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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I really can’t wait for this now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Picking up directly from the events of last issue, Kyle is feeling introspective about his abilities as a Green Lantern following the Weaponer joining the Sinestro Corps. However any of those concerns pale into insignificance once the group of Honour Lanterns return from Qward to the Positive-Matter Universe and quickly discover the results of Krona and Parallax’s handiwork.

This issue is the big “Kyle versus John” fight that I’d been curious about since it was solicited, and I must admit, I was pretty happy with the way it played out.  The idea of using the Parallax infection to affect the GLs by bringing out their various fears and set them against each other worked well, and I found a more interesting idea than the wholesale possession of the rest of the Green Lantern Corps.  In fact, it probably harkens back more to Hal’s original possession, which could be seen more as being influenced (although that wasn’t the intention at the time).  My only issue was that I found John’s fears about Kyle a bit forced.  These are two guys who’ve worked together for years in the DCU, and John has been a friend of Kyle’s right from when he started as a GL.  The idea that he’s secretly been harbouring these doubts about Kyle may play into the marine angle they’re now playing with John, but it doesn’t really fit with how their friendship’s been portrayed over the years.

To be honest, its a general issue I have with Bedard’s writing on this title that I’ve mentioned before, that at times he almost seems to be working on the cliff notes versions of these characters, rather than appreciating their back stories.  Which is not to say that this angle to take setting these two characters against each other was flawed, but the writing of it didn’t really work for me (I could’ve understood John being worried about Kyle’s judgement being clouded having lost so many women he loved in the past, but it was portrayed as more general than that).  The marine angle they’re now taking with John really feels overplayed at times, and this was definitely one of them.  It may have worked on the JLU cartoons, but in the comics there’s a lot more to the character, and while I’m not against nudging the character more towards that arguably more recognisable version, it does feel increasingly a bit forced.  Unlike, say, when Geoff used John to take out Bedovian in the Sinestro Corps War.

Anyway, while Kyle and John lay into each other, Ganthet quickly realises what’s happened and knows that they will have to remove their rings in order to free themselves from Parallax.  In order to do this, he uses his own ring, pushing his willpower past the influence of Parallax (and I assume Kyle and John’s own willpower) before finally succeeding, but in a pretty unexpected and shocking scene, the effort causes his own ring to overload, exploding and costing Ganthet his hand.

Ganthet then explains his own residual power as a Guardian will continue to attract the controlled Corps members, so Kyle and John must hide on Oa while Ganthet distracts them.  To be continued…

The ending of this issue was nice in that it did acknowledge Ganthet’s own Guardian powers, a topic that’s been all-too-conveniently ignored since he became a Green Lantern.  I guess since he talks about “residual powers”, he must’ve given them up when he took on a ring.  Ganthet’s ring exploding and destroying his hand was a big surprise moment, although with him being a Guardian, I wonder if it’ll get restored at the end of the storyline.

Essentially much of this issue is donated to the brief Kyle/John fight and setting up the Parallax possession and getting rid of their rings.  And the fact that Hal was last seen flying around carrying the various rings of the other New Guardians does set things up for the Earth GLs having to use the rings of other Corps being a big part of this event.  That being the case, I wonder if we’ll finally be seeing the Blue Lantern Kyle Rayner that was widely (and incorrectly) rumoured during Blackest Night.  And given part of the big pitch of this storyline is that one of the Earth Green Lanterns will be losing their ring (at least until the next event), I can’t help but think one of them will find it a permanent position.

That being the case, and again assuming its Kyle losing his ring (as mentioned before), then this could actually work for me.  If Kyle was to become a Blue Lantern for the next year or so, I think it’d be a nice way to reference the close relationship he had with Ganthet towards the end of Green Lantern vol 3.  I don’t know how it’d fit in with Green Lantern Corps though.  Would the franchise sustain another miniseries, with the upcoming Red Lanterns launch?  Or does that Red Lanterns series itself suggest where the fourth Earth Lantern might end up?

Its also going to be very interesting to see how thing develop with Ganthet.  It seems likely, especially given his injury, that he won’t escape the Corps, so it’ll be interesting to see how he and Krona interact, given the relationship we’ve seen between them in the flashbacks, and Ganthet’s recent actions embracing emotion once again.  How Krona will react to it all will be interesting to see.

Its great to be excited about Green Lantern again, and so far I’m very much enjoying this event even though its only in a setup phase, and as I say, very little actually happens in this issue beyond that setup.  While we’re maybe not hitting the giddy heights of the Sinestro Corps War yet, War of the Green Lanterns is off to a strong start.

While the original teaser trailer released for the Green Lantern movie, left me pretty cold and not much looking forward to it, the new Wonder-con footage that’s been released has turned everything around (and judging by the online forums, I’m not alone).   It looks amazingly epic, and while I’m still no 3D fan, with those big views of Oa and the Corps, I can’t help but think it’ll look amazing at the Imax.

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).