Reilly2040's Blog

This last week saw the story of the Alpha Lanterns wrapped up in Green Lantern Corps #52.

When we left off, Ganthet was trying to return the Alpha Lanterns to normal, while Hannu’s attack on Boodikka had damaged her battery, breaking her programming, but also leaving her dying.

This issue is all about the final showdown with the Cyborg Superman, as the Honor Guard Lanterns and Stel’s people rise up against him.

Its nicely played to show the strength of the Cyborg Superman, as he manages to take control of all of Stel’s people.  It really showcases his power, while also giving an epic feel to the battle, which is then nicely contrasted with the more intimate showdown between Henshaw and Boodikka.

If any complaints could be made about this showdown, its that perhaps its over a little quickly.  However it was nice having Boodikka as the one to take revenge on Henshaw, and perhaps symbolically striking out against everything that’s happened since she was made an Alpha Lantern.   It was also good to see Henshaw’s nature as an energy being used, as its perhaps something that’s been a little ignored over the last few years in favour of focusing on him as a Cyborg.

Of course, I don’t for a second believe that Henshaw’s actually dead from that psychic encounter, but it does nicely accomplish the task of providing some closure to the character for now, while the Green Lantern titles have moved onto new threats.  I’ve no doubt that as soon as someone comes up with a good idea for him, the Cyborg Superman will be quite easily resurrected.

The other big plot point for this issue was to resolve the long-running Alpha Lantern storyline.  Setting this issue from Boodikka’s dying perspective worked wonderfully, and it was great to see her original form again in the fight against the Cyborg Superman.   The final resolution, with the Alpha Lanterns remaining in their converted form, but with their original personalities freed of any programming works well for me.  At the time it was stated that the conversion to an Alpha Lantern would be permanent, and Tony Bedard doesn’t contradict that here.  It nicely resolves the menace that the Alpha Lanterns represented, while leaving open plenty of story opportunity.   Now freed of their programming, how will the ex-Alpha Lanterns cope with the physical transformation they were subjected too?   Especially those Lanterns who were forcibly captured and converted into Alpha Lanterns by the Cyborg Superman.   I can see that generating some interesting character moments.

All in all, I think this was definitely a cracking opening arc for Tony Bedard.  He had a lot to juggle, setting up his new regular cast (since the majority of the previous cast have moved to Emerald Warriors) as well as addressing Cyborg Superman and the Alpha Lanterns.  With that done, I’m hoping he gets to take things off in his own direction now, rather than dealing with old plot threads.  And I’m hoping the next arc keeps some of the focus on John Stewart (as much as I’m a Kyle fan), as he’s been a neglected character since Rebirth and its nice to see him finally get a proper chance to shine.

Trapped, and hiding from the Cyborg Superman and Alpha Lanterns, Kyle, John and Soranik Natu try to convince Stel’s robotic people to side with them, and Kyle sends out a desperate call for help.   But who is he calling in?

Well, the cover kind’ve gives it away.  My only niggle with this issue really, that a lot of mystery is given to who Kyle’s signalled, when Hannu is right there on the cover.  Kind’ve like trying to hide who the bad guys are in “Planet of the Daleks”, its a bit redundant.

Anyway, nit-picking aside, this is another solid issue in the story, and felt like a step up from last month.  Its mainly focused on two aspects, John and co trying to rally the people to help defend their world and rescue Stel, but also on Cyborg Superman forcing Ganthet to attempt to restore the Alpha Lanterns to normal.

We learn that when the manacled figure took the manhunters, they also told Henshaw that Ganthet (specifically) had the ability to restore an Alpha Lantern, hence Henshaw deciding to convert himself.  There’s some nice continuity with Ganthet pointing out he’d left the GLC when the Alphas were created, so admits he has no idea how to restore them.

This does raise the interesting question of why, specifically, Ganthet can restore Alpha Lanterns.  Is this linked to his experience as a blue Lantern and opening himself up to emotions in a way the other Guardians haven’t (a fact brought up when Ganthet feels grief for the Alphas who die during his attempts to save them)?  Or is the mysterious figure just playing Cyborg Superman and setting Ganthet up as he/she has a grudge against him?

