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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s a lot still being juggled in Green Lantern, and this issue is no exception, with about 3 separate plot lines being focused on throughout the issues.

It starts out with Atrocitus hunting down the Butcher with Sinestro.  Its a nice scene that underlines that as bad as Atrocitus can be, there’s still a sense of justice (albeit an extreme one) underneath what he does, as they discover the prison attacked by the Butcher, and he vapourises a bus-load of convicted murderers.  Its a nice character scene that helps underline the depth to Atrocitus, as well as the power of the Butcher from the devastation at the prison.

The action then picks up where last issue left off, with Hal, Larfleeze and Carol on Zamarron.  We see rebuilding is already underway, and I thought the Zamarrons building a statue to their fallen Queen in their central battery was actually quite a nice touch.  Hal and Carol’s confrontation nicely touched on a couple of beats I’ve mentioned before, with Carol challenging Hal over his relationship with Cowgirl which he seemed to have forgotten about (surely she’s dumped him by now?).   Its a nice scene mainly because it allows Carol to grow up a bit.  Throughout Green Lantern, she’s often been defined as “Hal Jordan’s love interest”, and even in her latest role as a Star Sapphire this has been a factor, as she took the ring to help protect Hal and has been following him around since.  Its nice to see Carol stand up and be her own person, accepting that sorting out the Star Sapphires and getting them back on their feet is something she has to do.

That being said, I don’t expect her to be gone for too long.  The Predator being on Zamarron is probably not nearly as safe as she thinks, regardless of how many Star Sapphires are there.

With the Red Lanterns and Sapphires having been spotlighted, the action then goes to its third phase, with Adara, the entity of the Blue Lanterns finally selecting a host.   The missing girl from last month we discover was kidnapped and is rescued when she forgives her captor and Adara recognises the hope in her and bonds with her.

Most interesting in this scene is the reaction of Saint Walker.  He is in awe of Adara (she’s like Jesus to him I guess), and cannot see to the fact that she’s bonded with the girl, Nicole,  immediately talking about how Adara must come back to Odym with him.  To be honest, its a scene that really doesn’t do Walker any favours at all.  Unlike Warth’s amusing calm in Emerald Warriors, Walker is verging on coming across quite creepy, and Hal rightly calls him on it, pointing out that Nicole had only just escaped one kidnapping and he’s not going to let Walker do the same to her.

I have to be honest and say, that since their initial introduction, I’ve really not been a fan of the Blue Lanterns when Geoff writes them.  They haven’t exactly featured much in other books, but I still like the concept of a more spiritual group of Lanterns, but in Geoff’s hands they never seem to come across that well.  Walker especially I find a more worrying character than the likes of Atrocitus.   At least you can see why Atrocitus thinks what he does, and that there’s a kind of logic to his actions (not that I agree with them).  Saint Walker however, is a guy who was responsible for the deaths of his family through his blind faith, got rewarded with a blue ring for it, and now wants to drag a little girl back to Odym without even talking to her about it (in fairness, Nicole herself points out Saint Walker that she’s not just Adara, so I suspect he wouldn’t have been able to go through with it, but just that lack of thought makes the character quite worrying to me).

Of course, at this point, the Flash shows up, setting the stage for a showdown with Hal next issue over how the “new Guardians” have been running amok on Earth.

Aside from these big moments, there’s a couple of interesting asides going on in the issue.  When Predator’s host from last issue is alone with Larfleeze (who now appears to be sticking around with Hal in true “buddy cop movie” style ), he says he remembers that Larfleeze has a history, and that Larfleeze isn’t even his real name, prompting a very violent reaction.  Later, Adara tells him that his parents are still alive.  There were quite a few unanswered questions about Larfleeze and the Orange Lantern even before this issue, so I can only assume Geoff is building up to a very Larfleeze-focused issue where we’ll find out his backstory, and what drove him to be who he became.  Which given Geoff’s love of the character should be pretty interesting and I’m looking forward to it.

