this will be enough to sway the Guardians towards the value of the blue light will be debatable, however it should mean that all the GLs present will realise that there’s a lot of benefit to be had in teaming up with the Blue Lanterns, even if the Guardians are against it.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the issue a lot.  Nice to see the preview is only 6 pages as well.  I’ve noticed the length of these previews (generally speaking, not just GL) has been steadily increasing for a while now, and I’d noticed that it was starting to impact my enjoyment of the books themselves.

Continuing on from where Rage of the Red Lanterns left off, the new arc in Green Lantern, called Agent Orange picks up with the Controllers in the Vega System looking for the Orange Lantern, while Hal is on Odym trying to get Ganthet to remove the Blue ring he’s stuck with.

However Ganthet is powerless to remove the ring, and while Sayd creates a new ring for Saint Walker, Ganthet explains that Hal must find his hope to power the ring, drain its charge, and only then will he be able to remove it.   We also discover that Ganthet had never intended Hal to be a Blue Lantern, instead wanting him to remain a Green Lantern and use his willpower to power the Blue Lanterns.

Its not long before Hal’s pulled back to Oa by the Guardians who are none-to-pleased about Hal’s new blue ring.   Interestingly however, even they are powerless to remove it.  John turns up to help out Hal, but they’re all scattered when Larfleeze, holder of the Orange Lantern attacks Oa, as he blaims the Guardians for the Controllers trying to steal his power.   Scar arrives and declares the Vega System no longer off limits, and proposes the Green Lanterns and the Guardians go after Larfleeze.

This is a great issue.  The opening scene with the Controllers attempting to find the Orange Light and ending up slaughtered by Larfleeze and his Corps was very creepy.   Thanks in large part to Phillip Tan’s great artwork.  Its a pity we’re only getting him for this one story, although maybe we’ll get lucky and he could do some fill-in arcs after Blackest Night.

Interestingly the Orange Lanterns themselves appear to be only constructs, spawned from the Orange battery.  Makes sense for a power that’s based on avarice that there’d be no sharing.   I’m looking forward to the nature of the orange lanterns being examined in the upcoming issues.

We also really feel for Hal in this issue.  He’s desperate to get rid of the blue ring, and you get a tangible sense of how the two rings are battling over him.   Its interesting that the ring is so powerful that not even the combined power of the Guardians could remove it.  Of course, we also get the usual scenes of the Guardians being, frankly, dicks here.   They refuse to listen to Hal’s explanation of the red rings taking people against their will, and we also revisit the Guardian’s unwillingness to play well with the other Corps.   This is in stark contrast to Ganthet who announces that he and his Corps will be looking to align with the Indigo Lanterns, to help build a powerbase in preparation to support the Green Lanterns during the Blackest Night.

At this point we’re really expecting a big reality check for the Guardians come Blackest Night, where they find out how Scar has played them, and how, if not for Ganthet, they’d be in a lot of trouble.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the rest of this arc.   The Orange Lanterns seem to be markedly different to every other Corps we’ve seen so far, and I’m looking forward to the reveal of their nature.   In fact, its one thing I’m really enjoying about this War of Light, is how Geoff is giving each Corps its own distinct feel.