Resolving the story of the Alpha Lanterns has been one of the big draws of this arc for me, and so this issue gives us some tantalising glimpses into it.  While Ganthet is trying (and failing) to convert Alpha Lanterns back to normal, Boodikka locates Kyle, John and Natu’s hiding place with Stel’s people.   This confrontation quickly escalates as Hannu arrives, prepared to kill Boodikka as he sees what she’s become as a perversion of his old friend.  During the fight, he smashes her power battery, which seems to remove the Guardian and Cyborg Superman programming and allow her own personality to surface.

This was all pretty interesting.  We’ve known for a while that the Alpha Lantern’s original personalities were still present (from the two-part Boodikka story in GLC, but had been increasingly overridden by their programming.  This now offers up the possibility that Boodikka can be restored if they can find some way to stabilise  her physically (since damaging the power battery also means she’s dying).  But this was also a great little character scene, drawing on the fact the Lost Lanterns had been held prisoner by the Manhunters and Cyborg Superman for years (and there’s not much really between the Alpha Lanterns and the Manhunters).  Drawing on this as a reason for Hannu to attack Boodikka so brutally was a nice touch, and you really got the impression this was something that had been brewing with Hannu for a while.   Despite Hannu being largely unused throughout GL and GLC, this one short scene really helped underline his personality for his further appearances (Tony Bedard has said Hannu will be one of the mainstays of his run).  I’ll be very interested to see where these characters go next.

Next month is the conclusion to the storyline, but so far I’m finding this to be a great start to Tony Bedard’s run. Assuming Boodikka is somehow restored next issue, I’m going to be very intrigued to see how, and if Ganthet is involved, if it gives us a hint as to how he might be connected to the person that is collecting entities over in GL.

Bit of an odd issue from GLC this month.  Not a bad issue by any means, as it explores what’s happened to the Cyborg Superman since we last saw him, however for the 50th issue, it doesn’t really feel like much of an event.  I guess the timing is unfortunate, coming so soon after Blackest Night.  I recall I wasn’t particularly fussed about GL #50 either, which came halfway through the event, so maybe it was a deliberate decision to play down the 50th issue for the sake of not rushing the ongoing story?

Regardless, the action continues on from last month, with John about to be converted into an Alpha Lantern, while Kyle and co arrive to rescue him.  As part of the conversion, John’s mind is linked to Cyborg Superman’s, and it neatly allows Tony Bedard to fill the gaps of what he’s been up to since we saw his skull rescued by the Manhunters at the end of the Sinestro Corps War.

Of course, Cyborg Superman’s big motivation these days is his own death, so Blackest Night was a pretty big deal for him.  Seeing his reaction to it, including how his Cyborg body meant the Black Lanterns and Necron completely ignored him was a nice scene.

What happens next was interesting, as it throws another wrinkle into the ongoing Green Lantern storyline, as we see the mysterious figure from that book now has the Manhunters under his control (in exchange for pointing Cyborg Superman at the Alpha Lanterns).  Cyborg Superman also straight out mentions that Ganthet knows the figure.  Really at this point, if that figure isn’t a renegade Guardian I’ll be shocked.  Given what we’ve seen of the figure so far, I really have to wonder if this Guardian wasn’t directly involved with the Manhunters in some way.  We first saw him/her in sector 666, and now they’ve claimed the Manhunters for their own.  I have to assume its all linked to that massacre.

In some ways, this issue does suffer.  Its very much the middle of the story, so aside from the Cyborg Superman/manacled figure scenes, there’s not many other big moments here. But the story has moved along nicely, and John is now free to team up with Kyle and Soranik to rescue Ganthet and somehow solve this whole mess.  And I really have to wonder whether or not the Alpha Lanterns will be returned to normal after all this, or if we’ll just see their original personalities restored, overriding both the Alpha Lantern and Cyborg Superman programming.

Just an interesting little thing I noticed recently.

