Green Lantern #6 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (writer), Mike Choi (artist), Alex Sinclair (colorist)

The Story: In which Sinestro finds prophecies to be heavy reading.

The Review: At some point in every superhero’s life there comes a time when they have to face the prospect of hanging up the cape/putting away the spandex outfit for a while, even for good.  You can understand why this is such a popular plotline in comics.  There’s a certain fascination in figuring out the person beneath the costume, and having our hero take out of it for a while is a huge opportunity to see exactly who we’ve been idolizing all this time.

And if any of you saw the Green Lantern movie, I think you understand for Hal especially it’s important to find out what the deal with this guy is.  Basically, when he’s not ruining planes left and right, he’s slinging energy blasts while in colorful wardrobe.  Clark writes, Bruce invests money, Diana’s royalty, Barry gets his CSI on, and all of them have non-vigilante people around to do it with.  Even Hal’s love interest slips into a hot pink number and exacts justice now and then.  If the life of Green Lantern isn’t available to him, how would Hal fare?

Actually, it seems like Hal takes to civilian life pretty well, despite being essentially homeless, unemployed, and broke.  Even more interesting, he doesn’t seem all that enamored with his piloting life either.  In fact, he’s so well-adjusted to being grounded that you might very well share Carol’s sentiment that “I’m not sure I can get used to this.”  Going from intergalactic cop/flying ace to house husband—or, more accurately, house live-in partner—seems too major a switch for him to act like everything’s fine and dandy.

WCBR’s Top Picks

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Amazing Spider-Man #679 – The entirety of the Dan Slott run on ASM has been pretty darn good, but when he is partnered with Humberto Ramos the quality goes to a new level and we get a comic that can win “issue of the week” much of the time.  Ramos just accentuates the FUN aspect of Slott’s Spidey writing better than any of the other artists in the regular Spidey rotation.  So, on top of the fact that this Spidey time-travel story was exciting and played up the importance of the Peter Parker side of Spidey, Ramos’ art made everything so bouncy and expressive that nothing else was really close this past week.

Most Anticipated: Severed #7 – It’s a crowded week, but I can’t wait to see how this one ends.  Severed has been creepy and touching and featured great art!  How is that little boy going to get away from the creepy old man with the big-ass teeth?  Will we see how he loses an arm?  Scott Snyder mentioned doing more comics in the Severed universe, so will some elements of the story be left open-ended?  Runner-up: Fearless Dawn: Secret of the Swamp One-Shot – Steve Mannion = Awesome!  Comics don’t come much more fun than Fearless Dawn, so anytime an issue pops up, it is a “must read”.  If you didn’t pre-order this, you’re probably out of luck on Wednesday, but you can probably find them on the Asylum Press website.

Other Picks: Northlanders #48, The Unwritten #34, Blue Estate #9, Thief of Thieves #1, Powers #8, Scarlet Spider #2, Wolverine and the X-Men #5, Cavewoman: Feeding Grounds #1

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Fatale #2 – While not quite at the slam-bang awesome level of the first issue, this was a still a really great, moody slice of everything the Brubaker/Phillips combo do so well.  This is a really great series that everyone should be on board with, particularly those who read Brubaker’s Marvel work.

Most Anticipated: Powers #8 – Do my eyes deceive me?  It has been almost exactly ONE FULL YEAR since the last issue of Powers, which left us hanging in the middle of a story-arc.  Seriously, this issue was solicited, I believe, in August of 2010. Resentful as I may be, that doesn’t change the fact that Powers is Bendis and Oeming at their best.  Both are creators with very distinctive, idiosyncratic styles that don’t necessarily fit every book, but Powers really is their wheel-house, one that maximizes their strengths and, well, turns their weaknesses into strengths as well.  So grumpy though I may be about the delay, rest assured that I will still be buying this book.

Other Picks: Batwoman #6, Demon Knights #6, Frankenstein #6, Green Lantern #6, Captain America #8, Incredible Hulk #5, Journey into Mystery #634, Wolverine and the X-Men #5, PunisherMAX #22