The other side scene, which I guess also dovetails nicely with Barry’s appearace, is Salaak on Oa, realising that since Blackest Night, Hal’s basically gone quiet, with no arrests or confrontations (I guess he’s set his ring to keep quiet on all the fights he’s gotten into).  With Hal’s (sensible) distrust of the Guardians, it makes sense that he’s been trying to keep quite what’s been going on on Earth, so with Salaak figuring out something’s wrong, it’ll be interesting to see what he does next.  I wonder if we’ll be seeing Salaak heading to Earth himself to investigate?

All in all, another good issue.  I still worry that there’s perhaps a bit too much going on, but I look forward to seeing how this all unfolds over the next couple of months.

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.

However, of these later series, Flash and Wonder Woman are directly impacted by the main series, and so each issue ends up reflecting a different part of the status quo (for example, in Wonder Woman #1 she’s just battling Max Lord, in #2 she’s a Black Lantern, while in #3 she’s a Star Sapphire).  Granted, this allows them to expand on these events in more detail, but I’m not sure if it makes those miniseries more satisfying within themselves.

Blackest Night: Flash I found to be a bit of a conflicted story.  There were two main strands: Barry during Blackest Night, sounding the alarm and learning to be a Blue Lantern, and the Rogues, travelling to Iron Heights to do battle against the Black Lantern versions of their fallen comrades.

Really, the Rogue story could’ve been a mini-series within itself.  Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge was well received, and made for a good read, and I’m convinced the same could’ve been done here.  However as the story was sharing pages with the Flash tale, I felt it ended up a bit more rushed when it could’ve easily supported three issues on its own.

The Barry Allen story I was less fond of.  With Barry being a major figure in the main Blackest Night series, my immediate feeling was that it might’ve been interesting to use the tie-in to focus more on the Flash family, so we could see what was happening with Bart and Wally.  We finally got this in the third issue, and for my mind that was part of what made the third issue the most satisfying to read of the three.

Issue 2 however was more focused on Barry and the Blue Ring.  Now in fairness, this is an obvious choice to make.  Given the Blackest Night #6 cliffhanger, ignoring the opportunity to expand on those events would’ve seemed odd.  However my problem is that I’m not really buying into the idea of Blue Lantern Barry.  I find the Flash interesting enough on his own, and with Barry only recently returned I was enjoying his spotlight and seeing him using his speed powers in creative ways.  Given a blue ring, he feels like he becomes just another ring slinger, and less interesting as a result.  The constant (or at least it felt like it) repetition of the new Blue Lantern catchphrase “all will be well” throughout the issue started to grate as well.

Another aspect to Barry being a ring-slinger is that it seems to undermine being a Lantern somewhat.  Johns went to lengths to show in Rebirth and in the Sinestro Corps Wars that not just anyone can use a ring.  Sinestro had his recruits transported to Qward for extensive training, and Green Arrow struggled to make even a basic construct in Rebirth.  By having Barry running around, mastering his blue ring so easily it seems to devalue that power somewhat (more-so when you consider that Saint Walker had to sacrifice his entire family before being deemed hopeful enough to be able to handle a blue ring, although granted this is a ring issued under emergency circumstances).  I’ve found the Scarecrow and Luthor recruitment more successful as that seems more in tune with their characters, and is adding to them, although in fairness with at least Scarecrow you can also make the argument that he’s using the ring far too easily.

There’s some interesting events here as well.  We discover that Professor Zoom is locked up in Iron Heights (a disappointing scene given it slightly spoiled Zoom’s fate from Rebirth), and I liked the way the two Zooms confused the Black Lanterns.  I have to wonder what Geoff’s plans for Captain Boomerang are now though.  Owen as a character has always flitted between good and bad, but here he’s made pretty irredeemable, and then finally killed by his Black Lantern father.  I do wonder if this means we’re going to get an all-new Captain Boomerang?  If so it’ll be a shame that Owen was never fully capitalised on.  His origin as Bart’s half-brother was never explored, and the idea of him being a twist on a speedster supervillain likewise was never really used.  However given what he does in this issue, I can’t see him being brought back in any kind of sympathetic way.  Unless he gets brought back and set up as a (pardon the phrase) rogue element, with as big an axe to grind against the other Rogues as the Flash.  As a much darker character that’s after everyone, he could be interesting.