I decided to re-read the Alpha Lanterns arc (largely for Laira’s transformation into a Red Lantern, a great scene) and one thing I noticed was that when the Lost Lanterns track down Amon Sur, he’s just finished killing off Keehan’s family.

Flashforward to recent issues of GLC and we’ve now got a plot thread regarding Sinestro Corps members wiping out the families of GL Corps members. Is this a case of Geoff Johns hinting at a future plot thread, or did Peter Tomasi just get inspired by those events?

Or is it just a big coincidence?

Well, its been a good couple of weeks, with Green Lantern #28 last week, and Green Lantern Corps #22 this week.

As shown in the preview, we got our first Red Lanterns in GL. The Empire of Tears are setup as the Guardians for the Red Lanterns, and (unsurprisingly) Laira became the first recruit we’ve seen.

The interesting thing was Laira’s recruitment. In a similar way to the yellow rings, the red rings don’t give you a lot of choice in your recruitment (athough Batman was able to force off a yellow ring, using a combination of will-power, and previous exposure to a GL ring). However, the red rings are a lot more violent. It looked like it was virtually burning itself onto her finger, and then she started vomitting up the red energy. It was an incredibly powerful scene, and I’m really looking forward to seeing more about the red lanterns in the upcoming story arc.

And, of course, we also got a tidbit about the Orange Lanterns (it’ll be interesting to see if most of the Corps are identified by their colours – or if we’ll get more different names a la the Sinestro Corps). I’ll be interested to see what happens with them, and when we’ll start seeing hints about the Indigo Lanterns.

This week, we got the second part of the Boodikka Alpha Lantern story. I’ve basically covered my feelings about this arc in a previous post (in a nutshell, I’m not a huge fan of the character, but I think its good to spend a couple of issues focusing on other Lanterns, and its a good companion piece to the main Alpha Lantern storyline in GL), however I’ll also say again that I really enjoyed the writing and art in these issues.

I hope Sterling Gates gets another GL gig soon (maybe similarly, filling in on a 2-issue arc spotlighting a GL outside of Kyle and Guy), and I really liked Nelson’s artwork. More from this team please.

Comics Continuum have a preview for the new issue of GL up (strange not to see it onNewsarama). Looks good, and we now know how the Empire of Tears is going to fit into The Final Night.

Its great seeing Sinestro’s plan falling into place after The Sinestro Corps War. Hal’s reactions to the Alpha Lanterns are spot on. It’ll be nice to see if any of the other GLs catch onto how Sinstro’s played them.

Comics Continuum: DC Comics First Looks

This week’s Green Lantern Corps #21 takes us to one side from the main action in Green Lantern Corps. While the title is meant to be the “Guy and Kyle” book, this issue doesn’t actually feature either (although the clock is surely ticking down to Guy’s first run in with the Alphas). However, with the story tying in heavily to current events in Green Lantern, I didn’t actually miss them.

Not to mention, as the name of the book is “Green Lantern Corps”, I think it’d be remiss if it didn’t take time to highligh other members of the Corps. Perhaps this idea of side-stepping the usual cast to allow for a couple of fill-ins featuring other Corps members is something that could happen more often?

While I’ve been enjoying Peter Tomasi’s run so far (to the point that I picked up his first 2 issues of Nightwing the other week, both of which I really enjoyed), the fill in team of Sterling Gates and Nelson do a great job on the writing and art duties. Boodikka’s never been a character I’ve been that bothered about, but I enjoyed the focus on her as an Alpha Lantern, to give us more of a glimpse into their lives. I’m looking forward to part 2 of this.

However, while the Alpha Lanterns are big news, Booster Gold once again delivered the goods. While its maybe not DC’s highest profile book, its still consistently excellent, providing a great mix of laughs and superhero drama.

Fresh from rescuing Ted Koord from his untimely demise (something you just *know* is going to backfire) Booster and the Blue Beetles are travelling back through the time stream when they suddenly pass by Extant and Parallax, who are in the middle of Zero Hour. Its a great scene, with both parties just staring at each other, before Parallax and Extant snap out of it and go on the offensive. They end up back in Booster’s hometime of the 25th century, and Johns and Katz use this as a great time to have a look at what drives Booster as a character. His relationship with his father (key to the unvieling of Supernova’s identity) is further explored, and Booster’s guilt over his sister’s death is brought up. A really nice set of scenes, which worked really well, especially when you consider the comedy a few pages earlier of bumping into Parallax.

