Green Lantern Corps #8 – Review

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By: Peter J. Tomasi (writer), Fernando Pasarin (penciller), Scott Hanna (inker), Gabe Eltaeb (colorist)

The Story: This promotion better come with some cosmic benefits—health and dental!

Thgge Review: Guy Gardner reminds me a lot of a certain type of dude I used to know back as an undergrad: loud, strident, and not afraid to voice half-formed opinions and act on impulse.  They were some of the most irritating human beings I have ever known in real life, but they were also some of the most big-hearted as well.  You could always count on them to injure themselves to help you out—mostly because the risk of injury never occurred to them in the first place

Perhaps that’s the nature of Guy’s appeal.  Even when he flies off the handle and does something crazy, he always has your back, and since he lacks any skill with tact, you can always rely on him to be straight with you.  As a consequence, he reveals underneath all that noise and erratic behavior, there’s a very strict code of honor he adheres to.  For anyone else, refusing to let the Yellow Lantern battery to even be buried standing would be a pointless act of symbolism; Guy’s violence and conviction make it clear even his most symbolic acts make a worthy point.

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the Guardians choose to honor him as they do in this issue.  They certainly make the accurate observation that for all of Guy’s spitting in the face of authority, he never threatened the “emotional and physical fabric of the corps” the way Hal Jordan does on a constant basis.  The evidence speaks for itself within the scene; Guy may not think much of the Guardians’ discipline (“—here are my wrists—slap away.”), but far from undermining it, he voluntarily submits to it.

Green Lantern Corps #63 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: A Lantern’s life for me—as long as it involves burgers and fries in some capacity.

The Review: Let me assure you, I don’t like handing out bad grades.  To be specific, I don’t like being put in the position of having to hand out bad grades.  Even though the excruciating quality of the two comics Scott Kolins wrote obligated me to give them among the worst marks (one of them in fact receiving the very worst mark) I ever have, I still felt like a jerk doing it, so much so that I never wanted to see that kind of mess from Kolins again, just to avoid another ugly review.

Issues like this one prove that wishes do come true—in a tepid, don’t-get-too-happy-about-it sort of way.  This should in no way imply that Kolins’ writing has improved significantly, or that the ideas at work are much more inspired than before, but at least they attempt to create some unexpected angles to the characters, and that’s above and beyond what he ever gave us before.

Sadly, even when he takes a step forward, he ultimately trips himself up, in this case with a format perhaps a bit too ambitious for his current skill level.  We get a series of vignettes, each featuring a different set of characters, each opening some interesting questions, but none really get invested exploration, nor do they end with what can be considered a satisfying resolution.

Boodikka as a warrior willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of victory may be a shallow rendering of her character, but a compelling view just the same.  But that’s all it is: a view, with no exposition to support it, and no plot to test it, and plagued by Kolins’ tortured narrative: “And now with her emotions restored and her aggressive personality that only accepted victory returned—how can she deal with so many defeats?  How can she go on as an Alpha Lantern?”  Despite the soapy monologues, Joe Prado delivers fantastic detail and dynamism to the wing-helmed lady, enhanced by Hi-Fi’s usually radioactive colors, making it even more regrettable that we don’t get to see her in action.

Green Lantern Corps #52 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Ardian Syaf (artist), Vicente Cifuentes (inker), Randy Mayor with Gabe Eltaeb (colorists)

The Story: Boodikka, the dying Alpha-Lantern, narrates the end of the Revolt of the Alpha-Lanterns arc. Green Lanterns Ganthet, Kyle Rayner, John Stewart, Hannu and Soranik are in deep trouble against Cyborg-Superman and the army of Alpha-Lanterns on Grenda.

What’s Good: Cover to cover, Syaf, Cifuentes and Mayor/Eltaeb delivered the artistic goods in this emotional story. They picked the right camera angles, put emotions on the faces of heroes and villains alike, drew some spectacular aliens and created some action scenes that came pretty close to epic. Hannu in particular was textured and real, but the Alpha-Lantern batteries in people’s chest were also spooky. Boodikka’s face unmasked was reminiscent of some old sci-fi horror movies, while the color work on the batteries made the pages look like they were shining. The mid-book splash page with the hand is worth a long slow perusal as well.

The writing was a lot of fun and the sorts of emotions the issue inspired felt a lot like the tension release at the end of Lords of the Rings or Book Seven of the Harry Potter series. I’m not saying anything that big is going on, but Bedard hit almost all the right notes to make this a very heroic and dangerous ending for the arc, one that required so much from the heroes to ultimately put up the necessary fight. Another interesting choice for Bedard was having Boodikka narrate. I don’t know Boodikka from Adam, but I didn’t need to. Bedard correctly picked the character who (a) hurt the most, (b) had the most at stake and (c) underwent change. The choice worked for this book and added an emotional multiplier to the story.