Overall, I found this series a bit of a mixed bag, but I did enjoy the last issue.  Its a pity we couldn’t have had more time donated to the Rogue story in a separate miniseries and more focus on the Flash family as a whole, but when we did get it, the story really kicked off.  I loved the scenes between Barry, Wally and Bart, and the way Barry brought back Bart worked well.  Its nice to see both Bart and Connor’s Black Lantern takeovers dealt with in tie-ins though.  Adds a bit more weight to them, and you can see that neither would really have affected the main series much (as its got a lot more going on).

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.

The John Stewart/Xanshi stuff was covered in the preview in its entirity.  Sadly we don’t get any other teases as to what the story is here.  We do know that this plot is due for some focus in the upcoming issues, however another page at least would’ve been nice here.  Its always a slight disappointment when a preview shows you an entire subplot.  Again though, this is largely due to the number of plot threads Geoff’s revisiting in this issue so its understandable.

The rest of the issue is filled full of the various Lanterns.  We get a bit more of the conflict on Zamaron, with Carol and Sinestro providing for quite an interesting battle of wills (if that’s the right word), as Sinestro plays on her character and mocks her for taking up the Star Sapphire purely to try and help Hal.  In reponse we get Carol briefly trapping Sinestro in one of the Sapphire’s conversion booths where we get an intriguing look at Sinestro and Abin Sur’s relationship, specifically in terms of Sinestro seeming interested in Abin’s sister.   Since we know the Abin is one of the Black Lanterns to rise, I’m guessing this is a plot we’ll be seeing sooner rather than later.  And even more interestingly, they’re interrupted by the arrival of the Black Lantern Sinestro Corps led by Black Lantern Amon Sur.  Its interesting that both Abin and his son have been risen as Black Lanterns, and surely that’s something Geoff is going to play with.

On Ysmault the Alpha and Lost Lanterns have retrieved Laira’s body but find themselves under attack from the Red Lanterns, but are also having problems with the Alpha Lanterns.  Boodikka is refusing to leave as her programming to terminate all enemies of the Corps is conflicting with the need to evacuate the planet.  Once again, we’re seeing the Guardian’s mistakes start to come back on them.   The Lost Lanterns say they’re going to have to force her to leave, but you can’t help but think she’ll react badly to that.  And then the Black Rings show up.  Laira is of course one of the first to rise as a Black Lantern, but given Ysmault’s population was nearly entirely wiped out by the Manhunters, you can’t help but think the Red, Alpha and Lost Lanterns are about to find themselves badly outnumbered.

The scenes with the Blue and Orange Lanterns though probably provided the biggest payoff.  Given the nature of the Orange Lanterns (they’re killed and Orange Lantern copies created), it always seemed like Larfleeze was going to be in a lot of trouble come Blackest Night, and here we see that come to pass as the Black Rings arrive on Okaara.

We’ve also got the continuing assault on Odym.  A nice touch, playing on how full of life the planet is, is the fact that the Black Rings sent there are just hovering in orbit.  There’s nothing on the planet for them currently, so they’re just waiting for something to die.  It gave us the really nice visual of the rings circling Odym like vultures.

I also liked the visual of the Orange Lanterns, with Larfleeze’s greed knowing no limits, having moved on from the idea of just grabbing a blue ring, to grabbing the whole central battery.  It was interesting that Ganthet wasn’t too concerned about the Battery though.  Granted, the Blackest Night has arrived, but you think his Corps being left powerless would concern him just a little, unless he’s betting on the Black Rings disrupting the Orange Lanterns as we saw in the final pages as he’s aware the Black Lanterns are the larger threat.

All in all, it was very nice, to see the War of Light return center stage, and going by solicits, it looks like this is the aspect of the story that the main GL title will be focusing on from the duration of Blackest night.    You’ve got to admire the sheer number of subplots Geoff is managing in this issue, its just perhaps a shame that we don’t get a bit more of them due to the restriction in number of pages.  But then, they do say you should always leave people wanting more

Very much looking forward to the next issue, hopefully with a lot more of the John Stewart/Xanshi stuff, and it’ll be nice to see Ganthet’s Blue Lanterns get more involved.  Although Ganthet will need to try and get a Green Lantern in range of Odym unless the Black Lanterns on Okaraa can cause Larfleeze to retrieve his “Corps” and leave behind the Blue battery.

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.

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?

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.

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.