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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And unfortunately on reading the book, I found little to change my mind.  This was probably my first “drop” of the books I’ve picked up in the new 52. As I feared, they’re diluting/tweaking the concept, so the influence of the rings, turning their bearers into rabid animals doesn’t seem as potent as it once was, with Atrocitus finds himself in a moral quandry after Krona’s death, as the target of his millenia-long vengeance is finally gone.  Given that the red ring is the only thing keeping him alive, I’d have thought that even if he did lose his rage, he’d end up dead as a result.   To me, having this introspective Atrocitus, eventually deciding to become and anti-hero, bringing justice to the oppressed just takes away from the Red Lanterns as a whole.   Here we have Atrocitus making cute one-liners about people hurting his cat. I also notice the redesign takes away some of his more monstrous features, making him more of a human-like alien.  In their original introduction, the Red Lanterns were nigh-unstoppable killers.  A force of nature, tearing through Sinestro Corps and Green Lanterns alike to get to Sinestro himself, with only the timely appearance of Saint Walker saving the lives of Hal, John, Kilowog and a bunch of others.  This nicely played into many of their origins, which saw them all as ordinary people, abused and tortured by life, only then to receive a ring that just enslaves them even more.  Underneath the rage, hate and killing, they all started out as tragic figures.   So having Atrocitus as some one-liner spouting bringing of justice just doesn’t seem as appealing in comparison.

So sadly, I found little to really keep me on this book.  I’ll certainly keep up on it via forums and the like to see what direction it goes in and see if I want to go back and start picking up other issues, but for now, this just isn’t for me.  I do note online that there are plenty of people that do enjoy the Red Lanterns in that anti-hero role, so I hope the book does well, but for me, its just not the direction I would’ve really liked to have seen them used in, and as I say worries me that the emotional spectrum as a concept is becoming diluted into just differently coloured Green Lanterns.  My take on this book would have probably been more of a Green Lantern entrant into the “Dark” side of the DCU.  More horror-themed tales of abusers getting their comeuppance as their victims are turned into unstoppable killers.

Now, ever since the War of Light, and especially the New Guardians arc in Green Lantern, its been clear that the new Corps were going over well.  We’ve seen numerous t-shirts, and action figures from the various Corps, and the recent news that Saint Walker would be joining the JLA (although given his powers only work when close to a Green Lantern, it’ll be interesting to see exactly how that’ll work).

All this, to be honest, has left me wondering when DC would just release a “Tales of the Corps” series, featuring one-off storys and arcs that could rotate around the various Corps.  To me that would make a lot of sense, as there’s lots of scope to examine the characters that have been introduced, such as Carol, Saint Walker or Atrocitus, and introduce new Blue Lanterns or Star Sapphires or whoever with their own histories that could be explored.

However, instead DC have decided to go in an unexpected and different direction.  And I’m not entirely convinced about it.  Essentially this is Atrocitus getting his own monthly.  Or I have to assume so, since the majority of Red Lanterns are effectively rabid dogs, with little of their personality remaining as they’ve been consumed by the rage.  And for Atrocitus himself, yes he’s been explored reasonably well, but is he headline material for his own book?  Or will the book include a cast with some other lanterns, like how Bleez is part of the Emerald Warriors cast?

There’s a side of me that can’t help but think this could end up being a bit 90s with their love of anti-heroes.  We are after all talking about a character, that while we might understand what drove him to become what he is, is still a murderer.  Were all the prisoners on that bus actually guilty?  What about the woman (and her husband) that he killed in the last issue for his ritual?  There’s a part of me that can’t help thinking of the Venom: Lethal Protector series from Marvel, although I suspect even Venom’s twisted moral code was more developed than that of Atrocitus.

Now, I could see this working as a limited series, telling a particular story over the length of its run, but an ongoing?  I can’t say I’m excited, but I am at least intrigued to see what DC are going to bring to the table to try and make this work.

And I still can’t help but think a Tales of the Corps book might be a more interesting way to go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strangely then, we cut back to events seen in Brightest Day. Personally, I found these pages a bit annoying as they completely retreaded events from that book, not really adding anything, and the use of big splash pages to retell something that happened last week felt a bit like a waste. I appreciate that there’ll be people reading Green Lantern who are not reading Brightest Day, but I can’t help but think this could’ve been tackled differently so as to try and give the Brightest Day readers something as well. It’ll be interesting to see if this becomes a common issue as the story of the white lantern develops in both books, or if the storylines will diverge.

However, with that done, the larger GL-centric mystery from last issue of the mysterious figure collecting entities is brought back to the fore, nicely picking up on a major plot strand from Green Lantern Corps.  In that book, Sodam Yat had been forced to use the Ion power to transform Daxam’s red sun to yellow in order to allow his people to defeat the Sinestro Corps.   I’ve been waiting to see how this plot would play out (and had assumed it would form part of Blackest Night) so its nice to see it picked up.  Like the Mongul plot though, it also feels a bit of a shame that its resolved in a different book, and quite quickly.  For those reading Green Lantern and not Corps, Sodam’s situation with Daxam must’ve been quite puzzling.