This week saw the release of Green Lantern #27 and the second part of the Alpha Lanterns trilogy.

So, now we finally see what the Alpha Lanterns are. Part Manhunter, part Green Lantern, they enforce the new rules being written into the book of Oa.

The surgery scene was really horrific. No doubt intentionally, I suspect we’re supposed to be seriously questioning the Guardians at this point. John was right to knock back the offer without more information, and with Boodikka’s story spilling into the next two issues of GLC, I suspect we’re going to see some of the real consequences to their decision to accept the position.

Its perfectly played out in the scene where Laira is asking Hal what he would’ve done as she’s being escorted to a Sciencell, and Hal looks up to see Sinestro smirking. There’s no doubt now that he won the Sinestro Corps war. Whereas a GL might still inspire people in the DCU, I have no doubt that an Alpha Lantern turning up is going to terrify people. The Guardians are playing right into Sinestro’s hands, inspiring fear in those around them.

The Blackest night is also touched on, with the scarred guardian getting Ash to hunt out the remains of the Anti-Monitor, and we see Black Hand’s symbol reflected in her eyes. Has she been infected by the Anti-Monitor?

The only real complaint I’ve got is with Raker. A fan favourite, previously introduced as a GL operating in secret on Apokolips, with his own power battery, so he was still in action after Parallax/Hal decimated the Corps. It was a cool story, and he became a fan-favourite, but this version of him is nothing like the version I remember from that story. Its a minor niggle, but it seems pointless to bring back the character only to change him so radically.

Moose Baumann’s posted the final version of an upcoming GL cover on his blog (I’ve lost the link sadly) which gives us our first proper look at the Alpha Lanterns.

That’s gotta hurt. With the embedded Power Batteries, are the Guardians trying to create (effectively) more Ions for the Corps?

Well, Newsarama have got the January solicits up and there’s some good looking titles that month.

In Green Lantern terms we’ve got our first (albeit hard to make out clearly) look at an Alpha Lantern from the arc in the main title. I must admit, I’m intrigued to see how this arc goes. I’m betting the Alpha Lanterns are some Ion-derivative, but given that Hal and John are against it, its a fair bet there’s something more sinister than the power-boost Kyle got. It looks like Boddika certainly is one of them. Will all the Lost Lanterns become Alpha Lanterns? I can’t see Arisia being involved (and she’s part of the GLC title anyway).

I’m unsure what to make of the GLC solicit to be honest. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’ll be a good story, and there’s only so much you can tell for a solicit, so there are a lot of assumptions involved. However, the image of Mongul with a Sinestro ring does automatically make me wonder how many GL foes are going to end up in the Sinestro Corps. I can’t help but think its possibly going to be too soon after the event to revisit it, and a couple of issues dealing with something else (or the fallout from the war in another way that doesn’t involve actually bumping into someone with a yellow ring) might’ve been an idea.

I suspect I’ll be eating those words come January though

Various other non-GL things catch my eye as well. I’ve enjoyed the first two issues of Countdown to Adventure a lot, so I’m looking forward to it. I notice that Adam Strange seems to be in his original outfit, as opposed to his Planet Heist makeover, so I presume he has to dig some of his old kit out of storage at somepoint. I hope he gets his Planet Heist look back at the end of the series though. A really good updating I thought.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the Black Adam mini wraps up and I’ve been enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. I’m hoping it gives us some indication of why Adam’s powers seem to be driving Mary evil, and I can’t help but think something happens to his powers during this series that leads him to give them to Mary as an act of revenge against Billy.

Booster Gold #6 should be a good issue as well. I like how they’re dealing with the issue of Ted in this first arc and getting it out of the way. I don’t think anyone’s actually been expecting him to save Ted though, so I suspect this issue will be a bit of a tearjerker.