Reilly2040's Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is it.  The Green Lantern titles have been building up to this for months, and War of the Green Lanterns is finally upon us.

Following directly on from last issue’s events, the book of the black is quickly revealed as a trap when Lyssa Drak (now calling herself the story vampire) appears, having sided with Krona and intent on trapping the New Guardians all within the book. This was a nice use of the character and also allowed Geoff Johns to quickly clear the other Lanterns off of the table to allow the Green Lanterns to take centre stage.

Meanwhile on Oa, Krona’s plan is revealed when he uses the entities to possess and control the remaining Guardians. Again this nicely showcases his control over the entities and Doug Mankhe gets to draw some nice scenes where the Guardians are possessed.

The scene also shows a couple of nice Geoff Johns touches, with Krona remembering the Guardians’ names (which they themselves have long since forgotten) and we also get some further foreshadowing with a throwaway reference to “The First Lantern”, who I’m guessing will prove significant and is also the figure we saw in chains in the flashback a few issues ago.

However, the true War of the Green Lanterns comes into play when Krona directs Parallax back into the Central Power Battery.   Once there, this not only reinstates the yellow impurity in the rings, but also causes Parallax to exert control over the entire Green Lantern Corps.  Here Krona’s plan becomes clear in that he intends to repeat the disaster with the Manhunters, using the Green Lanterns.

In a twisted way you do get the impression that Krona still cares for the other Guardians.  He’s the only one that still remembers their original names, and he’s still desperate to get them to see their error in denying emotion, but that desperation has driven him utterly insane, which I guess helps prove their point.  But then, there’s no denying that being emotion-free hasn’t caused problems for the Guardians as well.  These guys really need to find that comfortable middle ground, somewhere between uncaring idiots, and raving lunatic (like Ganthet has).

Its a really nice use of Parallax, a character who was I becoming tired of.  Granted, Parallax never displayed this level of control previously, but he was dormant for much of his time in the Central Power Battery, and even after awakened by Sinestro its believable he wasn’t at full strength, and there’s Krona’s influence to factor in.  It also neatly explains exactly why the Green Lanterns are at war.  Granted, I’ve read reviews online that would’ve preferred less mind-control and more of an idealogical split, but as I’ve said previously there’s not really been enough build up to something like that happening.

This all happens at a disastrous time for Hal, who is still reeling from his encounter with the Book of the Black and the entrapment of the other New Guardians, and he suddenly finds himself a group of Green Lanterns, led by Salaak, who have been sent by the Guardians to bring him back to Oa for questioning.  Of course, those Lanterns suddenly find themselves under Parallax’s control, and Hal is forced to flee for his life, with his previous possessions by Parallax presumably having left him resistant to Parallax’s control (something Krona hinted towards a couple of issues ago).

This leaves the Corps in pieces.  With the Guardians possessed, and everyone under Parallax and Krona’s control, we’re left with Hal flying out in space on his own, needing to find help.  Of course, the interesting thing is that he’s carrying with him the various rings of the New Guardians, and so I’m joining many people online in assuming Hal and the others (Guy, John, Kyle and presumably at least Kilowog) will switch to using those other rings to avoid Parallax’s influence.    Something I’m very interested to see.  There has been a solicited cover for an upcoming issue that features the Sinestro Corps and a blacked-out figure with them.  I’m now assuming this figure will be Hal himself, having had to start using Sinestro’s ring.   Its an idea that plays neatly off of the relationship Johns has established between the two, but it’ll be interesting to see how Hal handles another ring, given his previously disastrous experience with at least the Yellow and Blue rings.

On top of everything is Doug Mahnke’s art, which he really brings up a level this month.  He’s been a remarkably consistant artist, and just what GL needed after spending much of the early years of volume 4 suffering delays, however there’s a real feeling in this issue that Doug’s upped his game to hammer home the impact of the events of this first chapter.  Its great stuff, and he really shines in the possession scenes where Krona attacks the Guardians.

As you can tell, with the arrival of this event, I’m suddenly finding myself a lot more excited in the main GL monthly.  The quick removal of the New Guardians and the final reveal of Krona’s plan have been great pay off after the endless months of entity-collecting.  I hope this event can maintain this level of excitement in the same way the Sinestro Corps War did several years ago.