There is though, the nice feeling of comeuppance.  The Daxamites have been portrayed as hugely xenophobic.  Murderously so, so to have them stripped quite brutally of their powers, as Ion is removed from Sodam and the sun turned red once again at least gives some resolution to that storyline.  There’s the niggling feeling that the super-powered Daxamites would’ve allowed for an interesting storyarc over in GLC, however I guess that’d be treading a lot of ground that the Superman books have recently covered with their big New Krypton storyline.

Very interesting is the insight we get into this mysterious figure.  We now know that despite the chains, they are not bound to Ysmault so may not be a prisoner in the strict sense I would’ve imagined based on last issue.  We can also now definitely see that they’re small of stature, which immediately suggests its a rogue Guardian.   Appa Ali Apsa leaps immediately to mind.  Of course, he appeared dead at the end of The Road Back, but that could be changed quite easily (and probably less dramatically than some of the retcons we’ve seen over the last few years).   The figure also displays a sense of justice in regards to the xenophobic Daxamites being stripped of their powers, and seems to almost care for Sodam and his sacrifice.  This could certainly point to it being a Guardian.  Why exactly they’re collecting the entities remains a mystery, but I would assume this is going to allow Sodam Yat to return in Peter Tomasi’s new Emerald Warriors book (since that’s the title featuring Arisia).

Overall though another good issue.  There’s still a strong feeling of a shared universe  and storyline between the GL books, with the GLC crossovers lately (Daxamites here, and the reprise of the Guy, Ganthet and Atrocitus scene in GLC) but both books are doing this while still building their own distinct storylines.    The white Lantern stuff I wasn’t sure about, and may be better left to Brightest Day, but the central mystery of the entities on Earth is strong, and it’ll be interesting to see how the team up with Atrocitus goes next month.

And again, its ultimately Mogo that comes to the rescue, as he forces Guy to face his demons, before finally purging Guy of the red ring, albeit not completely.  In the meantime Kyle and the others try their best to help out, but there’s not really a lot they can do.  There’s a nice nod to the Green Lantern arc, where Munk tells Kyle the only real way to get rid of a red ring, is with a Blue Lantern, but Munk’s low on power and unable to teleport one to them, and the red energy makes holding Guy down long enough to take him to a Blue lantern nearly impossible.

There’s been some criticism of padding in the GL titles over the last month or two, undoubtedly caused by the January skip month introduced in the main Blackest Night miniseries.  Certainly the Spectre/Parallax storyline felt a bit out of place in the main Green Lantern title, and here, while the story does flow well, its noticeable that very little actually happens, beyond Guy’s red ring infection being dealt with.  The use of Mogo for the second time in two issues to fix things jumps out as well, and you can’t help but wonder if initially this would’ve all happened in one issue, with Mogo absorbing the Black Lanterns and Guy at the same time, only to then spit out the cured Guy.

Mogo does make the point though that he’s unable to completely purge the red lantern energy from Guy’s system.  What this actually means is unclear (let’s be honest, Guy’s not known for his calm temperament at the best of times), but with Peter Tomasi taking Guy over to the new Emerald Warriors title, I imagine we’re seeing something being dropped in that’ll be picked up there as presumably it’ll become a problem that needs Guy to seek out a Blue Lantern for help purging the red energy completely.

The end of the issue ties in neatly to the main events in Blackest Night, with some new Indigo Lanterns turning up to teleport everyone to Earth (just in time to save John Stewart).

Overall a good issue, but with Peter Tomasi dedicating a whole issue to Kyle’s resurrection only a few issues ago, this felt a little like a repeat of that same trick, only focused on Guy.  Its slightly less satisfying too, as there the combined efforts of the various Lanterns paid off with them able to resurrect Kyle.  Here’s the Lanterns are actually powerless to do anything, until Mogo steps in.

There is some nice character work, with Kyle’s desperation to save Guy echoing Guy’s when Kyle was about to be claimed by the Black Rings, although with the two characters getting split into different books in two issues, I don’t think it really added much to their relationship at this stage.  As I say, you have to wonder if this was all originally planned to happen in one issue, rather than the two we ended up with.  It was still an enjoyable read as I’d expect from Peter Tomasi, and jarred me less than the Parallax stuff, but  there was a definite feeling of repetition to the events here.

When we last left events on Oa, Guy was on the rampage as a Red Lantern, Kyle had just been resurrected, and Mogo had decided it was time to socialise.

The highlight for this issue is easily the stuff with Mogo, that neatly wraps up the issue of the Black Lanterns devastating Oa.  It really showcases how powerful Mogo can be as he pulls everyone off of Oa, dragging the Black Lanterns down through his surface towards his power battery core, where they’ll be continually destroyed, no matter how many times they reform.

