Green Lantern #8 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (writer), Doug Mahnke (artist), Mark Irwin, Keith Champagne, Christian Alamy (inkers), Alex Sinclair (colorist)

The Story: When the Indigos do rehab, they definitely don’t screw around.

The Review: If there’s one lesson we’ve learned on this title, it’s that membership to a color corps—any color corps—isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Red Lanterns are rage-aholics, Orange Lanterns make prime candidates for A&E’s Hoarders, Yellow Lanterns include some of the most despicable creatures in the universe, Green Lanterns suffer constant attacks both from outside and within, and Blue Lanterns barely function without a buddy system.

As for the Indigo Tribe, the red flags about their true motives have been flapping furiously since last issue, and now it’s time to declare them officially bonkers.  By now, it should not surprise you in the least to discover Black Hand and Indigo-1 aren’t the only former psychopaths who’ve turned eerily placid with a blue-purple ring on their fingers.  The tribe members’ silhouettes on the last page merely confirm what you’ve already suspected: each and every single one of these staff-bearing individuals was once a menace of some kind.

Yet Abin Sur’s prominence in the Indigo mythos remains a baffling mystery.  About the only words we ever understood from the tribe’s nonsensical language was his name, so he clearly figures quite reverently in their existence.  They refer to him here as “savior” and “creator,” but against these benevolent epithets, we see that Indigo-1 in olden days had once been his “greatest enemy,” whom he also “saved.”  From War of the Green Lanterns, we figured her conversion was anything but voluntary, so rather than savior, Abin comes off more like enslaver.

Green Lantern Corps #60 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Tyler Kirkham (penciller), Batt (inker), Rod Reis & Nei Ruffino (colorists)

The Story: That’s it—I’m finishing this, Death Star in Star Wars: A New Hope style!

The Review: In my review of #58 of this title, I mentioned Bedard can usually be relied upon to write just about one character credibly, that character being Ganthet.  In #59, I suspected that while Geoff Johns will get to write all the truly impacting parts of this storyline, Bedard will be relegated to getting us through the background action with the secondary cast.  Both these points come into play to make this issue the weakest of this arc and this series overall.

What you get is the same event repeated over and over: Kyle and John try to make their new rings (Blue and Indigo respectively) do something productive, failing at every turn.  It definitely shows how under-developed the other corps’ powers are, none of them being nearly as productive as the GLC’s.  In fact, Kyle’s blue ring just makes everything worse, and John winds up a de facto Green Lantern anyway since that’s practically the only energy he channels.

Most of this issue really feels like Bedard trying out every idea he can think of to kill time before he can get to his big ending.  It almost feels as if he has such a limited idea of how the other corps’ powers work that he tries to play around with them through Kyle and John, which might explain the extraordinary leaps of logic they take in their experiments: “If blue rings can heal wounds, maybe mine can restore Mogo’s mind.”

Green Lantern #66 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (writer), Doug Mahnke (penciller), Keith Champagne, Christian Alamy, Mark Irwin, Tom Nguyen (inkers), Randy Mayor (colorist)

The Story: Little blue midgets have never seemed so frightening.  No, not the Smurfs.

The Review: The Guardians of the Universe have had a large role in the Green Lantern mythos since the Silver Age, and plenty of the great stories of the series involved them in some way or another.  And yet, despite all the past history about them that has come to light in recent years, they remain rather enigmatic, their motivations unclear.  Perhaps it’s their disavowal of emotion (other than utter condescension, that is), but their goals always seem a bit obscure or suspect.

If nothing else, War of the Green Lanterns, by having Krona as a lead character, has cleared up some of the whys and wherefores of the Guardians became hobbit-sized, emotionless men and women.  Certainly, the unbalanced behavior of the possessed Guardians in this issue give weight to the idea that maybe it’s not such a good idea to have our universe’s watchers be too emotional (they definitely don’t know how to flirt: “Come closer.  Let me care for you.”).

But in a way, their inscrutable natures are precisely what make Krona a compelling villain for this storyline.  Once you look past his seemingly ruthless actions, his intentions have even a kind of pureness to them.  You don’t usually expect the typical villain to tell someone, “You will is strong…your heart is not.”  Actually, his philosophy of melding emotion with willpower makes him much more relatable than the Guardians he overthrows, and you can’t call him a dictator out for power when he’s so willing to share universal power with our very own heroes.

You also get some interesting revelations from Sinestro’s sojourn in the Book of the Black, where in his attempts to escape he encounters a crazed, semi-hysterical Indigo.  But then, Indigo isn’t really her name, and considering the major alteration in her previously evenhanded attitude, this seems to indicate she may have had a shadier past before being forced into the Indigo Tribe the way she did to William Hand, just as Hal suspected before.  It’s also notable that all the other trapped Lanterns are accounted for except Carol, implying she has a part left to play in this arc.

But mostly this issue gives you a brawl-fest pitting Yellow Lantern Hal and Red Lantern Guy versus the emotional entity-driven Guardians, which is pretty fun.  One thing Johns always does well, no matter what you may say about his overall storytelling, is deliver gripping action.  He never allows a moment for the characters to take a breather; they no sooner escape one scrape before another overtakes them.