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The other new title added to the Green Lantern stable with the new 52, replacing Emerald Knights, is The New Guardians. Providing a spotlight to the other Lantern Corps, and starring Kyle Rayner, this to me made a lot of sense for a new book.

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.

*sigh* I’ve gotten so bad at keeping up with my blogging.  Anyway, War of the Green Lanterns is over, and Tony Bedard has been firmly handed the keys to the car while Geoff’s away plotting the reboot.  While Peter Tomasi’s Emerald Warriors has shifted to one-and-done issues featuring Guy, Green Lantern Corps picks up the pieces of War of the Green Lanterns, along with the dedicated 2-part series, Aftermath.

Overall, I have to say, I’ve been really pleased with the aftermath.  The only rough spot possibly being the split between Soranik and Kyle, however that was made worse, by the issue of GLC it happened in coming out before Aftermath #2, which played a big part in their relationship breaking down, as Kyle stepped in to stop Soranik killing Sinestro.  That said, I did really enjoy that issue for the way it tied up old plot threads relating to them, and the reappearance of Miri.  I also really enjoyed seeing her being apparently overwhelmed by the power of her Sapphire ring.  Its something we haven’t really seen before and yet we should have, since its on the far end of the spectrum, like the red rings.

Kyle’s attempt to stop the Lanterns killing Sinestro perhaps continues the trend of ignoring the history between Kyle and Sinestro (knowing that he’s the guy that engineering his mother’s death, would Kyle *really* be that eager to defend Sinestro?).  I liked how Kyle was fighting to stop the other Lanterns stooping to Sinestro’s level though, especially Soranik, and his smack down on Vath was a great moment (seriously, did these guys forget they were facing down an Honour Guard Lantern?  Kyle should be able to hold his own against the group).

John faired well in the aftermath as well.  His destruction of Mogo playing a big part of things, as he finds himself a target for his fellow Lanterns.  Kyle’s attempt to reach out to him was nice to see, and I liked the way John shot him down.  Its clear to me that John’s dealing with the guilt for what he did in his own way, and seeing this more introspective John really reminded me of the character I enjoyed reading about in the past, versus his more recent “I was a marine!” appearances.  The single issue that saw him teaming up with one of the Lanterns recruited while Krona was controlling the Corps was possibly one of my favourite issues of GLC in a while.  I suspect not having to share the issue with Kyle allowed Bedard to write a more balanced John Stewart, and its perhaps a shame we’re only getting to see this, as Bedard is finishing up his run.

The scenes with Ganthet weren’t a big part of the story, but still very nice to see.  Again, it was nice to see Bedard picking up on dangling plot threads, with Sayd’s absence being brought up which has been badly needed for a while now.  We may not know what’s happened to her, but at least she’s not been totally forgotten about.  The final cliffhanger was quite chilling, so it’ll be interesting to see what’s happened to Ganthet.  After the scenes in Aftermath 1 and 2, I can’t help but wonder if the Guardians are going to have forcibly removed his emotions.

Between the cliffhanger with Ganthet, and the short scenes with Sinestro (which confirm that the GL ring is somehow unable to be removed from his finger) there was a bit of setup for the next storyline, but thankfully it was kept at a minimum to allow Bedard to really look at the reactions of the Green Lanterns to recent events.  Something that was especially welcome given the tendancy of big events to focus more on setting up the next big thing over the last few years.

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.

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.

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.

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.

After being so brilliantly teased last month, this issue sees the Kyle versus Sinestro confrontation that’s been building for a while.

When you think about it, despite being Hal’s villain, there’s a lot of personal history between these two characters.  Sinestro had Kyle’s mother killed and set him up to be possessed by Parallax and used against his fellow GLs in the Sinestro Corps War.  Kyle, it could be argued, was the downfall of Sinestro’s most ambitious scheme, when he used Parallax against Hal, leading to the destruction of the Corps during Emerald Twilight.  Only for Kyle to become the last Green Lantern, eventually uncover Parallax’s existence and aid in Hal Jordan’s resurrection (being the one who retrieved Hal’s body).

And of course, ever since it was revealed that Kyle’s new girlfriend, Soranik Natu, was Sinestro’s daughter, it seemed inevitable that a confrontation was inevitable.

Taken on its own, I actually enjoyed the confrontation quite a bit.  The rings are quickly dispensed with, which pleased me as I worried that Sinestro would beat down Kyle in a ring combat, establishing that not only is he so much better than Kyle, but implying that Hal is the only one who can go toe-to-toe with Sinestro in the ring slinging stakes (I much prefer the idea that the Earth Lanterns are all roughly equivalent with the ring).   So when Kyle lost to Sinestro in a straight fist fight, it worked a lot better for me.  Kyle of course got his “I was trained by Batman” moment, but overall I can buy the idea that Sinestro would be much more trained in hand-to-hand combat than Kyle (to be honest, I’d expect that Kyle’s hand-to-hand experience to be serviceable, but basic compared  to some of the other heroes, given his background).

Perhaps the only issue in the conflict, is how much of the personal history between the characters is ignored.  Sinestro killed Kyle’s mother.  Sinestro also despises Kyle, seeing him as an unfit Green Lantern, something made worse when Kyle scarred him during Rebirth.  None of this really came across at all.   I could’ve at least appreciated a line from Kyle mentioning how much he was putting aside his personal feelings about Sinestro for the sake of helping Soranik.  Kyle versus Sinestro could’ve easily taken up an entire issue, instead, while I thought what we got was well written, it perhaps showed a lack of knowledge of the (let’s be honest, recent) backstory to these characters.

Meanwhile Soranik is on Qward with the Weaponer, and we get a run down of his backstory, and their recent history, including Sinestro’s brutal takeover, forcing the Qwardians into slavery in order to make the Sinestro Corps rings.  I must take my hat off to Tony Bedard, as I’m thoroughly enjoying the Weaponer as a new villain for the Corps.  He’s got a pretty sympathetic backstory, and his hatred and vendetta against Sinestro is easily understandable.  While he’s kidnapped Soranik, its clear he means her no actual harm, seeing her only as a way to  get Sinestro to walk into a trap.  However, now that Sinestro’s refused to help, and Kyle’s arrived with a team of his fellow Honour Guard, you have to wonder what he’ll do.

Overall, I still really enjoyed the issue.  Ignoring the personal history between Kyle and Sinestro was definitely a let down, but what was there was enjoyable, and really the Sinestro thing came across as a bit of a side note in the issue.  Hopefully its not something that’s finished though, as a proper Kyle versus Sinestro fight, that does properly take into account their past would be great to read.

I’m looking forward to seeing the GLs versus the Weaponer next issue, and seeing how this develops.  He’s not really a bad guy in the strictest sense, so don’t think this’ll wrap up with the usual “smackdown then Sciencell”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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