Its a War of the Green Lanterns prequel this month in Green Lantern, with us finally seeing Krona’s backstory, and the truth behind some of the big events in the Green Lantern mythos that Geoff has been building up to.

With flashing back to events prior to the formation of the Green Lantern Corps, there are, of course, a lot of retcons going on as Geoff Johns lays out his new history for the Corps, that not only includes nods to the emotional spectrum, but also ties together various, previously separate elements. That said, while I’m not always a big fan of Geoff’s tendancy to change around a lot of established continuity without much explanation, I did find this issue to be a nice pay off to Krona’s reveal a few months ago.

The opening scenes involving Ganthet have now positioned these two Guardians as old friends, who were forced apart when Ganthet joined the other Guardians in denouncing emotion, and interestingly we now see the Guardians being formed prior to Krona’s experiment in viewing the beginning of the universe (a change that doesn’t entirely sit well with me, as we’ve now lost the main reason for the Guardians taking on their responsibility in order to make amends, however I suspect Geoff is going to reveal the emotional spectrum to be at the heart of that decision). I did quite like the way that the Guardians were shown as full height humanoids, and wearing white robes that included the white lantern symbol. That was a nice touch given the way Geoff’s steered the mythos.

Its also interesting in the way it paints Krona into a more sympathetic light. As the Guardians pull away from emotion, he sees this as a mistake and is determined to show them how he is right, eventually breaking away from the group and being pursued by Manhunters. Of course, his eventual actions (reprogramming the Manhunters to annihilate sector 666 in an attempt to show the Guardians how detached they’ve become) are clearly the work of a madman, but here Geoff gets to show his true strength in writing, of bringing us interesting, fully-formed villains. And to an extent, we have to admit that Krona was right. We’ve seen over the last few years the results of the Guardian’s detachment from emotion, from being duped into Parallax’s non-existence, to ignoring the threat of the upcoming War of Light, to the creation of the Alpha Lanterns. These were all actions that resulted in them being caught unawares by Scar and Nekron during Blackest Night, and while Ganthet embraced Hope (and has now entered into a pact with the Red Lanterns) in an attempt to stave off these larger threats, the core group of Guardians themselves still seem to remain entirely ignorant of what has happened around them and how they’ve failed to be ready for it. And by showing that relationship between Krona and Ganthet all those millennia ago, it also adds to Ganthet’s motivation in breaking away from the other Guardians.

So overall, I really enjoyed this prequel, and am interested to see how War of the Green Lanterns plays out.

Of course, the one big talking point that has been setup, is that there will only be three Earth Green Lanterns by the end of this event. And recent solicitations leave us in little doubt that the Green Lantern to lose his ring will be Kyle (although logicially, he was the most likely candidate anyway). What this means for Kyle I don’t know, but I would hope that this is only the first chapter in this story, and Kyle will remain a main character in Green Lantern Corps, as I feel that ignoring any of the Earth Green Lanterns (as John was for the last few years until recently) is ultimately a mistake as they all have their fans. I hope that we’ll be seeing Kyle joining another Corps temporarily before returning to be a Green Lantern in the next Green Lantern event that will restore their power to full strength. I make no bones about the fact that he’s probably my favourite of the Earth GLs, since I came onto the title as a regular reader during Ron Marz run, and if this event was to find him written out of the franchise, I’d probably find myself with less of a reason to stick with Green Lantern on a monthly basis.

Saying that, I remain unconvinced that the fact there’s only going to be three Earth Green Lanterns means there’ll be a death. At the very least, I’m expecting Kyle to stick around in an unpowered role, which would be interesting to explore as long as it was only for a few months.  And at the end of the day, this is all a few months away yet, so I hope that all will be well, and that War of the Green Lanterns is an epic storyline, and its conclusion, whatever it may be, leaves me excited about the status quo going forwards.

All the Green Lantern titles get back into alignment this month, with all three wrapping up their individual story arcs in preparation for the kick off of War of the Green Lanterns.

I made no bones in my last post that I’ve been pretty dissatisfied with Green Lantern over the last while, so the fact we’re moving into the next big storyline gives me some hope we’re actually going to start seeing some pay off for the last year or so’s storylines, especially in the case of Hal and the New Guardians.