I loved the justification for Mogo’s appearance being so simple (The Guardians had ordered all Lanterns to report for duty), although interesting was the interaction between Mogo and Salaak.  For some reason Salaak really doesn’t seem to care for Mogo (constantly referring to him as “it”), something made worse when Mogo reveals he has special orders from the Guardians Salaak didn’t know about.  With Salaak being the main administrator for Oa, there’s an element of the control freak to his character, and obviously Mogo being so powerful and key within the Corps unsettles him.

While all this is going on, Guy is still running amok with the red ring.  Kyle’s keen to get it off him, but its pointed out that Guy’s now nicely doing the job Kyle intended when he freed Vice.  Of course, once Mogo takes care of the Black Lanterns, there’s now the issue that they’re not between Guy and his fellow GLs any more, which nicely sets up everyone trying to get the ring off of Guy next issue.

Which should be interesting, as up until now the only “cure” for a red ring we’ve seen has been a blue ring.  Currently though there is an Indigo Lantern and Star Sapphire on Oa as well, so even if the green ring can’t restore Guy’s system from the red ring, then presumably a combination of the different powers will (unless Ganthet’s sent a blue lantern to Oa to help out, who conveniently turns up).

I’m glad the “Oa under Siege” aspect of the story’s been wrapped up so neatly without dragging things out at all, and the stage is now nicely set for the GLs sorting Guy out before heading to Earth to respond to the distress call with the other Corps, so the story arc has been nicely laid out.    Although saying that, recent previews show that the Black Lantern Anti-Monitor will be turning up, so that’ll be very interesting indeed.

I have to presume its once the GLC is on Earth, and they somehow manage to destroy the Black battery, unfortunately not realising he’s trapped in there.  After their brief skirmish in the Sinestro Corps War, a full-on Anti-Monitor versus GLC fight should make for some pretty epic reading.

Its interesting that Red Lantern Guy then completely full fills Kyle’s plan from last issue.  Guy appears to maintain more control than any Red Lantern we’ve seen other than Atrocitous himself, while still giving into his rage, he’s still able to talk, and uses both his rings to devastating effect with the combination of green and red light immediately disconnecting any Black Lanterns that run into him.

And while Guy’s running amok, Soranik finds herself getting help from all sides, as Munk and the various other Green Lanterns come to her aid to help destroy the black rings that are trying to claim Kyle.  However, its the intervention of Star Sapphire Miri whose powers tether onto Soranik’s love for Kyle that finally leads to Kyle’s resurrection.

If there’s one thing I’ve always said Peter Tomasi does well, its juggling various characters and plotlines, and in many ways this issue brings several of those together.  We see Kryb and Miri’s hunt for the Orphans lead them to Oa, placing Miri where she needs to be to save Kyle.  Kyle and Soranik’s relationship has of course been a feature of the series for a while now, and it’ll be interesting to see how this effects them going forward.

Guy’s anger has also been hinted at for a while, leading up to the Black Lanterns seeing rage in him where they saw will in other Green Lanterns and that pays off here with the red ring claiming him, and finally Tomasi brings together all the main characters from his run as Kyle vows to lead them to save Guy.

Peter Tomasi has really been making the most of this crossover.  In some ways Green Lantern Corps is coming across the slightly better of the two main tie-ins, but much like the build up, I think this is probably due to being slightly less coupled to the main narrative.  While Geoff Johns is having to focus on introducing plot elements and getting things to a specific point (such as assembling the different Corps members together), Peter Tomasi’s been much freer in terms of what he’s doing, especially under the very basic premise of “Black Lanterns attack Oa”.  From that point of view, this week’s issue of Green Lantern should be very interesting, since it looks to be focusing on the similarly separate plotline of John Stewart on Xanshi and I’ll be intrigued to see what Geoff Johns does with the book uncoupled from the main mini-series.

Guy turning to a Red Lantern’s been known for a while now, and Kyle’s death last issue was obviously the event that was going to push him over the edge.  What surprised me was how quickly it happens, within the first few pages presented in this preview.  But what a preview.

I really love how Soranik and Guy’s grief is played against their individual struggles to save Kyle, between Soranik trying to resuscitate Kyle himself while Guy is struggling to prevent Kyle’s ring leaving for Mogo.  And then when Guy’s grief gives way to rage as the Black Lanterns reform around them, he gets nabbed by Vice’s red ring, giving us a superb splash page of Red Lantern Guy.

I really love the design and artwork of Guy as a Red Lantern.  The armoured look is suitably menacing given what’s happening, and the colouring reminds me very much of Gleason’s take on the Alpha Lanterns.  Guy bathed in red light is a striking image with the light coming off of him really adding to the feeling of his rage that comes off the page.

Of course, he’s still got his Green Lantern ring on his right hand as well, and its similarly lit up.  Given Hal maintained an element of control while possessed by the red ring (and was able to form red constructs), I wonder if Guy’ll be the same.  Its a marked difference to the other Green Lantern-turned-red we’ve seen, Laira, who had been stripped of her green ring prior to the red one coming along.

And with Guy’s rage focused on the Black Lanterns, its a safe bet that the combination of his green and red rings will allow him to thin out their numbers while Soranik tries to save Kyle.

Really looking forward to getting this issue on Thursday.