Green Lantern Corps has long been a favourite of mine, and again I made a point of how much I was enjoying Tony Bedard’s work over the other GL titles in my last post.  However, this month’s issue I found particularly weak.  To an extent it suffers from the same issue that Green Lantern’s had for the last while.  With all the focus on the Weaponer and Sinestro, the Green Lanterns become a footnote in their own book.  However this pales next to the incredibly forced inclusion of Firestorm.  I stopped reading Brightest Day several months ago, having realised I had no real interest in most of its plot lines.  So to suddenly have Firestorm turn up and info dump the latest goings on felt like it really derailed the storyline Tony Bedard had been telling over the last 4 months.

Its a particular shame, given how well Bedard previously handled tie-ins, when the events of Blackest Night spilled over into REBELS a year ago.  That felt very natural to me, and worked well with the story he’d already been telling.  The way this issue plays out, I have to either wonder if he originally had a different direction for this final issue, or if the storyline was stretched out to line up for War of the GLs, and the extra issue opened the door to the Brightest Day appearance.  Either way it all just felt a bit clunky to me.  That all being said though, I’m loving Tyler Kirkham’s art, and in general I’m still finding this the book I enjoy most of the three.  I hope this team plans on stick around for a while.

To be honest, this issue provides a similar thing to what we see in both Green Lantern and Emerald Warriors this month.  In the case of all three, little is actually resolved, in favour of having characters put in place for future storylines, be it the Weaponer, Zardor or Krona.    In the case of Emerald Warriors though, this is probably the most understandable, since this initial arc was really about setting up the new series, and while it perhaps dragged on a bit long (again, possibly to keep things lined up?), once War of the Green Lanterns is over, I’m assuming we’ll be heading straight back to the uncharted sectors for the continuation of this storyline of Guy and co cleaning up these more lawless regions (an idea I do really like).  I certainly have to assume locating Sodam Yat and freeing him from Zardor is going to be high on the GLs “todo” list.

Green Lantern meanwhile finally sees the New Guardians storyline that’s been running since last April come to an end.  Well, except its not an end.  Nothing is resolved, and in fact this whole 9-part storyline doesn’t have any sort of conclusion is massively frustrating.  This kind of protracted run-in to an event was done far more successfully with the introduction of the various Corps before Blackest Night, however, this is a complaint I’ve made countless times, and I can only hope Johns has a more satisfying story structure planned out for post-War of the Green Lanterns.  That said, I still enjoyed this month’s issue, as it brought this chapter to a close, giving us the Hal versus Krona face off that I’d really have rather seen last month (again, was that Atrocitus issue purely to keep all the books lined up with a larger plan?).  It does lose its place slightly after the confrontation, with a Hal/Justice League scene that didn’t quite work, as I didn’t feel Johns had made enough of Hal being torn between them and the New Guardians in the past.  The scene played a little as payoff for a conflict that hadn’t really been seen.

We do get some more of those patent Geoff Johns teases though in the meantime.  Most worrying for me was the Guardians hinting about one of the Earth GLs being lost.  I’m hoping this doesn’t mean one of Kyle/John/Guy will be killed off and instead, it just means they’ve left the Corps (which could possibly tie in well with Guy being in the uncharted regions – the Guardians may not take well to his Red Lantern infection after all – although they’d have the same complaint with Ganthet).  However the implication does seem clear that one of the Earth Green Lanterns won’t be coming out of this event.  If that is the case, then surely John and Kyle are the only two at risk?  I can’t say I’d be happy about losing either of them, and I really hope this is a red herring.

At the back of every DC comic this week, we’re also getting a preview of War of the Green Lanterns, which is set largely in flashback.  The biggest thing of interest here being Ganthet and Krona both looking at a third figure who is all chained up, in relation to the entities.  I’m guessing a big reveal in War of the GLs is going to be this third character.  We also see the continuing changing of Green Lantern history, with the Guardians now formed prior to Krona’s disasterous attempts to look into the origin of the universe (previously that event was what spurred the Maltusians to become the Guardians as penance for that mistake), and they also sport the white lantern symbol on their outfits.  At this stage, Geoff Johns tinkering with history this much is no surprise however, as he does like to fit the history of the characters to the story he’s currently telling and I’ll be intrigued to see who it was that was chained up.

So overall, this month’s GL comics were more of a relief for me, with the current holding position finally ending so we can get on with the event.  I sincerely hope we don’t see a repeat of this once this event is over though, however I did enjoy Green Lantern and Emerald Warriors this month.  While Geoff Johns has previously stated that he’s all about the big events these days, I think this last year in Green Lantern comics have shown the problems with this structure.  But then, they remain some of DC’s big sellers, but I really hope all three books get some time to breathe.  We went straight from one big event to another a year later, and I think that was just too soon.  I hope that once War of the Green Lanterns concludes we get a couple of years to let the fallout be explored (and let the Flash titles get some of the limelight).

My blogging has fallen way behind its normal levels lately, so I thought a quick “catch all” Green Lantern post might be an idea.

I guess a big part of my problem at the moment is with Green Lantern.  I previously relied on it for a lot of my comics blogging, but the truth is that in general, I felt that 2010 wasn’t a great year for Green Lantern.  Despite the success of Blackest Night (although that was really more a DCU event rather than a GL one) and the launch of a third monthly series, I’ve honestly believed that most of the Green Lantern titles have been in a holding pattern since.  Emerald Warriors’ first 6 issues have felt incredibly dragged out, and the main Green Lantern title has been stuck in an other Corps/Entities loop for most of the last year, with the only real highlight being the Carol/Predator stuff.  This culminated in the latest issue which, despite the big reveal of Krona the previous issue, completely sidetracked into a Red Lantern story and didn’t feature Hal at all.

I genuinely feel that both those books have been biding time for a few months, waiting on everything lining up for War of the Green Lanterns, and possibly not helped by both writers spearheading Brightest Day.  Its a real disappointment and surprise, given how much I usually love Peter Tomasi’s writing, and I can’t help but worry about Geoff John’s recent “everything has to be epic story arcs” view, that I could easily blame for this current situation.   I kind’ve miss the days when Green Lantern told 3 issue storylines that would eventually build into something bigger, such as Rage of the Red Lanterns leading into Agent Orange, both of which laid groundwork for the war of light.  Both their own storylines, but with elements that carried over without feeling like one long meandering storyline, such as the New Guardians has now become.

To be fair, there have been elements of the stories that I really like.  I mentioned the Zamarron/Predator stuff before for example, its more the overarching structure that feels stretched out, with the constant reveals of entities just feeling repetitive by this point.  Emerald Warriors has had a few nice moments as well, but still feels like its setting up something bigger, rather than just telling its own story, even six issues into it.

Currently the only Green Lantern title I would say I’m still definitely enjoying every month is Green Lantern Corps.  While there’s still questionable aspects to the book (I’m not entirely convinced about Tony Bedard’s grasp of the character’s backstories, meaning they sometimes come across as if he’s quickly checked wikipedia on who they are, although that should improve the longer he’s on the book), the fact that it has stuck to shorter storylines rather than having one protracted storyline I feel has been a real benefit to the book, and I do like the revamped cast Bedard is using  with Hanu and John Stewart.

For me, a lot is currently riding on the pay off for these storylines in War of the Green Lanterns, but as I’ve blogged before, I have my concerns about that storyline as well.  Especially from what we’ve seen of the setup thus far.  Both Ganthet and Guy have revealed details of their secret pact with Atrocitus, but I’m still at a loss as to Guy’s motivation.  He had the vision warning him of future events, and went to Ganthet.  Fair enough, Ganthet’s often been shown to be the most trustworthy of the Guardians.  But I really don’t understand why Guy kept it all so secret.  His lingering Red Lantern infection is known to anyone who was on Mogo at the time (Kyle, Kilowog etc), and for Guy to not warn at least Kyle would seem to fly in the face of their friendship that has been established in GLC.   I worry that these various conflicts are being forced rather than making sense.  Even Guy and Hal aren’t the bitter rivals they once were, although the fact Guy worked with Atrocitus could be enough to put him at odds with Hal, who has been seeing Atrocitus run loose on Earth these last few months.

I’m genuinely hoping that War of the Green Lanterns turns things around, or at least, once its over the new direction in each book pulls me back in again, but as it is, I find it hard to try and talk about most of the Green Lantern books every month, when so little seems to be actually moving forward.   As things stand, I could easily see me dropping down to just buying Green Lantern Corps unless things pick up.  Despite what a big property Green Lantern is to DC Comics at the moment, I can’t help but think there’s many other titles blowing it out of the water, notably the revamped Batman franchise, and Johns’ own relaunched Flash title, due to get a lot of attention over the following months as Flashpoint kicks off.